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“WOMEN’S ROLE IN POLITICS IN THE 21st CENTURY” Conference of CHP Istanbul, Turkey, 15 April 2000 |
In
the beginning of the 21st century, we are faced indeed with a number
of challenges. The feeling that we are in the middle of a historical crossroad
overwhelms us all. We all feel the need
to explore new ways of settling differences, create a more humane society and make an attempt for a fairer distribution of
resources, that is, to identify a new
political culture. Peace and security, solidarity, social justice, sustainable
development and gender equality remain goals, yet to be achieved, as it was the
case half a century ago, when the UN were founded. At the same time, it is
becoming more and more obvious that governments have not the ability to achieve
these goals without the consent and support of people, without the development
of a strong sense of solidarity among populations and without any changes
taking place in the value systems and ethics. The new millenium has began in a
context of economic globalisation, economic prosperity for many and at the same
time deepening inequalities, continued existence of all sorts of violence and
scarcity of women in political decision-making that affects all citizens.
The
recent developments in our region, such as the tragic aftermath of wars in
Yugoslavia and the tragedy caused by the earthquakes in Turkey and Greece, have
all brought again into light the issues of cooperation and solidarity among
people and nations, while at the same time have touched all those who seek for
solutions beyond the classical recipes of traditional politics. The politics of the 21st century
can no longer be the politics of hatred and confrontation. Women can have a
great contribution to this end.
Greater
participation of women in political life is required by the urgent demands for
peace, sustainable development, cooperation and solidarity that the 21st
century is imposing upon us. For us,
that is for Greek and Turkish women this is a great challenge to prove that we
can play a protagonistic role towards the consolidation of peace, stability and
security in the area of the Balkans, which is of common concern. We, as good
neighbours and eventually as partners in Europe, must fight for a higher
participation of women in the political arena, as we can actually be agents of
change and renewal of politics and society.
Women’s
participation in politics is getting imperative in a world that is deprived of
its humanity. As professor Francis Fukuyama advocated in his article titled “If
women ruled the world” :”It could be
certainly predicted that a greater participation of women in politics would
lead to a less violent world. Athena, the Greek goddess of wisdom and war, may
have been the female model in ancient times, however, in the contemporary
world, female influence is definitely catalytic against militarism and for
peace”.
To
date progress is certainly encouraging. Of all the events that have characterised
the 20th century, the
transformation of the female world represents the greatest peaceful social
revolution. A great deal has been achieved so far, which allows us a little
celebration, but there is still a long way to go. The apparent increase in women’s
participation in educational and economic life were accompanied neither by
redistribution of family responsibilities nor by representation of women in
democratic institutions and political decision-making process. Real equality
has not yet been achieved since women are still poorer and with less power than
men, despite an important change in the
status, role and contribution of women in society in the second half of the
century.
It
is a fact that Aristotelian theory of the division into two spheres of life,
that is the private and the public, has had a profound impact upon
philosophical discourse, political science and traditional values, such as
freedom, equality and justice, throughout the centuries. Women are absent from
the classical texts of political thought, whilst political analysts up until
recently have made no reference to inequalities between men and women in their
analyses. Even today, some remain completely silent on these issues, perhaps
due to their total inability to sufficiently explain historical degradation,
marginalisation and deprivation of women from basic human rights and their
confinement into the sphere of private life.
Although
growing numbers of women have attained high political office, a breakthrough is
still a long way off. The proportion of women in the national parliaments of
the EU varies considerably, from 10.3% in Greece to 43.6% in Sweden. The
European Parliament is in the forefront with 30% women members, and it is
interesting to note that the proportion of women in each political group varies
greatly, the highest being in the Parliamentary Group of the Party of the
European Socialists (PES), which consist of 36% women and 42% of the Bureau
members.
Women’s
under-representation denotes a serious deficit in terms of democracy. Full
democracy cannot be achieved until women participate in decision-making process
on an equal basis. Women’s absence from politics constitutes a serious loss of
talent and expertise and a failure to engage with women's particular concerns and
needs; democracy will acquire a true and dynamic sense when women and men
together define the values they wish to uphold in their political, economic,
social and cultural life and together take the relevant decisions.
A
gender balanced participation in politics should be the obvious consequence of
the gender balance existing in nature. I feel that this balance existing in
nature, if transferred both into private and public domains, it's very likely
to create a similar balance in all spheres of economic, social, cultural and
political life.
Politics
for women can only be achieved with women and solely with sufficient
numbers of women. True equality means parity. Women socialists and SIW have set
themselves the goal of incorporating women equally into the decision-making
processes. This means much more than merely occupying half of the seats in
Parliament; it means equal participation of women at leadership levels of
economy, of education, in administration and in the media, in the trade unions,
in the highest courts and so on. As an immediate goal, Women’s Rights Committee
of the European Parliament demands that equal rights policies be sufficiently
integrated into the treaties of the European Union.
Efforts to
promote equal opportunities are being strengthened in many aspects of the
European Union's policies and programmes. The key concept in these efforts is
that of "mainstreaming",
which denotes a more global approach to equality and calls for the integration
of a gender perspective and gender analysis into all policies, programmes and
actions of the Community. Finally, the Treaty of Amsterdam, which has been put
into effect since 1st May 1999, has strengthened the legal framework
within which gender equality has been placed and has contributed substantially
to the consolidation of a more
democratic and humane Europe. It is within this Europe that we, women
Socialists, rest our hopes in order to achieve equality, so that women’s skills
and viewpoints do no longer remain unheard, underrepresented or overlooked. European Union provides us a trustworthy
institutional context within which our efforts could become fruitful. At this
point, I cannot but express my sincere satisfaction for the aftermath of the
1999 Helsinki Summit which rendered Turkey eligible for entry in the European
Union. As a woman, as a Greek, as a European Socialist, I wholeheartedly
support Turkey’s candidature, as I feel that it gives us all a promising
potential for cooperation and could benefit both sides.
Examining
women's role in the 21st century, we have to consider the new
environment created by the rapid technological change, the widening application
of information and communication technologies. Women's role can be profound in
this context. Concerns regarding the impact of ITCs are twofold: the first has
to do with employment, that is whether these technologies actually destroy more
jobs than they create; the second has to do with democracy and equality, that
is whether the complexity of these technologies will widen the gap between
developed and less developed areas, between the rich and the poor and between
the young and the old. To meet these concerns we need public policies which can
help us reap the benefits of technological progress and achieve a fair
distribution of the potential for prosperity. We believe that Information
Society should be about people and
should be used for people and
by people to unlock the power of information, not to create inequalities
between the information rich and the information poor. Considering women's
sensitivity and awareness to social issues, we believe that in our hands,
Information Society can become a tool for the creation of an inclusive society.
Women
have proved to be more sensitive to social issues, more imaginative and less technocratic. Wherever women
participate in public affairs, they put forward issues which are very often
neglected from the male political agenda altogether; it is certain, that, if politics adopted women's values, there
could be more resources left for the poor, there would be more social solidarity amongst people and nations, more
awareness about social issues related to quality of life.
Problems
of daily life would be more adequately addressed, and more satisfactorily
solved, if more women were in power, since they are the ones who suffer from
them: violence against women, incompatibility between family life and working
life, lack of infrastructure for looking after young children, disabled and
elderly people, medical care, inadequate transportation and degradation of
environment are among the problems that we are facing in everyday life, but not enough effort has ever been made to
eliminate them. It is no accidental
that wherever women were having a decent representation in politcal life (e.g.
Scandinavian countries), politics redefined its strategies and redirected its
goals, giving more weight to values such as social justice, equality and peace.
Additionally, women, due to their everyday experience, and by adopting a more
empirical approach to life, have the
ability to overcome the practicalities of problems, set their priorities right and
face up to their responsibilities.
Under
the circumstances, I feel that we are entitled to a women’s vision for the
politics of the 21st century: a
vision for the world as a whole, according to which, by acquiring more political power, we will
help construct a societal and political architecture where all people will be
equally and fairly embraced. We want to create a Europe where human rights will
be fully respected, where inequalities and discriminations based on religion,
ethnic origin, gender and race are absent from every country, where poverty and
all forms of violence are eliminated, where the massive resources used in actions of destruction are diverted to
relieve the poor, promote education, improve health and housing conditions,
protect environment, both human and physical, bring security, trust, love and
prosperity in people's life.
Let’s work together to
make our vision a reality!