I recently found out that only 12 percent of the Romanian Parliament are women, which made me remember that years ago, while attending a course in Spain, I had a real problem with the small number of women in my class. In our group of 22, only five were young women, including myself. At one Sociology workshop, our professor called a new topic for debate, “ A compulsory ratio of women in politics, management and in social areas.”

My Spanish women colleagues were 100 percent feminist and their presentations were so aggressive, that it made me think. So I shared the experiences of Romanian women in communist times, when the law imposed a certain percentage between men and women in so called managerial, social and politics areas, but, this regulated percentage didn’t have any importance in everyday life. One well known and dramatic example was abortion which - as with many other human rights - was forbidden for all women, it didn’t matter the age, social condition. I told them about the tragedy of many families which lost mothers or future mothers due to the law. I tried to explain that in dictatorship characterized by lack of human rights, the compulsory ratio didn't matter and I had a problem with the word “compulsory”, which, I believe doesn’t help too much in specific contexts.

My personal experience taught me that the most important thing was to have RIGHTS, all of us, men and women, to have the right to choose, to have the right to build our own life and to use its accordingly. My female colleagues got angry and told me that I don’t have the right to tell stories about a far, unknown country with primitive people ruled by stupid dictators. For them, my story was irrelevant because in their country the dictatorship wouldn’t return. For them the tough, ugly world of men was required to share with women in the “right” proportion the political, social and managerial seats.

Going back to present, skip the communist period. We now live in a free country with democratic rules. Now, at least theoretically, women have the same rights as men, they can be managers, leaders, politicians, business people, all they want. The question is – if they have all the rights – why don't we see more women in these areas? In my opinion, the woman’s role in the present Romanian society has changed and in many cases in has done so in a dramatic way. So, from the communist period's “comrade” of our life (wife) and “comrade teacher” or “comrade work colleague” to “misses/miss”, the step seems to be huge. But if the perception of women in our society had really changed, why hasn't the social status of women improved that much ? Looking at what happened in our democratic society and trying to paint a clear picture, I ended up with a few conclusions.

Romanian society could be said to be somewhat traditionally misogynist. During the communist period, this very characteristic of our traditional society, a mix of Latin and Balkan, was willfully repressed by political regime. The communists talked about equality between all people, so they had to create the (false) idea of the equality between men and women. But today, many people still use the expression: the woman's place is in the kitchen. Even in the so called intellectual places, one can still find hypocrisy when it comes to gender equality, which doesn't extend to salary level and promotion to management positions. I don’t want to generalize but I learned that only in very rare cases, gender is not taken into account.

The second conclusion: It could be because of the society which focuses more on profit and money, but in many cases women cannot land high profile jobs because they are only ...women. Some companies actually avoid employing women because they can choose to have babies and go on pre-natal and post-natal leave, which makes them a cost for the company.

The third conclusion: In politics and/or business, women can still make their way to the top, but in general I feel women are still perceived as wives, sisters, nieces, friends or lovers of somebody in high power. It could be an exaggeration, and if there are exceptions to this, then they back up the rule.

We could cast the guilt upon the tradition, money, nepotism and inappropriate relationships. Maybe an aggressive feminist like my Spanish ex-colleagues would stop here, but I choose to look a bit further. We, the Romanian women must honestly recognize that not only history and context are responsible for our place in society, maybe we have our own part of guilt. Maybe we don't have enough confidence in our potential as professionals and mostly as human beings. Maybe many women have a huge fear of living alone, of being outside the box that the usual society considers as an accomplished woman, for financial or psychological reasons. Today we can still find numerous examples of family violence, where Romanian women abide, only because of fear accompanied by lack of any confidence in themselves.

Many women think it is more convenient to succeed in life using only the traditional options open to women instruments in spite of the high price they often pay. The Romanian media plays an important role, choosing to highlight the “one season divas”, millionaire’s wives who destroy the Romanian language when they talk, models with more or less international success and lovers of currently powerful men. We don't see that many business women, professionals, women who make a mark on society on TV these days. What is most tragic here is that these women who are on TV become role models for the new generation. This throws off the balance.

What could Romanian women do? Focus on their education - in family, in school, in society, in NGO activities, in the media. Share the genuine best examples of the successful and valuable Romanian women, gain confidence and self respect and gain the respect of men. Demonstrate professional, social, managerial and human strengths. We Romanian women need to have the determination to break the traditional Romanian patterns, in which women are perceived as very talkative objects, cooks and caregivers.

By Mariana Ganea, Guest Writer

(photo source: Photoxpress.com)