Bém's maternity leave
The cabinet on Monday endorsed a plan to bring more women into high politics in the Czech Republic. The agenda is under the auspices of the human rights and rinorities rinister while the interior minister is in charge of the details: His office should suggest changes to the laws that would increase the women ratio on the party candidate lists to at least 30%.
These quotas, which are rather careful with regard to the distribution of men and women in the population, should be in place in time for the parliamentary election, as well as elections for regional administration and the Prague City Council.
This is not the news that would make one jump. Nothing has happened yet anyway. But soon the situation will change and the efforts of Fischer's cabinet, which are for now on paper, will not find many strong advocates. The atmosphere is well illustrated by one of the most successful women in Czech politics: ODS Vice-chairwoman of the lower house, Miroslava Němcová who opposes the quotas.
It is a fact that quotas receive a lot of criticism and that there are countries where women get into politics without them.
But what is even more important is that there are fewer and fewer women in high politics and nothing seems to suggest that the reason is the quality of their work when compared to their male counterparts. Let me just mention that Czech politics is lagging in this sphere even behind the world of business, which is a world in which there are no quotas.
Something must change. Despite the general equalisation of the situation, local female politicians still receive a lot of improper messages claiming they should not be present in politics. Just take a look at the first holiday month. The pregnant ODS MEP
Andrea…
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