The dignity of 8th March in the present days

Moving from kitsch-parade towards constructive dialogue 

During a TV questionnaire on the streets of Skopje, some of the asked citizens of Skopje, at different age and sex, asked what 8th March was for them, answered the following: “Street stalls”, “An opportunity to celebrate the day in a good restaurant”, or “I will buy my mother and teacher some flowers”, as a Skopje pupil answered.

No one mentioned 8th March as an international women’s day, a day which has its dignity, no one mentioned women’s equality. And it is uncertain if on this day anyone mentions Rosa Luxemburg, Clara Catkin and all those women who are credited that women were given the right to vote, the right of their day, the right to be visible in the society.

8th March 2006 was celebrated in restaurants, giving flowers, some forum on sex equality…However, we can not avoid thinking whether 8th March should further become a bigger kitsch-parade, if the increased number of women in the parliament should be pointed out on this day, forgetting thousands of women who live on the edge of existence and certainly, how to avoid quasi-feminism that has ruled Macedonia.

 

What is 8th March and how to celebrate it in a real way?

 

“8th March should be revisiting a problem that is essential and everyday. It is neither an academic issue nor a voluntary choice, but it is the issue of essential social, economic and cultural sex equality”, says Elizabeta Seleva, university professor, pointing out that we should not forget that 8th March as a historic date is marked due to the need for equality, the right to vote above all and women at the beginning of XX century fought for it and deserved it. “It is not about turning 8th March into a consumption spectacle. It is not appropriate and it is not the point for 8th March to be a day where people will make a profit in the most banal way, buying and giving women some knick-knacks in the name of quasi-politeness and goodwill. The point is for that day not to become one more overloading women with obligations such as cooking rolls, roulades and other specialties for the ones who have come to congratulate. After everything I have listed, it is an example, unfortunately, of sexist understood holiday because it misses the point of human, fateful sharing of life, obligations, rights, enjoyments between two sexes. We have to notice that there is still big hypocrisy, big demagogy, because what has been tacit in the socio-cultural rituals and protocols of everyday life, further builds a cult and desirable stereotype of a woman as a housewife – in terms of a cultural metaphor gender role with a purely essential list of duties and responsibilities that include care for the home, supporting the home and bringing up descendants. I think that the role of 8th March should rather be a critical reassessment of cliches, than a single or one-day excursion behavior or trip towards something which is quasi-feminism”, points out Seleva.

 

How visible is the woman in the Macedonian society?

 

It is a fact that in Macedonia women are present in the social life, there are women at the highest positions in politics, and one half of the students at the Macedonian faculties are females. However, this is only one side of the coin. On the other hand there are women who are on the edge of existence, women-victims of people trafficking, women-victims of domestic violence. Apart from the fact that the number of women in politics is increasing, many women are not allowed to vote in elections. We should not forget that the votes of about 100 thousands women were manipulated, they were misused or disabled to vote at the last local elections.

There is the question if the woman in the Macedonian society is visible enough and which spheres the women discrimination is most expressed in?

“Apparently, emancipation has always had the highest level in the ethnic Macedonian community, but transition and poverty even here leave serious consequences, too. It is wrong to claim that things are going better just because of the presence of a few strong and established women. I even do not agree that increasing the number of women parliamentarians, ministries or counselors in municipalities is the reason to be pleased. What is particularly worrying is that there are whole populations of women (whose number reaches a few hundred thousands) that remain marginalized in the public life and the sphere of education, employment, culture and other forms of social acting. The level of conflicts in the society is apparent through the increase of family violence, woman’s disability in patriarchal families and local communities etc. At last, the effect of economic liberalism is apparent on the basis of limiting women’s rights, that is, pointing out sex inequality (as abolishing day care at school; impossibility for the father to stay with the child at the pediatrics clinic; restricting the maternity leave compensation etc.)”, explains Biljana Vankovska, university professor and member of the Helsinki Committee Board.  

 

Women’s role in non-governmental organizations
 

There are a lot of women’s non-governmental organizations in Macedonia. Some of them have achieved some important results with their efforts to bring closer the so-called female problems to the public and equality to start functioning in practice. However, should not it be considered about a different kind of acting and different organization within the organizations themselves?

“There are smaller non-governmental organizations where big results are achieved and they are to be respected, especially where women have to fight against traditions, stereotypes, environmental influence etc. on the spot. The thing that worries is the old-fashioned way of their networking (through the Union of Women’s Associations of the Republic of Macedonia, for example), where there has not been any internal democracy for decades, fresh blood and fresh ideas. Most of the women are out of such organizing as it devalues the real women’s intellectual and other power and reduces it to organizing cake-making, receptions for diplomats’ wives or pro-governmental campaigns, which strengthens the stereotype of women as affectionate, fragile and submissive. And when you see the age structure of these mega-organizations, you can hardly recognize the interests of women from different categories and ages. What is worst, such forms of organization hardly manage to fight for introducing women’s interests in a form of public policies and civil status”, explains Vankovska.

Biljana Bejkova, from the NGO Infocenter, considers the women’s non-governmental scene is Macedonia to be one of the most active civic initiatives. “For the past fifteen years it has intensively and continuously strived for gender equality in the society. Women’s persistence really deserves praises, especially if we take into consideration the results of their activities, such as: legal sanctioning of domestic violence, obligatory free gynecological check-ups for all women, gender quota in the election laws, fight against white slave trade etc.”, says Biljana Bejkova. “In spite of the big persistence and the desire to do something, I think that the women’s non-governmental scene in Macedonia lacks a strategy for the direction it should move to in the forthcoming period. I have an impression that most of the proposals and initiatives of women’s organization are constantly repeating, as if going round in a circle, that originality is replaced with routine and the enthusiasm with a small dose of tiredness and confusion. There is not also a reaction by the women scene to the proposal of the Macedonian Helsinki Committee on Human Rights at the forthcoming parliamentarian elections, in certain rural areas, women and men to vote separately. This idea does not only lead to additional ghettoisation of women, but is also contrary to the strivings for encouraging and strengthening women in the society. The women’s scene in Macedonia, at the moment, should ask itself if this is what it strives and fights for”, asks Biljana Bejkova.   

 

And what do men say?
 

When talking about female equality, we should also hear what men have to say. But how possible is it? Men obviously think there is no need to talk about this subject, so a lot of men asked have simply ignored the question.

“My attitude towards feminism in Macedonia is characterized by extraordinary sympathies where all such tendencies have feministic normal visions and views”, says Draganco Apostolovski, political scientist from the Political Scientists’ Club “Justinian Prima”. Namely, in Macedonia there are still the seeds of the conditionally said women’s fight for their equality with men. The present female movements and organizations respect the normal frame for gaining bigger normative rights (that I think they have had them all so far). Women’s emancipation under no circumstances endangers men, it just opens a wider and better quality field for dialogue where the right and useful decision are made”, points out Apostolovski.

The men-women dialogue has always been present. And that the conflicts in the Parliament are not always party or ethnic based, but there can also be outvoting between men and women, shows the grouping of female members of the parliament of all parties about the amendment that guaranties that every third place on the election lists is guaranteed for the less represented sex. Behind this so-called female amendment there are signatures of only two members of the parliament. So the dialogue continues and let’s hope it will not turn into a monologue…