The Czech Republic's D- grade for women in politics

Lenka Bennerová, the head of the women’s advocacy group Forum 50% raised eyebrows last week when the media reported her comments that women in politics faced rudeness and a general negative attitude from their male colleagues. The comments underline a generally dire situation for women in Czech politics – the country has one of the lowest representations of women in politics in the developed world. Just 15.5 percent of MPs and 17.3 percent of senators are women, according to a recent study. So what is keeping women back in this largely progressive society? I spoke with Jana Smiggels-Kavková, a representative from Forum 50%, and began by asking her precisely this question:

“That is quite a difficult question and the answer is rather complex. I think that the main reason is that the political parties are still not willing to put women on ballots. The Czech public is certainly willing to support more women in politics and we have done some opinion polls on this, and it turns out that around ninety percent of Czech citizens want to have more women in politics. So I would say that there is a big problem with the political parties and the way that the nomination procedures work in order to exclude women.”

And the head of your organization Lenka Bennerová recently said that women face rudeness in politics and a general negative attitude. Is that really the case?

“Well that is definitely true. We have logged several experiences and we know from several female politicians that they really have to face very negative behaviour from their male colleagues, which is quite common in Czech politics because the Czech political culture is not yet fully developed, I would say. And politics remains a man’s world here, so women kind of don’t fit in it.”

And speaking of this man’s world you mentioned, women in politics are often referred to in terms of being mistresses and married male politicians are frequently alleged to have various mistresses and so on. Do you think that this belittles women and do you think that women in politics, for example First Lady Livia Klausová and others should stand up more and present a more positive image of women?

“That would definitely help, but often the notion of the First Lady is also a problem, as you end up talking more about first ladies than real female politicians who are in power. And the specific first ladies we have: the president’s wife; with our premier it is even more complicated at the moment…! I don’t think that is really relevant, even though I do think that it would help if they would stand up and support women in politics – but those women have never done that.”

And what exactly does your organisation do to try to change this situation?

“We try to support all female politicians, irrespective of political party. We also try to foster co-operation between them, and we also try to lobby the political parties to push for positive steps or quotas. We also try to inform the wider public about the necessity of increasing the political representation of women.”