Politics Is Not for Women?

On the global map of values, Belarus, Lithuania and Ukraine are surrounded by countries, where traditional values of survival still dominate the societies. Among other things it means patriarchal perception of gender roles. That is why, in spite of the different political contexts, in all three countries, women’s participation in politics is undervalued, they feel a strong negative impact of gender stereotypes and lack of public support and support from party structures. However, positive trends can also be observed. The participants of the survey expressed a strong belief that the presence of women is important for the quality of government policy which anticipates qualitative changes in social practices of the three countries.

Arithmetic of Power

In 2007 The Centre for Equality Advancement issued a booklet with statistics that confirmed that the ratio of women-men positions in government institutions related with decision-making is 1:10. The Centre encouraged the Lithuanian Parliament to pay more attention to the fact that the social political breach creates the tendency to ignore women’s experience in government life.

Between Paid and Unpaid Work: Family Friendly Policies and Gender Equality in Europe

This book is basically based on the common research methodology developed within the framework of the project “”Modern Men in Enlarged Europe II: Family Friendly Policies”. The qualitative and quantitative research was carried out in all project partner countries: Denmark, Iceland, Italy and Lithuania. The research marked an attempt to focus on men’s participation in work-family reconciliation processes and to develop better knowledge of how employed fathers fulfill their roles both within the family and at work and what mechanisms at political, institutional and individual levels could facilitate them to balance these roles and achieve more equal gender relationship at home. The research considered such questions as: To what extent do fathers and their partners encounter the conflict between work and family roles? What are good practices of father’s role in creating gender sensitive work-family balance? What are employers’ attitudes towards gender equal family-friendly policies? More generally, why is it important for men to become involved with gender equality?

Edited by Jolanta Reingardė.

Vilnius, 2006.

The book is published under the project “Modern Men in Enlarged Europe II: Family Friendly Policies” implemented within the Programme related to the Community Framework Strategy on Gender Equality (2001-2005)