Are women discriminated in Belarus?

One in four says that a woman should sit at home and take care of children. These are the results of a polll conducted by the international research group Ipsos in 23 countries ahead of the International Women's Day. Paradoxically, this view was supported by young people aged 15-34, not by the older more conservative generation.

India, Turkey and Japan top the list, with over 50 percent willing to leave a woman at home. Russia shares the fourth position with Hungary, with 34 percent of the respondents saying woman's place is in the kitchen. France, Mexico and Argentina displayed equality between the genders, with 91 percent of the respondents saying that a woman should choose herself what she should do in her life.

Although Belarusians did not take part in the poll, the issueof gender equality is very acute, says Nadezhda Efimova, a leading specialist at the Minsk-based pollster NOVAK. Nearly 50 percent of the respondents from the latest poll said women are disriminated in Belarus, she told the European Radio for Belarus.

Only one third of women reckon that their labor rights are equal with those of men. Among men, almost one in two think they enjoy equal rights with women (46.5 percent). As for politics, high-profile posts and public administration, 52 percent of women that the gender equality was fiction. 46 percent of men said the rights women are observed, Euroradio learned from Nadezhda Yefimova.

More than a half of Belarusian women (51 percent) would like to see quantative quotas for the representative power bodies at all levels. But with men, the views broke even, with 42 percent supporting quotas for women and the same number of male respondents objecting to quotas.

Pavel Sevyarynets, a co-chairman of the Belarusian Christian Democracy, is among those are against the quotas. "If a woman wants to achieve something, let her do it without quotas. Lukashenka said there should be 30 percent of women in the parliament, so there are 31 percent of them in the parliament. I think this is wrong. This is artificial", he told the European Radio for Belarus.

In the view of Pavel Sevyarynets, God created men and women differently and it is artificial and senseless to try to equate them. He said that men are better in tackling crisis situations, while women "have priority in raising children and making home comfortable". Good women leaders in the Belarusian reality are rare, says Pavel Sevyarynets.

But Volha Karach, an activist with the opposition United Civic Party in Vitsebsk, does not agree. She says that Sevyarynets degrades both the women with an active civil position and his collegues in politics. "I know many women who take part in politicis and do a lot to make Belarus a democratic country. And that's not because there are no men beside, but because they think their participation and their views are important. We should build Belarus together -- not like men building Belarus and women building a family", she said.

Photo: askwoman.ru