Center of Women's Equality?

No, seriously.

I have a friend who’s a political science professor. His lifestyle allows him to travel a lot, and he’s been all over the world. One summer he actually thought he’d plan a trip to Bulgaria, but when he found out what it was really like, he quickly discarded that notion, and we’ve joked ever since that it was his “favorite country.”

This week, he sent me an article on Bulgaria and feminism that was so fascinating, I had to write about it.

No, really! Check it out.

Women’s Influence Grows in Bulgarian Public Life

Prime Minister Boiko M. Borisov of Bulgaria, a thick-necked former karate instructor, bodyguard and onetime fireman, may seem an unlikely feminist. But the former tough guy mayor of Sofia has in recent months promoted a legion of women, heralding what some are calling a sexual revolution in the politics of this abidingly macho Balkan country.

“Women are more diligent than men, and they don’t take long lunches or go to the bar,” insisted Mr. Borisov, who has cited his mother and Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany as his role models.

“Women have stronger characters than men because when they say no they mean no, and they are less corruptible,” he said last summer, inaugurating the women’s wing of his center-right party.

While some critics view Mr. Borisov’s elevation of women as little more than a cynical ploy aimed at giving this poor, notoriously corrupt country an image makeover, few dispute that the empowerment of women in Bulgarian public life is reaching new heights, even as men still dominate politics.

The article goes on to describe how Borisov’s Party put forward 60% women in the 2009 elections (!), and as a result, 34 out of 116 Parliament seats are now held by women. (Those who are good at teh maths will notice that the figure would be almost 30%.)

There are several reasons given in the article for the Prime Minister’s commitment to gender equality. Borisov himself stresses his belief that women are less corruptible and more cautious than men, and the article quotes several studies that appear to support that conclusion. Others feel that these reasons should not be used as a basis for the promotion of women in society; that equality is reason enough.

Robin Hodess, head of policy at Transparency International, countered that while female leaders like Ellen Johnson Sirleaf of Liberia and former President Michelle Bachelet of Chile had played leading roles in combating corruption in their respective countries, the global ranks of corrupt leaders also included women like the late Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto, who was twice removed from office amid allegations of fraud.

“It is important to bring women into politics, not as a hammer to fight corruption, but to fight gender inequality,” Ms. Hodess said.

Yet another factor in Bulgaria’s burgeoning gender agenda: its Communist past.  

Tatyana Kmetova, director of the Center of Women’s Studies and Policies, noted that under Communism, women were expected to work and often received the same wages as men.

“We never had a feminist movement in this country,” she said, noting that in the late 1970s, Bulgaria had the highest percentage of working women in the world. “During Communism, women in Bulgaria were represented in almost every walk of life, from plant managers to medicine.”

Still, women were expected to fill their traditional roles. This paragraph has the ring of familiarity, doesn’t it?

Evgeniy Daynov, a leading political analyst, said that in a patriarchal Balkan country, Bulgarian men traditionally were coddled, and that this made them idle and ineffective.

“Bulgarian men have been spoiled by their mothers because boys are the stars of the family, and when they grow up, they don’t have enough stamina to stand on their own two feet,” he said. “Meanwhile, under Communism, women would have to work all day at their jobs and then come home and clean the house, and take care of the lazy men. This made them twice as strong.”

Some sources in the article claim that women are being chosen for politics because they are trained to be pliant party apparatchiks. But others disagree, and point to the recent election of the first woman mayor of Sofia, Yordanka Fandakova, as an example. During her campaign, she was criticized for being nothing but the Prime Minister’s lackey; a charge to which, as a woman in that patriarchal society, she was quite vulnerable. She won in a landslide anyway, and as mayor, has been busy with her sisters in the mayoral office promoting education, advocating for the creation of shelters for victims of domestic violence, and opening 17 new kindergartens.

“The desire to tackle social problems is in my heart, partly because I am a woman as well as a former teacher,” she said.

The article would not be complete without a man pompously weighing in about how teh wimminz are all too emotional to be in politics, so of course, here he is:

Not everyone in Bulgaria is convinced of the wisdom of promoting women in politics. Minko Gerdjikov, the deputy mayor, said that promoting women to powerful positions could prove a liability at a time of crisis.

“The big problem is that women are moodier than men and rule based on intuition rather than facts,” he said. “During a crisis a woman can transform very quickly from being a politician to being a human being, and this can be bad.”

Hey, dude, you know what? I also hear that when women get periodically down, their claws come out!

It is inspiring that even in a poor and corrupt company like Bulgaria, the value of women is increasingly being seen and honored. Borisov’s Party put forth 60% women candidates in 2009! Can you imagine if the Democrats, in 2010 or 2012, made 60% of their new candidates for office women? I think Chris Matthews’ yellow haid would asplode, and as for Keith Obamaman, I’m sure we’d hear a lot of “special comments” about discrimination and sexism against men!

But wait. Did you notice something missing in the article? I did. Not once was the word “abortion” mentioned.  This is because Bulgaria’s abortion laws are liberal, and have been for quite some time. Abortion is primarily used as birth control in Bulgaria, and it’s understandable, because the country is so poor that access to modern birth control methods is not available. I’m not sure why, because the article doesn’t say and I don’t know enough about the country, but the stigma that is attached to abortion (and the women who have them) in America, does not seem to exist in Bulgaria.

Isn’t it interesting how the women of Bulgaria seem to be progressing in their government at a much greater rate than we are here in wealthy, “enlightened” America? Could it be that only when abortion is no longer stigmatized and women are able to control their own reproductive destiny without fear of demonizing and shaming by their sisters, that women can join hands and work together to make real political progress?

This is an open thread.