Polish Parliament Promotes Gender Parity (pol. parytety)
12December 5, 2010 by Aleksandra Łuczak
The Polish Parliament has approved a bill which is to promote greater sexual equality in the country’s political life.
According to the new legislation, at least 35 percent of all candidates on the lists of all parties running for seats in the 460-seat lower house (pol. niższa izba) must be women. The rule will not apply to elections to the 100-seat upper house (pol. wyższa izba), the Senate.
Prime Minister Donald Tusk welcomed the new regulations but said that setting the quota as 50 percent would be a better solution as it would ensure fully equal representation of men and women.
However, Tusk admitted that there were different views on the issue within his own Civic Platform party. Ten of its deputies, including party executive Jaroslaw Gowin and former justice minister Andrzej Czuma, voted against the legislation for more women deputies. As a result, they are to pay a fine (pol. zapłacić karę) for violating (pol. złamanie) their party’s voting directives (pol. wytyczne dot. głosowania).
At present, women account for (pol. stanowić) some 20 percent of deputies in the lower house and for only 8 percent of senators. The parliamentary elections are scheduled for the autumn of 2011. (source: www.thenews.pl)
Do you think we really need a new law to guarantee the equal representation of men and women in the Polish Parliament?
Have your say!
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Stupidity!! We’re heading towards a country with EVERYTHING legalized. If someone wants to run for seats in parliament then he/she will do it and that’s it. Why do we need a law for that? I think now a great search will start for women who want to start in election because a small party with for example 10% of women won’t be able to participate in election. Maybe this law was meant to eliminate small parties?
As a woman I’m happy that the Polish government will assure more female representation in Polish Parlament. I believe that female politicians have much to offer and will bring to Parliament fresh point of view on many cases. But on the other hand we should think if we really need such tight low rules. As Tomek said before small parties can suffer just because they are small. And what if there won’t be enough women interested in taking part in political life? How about fines? Who will pay them and why? Time will tell…
I fully agree with U Tomasz.. stupidity!!!
And the fines?! If party’s voting directives wouldn’t be obligatory within this vote , we would have more voices against such a legislation.
Equal representation is a matter of time.
I am in no doubt that gender parity legislation is not required to enable women to succeed in the Polish parliament. Such legislation is better suited to countries where religion or other social traditions act as barrier to achievement. I agree with Tomek, politics is about the application of principles, not gender.
I completely agree with you. This kind of law is not efficient in our country. We have already gender in Poland and all society elect deputies. Of course women can stand to polish parliament. If they are not able to be on party’s lists, they can stand as independent candidate and if they have enough qualifications, they will be chosen:)
I agree with all of the previous commentators. But the thing I am thinking about is why this legislation was intruduced, how was it possible, if wee see that in small but still representative group, everyone says that required level of gender parity is kind of misunderstanding?
I think that this is not a good idea. It shouldn’t be that way. We shouldn’t integrate indirectly into who will be elected as a MP. If there’s only 20% of women there must be a reason. It’s like in business. Women tend to win less prizes, achieve lower salary, start less profitable businesses. If the want to go there they should achieve that but their OWN determination and skills. There may be some facilities to allow women and other groups enter parliament, but artificially stating 35% in my opinion is bad.
I hope that someday there will be more intelligent people in the Polish society and we will not have to make a legal provision about sexual equality. This should result from us, our knowledge what sexual equality is and our awareness that sexual equality should be normal part of our life. We should not make rules for this. For me this is strage because if people don’t understand it and don’t want this, they will look for loopholes. The law will then become useless. But on the other hand, if we can’t do something in a nice and pleasant way maybe making laws and paying a fine is good way out.
No, because it would be too difficult to make it fair for everyone and defeats the point of democracy. If we gave the sexes proportional representation via quotas, then we should also give ethnic minorities representation by the same logic, via quotas. What about different religions? and economic backgrounds? By giving men and women equal representation guaranteed by law, we discount the influence of all the other demographic possibilities. Then we should also make parliament by law, demographically representative. So it’s either going for it in full, or not doing it at all. The problems this raises is the fundamental sacrosanctity of democracy. Do we wish to feel free to vote for whom we choose? or can we only vote for those who fit a presumed sexual, ethnic, economic profile? The quota setting law may also put some talented men in disadvantage. However, since there are considerably less women in the Parliament than men, there should be some policies promoting women in politics, but not laws.
In my opinion the Polish parliament has approved a bill which is unconstitutional. I thought in Poland we had equality access to parliament. If in opinion of society Polish parliament needs more women people could just vote for them. Gender parity won’t help woman in making political career. It should come from our society, not from our legislator. Article 32 of our constitution says “All persons shall be equal before the law” and article 33 says “Men and women shall have equal rights in family, political, social and economic life in the Republic of Poland.”. So why legislator promote more women than men ? I really don’t know.
This was the most stupid thing they could’ve ever done. Men are not preferential in the parliamentary elections. Woman can normally take part in the elections without any problems. The thing that there are much more men than woman in our goverment only means that men are better in this case. They might have better election platform, their ideas are seen as better in other peoples minds. So why should we choose women to the sejm only because they’re WOMAN? even if they don’t have any idea about politics…
As a young woman I don’t think that it is a good idea. In polish politics we already have a problem with lack of wise people. Actually I do think that women are as valuable as man and they can get the majority in parlamentary elections but they have to convince society. I understand that it will be hard but we have to avoid situation that will force us to put women on some posts, even they are some better man candidates. We have to remember that more don’t have to mean better. Maybe in some time women will be as popular as man in this profession. Or maybe not, but I wouldn’t treat this as a defeat, we still can be better in other field.