Christmas seminar of the scientific-educational group “Comparative analysis of the situation of women and men in government”

On December 25, a Christmas seminar of the scientific and educational group was held, at which Tatyana A. Melnikova, Doctor of Political Sciences, Deputy Head of the Department for the Development of State Policy in the Field of Demographic Policy and Gender Equality, Department of Demographic Policy and Social Protection of the Population of the Ministry of Labor and Social Protection of the Russian Federation, spoke.

The speaker began the seminar with a reference to the fundamental declarations and conventions regarding the status of women in society, which were ratified back in the USSR:

· 1948 - ratified the "Universal Declaration of Human Rights"

· 1979 - “Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women”

· 1995 - The Beijing Declaration

It is interesting to note that within the framework of the Beijing Platform, the concept of "gender equality" was first introduced into public discourse in the USSR. However, the word “gender” is still missing in the regulatory legal acts of the Russian Federation. As the speaker noted, this is partly due to the fact that the word “gender” is a borrowed word, so some government employees do not fully accept this term.

Further, the speaker raised the issue of the status of women in the USSR. Despite the fact that women's councils were very common at the level of individual organizations, at the country level, women were not involved in politics at the decision-making level. Only in 1994, was the State Duma formed the “Women of Russia” faction. Nevertheless, according to the assessment of the RANEPA, in which Tatyana Alexandrovna was working at that time, this fraction was the least effective fraction. This was due to the fact that women actually “dispersed into political apartments” and did not have a clear unified point of view regarding the solution of women's issues.

Currently, there is an acute problem of blurring of authority in terms of regulating gender issues among various executive bodies. Thus, the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of Labor, the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Industry and Trade are responsible for gender policy. But, for example, the Ministry of Economy is more involved in the issues of attracting investments and the development of high-tech industries, but does not focus on regulating the position of women in the labor market.

 

Since the speaker is a civil servant of the Ministry of Labor of Russia, the issue of regulating gender policy in this ministry was raised. Now the Ministry of Labor is trying to involve regions in the gender agenda by writing Methodological Recommendations, which include issues that cannot be approved as laws. Tatyana Aleksandrovna noted that who is the head of the ministry plays an important role. So, at present, the head of the Ministry of Labor is M. A. Tropilin, who is the father of 2 daughters and married to a business woman, so the gender policy in the Ministry of Labor has some kind of progress.

At the end of the seminar, the participants were able to ask the speaker questions of interest.