Ex-Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko is the current leader of the presidential race with numbers twice as high as those of her closest competition, according to a poll held by Razumkov Center and Rating Sociological Group in December of 2018.
In his blog written for the Atlantic Council website, a senior research fellow at the Institute for Euro-Atlantic Cooperation in Kyiv Andreas Umland points out the fact that Tymoshenko would become the first female president in the eastern Slavic world.
This fact by itself would be “a noteworthy achievement in the context of Orthodox Christian civilization and neo-Soviet behavioral patterns, which have historically been unsupportive of female power,” believes Umland.
“Tymoshenko already broke barriers in 2005 as the first female prime minister, and her ascendancy to the presidency would be a large step forward for sexual equality in the entire post-Soviet world,” he writes.
Is it true, though? Does a female president mean gender equality?
Latin American experience
Four women were presidents in the Latin American region between 2006 and 2018. They are Chilean president Michelle Bachelet, Argentinian president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff, and Costa Rican president Laura Chinchilla.
Global research does prove that the presence of women in top-ranking authorities increases political engagement of women and girls.
Truly, Latin American women presidents nominate more women ministers, who pave the way for future generations of female leaders. According to public surveys, in Latin American countries with female heads of state, women were slightly more likely to participate in local politics than in countries run by men.
However, new studies debunk the commonly accepted idea that a woman simply entering politics means an improvement of gender equality. There are other factors, such as the partisan political agenda and strong grassroots movements, that have a more profound influence on the president’s own political agenda.
For instance, let’s look at abortion, generally prohibited in the prevalently Catholic Latin America. Even in the few countries, such as Costa Rica, where women are allowed to terminate a pregnancy resulting from rape, the procedure is extremely difficult to access. Overall, 97 percent of Latin American women have no access to safe legal abortions, which entails high levels of maternal mortality.
Tymoshenko vs. Bohomolets vs. Poroshenko
It is challenging to find any mention of gender equality or female leadership on the presidential agenda of female candidate Tymoshenko or in her speeches. Tymoshenko seems to be pretending that the subject of women’s rights and gender-based violence has nothing to do with her.
It stands out, especially if we compare Tymoshenko’s campaign with Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign.
Clinton’s entire agenda from meetings with college students to Instagram posts was focused on the importance of gender parity in the U.S., meaning symmetric and equal engagement of men and women in all aspects of public life.
Moreover, Clinton has been consistently constructing her feminist political discourse. Back in 1995, as the First Lady, Clinton delivered the famous now-historic speech “Women’s Rights Are Human Rights” at the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing.
“If women have a chance to work and earn as full and equal partners in society, their families will flourish. And when families flourish, communities and nations do as well,” said Clinton in 1995.
I believe that if the current president wins again, we will have a greater chance to make the “leap towards gender equality” than if a woman wins who has no feminist agenda. However, a big failure on President Petro Poroshenko’s part is his benevolent sexism towards female members of the Ukrainian parliament, and we all remember his condescending “darling” he used to address journalist Maryna Baranivska during a press conference in February 2018.
The situation will look even worse if Olga Bohomolets, who has also registered as the candidate and has thus become the second female candidate of this campaign, wins the presidential race.
Bohomolets is known for her support of anti-equality movements and the homophobic family of Oleksandr Turchynov, the secretary of the Security and Defense Council. Turchynov and his wife, college professor Hanna Turchynova, are known for homophobic statements.
Bohomolets was the one who organized the infamous roundtable discussion in the parliamentary Healthcare Committee in November 2018 with the participation of “scientists,” MPs, community representatives, and clergymen.
The speakers discussed national gender policy in a prejudiced, twisted way, exhibiting a discriminatory, misogynist, homophobic, transphobic and xenophobic vision.
In conclusion
Does the gender of the country’s leader have a direct influence on the social and economic situation of women?
Not directly, perhaps, but it does have an indirect influence on this. Such a leader is a role model for other women, underrepresented in the decision-making positions in our country.
On the other hand, without a strong, clear agenda for gender equality, the role of such a leader loses its value.
Yelyzaveta Kuzmenko is a Kyiv-based journalist and human rights activist. This op-ed was originally published on Povaha.org.ua and is republished with permission.
