EMPOWERED WOMEN
INTERVIEW
VIOLETA JOVANOVIĆ, NALED EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR AND PRESIDENT OF THE ETHNO NETWORK
Equal Opportunities For
WOMEN AND MEN Although women are the more educated gender in the Serbian population, they face higher unemployment, lower wages and discrimination. In order for these statistics to change to the benefit of creating a gender balance, it is necessary to combine the efforts of all stakeholders: the state, companies/policies, the media and women themselves, who should fight for their rights.
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he consequences of traditional upbringing and patriarchal society are mostly endured by women in the provinces and the countryside, but they are also felt by educated and employed women who are expected to predominantly take care of the family and children, which limits them in making progress and achieving equality, - says NALED Executive Director and Ethno Network President Violeta Jovanović. According to her, the conditions of the pandemic strengthened gender stereotypes, because the closure of schools and nurseries meant that parents – and in our country mostly mothers – were compelled to dedicate themselves to the family at the expense of their work and to do another shift at home for which they aren’t paid or often even valued, notes our interlocutor. Even before the pandemic, obstacles to the greater participation of women in positions of influence in the public and
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private sectors were already coming from socially imposed burdens outside of work and achieving a balance between business and family responsibilities. There is also a lack of greater child care support from public institutions, as well as personal ambitions as a result of a patriarchal upbringing, because it is considered that a career endangers family obligations that women are traditionally predetermined to do, insists Jovanović. “Also testifying to the problem of the gender gap in the household is the first economic study on unpaid work, which showed that women are twice as heavily burdened as men when it comes to household chores and caring for children and the elderly. The pandemic that the whole world is facing has further burdened women with additional jobs, despite them often being on the front lines of the fight against the virus – in hospitals, pharmacies and supermarkets,” says
