FEMINISM BEYOND DEMOCRACY
IDEOLOGY BEYOND THE COMMON SENSE
JADWIGA WIŚNIEWSKA
Feminism, present in the EU structures for years, is not only a curiosity causing a pity smile. In the ideological blindness European feminists have already gone too far when suggesting extremely undemocratic solutions, ordering the European Parliament automatic considering their postulates
In the European Parliament the FEMM commission, defending women’s rights and equal rights, through its activity shows something completely different. In a group of nearly 70 MPs, one can count those of conservative opinion with fingers. As a member of the commission, on behalf of the Law and Justice party, I think that works of this commission defend interests of only one group of women – European feminists.
In the FEMM every problem of women has one reason – fixed social schemes. The basic stereotype being the reason of pressure is the same: a woman wanting to concentrate on their children instead of on her career. Certainly, the feminist list is much longer and comprises such signs of ‘backwardness’ like the lack of equal rights of people of LGBTQ, inhibiting the general access to abortion and more frequent employment of women in caring jobs.
Suggestions of the FEMM is a model example of distorted femininity because of ideology which considers children as an obstacle in developing one’s career. For example, although it was noticed that single mothers are particularly endangered by poverty, and also ‘closing women in typically womanly roles’ was considered as its reason. What was ignored was the fact that that although professional development is necessary to get out of poverty, the main reason of poverty among the lonely parents is the lack of possibility of independent forming work time. Thanks to it, one can join family and work duties, especially burdening single parents.
Finding an answer to real needs of women and families requires a political will, which is not seen in FEMM. When there were opinions about changes necessary for actual equal rights, in a report about the so-called gender mainstream, a lot of controversial postulates were included. The equipment of the European Parliament with sexually neutral toilets or trainings from feministic new speech are only examples of solutions suggested by feminists. Moreover, parities of sexes within the structures of the Parliament were quoted. What is astonishing, is the fact that in the FEMM commission where there are over 8 times more women than men, none of MPs concluded that equal rights are not caused by a quantitive distributor. However, I am more shocked by belief about infallibility of FEMM, which is proved by a suggestion of automatic – without a prior voting – adding feministic amendments to documents elaborated in other commissions.
Works of the FEMM commission are the best proof for how the EU forgets about the values on which it had been built. However, return to them requires going beyond schemes fixed for years. A debate during a plenary meeting in Strasburg showed clearly – the calling not to destroy Christian heritage of Europe, a leftist deputy from Switzerland accused me of constant blocking changes improving the situation of women. It would seem that belief about absolute right of one worldview has gone with real socialism. However, it turns out that in the FEMM commission it is, unfortunately, fine.
AA
„Niedziela” 10/2016