Why women don’t become the mayors of big cities

Recently, the World Economic Forum promulgated the index of gender equality. There’s good news for us. Compared to 2016, we gained four points in the ranking – and now we rank 65th among 149 countries.

The best situation with gender equality is in education – 26th place in the world. The worst – with equality in politics, here, we’re at the 105th place.

The surveys lullaby us, showing the readiness to vote for women. Nevertheless, the reality confirms that women have access to power only when it comes to modest posts. Money, power, influence – this is all about men.

Let’s take a look at the facts.

Among 423 MP in the Verkhovna Rada, only 53 are women. However, according to the majority of formal indicators, a woman-parliamentarian works more productively than a man-parliamentarian – on average a woman submits four draft laws more; the average number of active votes (“for”, “against”, “hold off”) among female deputies is 5% higher than among men; an average female deputy missed 8 meetings due to unknown reasons less than her college-man.

The same sad situation is in the Cabinet of Ministers. For 25 ministers, we have only five women – Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration Ivanna Klympush-Tsintsadze, Minister of Education Lilia Hrynevych, Acting Minister of Healthcare Uliana Suprun, Minister of Finance and Trade Oksana Markarova, Minister for Veterans Affairs Irina Friz. The last two have been appointed lately.

Only one woman, Yulia Svitlychna, governs the Kharkiv Regional Administration.

Let’s go further, in 22 regional councils the number of female deputies is 15%, and in city councils – 18%.

By the way, the highest number of women is presented in Sumy Regional Council – almost 22%, the lowest – in Odesa Region. There’re only 6 women among 84 deputies.

Then, the representation of women increases according to the level of the power – the lower the level, the more there will be women. In the towns, there were 146 mayors chosen, only 14 of them are women. 76 women have won the elections for the position of the rural chairman. Rural councils were headed by 2,256 women from 7,029 rural councils.

As we can see, only on the level of rural councils the women managed to achieve 30% election quota, which is written in legislation.

Therefore, the question of whether women can govern large cities as a mayor is quite rhetorical. And here’s the answer.

At the city level, the situation is controlled by financial and political groups that have long been decentralized and self-sufficient. They don’t need the loyalty of the centre, but rather vice versa. These groups have money at their disposal, budget money in particular; media with an absolute lack of abidance of the minimum professional standards; the groups of influence among officials at the level of deputies; personal service of security; and trend of the last years, pocket “activists”, who are ready to come to protect the “personal democracy” at any moment.

In the point of view of these groups, a woman plays the role of service staff and can only agree on a non-public, often quite complicated job. The one that ensures the functioning of men in power.

The one, which maintains the function of men. Take a look, for example, at the cast of any city council of the Oblast significance, a city-millionaire. There, you’ll see all-Ukrainian trends – departments of culture, education, the circulation of documents, finances, social security, medicine departments sometimes are headed by women, the rest – by men. The same situation is with the members of the executive committee and the vice-chairmen of the city head. Hard and dirty work is mostly for women. And it’s always convenient to poke the finger: common, we have plenty of women in power!

But back to the answer to the question: Can a woman in the near future head a big city?

In 2020, the local elections will take place in Ukraine. The preparation is already speeding up. However, the preparation never comes to a standstill because the acting officials don’t fail to remind a potential voter about this. And it’s clear enough that the advantages have the ones who are already in power.

Why women don’t run for office? Why don’t they become candidates for the position of city mayor? Why does the political competition scarcely take women candidates into account? Why do men-leaders openly devaluate the political activity of women-politicians?

An eloquent example of diminishing of female deputies’ efforts and their humiliation is almost every session of the Odesa City Council when the acting mayor resorts to offensive remarks to Olga Kvasnytska, Anna Pozdnyakova and Lilia Leonidova. It’s a wide-known truth that these deputies are consistently and responsibly defending the interests of the territorial community in front of the construction companies affiliated with the current Odesa mayor, oppose the total allocation, often violated, of urban lands to the construction of the same companies, write requests about the theft of the property of the Odesa community.

Trukhanov’s PR machine works to demolish the authority of these active deputies, politicians who have the ability to show high professional skills, good reputation and support of their voters and, of course, each of them can compete with anyone at the local elections. The competition, which scares Trukhanov as hell.

And what is the advantage of the cities that are governed by women?

There’s an index of the city transparency which has 76 indicators. They’re quite various – from the level of the local planning, tariffs and taxes, from the relationship with citizens to the public purchase, territory usage and public reports of the authorities. Transparency is determined as the promulgation of all actions to deliver the society the corresponding information in the best way to fully understand it.

The issue of transparency is not a report once a year by the mayor to dubious “activists” who have been chosen through the “casting” of authority’s pals. Once a year is a sign of very bad democracy.

The researches who work with the issue of transparency assert that the cities with female mayors are more transparent than with male.

The urbanist from Portugal Nuno Ferreira da Cruz has analyzed the situation in Portugal. In this country, the female mayors totalled 20%. And these municipalities are more transparent than under male governance. Why such results? The women are better communicators, tend to love and listen to the community, accept people’s wishes, form their team better that helps to make balanced decisions, don’t depend only on themselves.

So, why women don’t run for office? Analyzing our situation, I can single out several components. They have objective and subjective causes.

1. The absence of tradition. We don’t have successful cases of women’s victories at the elections of the mayor of the big city. Hence the voters imagine that potential candidates don’t exist, that a female candidate isn’t serious and hardly possible.
2. Societal unacceptance. The point of view has been still cultivating in the society that city governance isn’t woman business, that only men can cope with such a difficult work. Regardless of the fact that elected men often have poorer education than their secretaries.
3. Total male domination in politics. The one pal attracts another pal on the grounds of gender and common interests even if these interests concern the common habit of attending sauna to sort out the details. Leaving behind the place of service personnel for women who provide a man-director with comfortable conditions for mental functioning.
4. The absence of mutual support between women. It’s a very important and tricky topic that we prefer not to raise. But we know female politicians are oppressed mostly by other women. No sense to analyse the nature of such oppression. Maybe, it’s envy. Maybe, something else. It’s known that the demographic picture captures more women in the structure of both citizens and voters. Of course, support only on a gender basis isn’t comme il faut. But oppression on gender basis is even worse.
5. Potential female candidates self-devaluation. This is strongly influenced by the first four points. Even well-educated women can’t get rid of existing stereotypes and are influenced by formed archetypes in politics – masculinity, stiffness, so-called male behaviour, lack of emotions and so on. Subconsciously woman starts to try on these images and understands that she’s different. And takes it for defeat at the start.
6. The absence of support. First of all, it’s about the immediate environment – family, relatives, friends. Some close people are really worried, understanding what kind of meat grinder a loved person can be tangled up. Somebody just doesn’t want to have extra trouble. Somebody is still trapped in the same stereotypes as the society, considering the city governance “not a woman’s business”.
7. The absence of resources. Participation in politics requires some financial, media, human resources. I don’t know, for example, in Odesa, any media owned by women from business or local politics. Especially when it comes to TV channels, which are dozens in Odesa. And it’s not about fake female-owners who should be taken for real not to spotlight the fraudulent male-owners. The same situation is with national media;
8. Fear. Simple fear of defeat, which often paralyzes the willpower. It’s scary to take part in the elections of the city mayor because the competition can be cruel. It’s scary to be defeated. It’s scary to become a laughingstock when opponents can resort to black PR and other dirty technologies. It’s scary to risk the relatives and family.

What is the result of this? It turns out that we must begin to change the landscape of Ukrainian politics, including local level. We have to support active women and promote their involvement in politics. To spread successful examples of each other. Share the knowledge and experience.

The countries and cities where women take part in making important decisions change into those ones comfortable for life.

I’m ready to vote for a female mayor. I hope and pray that I’ll manage to live up to elections in Odesa, where the candidate will be a woman politician. Intelligent, business, fair, not embedded in corruption schemes, for which the city is a feeder, but not a mission.

I’m ready to vote for her. And you?

Zoya Kazanzhy