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JOURNAL OF INTERDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH

'socialist democracy' and compared with the low representation
of women in politics in the 'capitalist countries'."

After the fall of communism, women have had to face new
social pressure which pushed them to return to the traditional
role of women - family and children. “Some public officials
welcomed the democratization and liberalization as the great
opportunity for woman to be able to stop working, 'go back
home' and devote their lives to children and families (...).”

This approach, however, mainly for economic reasons, have not
found many followers.

A high percentage of the female workforce in Slovakia was not
reflected adequately on women's participation in political and
citizen life. Since 1989, the number of women in political life
drastically decreased and although in recent years, it is slowly
growing in almost all areas of political and civic life, the current
representation of women in political bodies of the Slovak
Republic shows continuing de facto political marginalization of
women in politics.

2 Representation of woman in the local government bodies

From all areas of politics communal politics should be the one
that is closest to the citizens. It should enable the easiest
participation of people. Despite this, however, the representation
of women at this political level is rather low, which is regularly
evidenced in the elections to municipal bodies.

However, it is

still one of the few levels of women´s political representation
without significant digressive fluctuations.

In municipal elections in 2014 ran for mayor total of 8 760
people, 2 145 of which were women and 6 615 men. Number of
men who were elected for mayors was decreased by 37 persons
comparing to municipal elections in 2010. Number of women
slightly increased; in 2010 municipal elections was elected 653
women, while in 2014 the number of women increased by 20. In
the municipal elections in 2014, the citizens voted 1 211 mayors
who were supported by specific political parties, and as
independent was elected 1100 candidates. Compared with 2010,
when 979 candidates were elected, this number increased.

Table: Gender composition of elected mayors 1994 – 2014.
Source: Statistical office of the Slovak Republic

Year of

municipal

elections

Total number

of elected

persons

Of which

women

Share of

women in

percent (%)

1994

2750

418

15.2

1998

2766

484

17.5

2002

2913

541

18.6

2006

2905

601

20.7

2010

2909

653

22.5

2014

2909

673

23.1

It is typical for the municipal politics that the mayors of small
municipalities are women, and their number is decreasing with
growing size of the town (so-called “funnel effect”).

Research

has shown that women are approximately equally represented
both in the traditional municipalities as well as a modern
municipalities, and regional division, religion or ethnicity have
no effect on the percentage of women. The only significant
factor among the characteristics of the municipality resulting in

BITUŠÍKOVÁ, A.: Ženy v

občianskom a politickom živote na Slovensku. Banská

Bystrica: Ústav vedy a výskumu Univerzity Mateja Bela v Banskej Bystrici, 2005. p.
40-41.

BITUŠÍKOVÁ, A.: Ženy v o

bčianskom a politickom živote na Slovensku. Banská

Bystrica: Ústav vedy a výskumu Univerzity Mateja Bela v Banskej Bystrici, 2005. p.
41.

HOLUBOVÁ, B.:

Účasť žien v politike – postoj, stav a perspektíva. [online]. 2010

[cit. 2015-11-11] Available at http://www.institutrr.sk/download/b_holubova_5.pdf

HOLUBOVÁ, B.: Súhrnná správa o stave rodovej rovnosti na Slovensku za rok

2010. [online]. 2011 [cit. 2015-11-11] Available at http://moznostvolby.sk/wp-
content/uploads/2014/08/Sprava_RR_2010.pdf

Source: Statistical Office of the Slovak Republic (Štatistický úrad Slovenskej

republiky)

See e.g. FILADELFIOVÁ, J. –

RADIČOVÁ, I. – PULIŠ, P.: Ženy v politike-

dôsledok tranzície verejnej politiky? Bratislava: MPSVR SR, S.P.A.C.E, 2000. 134 p.

differentiating was the size of the municipality.

The usual

interpretation of this state is that the mayor position in such
municipalities, mainly regarding the power and the money, is not
attractive enough. Elected representatives of small municipalities
have available limited financial and human resources, but often
exactly the same amount of responsibilities than in larger
municipalities. Men prefer rather larger local governments since
the property and personal substrate available here is larger.
Women in small municipalities run for the office less for their
personal gain and are more motivated by their desire to help the
community. Reason for the higher representation of women in
small municipalities may be also that the work of the mayor does
not require a change of residence and is easily compatible with
caring for a family. Since daily contact with the family is
maintained, a conflict of private and public activity is weaker
when working at the local level than in national positions.

Statistical data show that the development of representation of
women in Slovak politics has been low over long period, and
indicate that the patriarchal structures persist at all levels of
political representation. Although the number of women is
slowly and continuously growing especially in the local
government bodies, even here the representation of women does
not exceed 25%.

3 Barriers to Participation of women in politics

There is a number of theories based on research that seek to
explain the low representation of women in politics. Reasons
preventing women to be active in the public sphere is generally
referred to as barriers. Some of the theories resort to seeking
psychological barriers consisting mainly in the lack of interest of
women in politics, their incompetence and lack of assertiveness.
Other theories have a more systemic character, because they see
the causes in the very nature of culture and society. Others see
reasons in of the missing, incorrect or inadequate anchoring of
legal measures aimed at increasing the participation of women in
public affairs. Barriers to entry of women into political office
can be seen in several factors related to the socio-cultural setting
of the society. Some barriers are evident, and others more hidden
and sophisticated related to the mechanisms and practices
established by the ongoing public domination of men in this
area.

Barriers to participation and representation of women can be
generally divided in several categories:

a)

individual

system

institutional.

The individual barriers include especially low self-esteem of
women, lack of assertiveness, cooperation instead of rivalry, but
also the lack of female solidarity. In some countries as a barrier
to women's representation is considered education or lack of
competence and skills. This fact, however, is apparently of little
importance important in Slovakia as the level of education of
men and women is very similar and in some indicators women
reach even higher levels of education than men.

Within the system barriers to entry of women into politics is
most commonly listed family that plays the most important role
in decision-making of women. Another factor is traditionalism
as traditional values combined with patriarchal patterns of
behaviour and thinking constitute strong support for maintaining
prejudices and stereotypes, especially in rural areas and small
towns. Preservation of old customs, spiritual and cultural

FILADELFIOVÁ, J. –

RADIČOVÁ, I. – PULIŠ, P.: Ženy v politike-dôsledok

tranzície verejnej politiky? Bratislava: MPSVR SR, S.P.A.C.E, 2000. p. 54-56.

HOLUBOVÁ, B.: Súhrnná správa o stave rodovej rovnosti na Slovensku za rok

2010. [online]. 2011 [cit. 2015-11-11] Available at

http://moznostvolby.sk/wp-

content/uploads/2014/08/Sprava_RR_2010.pdf

BITUŠÍKOVÁ, A.: Ženy v o

bčianskom a politickom živote na Slovensku. Banská

Bystrica: Ústav vedy a výskumu Univerzity Mateja Bela v Banskej Bystrici, 2005. p.
106.

BITUŠÍKOVÁ, A.: Ženy v o

bčianskom a politickom živote na Slovensku. Banská

Bystrica: Ústav vedy a výskumu Univerzity Mateja Bela v Banskej Bystrici, 2005. p.
106-108.

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