The professor compared the women of the Soviet, transformation and modern times: in the past, most wanted to be Ingrid Saboniene, and now they are house flowers.

– What key measures have been taken in Lithuania this year in terms of discrimination against women and equal rights?

– I would not say that this year Lithuania has achieved any major achievements in the field of women’s rights and gender equality. If we talk about one of the most important issues, violence against women, we are not even close to ratifying the Istanbul Convention. In 2011, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs signed it, but we did not ratify it. In addition, it can be said that this year was a failure because the Ministry of Justice approved a very flawed law for women on mandatory mediation in family conflicts. This is a step back. Therefore, in the context of the law, we cannot in any way speak of the fact that women’s rights and gender equality issues have advanced.

What is rewarding is activism at the level of civil society. For example, women’s organizations and individuals have made a significant contribution to supporting women in Belarus in the whirlwind of their political events. It is true that women’s activism has nothing to do with the implementation of women’s rights in Belarus, because the laws there are far behind. Working for the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, she has repeatedly called on the Belarusian government to change its laws on domestic violence against women, but they are not responding.

Furthermore, our active women and their organizations are responding to what is happening in Poland: the Polish fight against any possibility of having access to legal abortions. Globally, this is one of the most important struggles for women’s rights in Poland.

Therefore, it can be concluded that women’s rights are actually advancing at the level of civil society and lagging behind in legal terms. If we talk about the state level, I am pleased that issues of gender equality and women’s rights are receiving attention in the Office of the Ombudsman of Seimas, the National Institution for Human Rights.

– And how do we see ourselves in the European context?

– I’m glad we have three women in management positions. Consequently, the public believed in them. But these are personalities. The fact that there are active women who work ten times more than men and are elected somewhere says nothing about the level of women’s rights in a particular country. They explode for their work, but their support is less than that of the men. If we talk about the number of women who can participate in political decisions in the Seimas, it has hardly increased. We have 27%, which is little. Liberal parties have their own opinions, which do not always coincide with the principles of gender equality and women’s rights. Suppose they are against gender quotas, so it is unlikely that they will initiate these quotas in the election of the next Seimas and municipalities. Examples from other countries show that if the number of women in national parliaments is low and we have them low, with no quotas to be introduced temporarily, only until the number of men and women is balanced, it is difficult to change anything. Therefore, the participation of women in politics in Lithuania is low, except for those few personalities.

If we talk about parental leave, women in Lithuania stay at home as long as possible. Salaries are low, the benefits machine stays at home, its job is maintained until the child is three years old. But let’s look at the example of Finland, where work is also saved for up to three years, but the money stops being paid very early. What are they doing? Every effort is made to ensure that all family members, especially husbands and grandmothers, help mothers to care for their children when they change. So the child stays at home for a long time, but the mother does not. Also, their nursery system is very flexible. All children get a place and can be there for an hour or a whole day. Thus, a woman retains her skills in the labor market, but also fulfills her duties as a mother.

The example of our country is not appropriate because there are many mothers who take advantage of those months for activities that will not help them to take important positions in society. They attend presentations of various products, meet in mothers’ circles … Those trends – make women of all mothers, which focus only on family, motherhood, childcare, beauty, are an oriental tradition .

– This year there was a lot of talk in Lithuania about parental involvement in childcare, how much progress have we made here?

– We are making progress, but the figures are lower than, say, in the Scandinavian countries, where it is particularly promoted. On the other hand, our society is heterogeneous, segmented. Some families are oriented to the West, others are not. Let’s see how many young people go out with their children on weekends. But these are segments. In the West, people have changed irreversibly, many recognize the rights of women, the need for women to fulfill themselves both in the family and in society, and they are very aware that without help they will not be able to implement these two actions.

– You mentioned domestic violence. It has increased particularly this year during the quarantine. Do you think this could have been anticipated?

– We return to the subject of the Istanbul Convention. It is a best practice guide on how to deal with domestic violence. What happened to COVID? This convention has a summary of articles, principles, and actions to be taken in the event of natural, military or armed conflict, because we know that violence against women increases in such cases. Lithuania had no such plan at the beginning of COVID-19 in March. As a result, the Interior Ministry, seeing that the number of domestic violence began to grow, adopted an action plan after a while, but it was rushed, just a piece of paper. Because if there are no structures, there will be nothing for people who know how to deal with such a pandemic or natural disaster. If we had been prepared in advance, I think the violence would have stopped.

– You mentioned that women in Lithuania often focus on beauty, family … But they agree that they really are held to quite high standards: a woman must be well-groomed, a great wife, mother, entrepreneur. And where else are the social networks with opinion leaders. What impact does this have on young women, what opinions are formed about how a woman should be?

– We cannot tell any man or woman how he should live his life, but both the State and the media play an important role here. In Lithuania, all that concentration on physical beauty, which requires an extraordinary amount of time, distracts the personality from other areas. Such a girl wastes time investing in her appearance but not in her education. You will never know who you might have been capable of and who you might have been talented of. In addition, it is proven that the mental and spiritual perception of children is formed by the mother, not by the father. So we have such an oriental model that is transmitted from generation to generation. If we divert public attention from issues like violence and focus on beauty and how to please a man, we have a society like this: a very beautiful girl who is discriminated at work, suffers sexual harassment, but does not even understand it. This is a pending task for the state.

– What could each woman do personally to reduce this discrimination?

– It is difficult, but if you start to delve into anti-discrimination laws, to compare the laws of your country with those of the EU, to ask relevant questions, then perhaps all the patriarchal stereotypes that you grew up about and mothers and grandmothers told you about will be critical . I only see that way.

– In general, how has the concept of femininity changed with the collapse of the old system, that is, in the last 50 years?

– In Soviet times, the stereotype of femininity was very simple. The woman was to serve her husband and children. Femininity was understood as a very favorable conversation with a man. In the seventies, there was still talk that a woman needs to understand men’s sexuality, sexual needs. If he is unfaithful to her, she must wait for this period. The woman was urged never to remind the man if he was an alcoholic: it was his fault. Soviet stereotypes claimed that a woman is responsible for everything. If something is wrong in the family, she is not feminine enough, she does not have enough feminine powers to build an ideal relationship with a man. Furthermore, women often have to cope with material deprivation from the family in some way. More recently, photos of our mothers, who were in their 50s, were uploaded to Facebook. They all looked much older and tired. They asked me why this is so. Because they carry an unavoidable burden. Therefore, his daughters in the last century XX. In the decade that they no longer wanted that burden, they threw everything overboard. The kindergartens were closed, they wanted to match the image of the American housewives of the sixties, the ideal of Ingrida Sabonienė: four children, a beauty queen, a great relationship with her husband … It did not last long. Around the last 20th century. In the late 1990s, women returned to society, but now we are trapped in a period of such sexuality and excessive demand from women. Women should be like the flowers of the house to care for children. Lithuanians are excellent if they raise children up to three years of age, and if there are three children, they sit at home for 10 years. And what’s next? Neither the men nor the government say it is very convenient to have a family member who will be in the home for 10 years. It is cheap.

– And feminism? How effective is this move in Lithuania?

– It is useful because women in this movement are trying to introduce advanced laws, but the word itself was discredited in Soviet times. Since it originated in the West, and everything that arose in the West was viewed negatively, this movement was also condemned. Now we have it, but it is not what it used to be in the West, because here only women change and there both men and women change. Furthermore, in Lithuania it is accepted not only by ordinary people, but also by the cultural elite. It is a mockery of gender equality, it is not recognized. Feminism is such a small and isolated activism that it will never create a critical mass in our society. The train has already left. Now there are other ideas, the rights of sexual minorities are getting much more attention. And women’s rights are on the sidelines.