Institutional Mechanisms for Ensuring Gender Equality in the Political Sphere: the European Context

Abstract

Gender equality is one of the elements of a democratic society, in the political sphere gender balance contributes to the effective realization of the rights of men and women. The purpose of the article is to study the institutional mechanisms for ensuring gender equality and their role among other methods. The relevance of the work is determined by the importance of institutional mechanisms in the context of achieving gender parity. Institutional mechanisms for ensuring gender equality include governmental, parliamentary, and other power structures, including the institution of ombudsman. Institutional mechanisms also include organizations of various forms of ownership, independent agencies and civil society institutions. The effectiveness of institutional mechanisms is determined by a number of factors, including the degree of participation of women's organizations in politics, the political orientation of the government, the current economic situation and others. Mechanisms for the protection of women's rights have become a tool for ensuring gender equality in the international arena and have become a guarantee of national gender transformations. In European countries, the functions of ensuring equality are performed by special bodies and ministries of the relevant profile. There are special bodies in each EU country, which are responsible for ensuring gender equality in all spheres of life. Most often, the role of a special body is performed by the ombudsman institution, or the Center for Equal Treatment, the National Anti-Discrimination Council, the Equality Commission, and so on. At the parliamentary level, the activities of institutional mechanisms are implemented in the form of parliamentary committees on gender equality or inter-party women's factions. The activities of national mechanisms for gender equality are aimed at protecting women's rights, which can be explained by the traditionally less active participation of women in socio-political life. National mechanisms are aimed at ensuring equality in all spheres, as equal rights and opportunities in the labor or social sphere indirectly affect the possibility of exercising rights in socio-political life.