Now We Deserve to Ascend the Rostrum : Women: It is ironic that as Soviet democracy makes gains, men still monopolize power.

The bitter days of the putsch have passed, days that filled the hearts of all Russian mothers with fear and pain--fear and pain because on one side of the barricades stood their unarmed children defending democracy, while on the other side also were their children, manning tanks. The women were pained that their feelings, as in the past when Soviet troops were sent to Prague or Afghanistan, had not been considered. For the umpteenth time, women were held hostage to men’s rivalry and frenetic zeal.

Democracy is the power of the people. Women account for 53% of the Soviet Union’s population, but only 2%, 3%, 7% or 10% of the people in power, depending on the region or the republic.

Of course, even the most humane and democratic leaders cannot change the situation in a month or so, but what have the victorious democrats changed, or tried to change, in regard to women’s rights?

In 1988, at the First Congress of People’s Deputies, an attempt was made to radically alter society’s attitude toward women and to enhance their political and social status. Instructions were issued for the drafting of a special document to outline the state’s policy on this issue. However, the collapse of the central executive structures after Aug. 19, 1991, buried the fundamentals of the state’s policy on improving the status of women, which was being considered by a parliamentary committee.

After the current fragmentation of the Soviet Union, the independent republics will deal with the issue of women’s rights in their own way, taking into consideration their specific social, economic and demographic features. However, human rights are not the internal affair of one separate state. Moreover, the United Nations’ forward-looking strategies for the advancement of women, which were adopted at the world conference in Nairobi in 1985, remain in force until the year 2000.

At the beginning of this year, the U.N. center in Vienna discussed the issue of the impact of the economic and political reforms on the status of women in Eastern Europe. The experts came to these conclusions: growing unemployment among women, the loss of traditional social guarantees and even fundamental human rights, a return to the old way of thinking regarding the role of women.

This sad picture also affects Soviet women, and efforts had been made to tackle the problem. The Soviet Cabinet of Ministers and the Geya Training Center of the Academy of the National Economy had been working on models for new social services, on draft legislation creating additional social protection of the family during the transition to a market-based economy, on measures to resolve the problem of unemployment among women and on programs to train women in business.

But who will continue the work now? The Cabinet of Ministers no longer exists. Bodies of power are being created in view of the changes in the federal system, but no structures for women’s affairs have been envisaged. The Academy of the National Economy has been closed. The Academy of Social Sciences is being reorganized.

We have reason to fear that the new bodies of power and the future parliament will consist solely of men. If women are given a slice of the power pie, theirs will undoubtedly be a sliver and a burdensome one at that. It is really strange, now that democracy has won, that the restructuring has adversely affected women’s groups.

It won’t be easy for the people in power to regain women’s trust and to bridge the ever-widening gap between the politicians’ words about their concern for women and their actual deeds. High officials continue to say: “We must pay more attention to women, children, and the elderly.” Women and children are saved only during natural calamities and states of emergency. Will women have to put up with this state of emergency forever?

In the French Revolution, Olympe de Gouges paid with her life for words that have gained her a place in history: “If women have the right to mount the scaffold, they must also have the right to mount the political platform.” Remember how many women stood at Russia’s White House between Aug. 19 and 22, 1991! When will the world wake up to the fact that women are active participants in all areas of society? That they are indispensable to politics because since time immemorial they have been responsible for life, for its preservation and for its continuation.