CONGRATULATIONS AS A REMINDER!

The times we live in and the degradation of the society's value system that determines us have caused a loss of focus on the basic reasons for establishing the celebration of Women's Day as an international holiday in 1975 by the United Nations.
Primarily conceived as a day of remembrance of the struggle for economic, political and social equality of women and men, it turned into a sentimental surrogate and a typical holiday of mass culture and consumer society.
That's why we have to remind ourselves that Women's Day is something more than a bouquet of flowers and symbolic gifts, because these same gifts and flowers support stereotypes about the gender role of women and girls in our society.
Historically, we tie the beginnings to the first public demonstrations of women employed in industry, which took place on March 8, 1857, in New York. The police dispersed them, but two months later the women founded a union and thanks to their work, the March 8 protests became a tradition.
The first official establishment of Women's Day took place at the Second International Conference of Socialist Women on March 8, 1910 in Copenhagen, at the initiative of Klara Cetkin, leader of German socialists and the women's labor movement, to introduce a day of eternal memory for the demonstrations of American women workers in Chicago in 1909 and in New York march of more than 15,000 women, who demanded shorter working hours, better wages and the right to vote. The first celebration of the holiday was on March 8, 1911 in Austria, Germany, Switzerland and Denmark. After the October Revolution, thanks to the feminist Aleksandra Kolontai, March 8 became a national holiday in the USSR, which was used as a day to celebrate the "heroism of female workers". This practice was accepted by other socialist countries, so this was a big holiday in Yugoslavia as well.
This was the reason why countries in the West, with a capitalist sign, avoided accepting Women's Day as an official one for a long time. Feminists started celebrating it again in the sixties, and the United Nations officially declared March 8 as International Women's Day in 1975.
Modern Montenegro cannot boast of its progress in the sphere of economic, social and political advancement of gender equality. Deep-rooted behaviors that degrade and discriminate against women are also recognized in the latest report of the European Commission. In the World Bank report, which focused on the impact of laws on women's economic opportunities, the index of equality between women and men places Montenegro in 67th place among the 190 countries included in this report.
The time of transition, which will never pass, along with the burden of regional policies that carry the burdens of the 90s and the hegemonic aspirations of certain neighbors, along with the missed democratic breakthrough on August 30, 2020, have led to the erosion of gender-sensitive topics and the creation of an unfavorable climate of social life for the promotion and strengthening gender equality.
The beginning of the new millennium and the further development of our civilization also has one inescapable characteristic - accelerated technological development. Sometimes the development of social awareness and the legislative framework are not able to adequately follow technological progress, and we constantly witness this gap. This is particularly reflected in the digital sphere of our activities, primarily through the use of information and communication technologies. Looking through the light of facts, in Montenegro, more than three quarters of households have access to the Internet, mobile devices with Internet access are used by more than 85% of the population, personal computers and mobile computing platforms are regularly used by more than two thirds of the population. In terms of the number of mobile phones, we are at the very top of Europe and the world.
If we look at all this through the aspect of gender-sensitive values, we witness some unpleasant conclusions. Current Montenegro, and in general the region, Europe as well as the global scene are still a "man's world"! In addition to the existing bright examples and aspirations of official policies, on a daily level we witness examples of unequal distribution of power among different gender roles and, as a part of that, examples of gender-based violence. This is especially expressed in something new, a virtual part of our lives, created by technological solutions in the digital, IT and communication sphere. One of the disturbing phenomena is digital misogyny on social networks and portals, which directly affects women's freedom of expression, which we witness every day and it aims to silence and frighten them. According to the research of the non-governmental association Center for Civic Education (CGO), women are positioned in third place as targets of hate speech, and in addition, in the last almost three years, it has witnessed frequent attacks on women who hold public offices, women who are active in public and political life .
Gender-based violence has become everyday, through its various forms, while the public, non-governmental sector and state institutions approach this problem in a campaign-like manner, clearly showing that they do not have the strength to approach the problem systematically. The murders of women who previously reported violence must be a wake-up call for every woman and man, for every organization and association, and especially for state institutions, that a comprehensive solution must be found through developing and strengthening the family, strengthening education, establishing standards in the media, promoting positive examples in public life, raising the culture of political communication, changing criminal policies, improving the victim protection system violence...
The perception of the public, also according to the CGO research, is a warning because today 64% of respondents believe that women are discriminated against in our society, while this percentage was 42% in 2016 and 34% in 2019.
The basic generator of such negative trends is recognized in the petty populist manipulations of the current participants in the public and political life of Montenegro, who, in order to establish and maintain political power, resort to the collapse of public morale, the engagement of party bots, and the diversion of attention from the essential to the unimportant with the basic aim of humiliation "adversary".
In political life, a negative practice continued, contrary to the precise legal provisions on the fulfillment of minimum quotas for the less represented sex. Electoral commissions have completely ignored their obligation not to accept such flawed electoral lists in all elections since the August 30th changes. Our Parliament is a negative example in respecting the provisions it adopted. The existence of the President of the Parliament of Montenegro cannot reduce the insufficient number of women in the parliamentary benches or in key positions of the executive power.
With the hope that Montenegro will become a place worthy of life for all its women and men, all its citizens, I congratulate March 8 International Women's Day to all of us, because strengthening the role of women through strengthening the economic, political and social equality of women and men must be our priority!
Nebojša Mrvaljević, Executive Director, Forum of Free Citizens "Luča"