The status of women and gender (ine)equality

Numanović Duljević Birsena (Srednja škola \\\"Nikola Tesla\\\", Centar za strateška istraživanja CESNA B, Beograd), birsena.n.duljevic@gmail.com

The topic of the position of women and gender (in)equality represents an essential challenge for all relevant practitioners from ancient times and the protests of Roman women to the present day. The above phenomena have triggered numerous controversies with explicit connotations in the theory and practice of individual states. Our work considers influential postulates on this issue in democratic and totalitarian societies, starting from feminism and the axiom that the position of women depends primarily on the conglomeration of political and social freedoms and not exclusively on formal legislative regulation. By analysing and synthesising the current topic in the Republic of France, the Russian Federation, and Saudi Arabia, we will point out the specificities of gender equality in democratic and totalitarian social structures. Cognitive research implies that authoritarian regimes limit the emancipatory potential of equality, reducing it to a symbolic, i.e., controlled, pragmatic reality. It can be objectively stated that women’s equality in Western democratic societies (in France) is insufficiently aligned with existing legal regulations, which is why the EU represents an important catalyst for the real, and not just formal, achievement of gender equality. On the other hand, in orthodox regimes (Russia and Saudi Arabia), women’s equality has retrograde connotations, so some modernisation is needed in terms of human rights protection but also the consistent application of international legal standards.

Keywords: position of women, gender (in)equality, legal regulation, Republic of France, Russian Federation, Saudi Arabia, EU