Naslov
The Media Representation of Female Politicians in Croatia: Who will give us power if we think we do not deserve it?

Autori
Holy, Mirela

Vrsta, podvrsta i kategorija rada
Poglavlja u knjigama, znanstveni

Knjiga
Women and the Media in Capitalism and Socialism An Ecofeminist Inquiry

Urednik/ci
Topić, Martina

Izdavač
Intellect

Grad
Bristol

Godina
2023

Raspon stranica
163-178

ISBN
9781789386684

Ključne riječi
gender roles, media, politics, women in politics, Croatia

Sažetak
Croatia is the latest member of the European Union (2013), but also one of the European countries where the social role of the Catholic Church is extremely powerful. Since Croatia entered the European Union the strengthening of the social influence of clerical Catholic associations has significantly increased. This is evident from the referendum changes of the Constitution of the Republic of Croatia (2013) which defined marriage as an explicit community of man and woman. Although the Croatian Parliament one year later voted the Same-sex Life Partnership Act (2014), a conservative initiatives aimed at empowering gender stereotypes became one of the most important social factors in Croatia. Their public ambitions are following: ban of abortion ; prohibition of sex education in schools ; clericalization of the curriculum ; censorship of liberal / progressive cultural programs. Their real interest is to preserve the political power and the strong social influence of the Catholic Church and associated lobbies. At the end of 2017 religious associations such as “Vigilare” and “U ime obitelji” (On behalf of the family) were particularly active in the obstruction of the ratification of The Istanbul Convention, or The Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence. These organizations, just like their mentor, The Croatian Bishops' Conference, claim that The Istanbul Convention promotes “gender ideology” and "socially-shaped roles". Namely, according to them, sex, not gender, determines what is the role of men and what is the role of women, they deny the existence of gender as a social construct. According to them, the role of women is to give birth to children and care for families. They believe women should give birth even if they were raped and resolutely object to "non-stereotyped gender roles". The fact is that these initiatives would not have such social relevance when there was not a fertile social ground in Croatia for these types of ideas. In this sense, the media representation of women in Croatian politics is only a reflection of such deep-rooted prejudices that clerical initiatives are grimly trying to hold. The paper research why and how well-known Croatian women political journalists participate in the creation of such media presentations. The research is conducted through in-depth interviews with several famous Croatian journalists writing for the most read daily newspapers.

Izvorni jezik
Engleski

Znanstvena područja
Informacijske i komunikacijske znanosti, Sociologija

POVEZANOST RADA