Gender Investigations in the Modern Society: Problems, Realities, Perspectives

Quod non licet feminis, aeque non licet viris (Latin).
(What is not allowed for women is allowed for men).

In many world countries the last decades of the XX century were marked by the considerable changes in the understanding of equality between potential possibilities of men and women, and enforceability of this equality in the post-industrial society. It especially concerns the access to economic, politic and educational resources. Formation of the personality of man and woman, and gender balance in the society are proclaimed to be one of the strategies of development of the European countries in the XXI century.  

Adherence to the regulation of impartial attitude toward the person regardless of his gender is now perceived as an integral part of democratic transformations and of gradual development of the society. The problem of equality in any sphere can not be considered beyond the scopes of law, because the law itself is understood as an equal freedom of all and everyone - both men and women. Ukraine has chosen the strategy of European choice and is now at the stage of formation and development of gender researches in the sphere of law, active adoption of laws which regulate different kinds of public relations concerning the introduction of standards of equality of rights and freedoms of a man and woman. The expertises of regulatory legal acts regarding the concealed gender discrimination are also carried out in Ukraine.  

Presently protection of women’s rights at the international and national levels is carried out with the help of special regulatory legal acts. Because of their peculiarities they differ from general principles and mechanisms of protection of personal rights. Consequently we can make the following two conclusions. Firstly, woman’s rights are not taken into consideration to the full extent in the general conception of personal rights which is oriented on the man’s standard. Secondly, problematic of special man’s rights which would include his special needs is not worked out at all. Woman is regarded as a weaker social gender and special protectionist mechanisms are needed in order to “draw” her position to universal standards. 

Natalya Onishchenko, Svitlana Bereza, Larysa Makarenko