The Female MP - Between Parliament and Her Home

• Authors: Kinowska Z.
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

At the beginning of May 2004, the Institute of Political Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences launched a research project entitled 'Women in the political elite'. Towards the end of the previous parliamentary term, that is, the 4th term, there were 100 women in the Seym. 85 of them were interviewed for the project. The authoress has based her paper on 57 interviews with women MPs who have their own families; in some cases, these are single-parent families. As a part of the project, she tries to answer the questions as to whether and to what extent the work of women sitting in Parliament affects their private lives. While conducting the research, she focused on exploring the following issues: 1. he problem of combining parliamentary and home-making duties with those of making a home. 2. The issue of the division of housework. 3. The effect which being an MP has had on the respondents' private and family lives - their marriages, their relationship with their children and their physical and mental state. In order to compare the effect of various family situations on the respondents, they were divided into four categories, namely, MPs without children, MPs with children aged 0-7, those with children aged 8-18 and MPs with adult children (that is, over 18). Definitely it is easiest for the respondents with no children to combine family life and an MP's duties. The unproblematic combining of sitting in parliament with family proves to be impossible in the case of MPs with the youngest children, that is, those no older than 7. These respondents find it very difficult to discharge their professional and family duties properly. Combining the two roles not only means physical exhaustion, but also leads to serious emotional costs. The challenges faced by MPs with children aged 8-18 are not as serious; however, they must also balance the quality of their family life with a degree of compromise in their professional obligations. The analysis of the research material which focused on the division of housework proves that it is the general tendency for all the housework to be done by members of the household themselves, perhaps with some help from other close family members. It is surprising that despite their huge burden of responsibilities at work, the women MPs are reluctant to hire domestic help. There are two possible kinds of influence which sitting in parliament has on the family life of the respondents; it can either break or strengthen relationships between family members. It is seldom neutral. Examples of both the destructive and strengthening influence of parliamentary work on relationships can be found in respondents' stories.

Keywords

EN

POLISH PARLIAMENT; WOMAN IN POLITICS

Discipline

• POLITICAL_SCIENCES: POLITICAL SCIENCES

• Publisher: Institute of Political Studies, Polish Academy of Sciences and Collegium Civitas
• Journal: Studia Polityczne (Political Studies)
• Year: 2007
• Issue: 19
• Pages: 121-130
• Document type: ARTICLE

Contributors

author

Kinowska Z.

• Z. Kinowska, Instytut Studiów Politycznych PAN, ul. Polna 18/20, 00-625 Warszawa, Poland

Identifiers

CEJSH db identifier

07PLAAAA03156519