Features of the Position of Bosnia And Herzegovina’s Woman in Two Public Spheres (Politics and Academic Community) In the First Decades of the Third Millennium

Abstract

This paper presents two spheres of public engagement of women in the contemporary society of Bosnia
and Herzegovina (BiH): politics and the academic community. An insight into the first sphere, the
political one, provides an introductory, succinct overview of the development of societal roles and
positions of women during the period of Jugloslawia (1945-1992). Afterward, it focuses on the current
position of women in another public sphere, the academic community. The applied method was a test
(questionnaire). The first challenge was to determine the exact number of women engaged in the teaching
process at the chosen public university in BiH (University of Zenica) since it was not possible to obtain
data through the official internet websites or from the relevant published documents. According to these
official documents, the total number of employees based on contracts for full-time or piece-work
engagements in 2017 was 520. But, these documents did not contain data on the number of men and
women who are engaged as teachers. Based on data available on the internet websites of faculties of
this University, there were 65 women engaged as teachers; all were full-time employees since these
websites did not present persons engaged as teachers on other legal bases. Results confirmed, while
women were not taking the managing positions, men were undoubtedly dominant in higher education
institutions managing positions. Although women fairly successfully graduate from all three university
study cycles, afterward they face the so-called „glass ceiling“, disabling them or making it very hard to
officially enter the education institutions as employees, which limits any future advancement. Women
who managed to become faculty members were very often faced with gender-based stigmatization and/or
segregation. Further analyses should establish why women, as employees of HEIs, hesitate and decline
to accept managing positions. Also, it is necessary to enhance the higher education institution’s
methodology of reporting, for HEIs to provide clear data on the number of women engaged in the
teaching process, and data on their status (assistants or senior assistants, and assistant, associate or full
professors). When a total number of women employed as teaching, administrative and technical staff in
an HEI is given, the actual state of gender equality in any of the mentioned three segments is presented.
The importance of women’s participation in politics becomes also clear in this point since it is extremely
important to have political awareness and readiness for solving problems and creating relevant policies
for the above issues.