Gender Equality: Before and After the Enlargement of EU: The Case of the Czech Republic

• Date: 01 March 2007
• Published date: 01 March 2007
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-0386.2007.00366.x
• Author: Kristina Koldinskà

Gender Equality: Before and After the

Enlargement of EU: The Case of

the Czech Republic

Kristina Koldinskà*

Abstract: This article focuses on the case of the Czech Republic as an example of

historical determination of the post-communist society in central Europe. It looks at the

Czech Republic as an example of a society harmonising its legislation with EU law,

focusing on the impact on changes in ‘gender issue’. The article discuses the strugle for

equality between men and women as a strugle for freedom and for real democracy.

I Introduction

The issue of gender equality has always been present in the political and social debates

of the last 100 years. It had different shapes, different emphasis, and had been under-

stood in different ways, but within this issue of equality there has always been an accent

for the strugle for freedom, as an impartial part of the strugle for the progress in the

whole society.

In this article, the development of understanding and enforcing equality between

men and women is discussed. The most important milestones, which marked the

historical development of the understanding of equality between man and woman, are

identified for a better understanding of the present situation of equal treatment of men

and women in the Czech society.

The fundamental question of this article is, in which way the enlargement of EU

influenced the situation of gender equality in new EU Member States of Central and

Eastern Europe, wherease the case of the Czech Republic is used as an example. When

searching for answers to this question, Czech historic experience and current situation

are scrutinised.

II Brief Historical Overview

Looking at the history of Czech Republic, we are looking at the history of one of the

two presently independent countries of former Czechoslovakia. The Czechoslovak

Republic was established in 1918, as a modern democratic country, declaring its

independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

* Lecturer in Social and Labour Law at Charles University, Prague.

European Law Journal, Vol. 13, No. 2, March 2007, pp. 238–252.

© 2007 The Author

Journal compilation © 2007 Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford, OX4 2DQ, UK

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