Social reflection on the Office of the Equal Opportunities Ombudsperson: case of Lithuanian WEB 2.0 community

Vienas mechanizmų, užtikrinančių lygybės principo įgyvendinimą Lietuvos visuomeniniame gyvenime, yra Lygių galimybių kontrolieriaus tarnyba (toliau - LGKT). Straipsnyje nagrinėjama informacijos apie lygių galimybių kontrolieriaus tarnybos veiklą 2011 metais socialinė refleksija, paskelbta DELFI.lt tinklalapyje. Tyrimu siekiama atsakyti į klausimą apie LGKT veiklos ir kartu lygių galimybių reikšmingumą visuomeniniame gyvenime eilinių piliečių, įvaldžiusių naujas informacines technologijas ir apibūdinamų kaip „Web 2.0 bendruomenė", požiūriu. Empirinių duomenų interpretacija leidžia teigti, kad „Web 2.0 bendruomenė" reflektuoja ne tiek LGKT veiklos ar lygių galimybių, kiek lyčių galios santykių klausimus, siekdama įtvirtinti savo lyties tapatybes. LGKT veiklos ignoravimas gali būti siejamas su žiniasklaidos manipuliavimu informacija, lygybės ir diskriminacijos aktualumu „Web 2.0 bendruomenėje" ir LGKT veiklos sklaidos neefektyvumu.The Office of Equal Opportunities Ombudsperson (in function since 1999), which is an independent state institution accountable to the Parliament, is one of the key institutions within the equal opportunities and gender equality machinery. It takes overall responsibility for the supervision and implementation of the Law on Equal Opportunities for Women and Men (in effect since 1999) and Law of Equal Treatment (in effect since 2005) in Lithuania. Both laws are constantly revised, however both shall not apply to family and private life. The Ombudsman investigates individual complaints on the grounds of gender, age, racial or ethnic origin, religion and beliefs, disability, sexual orientation, language, social status; submits recommendations and proposals to the Parliament, governmental institutions on the priorities of gender equality policy, including recommendations on amendments to relevant legislation. In short, the Office deals with discrimination in the public sphere: labor (including job advertisements), education and science, massmedia. The main idea of the research is to catch a social reflection on the Office's activities in attempt to find out How are important the Office, hence protection of equality in Lithuanian life. The source of empirical data for analysis are the readers' comments of the publication "Men Complain That Their Place In The Sun Are Held by Women" (Vyrai skundžiasi, kad jų vietą po saule užima moterys), where information about complains submitted to the Office in 2011 was presented. This publication and, accordingly, its readers' comments were published in the popular internet news portal DELFI.lt in January 18, 2012. The authors of the comments are defined as the Web 2.0 community and their created users generated content - the comments as a whole (n=204), are defined as a polyphonical text. It should be recognized that activity of the Office is not a leitmotiv of the created text, which is the empirical expression of social reflection. This disregard to the Office may be caused by some reasons. First - the limited content of the publication - mainly statistical indicators have been presented. Meanwhile, the title and trailer of the publication that actually did not meet its content emphasized the aspect of masculinity and gender struggle to some extent; in recent time masculinity issues is a popular topic of mass media. It seems, as the readers as the authors of the comments prefer to be confined at provoking title of the publication than to go into its content. Most probably that discrimination is not actualized in the personal experience of the majority in the Web 2.0 community therefore, the Office's services have not been relevant during the creation of the text as well. In the Web 2.0 community texts unlike in everyday media texts the communicative components are more important than the informative one. Thus, the authors reflecting the title of the publication and communicating with each other reinforced her/his gender identity - gender binary and hegemonic gender representations are the dominant theme of the text. The text can be viewed as a typical system of cultural representations setting male domination and female subordination up. Male domination, sometimes manipulating by wound of masculinity, typically has been secured by woman's invisibility - themes proposed by women have been often ignored by co-authors. In general the text created by Web 2.0 community reflects the vitality of patriarchal culture in Lithuania.[...