Anything being done for the first time generates a lot of interest, both in the media as well as among the consuming public who devour such coverage. So when it comes to female MPs posing in a glam calendar, the interest generated is bound to be on the higher side. As it was when the Public Affairs (VV – Veci verejne) party in the Czech Republic started selling a 2011 calendar featuring photographs of some of its leading female members, including four newly sworn-in lawmakers, clad in revealing outfits and posing provocatively.
The Public Affairs party is an upstart one, and is a constituent of the three-party, centre-right coalition of Czech Prime Minister Petr Necas. The alliance won the May 2010 elections on a platform of austerity and fears of a Greek-style meltdown. Uncertainty and tension have been dogging it from the very beginning. The junior coalition partner, the centrist Public Affairs, is in parliament for the first time. Its journalist-turned-politician Chairman, Radek John, has gone on record saying that the party was neither left- nor right-leaning, but whatever best suits the country.
Among what the "wild card" party thinks is best for the country is this calendar which the Wall Street Journal called a "sign of the times". The newspaper gushed, "A new generation of Czech women is coming of age that is embracing femininity and sex-appeal while at the same time fighting for, and winning, more equal treatment in the realms of business and government." Times have indeed changed considerably since its Communist past, with as many as 44 women making it to the 200-person lower house of the Czech parliament. The speaker, Miroslava Nemcova, of the conservative Civic Democratic Party is a woman—the first to hold the post. So are two of her three deputies.
In the erstwhile Czechoslovakia, women were said to smuggle in fashion magazines to stay tuned to the times. Style, apparently, was something that had always mattered to the Czechs. The debate generated by the Public Affairs party women as of now is sharply polarised between two camps: those who think that the women have demeaned themselves by posing, and those who argue that it is within their rights to do what they think is right.
Anyone assuming a public office, especially politicians, the world over are expected to be dour and dull, bereft of any gloss. Anyone who even by a thin line crosses that threshold is seen as glamorous. The media laps it up and so do people. During an age when packaging of the individual is often what discerns one from a rival, we are likely to see more of such calendars. Probably more in Europe than anywhere else. Maybe just the calendar bit might gain currency.
