Ставови младих у Србији према проституцији, родној равноправности и феминизму у 2016. години
Аttitudes of Young People in Serbia About Prostitution, Gender Equality and Feminism in 2016

Summary/Abstract: Within the context of unregulated rights of women engaged in prostitution this paper analyses this phenomenon from social, gender and political aspects. Considering legislation in countries with high index of gender equality and through the prism of research conducted in the world and in Serbia, the final outcome was, above all, bringing into relation the phenomenon of gender equality with prostitution. The conducted research was aimed to examine social and demographic correlates of attitudes of young people in Serbia about prostitution, gender equality and feminism. The first task was to check metric characteristics of three scales, where two were co-opted from former research (gender equality and feminism; (Džamonja-Ignjatović, Žegarac, Popović, & Duhaček, 2009), while one scale was constructed for the purpose of this research (the scale of attitudes about prostitution). The second task was to examine whether and in which way inspected attitudes depend on gender, place of growing up and age of participants. Finally, we believed that it would be important to check in which relation these three attitudes are and whether their connectedness with basic variables of sexual behaviour exists, such as age of the first sexual intercourse and the number of sexual partners. We wished to research the existence of connectedness between advocating for a better life of women generally and in prostitution by questioning the connectedness of attitudes toward prostitution (advocating for better regulations in the country, more adequate health care and social protection of women in prostitution, minor social stigma and social distance) and the attitude toward gender equality and feminism. The sample for research was 1114 participants (67.6% female and 32.4% male). The average age of participants was 22.4 years (SD=2.59). The results point to the fact that male and female participants are different in all three scales of attitudes. The biggest difference was detected in the scale of feminism and in favour of female participants (d=0.76). Similar to that, female participants have a more positive attitude about gender equality in relation to male participants (d=0.39). In the scale of attitudes about prostitution we registered a completely opposite tendency. Namely, in this case, a significantly more positive attitude was registered with male participants (d=0.34). Also, the results point that there is a positive correlation of attitudes toward gender equality and prostitution, and the difference between male and female participants in regard to the attitudes about prostitution was far more noticeable in smaller than in bigger cities. More and more negative attitudes of males in bigger cities may be perceived as an indicator of a higher grade of understanding of social and economic circumstances in which women had been brought to the position of engaging within unregulated prostitution including all the risks such an activity provides. On the other hand, more and more positive attitudes of women about prostitution in bigger cities may be realised as an expression of emancipation of traditional models of gender roles. In accordance with this is the finding of the correlation between the attitude toward prostitution and a number of sexual partners, including different models registered between the genders of participants. The highest value of this work would be the rise of awareness of scientific and professional public about the importance of adopting equal discourse which would put in the foreground the introduction of women`s right element in prostitution and different systemic regulations in Serbia. In that respect, further examination of the attitudes about systemic solutions, chances and challenges in the field of prostitution would provide a significant input of research to this subject.

• Details
• Contents