Talking about women it all goes back to Adam and Eve. Woman – temptress, muse, friend and helper, lover, mother and so many other things. Today we try to paint the portrait of women in Bulgaria - multi-faceted and contradictory, a reflection of the world that surrounds them.

But let us move on to the figures of stark reality for women in Bulgaria. Women in this country are a little over 50 percent of the population, but the employment rate among them stands at around 42 percent. The consequences of the world economic crisis and the slump in production hit women hardest. “185,000 jobs were lost compared to the pre-crisis year of 2008,” say the independent trade unions in Bulgaria. According to Eurostat, at the end of 2013 unemployment among women went up, reaching a little over 12 percent. Youth unemployment has greatly affected young Bulgarian women. Around 43 percent of unemployed women in the country have been out of a job for more than one year. Women-employers constitute a mere 26 percent. Still, there is one thing Bulgaria tops the list of European countries for – according to European Commission data 16 percent of all members of the boards of major companies in this country are women, the average percentage in the EU being 14.

But what about the most important role of women – that of creating the future? Women have been postponing childbirth more and more. The average age for the birth of a first child in this country now stands at 26 years and 2 months; in 2001 it was much lower – 23 years and 8 months. A typical Bulgarian family has one child, only rarely two.

According to a sociological survey, quoted by the independent trade unions, one in four women in Bulgaria are subjected to domestic violence. “Bulgarian women still feel and see themselves as unequal to men in the sphere of politics and economy, they are subject to unfair competition, to psychological and physical harassment in the home and at work,” says Plamen Dimitrov, chair of the Confederation of Independent Trade Unions in Bulgaria.

Yet: “I have been to many countries, but there is no place like home,” says a woman around 40 who has lived abroad for eight years but has then returned to Bulgaria. “For good,” she says.

“What we have – home, family, that is what really matters because wherever you may go, there is no place like home. And no amount of money can compensate it. I myself wanted to see how things were in another country, because if you haven’t been abroad you can never appreciate the things you have. Compared to other women in Europe, we are real conjurors - we make a little money go a long way. Bulgarian women have always been able to combine the roles of mother and wife with a career as well as always looking her best, something that really matters.”

But there are other ways to look at things. A woman in her early 50’s, an attorney-at-law – a profession that makes a cross-section of human lives and families - is adamant as to what women in Bulgaria should be like:

“They must sit down and think a little, rise against everything that is vulgar in our lives and go back to tradition. This is the way to remedy society, families and our lives…”

English version: Milena Daynova