The choice of profession, education and career must not depend on gender roles, and someone’s abilities and competences must not be measured by sex, but by knowledge, expertise and professionalism, said the Commissioner for the Protection of Equality, Milan Antonijević, regarding the statement of Professor Vladimir Đukić in the program “Ćirilica Milomira Marića” that “women can do everything, except be surgeons”.

The Law on the Prohibition of Discrimination clearly prescribes that women and men are equal in all areas of social life, including work and professional fulfilment, which is why it is important that the public space not be a place for spreading stereotypes, but for encouraging equal opportunities and respect for expertise and knowledge, Antonijević states.

Statements like this support prejudices that women are less capable of engaging in responsible professions, and it is particularly concerning when the view that women “cannot” perform certain professions is presented as a fact. The history of medicine, science and society as a whole shows precisely the opposite – that women, despite obstacles, discrimination and stereotypes, have achieved outstanding results and changed entire professions.

When, with the support of part of the media, an atmosphere is created in which women are discouraged or presented as less capable of certain jobs, this is not about expertise, but about an attempt to preserve privileges and spaces of power, and it is particularly dangerous when personal views or stereotypes are declared to be the “natural state of things” or “facts”, because this directly affects young women who are only just choosing their professional path, the Commissioner emphasized.

Any profession in which men are organized in such a way as to push women out of positions of decision-making, reputation or success, while presenting their own dominance as proof of “objective superiority”, in fact says more about the inequality of the system than about women’s abilities.

A society that wants progress must not allow prejudices to determine the limits of someone’s possibilities. Knowledge, dedication and responsibility have no sex, Antonijević concluded.