A top Romanian politician says her country and politics are “deeply misogynistic and sexist” commenting on sex abuse allegations against two prominent professors, which have caused an uproar in socially conservative Romania.
Culture Minister Raluca Turcan, a veteran politician and one of the few women to have been on the front line of politics for many years, said: “ Any woman in politics faces the bare minimum of verbal harassment, which is grotesque to your inner core and you go home, cry and wonder if it is worth putting up with (Eds: the abuse) from figures who should be role models but actually behave so crudely,” she said on Saturday on Prima TV.
Sex abuse
Her comments on Sunday came after a week of headlines in which former students including presidential candidate Ana Birchall accused Professor Marius Pieleanu and Prof. Alfred Bulai of sexual harassment. The story has caused a storm in the Central European country where sex abuse cases are usually concealed and tolerated.
Mrs. Birchall claimed Prof. Pieleanu sexually harassed her more than a decade ago and went public with some of the messages she allegedly received from him, challenging Romania to take sex offenses more seriously.
Other women have since gone public with their experiences and both professors have resigned from the prestigious National School of Political and Administrative Studies or the SNSPA. Police are investigating Prof. Bulai and have asked other victims to come forward. They have avoided directly addressing the accusations, and have accused the media of “lynching” them.
‘Grotesque aspect’
Asked whether she had encountered similar behavior during her career, Mrs. Turcan told Prima TV’s Political Insider show that the allegations “created a feeling of disgust… about a grotesque aspect of Romanian society. It’s good that the ladies, women, students who were assaulted turned to the police, because it’s a matter for the police.”
“I urge any person who is subjected to emotional or physical aggression to contact the police. My personal experiences have confirmed to me, in all my years and survival in the political world, that the Romanian society is misogynistic with sexist tendencies, and the political world is extremely misogynistic and sexist.”
“Countless times… women are offended to their inner core with all kinds of disgusting remarks, which are tolerated and met with smiles from the men in the Parliament, where only 10% of lawmakers are women.”
Discrimination
Additionally, she said she was sending a team to investigate managers at the National Museum of Art, after receiving a number of complaints from employees who claimed there was “discrimination, pressure” including “sexual harassment”.
Sociologist Alfred Bulai, 61, who regularly appears on television, is accused of asking female students to undress in front of him, according to investigative website Snoop.ro which interviewed 18 victims and witnesses who had inappropriate dealings with him from 1995 to 2024.
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