Bits of Freedom: Demystifying Women's Activism under State Socialism in Poland and Georgia

Abstract

This article interrogates the possibility of incorporating the state socialist women's activism into feminist genealogies locally and globally. Contemporary interest in women's political and social engagements pre 1989 transformations in eastern Europe and former Soviet Union, evidences dissatisfaction with existing approaches to state socialism and the lack of empirical research on women's political engagements during that time period. This paper, which is based on ethnographic research with former women's activists in Poland and Georgia, attempts to reconsider state socialism as uniformly “bad for women” by looking at women's motives for becoming members of parties and women's organizations, by scrutinizing their level of autonomy in working in the area of “women's rights” and by examining their approaches to feminism and systemic transformations. While studying women's lives under state socialism may constitute a valuable critical starting point for reformulation of local and global feminist theories, it frequently raises the questions of “truth” and “historical politics” relevant to some methodological debates within feminism. To address these criticisms the author explores applicability of some of the feminist methodological debates: i.e. on “location” and “affect” to the studies of state socialism.