Gender Politics and Post-Communism

Abstract

The essays about womens status in Eastern European countries and some independent states of the former USSR focuses on the post-communist era and gender politics. Social and economic changes in these countries reflect quite different experiences from Western notions and are shaped by philosophical cultural as well as political and economic contexts. The Eastern and Central European changes are all encompassing and are directed to specific issues such as the equality of The views in this book reflect the influences of Western feminist thinking (acceptance rejection or transformation). Differences in terminology are an important source of misunderstanding. The organization by country highlights the enormous cultural and historical differences in conflicts between the system and social integration in the presence or absence of social and political persons or groups in the strategies used to control womens bodies and in the extent of womens organization. Women do not suddenly become liberated due to the recent changes to market driven economies and more democratic orders. Womens groups were organized during the 1970s and 1980s in the German Democratic Republic the former Yugoslavia and some former Soviet Republics. Neoconservatism began long before the 1980s. In Hungary Czechoslovakia and the Slovak Republics and the former USSR value systems are in conflict. In Yugoslavia there was moral confusion under the old regime. In 1989 even time has taken on new meaning in the former Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia. The state versus the family has been the focus of discussion rather the Western notion of private versus public. No feminist philosophy is possible under the constructed ideology of state socialism and its emphasis on holistic and collectivist thinking. Liberation is in terms of class struggle and paid employment. State interpretations of equality have to be broken down. Individuals and individual rights are subsumed; many ideas reflect hostility toward Western feminism is suspect as another ism. Patriarchal emancipation helps create the triple burden on women.