WUNRN
Post-Communist
Challenges and Emancipated Discourses Changes of Gender Politics and Practices
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By MariuszCzepczyński and Małgorzata
Tarasiewicz. "Broad spectrum of post-socialist social and
political transformations includes deep changes of gender politics and
practices. Despite of formal and legal communist equal rights rule, the everyday
practice before 1989 proved profound gender discrimination and stratifications.
Since the beginning of 1990s women have started the long lasted political and
social emancipation process, especially difficult in traditional, rural,
conservative and male-dominated society of
State
Communism, in some aspects, included gender, had created certain, almost
‘open-air museum-like’ situation, where practices and approaches had often been
copied form the 1930s societies. The process of post-totalitarian gender
emancipation has been facilitated by numerous discourses, including employment
policy, abortion, gay and lesbian rights, women political activity, family
planning, birth-giving, sexual harassment, gender organisations and many
others.
Political
and Social Transformations After Socialism
The
concept of socialism refers to a broad array of ideologies and movements which
aim to improve society through collective and egalitarian action; and to a
socio-economic system in which property and the distribution of wealth are
subject to control by the community (Szarota 2001, Brzeziński 1960).
Socialism can be seen as a kind of extreme humanism. While the main, declared
goals of socialism: human development, equal rights (including gender) and
equal distribution of resources seldom raise many disputes, the implementation
of the most humanistic of the projects is always realised by faulty humans, and
brings the bright ideas into the manoeuvres of the real, hard word. There is an
important difference in understanding the phenomena of socialism, one can speak
about two ‘socialist projects’: one deeply humanistic, referring to all the
positive and positivistic aspects of social tradition, as it is mainly seen in
the West, and the other one, connected with its practical implementation, was
always based on terror, limitation of basic civil rights, and oppression. One
of the expression of socialism can be called ‘admirative’, seen as a radical
humanism, while the other side of it was aggressive and totalitarian, focused
on elimination of class enemies, controlled civic existence in the smallest
possible details and transform human individuals into a ‘parts of the
collective’ (Nawratek 2005, Czepczyński 2008). The majority of the Central
European societies entered state communism in feudal or post-feudal social
order. Communism brought certain aspects of equality and human rights,
including gender, but at the same time extremely oppressive state overtook all
the whole civic system and limited personal and organisational freedoms. In the
end, the positive aspects of socialism have been overshadowed by the tyrannical
practices of everyday life (Czepczyński 2008).
State socialism in
Post-communist societies were freed from the principles of
egalitarianism and equality, which had been imposed on them by the communist
regimes. These changes were a reaction to totalitarian methods of governing,
but were also brought about by the general cultural tendencies occurring in the
industrial world by the end of the 20th century. After 1989 societies faced
vast legal, economic, social, cultural, and gender conversions. Changes have
been accelerated by the explosion of free market and flow of capital,
globalization of cultures, fast transfer of information, as well as appearance
of new actors on the social scene, free media, local governments, very broad
spectrum of politicians, as well as non-governmental organizations. Gender has
been only a marginal concern in post totalitarian reform processes in
The conversion of powers in
· Political, as a shift from authoritarian dictatorship towards parliamentarian democracy, based on coherent legal system, where society is an active participant of the governing processes and procedures. Political instability and frequent transformation of political parties left the electorate somehow lost in multiple choices. Regional policies forced de-centralization of power and recreation of local municipalities.
· Economic, where centrally planned state economy was replaced by private and market oriented, based on free competition of entrepreneurships and liberalization of market rules. Privatization, collapse of old socialist industries and foreign investments changed local economic rules, while unemployment rose as one of the main economic and social problems in most countries of the region.
·
Social, was started by contestation of forced interpretation of
the communists’ social ideas. Egalitarian imperative parity was replaced by
differentiations and pluralism. Civic and gender rights together with freedom
of thoughts boosted the rising aspirations. Freedom of movements caused vast
migrations, especially after joining EU, reshaping many local and regional
labour markets and societies (see Sorin and Tismaneanu 2000).
Political scene of
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