Table Of ContentTHE POLITICS OF GENDER AFfER SOCIALISM
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THE POLITICS OF
GENDER AFI'ER SOCIALISM
. A ESS AY
CO ~iP A R .'\ T I VE - HI S ·ro RI CAL
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I Susan Gal and Gail Kligman
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LIBRARY OF THE
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CENTRAL EUROPE A•
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Copyright© 2000 by Princeton University Press
Published by Princeton University Press, 4I William Street,
Princeton, New Jersey 08S40
In the United Kingdom: Princeton University Press,
Chichester, West Sussex
All Rights Reserved
Library of Qnaress C.talo9in9-in·PJ1blieation D11ta
Gal, Susan, 1949-
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Thc politics of gender after socialism : a coniparativc-historical essay
Susan Gal and Gail Kligman
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-691-04893-2 (cloth : alk. paper)
ISBN 0-69I-04894-0 (pbk. : alk. paper)
I. Sex role-Europe, Eastern. 2. Post-communism-Europe, Eastern.
3. Europe, Eastern-Social conditions-1989- 1. Kligman, Gail.
II. Title.
HQ107S.S.E852 G35 2000
305.3'0947-dc21 00-021231 CIP
This book has been composed in Galliard
The papc:r used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of
ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992 (R I 997) (Perm11nence ofP 11per)
www.pup. princeton .cdu
Printed in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 l
IO 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 l
(Pbk.)
For Anna and Hannah
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Con"nts _____________ ___
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A,•,,o•le"8*e11t1 IX
1. Alter Socialisn1 3
2. Reproduction as Politics 15
3. Dilen1n1as of Public and 37
Pri,~.itc
63
.f. Forn1s of St3tes, Forn1s of "Fan1ilv"
s. 91
Arenas of Political Action
6. Gender and Change 109
119
Notes
141
Bibliop11pby
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was born of the comparative research project that we
Tu1s VOLUME
codirected, Reproducing Gender: Politics, Publics, 11nd Everyd11y Lift 11[
ter Soci11lism, published by Princeton University Press. We wish to thank
again aJl those who participated in that collaborative effort. We are in
debted as well to the two readers for Princeton University Press who
urged us to expand and publish as a separate shorter book what had
been our lengthy introductory essay to the project's coedited volume. A
grant from the MacArthur Foundation's Program on Peace and Interna
tional Cooperation gave us much appreciated resources to pursue our
research and writing. We arc also grateful to our universities for addi
tional support as well as funds fron1 UCLA's Academic Senate and the
Lichtstcrn Fund of the Dcpartn1ent of Anthropology, University of Chi·
cago. l'hc Collegiun1 Budapest provided an elegant and congenial envi
ronment in which to \\ork; Albert and Lori Kligman 's generosity and
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hospitality provided us with another.
The administrative staffs of the Department of Sociology at UClA
and the Department of Anthropology at the University of Chicago ex
tended indispensable support. Thanks arc also due to Mary Murrell, our
editor at Princeton University Press, for her enthusia.srn and encourage
ment, and to Cindy Crurnrine and Paula Durbin-Westby for fine cdito·
rial work.
We arc grateful to Eva Fodor for her research assistance and concep
tual contributions. For their ongoing intellectual stimulation and good
will we thank Andre\v Abbott, Leora Auslander, Susan Crane, Norma
Field, Christy Glass, Sam Hamburg, Robert Levy, Sasha Milicevic, Ruth
Milkman, Carole Pateman, Leslie Salzinger, Dawn Waring, and Viviana
Zcli1,cr. l..ast but not least, we thank each other for being steadfast col
leagues and friends.
THE POLITICS OF GENDER AFTER SOCIALISM
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After Socialism
THE UNEXPECTED collapse of communism a decade ago changed the
world. For the men and women of the former socialist states, Western
freedoms and consumer goods seemed closer than ever before, but so
did daunting financial uncertainty. For them, as for all of us, the familiar
Cold War dualisms that divided Europe into West and East formally dis·
appeared; the countries of East Central Europe and the former Soviet
Union became members of a reconfigured global economy. As East
Central Europe looked with hope to the West, Western politicians, bu
reaucrats, scholars, experts, and volunteers of all sorts headed cast to
help establish democratic practices in East Central Europe. In the years
that followed , increasing class and ethnic differentiation, a rise in unem·
ployment, and a decline in stare subsidies \Vere among the costs consid
ered necessary to transform moribund socialist economics into thriving
markets. These costs ho\vcver, have been experienced differently by
women and men.
It is our goal in this essay to explore how discourses and practices of
gender play a major role in shaping the post-1989 reconstitution of
states and social relations in East Central Europe. Since the end of state
socialism, most studies have focused directly on the economic processes
of markctization and privatization or on the political processes of de·
mocratization, constitutionalism, and the emergence of civil society. We
propose, instead, to consider thc..Rroc~es of the ~~iaJist transfo.c:..
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mations from a gendered perspective. We contend that democratization
comes more clearly into view if one asks how men and women arc differ
ently imagined as citizens, or how "politics" itself is being redefined as
a distinctively masculine endeavor. Similarly, by examining how women
and men arc differently located in the emerging economics, one fore
grounds the usually unremarked yet pervasive and often feminized phc·
nomcnon of small-scaJc, service-sector markctization. Attending to gen·
dcr is analytically productive, leading not only to an understanding of
relations between men and women, but to a deeper analysis of how so-
cial and institutional transformations occur. To this end we raise two
crucial qucstions:,..How arc gender relations and ideas about genCfcr
shaping political and economic change in the region? And what{Qrms of ~1_
gender inequality arc being shaped as a rcsuJt? By making central wha't
CHAPTBll l
has been marginalized, this essay seeks to outline an alternative analyti
cal agenda for research. 1
Recognizing that these processes arc intertwined with events happen
ing sin1ultaneously in Western Europe, the United States, and else
where, we do not consider East Central Europe in isolation, but within
a broader political geography. In discussing postsocialism, we wiJl note
parallels, interactions, and contrasts with other regions in policies and
social trends, as well as in discourses. Of particular interest is the way
that the public arguments about gender in one part of the globe
influence those occurring in another; the way politicians can score
points by aligning with or contrasting themselves to images and policies
in other regions. The historical context of postsocialism is equally im
portant in our analysis. As other scholars have noted, the sometimes
subtle and hidden continuities \vith socialism are as powerful as the dra
matic ruptures. Social actors all over the region have been reaching into
the presocialist past, claiming historical rnodcls, inspiration, and
justification of current political policies and gender arrangements. _Nos
talgia for earlier historical periods-different ones for different constitu
encies- is a pervasive aspect of making the postsocialist future. By at
tending throughout to historical comparisons as \veil as cross-regional
interactions and contrasts, this "'ork engages both the literature on East
Central Europe, and also the broader feminist literature that has pe-r-
sistcntly asked: Ho'v arc states and political-economic processes gen-
dered? How do states and markers regulate gender relations? _.
Gender is defined here as the socialJy and culturally produced ideas
about male-female diffcre11cc, power, and in.equaliry that structure the
reproduction of these differences in the institutionalized practices of
society. What it means to be a "man" or a "woman," to be "masculine"
or "feminine," varies historically. Such cultural c.atcgorics arc formed
through everyday interactions that arc framed within larger discourses
and within specific institutions. We argue that there arc reciprocal ef
fects here: No t only do state policies constrain gender rctatiom,-b.ut
ideas about the differences between men and women shape the- wayS-in
which states arc imagined, constituted, and legitimated. Thus,
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themselves can be in1agined as 1nale, even though both men and
women arc involved in their t>pcration; social categories such as
.. worker" can be identified with a single gender as \VclJ, even if both
men and women work. Such socially constructed ideas linking tcn1inin
ity and masculinity t<J other s<>eial categories arc often embedded in
state p<>licics. Ideas about gender difference also contribute to the
• fOrms of ~arket expansion. Jn shaping institutional change, idea\s
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. about gender difference interact with other central cultural c~;.-J
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structiont such as the nation, the family, the public good. At the same
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APTBJl SOCIALISM
time, the ideologies and policies that states promote, as well as the
constraints and incentives of economics, circumscribe the range of pos
sible relations between men and women. We therefore focus here; QIL
how gender relations both form and arc formed by different ltind_s...Qf _ _
~ states, cii.ff~rent kinds of economics, and different tyP.~S OLP.oJit!cal
action. 2
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While tJ1e category of gender is central to social life, gender arrange
ments arc diverse. One of the in1portant lessons of empirical studies
about the socialist past is that if there ever was a single gender regime of
state socialisn1, it11as long been replaced by many different ways of un
derstanding the relations bel'\vccn men and women. Scholars agree, nev
ertheless, on some of the b:oad feature_§ of socialist gender orders. There
\Vas an attempt to erase gender difference (along with ethnic and class
differences), to create socially uomizcd persons directly dependent on a
paternalist state. Yet, \von1en in socialism \vere also sometimes cons~ta- \.
tuted as a corporate category, bccon1ing a special object of state policy,
\\•ith rninistries or state offices dedicated to \vhat were defined as their
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concerns. Women's full -ti1ne participation in the labor force was dic
tated by the- state, on \vh1ch "'omen '"ere 1nore directly dependent than
they were on 1naividual men. In short, the ideological and social struc
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tural arrangements of state socialisn1 produced maikedlyoiffCrent
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tton bcl'\veentfie state, men, and \vorncn an commonly found, for in
sunce: in classic JiberaJ parliamentary systems Or In var10US kinds Of
Wc:lfare states. Gender as an organ1z1ng principle, male dominance, and
gcnacred inequality can be found in all these systems, but with pro
foundly different configurations.
Socialist gender arrangements then1selves varied significa11tly over
time and space. lndced,~ciar~s~ regimes were ?ften characterized by
ffieywa:ncea
contradictory goals in thelf polac1es lo\Var women: '"ork
ers as well as mothers, token leaders as welJ as obedient cadres. While
officially supporting equality bct\veen men and women, the_ c.cgimcs
countenanced a.nd even produced heated mass media debates about is
such as women's ideal and proper roles, the deleterious effects of
sue~
divorce, rhc effects of labor-force seg.rcgation-such as the fcn1inization
ofscltoc.1hc:aching and agriculture- and the fundan1ental in1portance of
.. natural difference." '['hc:se debates revealed the paradoxes and contra
dictions in official discc>urscs, as \veil as l\U)rc general tcnsion!'l in both
policy goals 11nd the systern of polirical·ccc>non1ic contn>l.
Su~h diverse relations between ufticial ~iscourscs a11d the cvcryday
book.
p.uc11ces of men and women arc a central focus of this People in
the region reacted as much to the representations of themselves in offi
cial c<1mm11nicatit1ns_a .s tc> the often unforeseen and unintended conse
quences of state pohc1cs abc1ut reproduction, sexuality, and family life.
