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Women in Transition From Post Feminism to Past Femininity
Dr. Sam Vaknin
"[In]... the brothels off Wenceslas Square, in central Prague,
[where] sexual intercourse can be bought for USD 25 - about half
the price charged at a German brothel... Slav women have
supplanted Filipinos and Thais as the most common foreign
offering in [Europe]." (The Economist, August 2000, p.18)
"I'm also wary of the revolutionary ambition of some feminist
texts, with their ideas about changing present conditions, having
seen enough attempted utopia's for one lifetime" (Petr Príhoda,
The New Presence, 2000, p. 35).
"As probably every country has its Amazons, if we go far back in
Czech mythology, to a collection of Old Czech Legends, we come
across a very interesting legend about the Dévín castle (which
literally means 'The Girls' Castle'). It describes a bloody story
about a rebellion of women, who started a vengeful war against
men. As the story goes, they were not only capable warriors, they
had no mercy and would not hesitate to kill their fathers and
brothers. Under the leadership of mighty Vlasta, the "girls"
lived in their castle, "Dévín", where they underwent a severe
military training. They led the war very successfully, and one
day Vlasta came up with an shrewd plan, how to take hostage a
famous nobleman, Ctirad. She chose the lovely Sárka from the body
(sic!) of her troops and had her tied up to a tree by a road with
a horn and a jar of a mead out of her reach, but in her sight. In
this state, Sárka was waiting for Ctirad to find her. When he
actually really appeared and saw her, she told him a sad story of
how the women from Dévín punished her for not following their
ideology by tying her to the tree, mockingly putting a jar and a
horn (so that she would be always reminded that she is thirsty
and helpless) near by. Ctirad, enchanted by the beautiful woman,
believed the lure and untied her, and when she handed him the
mead, he willingly drunk it. When he was drunk already, she let
him blow the horn, which was a signal for the Dévín warriors to
capture him. He was then tortured in many horrible ways, at the
end of which, his body was woven into a wooden wheel and
displayed. This event mobilized the army, which soon afterwards
destroyed Dévín. (Very significantly, this legend is the only
account of radical feminism in Czech Lands.)" ("The Vissicitudes
of Czech Feminism" by Petra Hanáková)
"We myself...and many others are not in search of global
sisterhood at all, and it is only when we give up expecting it
that we can get anywhere. It is each other's very 'otherness '
that motivates us, and the things we find in common take on
greater meaning within the context of otherness. There is so much
to learn by comparing the ways in which we are different, and
which the same elements of women's experience are global, and
which aren't, and wondering why, and what it means" (Jirina
Siklová)
"It is difficult to carry three watermelons under one arm."
(Proverb attributed to Bulgarian women)
"The high level of unemployment among women, segregation in the
labour market, the increasing salary gap between women and men,
the lack of women present at the decision making level,
increasing violence against women, the high levels of maternal
and infant mortality, the total absence of a contraceptive
industry in Russia, the insufficiency of child welfare benefits,
the lack of adequate resources to fund current state programs -
this is only part of the long list of women's rights violations."
(Elena Kotchkina, Moscow Centre for Gender Studies, "Report on
the Legal Status of Women in Russia")
Communism was men's nightmare and women's dream, or so the left
wing version goes. In reality it was a gender-neutral hell. Women
under communism were, indeed, encouraged to participate in the
labour force. An array of conveniences facilitated their
participation: day care centres, kindergarten, daylong schools,
abortion clinics. They had their quota in parliament. They
climbed to the top of some professions (though there was a list
of women-free occupations, more than 90 is Poland). But this - as
most other things in communism - was a mere simulacrum.
Reality was much drearier. Women, however mettlesome, groaned
under the "triple burden" - work, marital expectations cum
childrearing chores and party activism. They succumbed to the
lure and demands of the (stressful and boastful) image of the
communist "super-woman". This martyrdom - now threatened by the
dual Western imports, capitalism and feminism - served as a
fountain of self-esteem and a source of self-worth in otherwise
gloomy circumstances.
Yet, the communist inspired workplace revolution was not
complemented by a domestic one. Women's traditional roles - so
succinctly summarized by Bismarck with Prussian geniality as
"kitchen, children, church" - survived the modernizing onslaught
of scientific Marxism. It is true that power shifted within the
family unit ("The woman is the neck that moves the head, her
husband"). But the "underslippers" (as Czech men disparagingly
self-labeled) still had the upper hand. In short, women were now
subjected to onerous double patriarchy, both private and public
(the latter propagated by the party and the state). It is not
that they did not value the independence, status, social
interaction and support networks that their jobs afforded them.
But they resented the lack of choice (employment was obligatory)
and the parasitic rule of their often useless husbands. Many of
them were an integral and important part of national and social
movements throughout the region. Yet, with victory secured and
goals achieved, they were invariably shunned and marginalized. As
a result, they felt exploited and abused. Small wonder women
voted overwhelmingly for right wing parties post communism.
Yet, even after the demise of communism, Western feminism failed
to take root in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). The East Coast
Amazons from America and their British counterparts were too
ideological, too Marxist, too radical and too men-hating and
family-disparaging to engender much following in the just-
liberated victims of leftist ideologies. Hectoring, overly-
politicized women were a staple of communism - and so was women's
liberation. Women in CEE vowed: "never again".
Moreover, the evaporation of the iron curtain lifted the triple
burden as well. Women finally had a choice whether to develop a
career and how to balance it with family life. Granted, economic
hardship made this choice highly theoretical. Once again, women
had to work to make ends meet. But the stifling ethos was gone.
Communism left behind it a legal infrastructure incompatible with
a modern market economy. Maternal leave was anywhere between 18
and 36 (!) months, for instance. But there were no laws to tackle
domestic or spousal violence, women trafficking, organized crime
prostitution rings, discrimination, inequality, marital rape,
date rape and a host of other issues. There were no women's media
of any kind (TV or print). No university offered a gender studies
program or had a women's studies department. Communism was
interested in women (and humans) as means of production. It
ignored all other dimensions of their existence. In sputnik-era
Russia, there were no factories for tampons or sanitary bandages,
for example. Communism believed that the restructuring of class
relations will resolve all other social inequities. Feminism
properly belonged to the spoiled, brooding women of the West -
not to the bluestockings of communism. Ignoring problems was
communism's way of solving them. Thus, there was no official
unemployment in the lands of socialism - or drugs, or AIDS, or
unhappy women. To borrow from psychodynamic theories, Communism
never developed "problem constancy".
To many, women included, communism was about the perversion of
the "natural order". Men and women were catapulted out of their
pre-ordained social orbits into an experiment in dystopy. When it
ended, post communism became a throwback to the 19th century: its
values, mores and petite bourgeois aspirations. In the exegesis
of transition, communism was interpreted as an aberration, an
interruption in an otherwise linear progress. It was cast as a
regrettable historical accident or, worse, a criminal endeavour
to be vehemently disowned and reversed.
Yet again women proved to be the prime victims of historical
processes, this time of transition. They saw their jobs consumed
by male-dominated privatization and male-biased technological
modernization. Men in the CEE are 3 times more likely to find a
job, 60-80% of all women's jobs were lost (for instance in the
textile and clothing industries) and the highest rates of
unemployment are among middle aged and older women ("unemployment
with a female face" as it is called in Ukraine). Women constitute
50-70% of the unemployed. And women's unemployment is probably
under-reported. Most unrecorded workers (omitted from the
official statistics) are women. Where retraining is available (a
rarity), women are trained to do computer jobs, mostly clerical
and low skilled. Men, on the other hand, are assigned to
assimilate new and promising technologies. In many countries,
women are asked to waive their rights under the law, or even to
produce proof of sterilization before they get a job. The only
ray of light is higher education, where women's participation
actually increased in certain countries. But this blessing is
confined to "feminine" (low pay and low status) professions.
Vocational and technical schools have either closed down entirely
or closed their gates to women. Even in feminized professions
(such as university teaching), women make less than 20% of the
upper rungs (e.g., full professorships). The tidal wave of the
rising cost of education threatens to drown this trend of women's
education. Studies have shown that, with rising costs, women's
educational opportunities decline. Families prefer to invest -
and rationally so - in their males.
Women witnessed the resurgence of nostalgic nationalism, neo
traditionalism and religious revival - social forces which sought
to confine them to home, hearth, spouse and children and to
"liberate" them from the "forced labour" of communism. Negative
demographic trends (declining life expectancy and birth rate,
numerous abortions, late marriage, a high divorce rate,
increasing suicide rate) conspired to provoke a "we are a dying
nation" outcry and the inevitable re-emphasis of the woman's
reproductive functions. Fierce debates about the morality of
abortion erupted in bastions of Catholic fundamentalism (such as
Poland and, to a lesser degree, Lithuania) as well as in citadels
of rational agnosticism, such as the Czech Republic. Curiously,
prostitution and women trafficking were accepted as inevitable.
Perhaps because they catered to masculine needs.
Indeed, in feminist lore and theory, both nationalism and
capitalism are "patriarchal". Nationalism allocates distinct and
mutually exclusive roles to men and women. The latter are
supposed to act as homemakers and have babies. Capitalism
encourages the formation of impregnable male elites, disseminates
new technologies mainly to male monopolies, eliminates menial and
low skilled (women's) jobs and puts emphasis on masculine traits
such as aggression and competitiveness. No wonder female
political representation in parliaments and governments
diminished dramatically since 1989. When powerless, under
communism, CEE parliaments were stacked with women. Now that they
are more potent elected bodies, they are almost nowhere to be
seen. The few that infiltrated these august institutions are
relegated to "soft" committees (social issues, usually) devoid of
budgets and of influence. It is very much like under communism
when the decision making party echelons were predominantly male.
The only influential women then were dissidents but they seem to
have rejected the fruit of their labour, democracy, in favour of
tranquility and peace of mind - or to have been usurped by an
emerging male establishment. Despite an education in economics,
they are under-represented among business executives, the owners
of privatized enterprises and the beneficiaries of favourable pay
regulations and tax systems.
This erosion of their economic base coupled with the drastic
decreases in child benefits, in the length of maternal leave, in
the number of public and, thus, affordable child care facilities
and in other support networks led to a swift deterioration in the
social status and leverage of women. With their only effective
contraceptive - abortion - restricted, maternal mortality
exploded. So did teenage pregnancy - a result of the curtailing
or absence of sex education. The rate of sexually transmitted
diseases went through the roof. Violence against women - rape,
spousal abuse, date rape - became epidemic. So did skyrocketing
street prostitution. Widowed women - an ever more common
phenomenon in CEE - are destitute and reduced to begging as the
pensions of the lucky ones are ground to nil by a rising cost of
living and IMF prodded stinginess. There are also more quotidian
problems (often neglected by the media hungry and soundbite
craving feminists) like pitiful divorce maintenance payments or
decrepit maternity wards in crumbling hospitals.
Yet, women's reaction to all this was notable in its absence.
After decades of forced activism and imposed altruism, the
imported Western individualism mutated in CEE to malignant
egotism. A sliver of the female population did well in local
government and as entrepreneurs. The rest (especially the old,
the rural, the less educated) stayed at home and seemed to fancy
this novel experience of dependence. A generational divide
emerged. Younger women discovered the joys of conspicuous
consumption and mind numbing pop "culture". They constituted the
masses of career opportunists, the new managerial class,
shareholders and professionals - a pale imitation of the yuppies
of America. Older women retreated - heaving a sigh of relief -
into home and family, seeking refuge from the intrusion of
tedious public matters. Economic realities still forced them to
seek a job and steady income (often in a family business or in
the informal economy, with no job security or regulated labour
conditions) but their activism vanished into newfound and
demonstrative reclusiveness.
Yet, even the young entrepreneurs often fare badly. They lack the
necessary business skills, the knowledge, the supportive
infrastructure, or the access to credit. The older women cannot
work long hours, lack skills and, when officially employed, are
expensive, due to the burden of the still effective social
benefits. Thus, women can be mostly found in services, light
industry and agriculture - the most non lucrative sectors of the
dilapidated economies of CEE. And speaking of the social benefits
not yet axed - their quality has deteriorated, access to them has
been restricted and supplies are often short. The costs of public
goods (mainly health and education) have been transferred from
state to households either officially (a result of the
commercialization of services) or surreptitiously and insidiously
(e.g., patients required to purchase their own food, bed sheets
and medication when hospitalized).
To blame it all on a botched transition is now in vogue. Yet,
many of the problems facing the wretched women of CEE were
evident as early as 30 years ago. The feminization of poverty is
not a new phenomenon, nor is the feminization of certain
professions and the attendant decline in both their status and
their pay. Under communism, women felt as exhausted and as guilt-
ridden as they feel today. They were considered unreliable
workers (which they were, what with a lifetime average of 10
abortions and 2 children). Their offspring endured an alienated
childhood in the brutal and faceless gulag of day care centres
maintained by indifferent bureaucrats. Juvenile delinquency, a
high divorce rate, single motherhood and parasitic fathers were
all swept under the ideological carpet by communism. Even
communism's only achievement - the inclusionary workforce - was
an elaborately crafted illusion for consumption by wide-eyed
Western intellectuals. In the agrarian societies which preceded
communism, women worked no less. And women were not allowed to
work night time or shifts or in certain jobs, nor were they paid
as much as men in equal functions. Job advertising is sex-
specific and sexist to this very day (in stark violation of dead
letter Constitutions).
Discarding the baby with the leaking bathtub has been a hallmark
of transition. Communism has done a lot for women (one of its
very rare achievements). Some of these foundations were sound and
durable and should have been preserved to build upon. Yet the
apathy of women and the zeal of power hungry men converged to
yield an old new world: patriarchal, discriminatory and
iniquitous. The day of CEE feminism will come. But first, CEE has
to become more Westernized.
About The Author
Sam Vaknin is the author of "Malignant Self Love - Narcissism
Revisited" and the editor of mental health categories in The Open
Directory, Suite101, and searcheurope.com.
His web site: http://samvak.tripod.com
Frequently asked questions regarding narcissism:
http://samvak.tripod.com/faq1.html
Narcissistic Personality Disorder on Suite101:
http://www.suite101.com/welcome.cfm/npd
This article, from ArticleCity.com, was posted on January 20,
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