ERSTE Foundation In 2003, ERSTE Foundation evolved out of the Erste Oesterreichische Spar-Casse, the rst Austrian savings

bank. It holds 25.3% of the shares of Erste Group. ERSTE Foundation invests its dividends in the development of societies in Austria and Central and South Eastern Europe. It supports social participation and civil-society engagement; it aims to bring people together and disseminate knowledge of the recent history of a region that has been undergoing dramatic changes since 1989. As an active foundation, it develops its own projects within the framework of three programmes: Social Development, Culture and Europe. In Austria, private savings banks foundations are committed to serving the common good, while also carrying a special responsibility as main shareholders of their bank. Therefore, a part of ERSTE Foundations dividends goes into maintaining and nancing the shares in the Erste Group. On the other hand, the independence and growth of Erste Group safeguard the future of its major shareholder and its commitment to the common good. Social Development, Culture, Europe www.erstestiftung.org
The studies of Gendering Post-Socialist Transition presented in this volume follow the economic, political, social and cultural effects and traces of system changes in the lives of women and men after 1989 in eleven countries of Central- and South Eastern Europe. The contributions from nine research teams from different Central and South Eastern European countries look into the meaning of these changes for the relationships between men and women, for gender roles and representations, and for the development of normative discourses about femininity and masculinity. With respect to gender relations, these case studies in fact deal with changing values and mentalities in transfor mation and once again show that poverty, social exclusion, nationalism, social and healthcare systems, all have a profound gendered dimension.

ERSTE Foundation Series Volume 1

Gendering Post-Socialist Transition Studies of Changing Gender Perspectives

Edited by Krassimira Daskalova, Caroline Hornstein Tomi, Karl Kaser, Filip Radunovi

ERSTE Foundation Series Volume 1

Krassimira Daskalova, PhD, is a Professor of Modern European Cultural History at the Faculty of Philosophy and Social Sciences, St. Kliment Ohridski University of Soa and Former President of the International Federation for Research in Womens History (IFRWH). Caroline Hornstein Tomi is Research Associate at the Institute of Social Sciences Ivo Pilar in Zagreb and lecturer at Zagreb University. Karl Kaser is head of the Centre for Southeast European History at University of Graz, Austria. He has been intensively publishing on the history of patriarchal family structures and gender relations in the Balkans. Filip Radunovi is working as project manager for Programme Europe at ERSTE Foundation in Vienna and lectures media theories at the Faculty of Drama Arts in Cetinje, Montenegro.

Gendering Post-Socialist Transition

LIT VERLAG

ISBN 9-00790-004008

LIT VERLAG

ERSTE Foundation Series Volume 1

Gendering Post-Socialist Transition Studies of Changing Gender Perspectives

Edited by Krassimira Daskalova Caroline Hornstein Tomi Karl Kaser Filip Radunovi

LIT VERLAG

 CONTENT

Preface Christine Bhler, Filip Radunovi 07 Introduction Krassimira Daskalova, Caroline Hornstein Tomi, Karl Kaser 13
ALBANIA

M AC E D O N I A

Sexualities in Transition: Discourses, Power and Sexual Minorities in Transitional Macedonia Slavco Dimitrov, Katerina Kolozova 151
ROMANIA

Gender Relations in Albania (1967-2009) Fatmira Musaj, Fatmira Rama, Enriketa Pandelejmoni 35
B U LG A R I A

Womens Social Exclusion and Feminisms: Living in Parallel Worlds? The Romanian Case Iancu Alice, Oana Blu, Alina Dragolea, Bogdan Florian 183
H E R Z E G OV I N A , M O N T E N E G R O SERBIA, BOSNIA AND

Gender Identities in Transition: The Role of Popular Culture and the Media in Bulgaria After 1989 Milena Kirova, Kornelia Slavova 65
ERSTE Foundation Series Volume 1 Gendering Post-Socialist Transition. Studies of Changing Gender Perspectives ERSTE Stiftung DIE ERSTE sterreichische Spar-Casse Privatstiftung Friedrichstrae 10, 1010 Wien Visual Concept and Layout: Miriam Strobach, Collettiva Design Proofreding: Anna Herboly Scientic proofreading: Charlotte Eckler 2011 LIT Verlag GmbH & Co. KG Wien A-1080 Grottenthalergasse 10/8 T: +43 (0)1 409 56 61 | F: +43 (0)1 409 56 97 LIT Verlag Berlin 2011 D-48159 Mnster, Fresnostrae 2 T: +49 (0)251 620320 | F: +49 (0)251 231971 Mail: wien@lit-verlag.at | Web: www.lit-verlag.at ISBN 1234567890 C R OAT I A

Single Parents in the Western Balkans: Between Emotions and Market Marina Blagojevi 217
S LOVA K I A

Gender Experiences of Homelessness in Croatia Lynette iki-Mianovi 95

H U N G A RY

Towards Gender Equality In Slovakia? Women in Civic and Political Life Zora Btorov, Jarmila Filadelov, Oga Gyrfov 249
UKRAINE

Traditional and Alternative Patterns in the Social Construction of Care in Hungary After the Transition Judit Acsdy, Anna Biegelbauer, Veronika Paksi, Boglrka Somogyi, Ivett Szalma 119

Mothering the Nation. Demographic Politics, Gender and Parenting in Ukraine Tatiana Zhurzhenko 283 Bibliography 305

Preface Christine Bhler, Filip Radunovi

PREFACE

Gender is a socio-culturally constructed category. Each society frames which roles, behaviour models or attributes are suitable for women, men and other genders. Although gender does not rank highly on the global list of priorities, it is fundamental to the worlds key challenges inequality, economic instability, climate change, political conicts, to name only a few. More than twenty years after the fall of the Iron Curtain, the transformation of gender identities in Central and South Eastern Europe remains largely unexplored. Initially institutionalised by communist ideology, gender equality remains to date a somewhat alien concept in practice for the majority of the former socialist block countries. Still, with renewed economic growth and more liberal regimes in those countries, the gender related debate has intensied and opened up to a broader public. ERSTE Foundation has recognised the need to support this debate, understanding gender equality and diversity as one of the key prerequisites for a just and stable society. Gender issues have been a focal point of ERSTE Foundations work since 2007. We wanted to provide a forum for the development and exchange of ideas and innovations, a laboratory that explores the topics of the future. ERSTE Foundation develops gender issues not only on a multidisciplinary basis, but also by reecting construction of gender within the Foundations manifold networks. One of our rst initiatives in this regard was the research and exhibition project Gender Check. It comprised the research work done in 24 countries, the exhibition Gender Check: Femininity and Masculinity in the Art of Eastern Europe (shown at the Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien, in Vienna, Nov. 13, 2009 Feb. 14, 2010 and Zacheta National Gallery of Art, in Warsaw, March 19 June 13, 2010), the catalogue and symposium. Until then it has been our largest project on gender issues marking the twentieth anniversary of the fall of the Iron Curtain. Parallel to the Gender Check Exhibition, we launched a closed call on fteen universities from which nine research teams from nine countries of Central and South Eastern Europe were selected to work on a respective issue within our topic, Gendering in Transition Studies of Changing Gender Perspectives. Adopting a comparative, transnational perspective on the developments of gender relations, the various research projects explored the social constructions of femininity and masculinity and the role

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of women in Central and South Eastern Europe over the past 40 years, with a focus on the transition beginning in 1989. The proposed projects did not only collect data on socio-economic structures; they also analysed discourses, using multidisciplinary and multimethodological approaches, in order to contribute to the general assessment of shifts in the social and cultural paradigms concerning gender roles and relations. We were especially concerned with how the political system changed gender perceptions after the fall of the Iron Curtain and the Yugoslav conicts. In the course of the last three years, the nine projects were also presented and discussed at the 20 Years of Social Change conference, hosted and organised by ERSTE Foundation in Bucharest in late June 2009. We are now publishing the results of the sociological examination of gender roles in the context of social changes. At the same time Gendering Post-Socialist Transition presents the very rst volume of our newly established ERSTE Foundation Series within the LIT Verlag. Upcoming volumes will feature outcomes and results from our broad number of scientic projects dealing with different social issues. In the end, we would like to thank all nine research teams for their contributions and intense work done throughout the past three years, as well as our advisory board who guided the entire project from the very beginning: Krassimira Daskalova, Caroline Hornstein-Tomic and Karl Kaser.

Introduction Krassimira Daskalova, Caroline Hornstein Tomi, Karl Kaser

15

INTRODUCTION

The changing of political and economic systems in Central, Eastern and South Eastern Europe after 1989 went along with socio-cultural changes, which deeply affected the collective consciousness of the societies in the region. Values and know ledge, which had previously provided guidance and orientation, were questioned and claimed to be no longer relevant. Implicit meanings of gender roles and concepts of masculinity and femininity also underwent fundamental changes. On the one hand, these changes are visible in the dynamics of the post-socialist societies. On the other hand, they also reveal the habitual imprints of even pre-state socialist times, traditional patterns and structures, which provide familiarity and security particularly in periods of rapid transformation. The research project, presented in this book, takes interest in those social as well as mental processes of change and of persistence with respect to gender, and seeks to give answers to questions such as: In what way have post-socialist developments and transformations of the past two decades inuenced gender relations, role concepts and everyday practices of men and women? How have the developing and changing gender roles and the perceptions of gender relations touched upon the central question of social integration and equality? Nine research teams from different Central and South Eastern European countries Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Hungary, Macedonia, Montenegro, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Ukraine responded to the closed call of ERSTE Foundation and were asked to tackle topics and issues that they had identied as understudied and particularly relevant with respect to gender matters within the respective political and socio-cultural contexts of their countries and neighbourhoods. This open approach, accepted by the funding institution ERSTE Foundation gave them the necessary freedom to choose their own subjects of study: a privilege enjoyed by few East European scholars during the last twenty years of Transition. (We cannot discuss this issue in detail here. Suffice it to say that many publications already appeared, which, to different degrees, have addressed the controversies surrounding the politics of international donors and their roles in shaping the social realities in the countries of Central, Eastern and South Eastern Europe.1) We asked the teams to study those topics empirically, to systematise exis ting data and to collect new data, and to discuss their ndings through comparative and

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transnational lenses. We wanted to encourage case studies, which would contribute to a multi-layered, differentiated picture of the state of gender relations in Central- and South Eastern Europe. The case studies assembled in this volume therefore present both existing and newly researched data. By giving insight into the dynamics of local discussions and specic contents in respective socio-cultural and political contexts, they point out that these context-related local discussions follow similar patterns as do discussions in Western Europe. However, it also becomes clear how the specic cultural, political and historical conditions before and around 1989, as well as the particular circumstances, under which economic and political transformation took place, have fundamentally affected social behaviour, ways of thinking and looking at things, and the ways in which various social actors are dealing with and make sense of themselves and of each other. The research teams focussed from a gender-sensitive perspective on the following topics: role concepts in daily life, division of (domestic) labour; family and parenthood/parenting; demographic developments and population politics; health and care; equality in the occupational sector; new poverty/poverty traps; discrimination; representation of femininity and masculinity in politics and society; sexual minorities; marginalisation and identity politics; feminist discourses. The case studies can be grouped into three thematic blocks: (1) freedom losses and gains in the context of re-traditionalisation/re-patriarchalisation; (2) representations of gender in politics and media; (3) social exclusion and cultural marginalisation.

However, the collapse of socialist employment systems at the same time opened up new occupational chances and spaces for (re-)productive, individual freedom, which women in particular successfully seized in contradiction to the traditional role propaganda still prevalent or rediscovered from the past. Where women took over the role of the provider, a silent restructuring of roles within the family was to follow. The disappearance of male authority going along with this development became apparent throughout the region as one of the signs for deep structural changes. It found its mirror-image in a new female self-consciousness, which disturbed and challenged male role models and masculinist identity concepts. In her study about Single Parents in the Western Balkans. Between emotions and market, Marina Blagojevi describes how divorce rates are raising in connection with increasingly precarious socio-economic conditions. Taking this and a slowly growing number of single parents due to widowhood or because children are more and more often born out of wedlock into account, the author is speaking of a recent pluralisation of the concept and reality of parenthood. Based on the analysis of statistical data, official documents, media and NGO-reports, the author draws a picture of the situation of single parents as well as of the institutional and political frameworks in three countries of the Western Balkans: Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Montenegro. Based on her comparative insights gained from semi-structured single and group interviews, Blagojevi furthermore discusses from an insider perspective the daily problems, coping and survival strategies of single parenting women and men. The author concludes that, due to insufficient collection of information by institutions dealing with social issues, the category of single parent simply does not exist in the official documents. Missing legal clarity and security is reected in a lack of measures, mechanisms and systematic programs, which would adequately support single parenting women and men (such as tax reductions, whole-day-kindergartens and -schools). Private networks and extended families instead compensate for the missing institutional support. It is particularly here where single parenting women are confronted with traditional, patriarchal role patterns, expectations and assignments. According to Blagojevi, women with higher education and corresponding professional biographies can build up alternative, self-dened networks only in urban contexts, which adequately meet their needs and succeed in responding to problems faced equally by female and male single parents: time poverty, stress, loneliness, and nancial pressure. Missing institutional support as a sign and consequence of eroding social and health systems is discussed also in the Hungarian study (De-)Valuing Care. Traditional and Alternative Patterns in the Social Construction of Care in Hungary after the Transition. Judit Acsdy and her team present how care-taking functions and services and the responsibility for people in need have been transferred mainly to private initiatives, since the state has withdrawn from that eld. The authors show that in Hungary, as in other societies in transition, it is mainly women who take over this neither

Freedom losses and gains in the context of re-traditionalisation/re-patriarchalisation

The political and economic changes in the former socialist part of Europe were accompanied by a collapse of local production, the disappearance of trade relations and markets, and therefore by high unemployment rates. Economic instability and precarious employment conditions in the rst years of Transition were determining everyday life, and still do so for the majority of people in post-socialist societies. Competition for work and employment has changed in the local populations historical narrative on the post-socialist transformation of the social fabric from a (retrospectively idealised) culture of social warmth and caring for each other into an over-individualised, social-Darwinist culture of competitiveness. The increasing competition for scarce employment on the labour market affected men and women likewise the one who found employment would provide for the family income. It has already been intensely discussed in other studies, how women were consequently displaced from formal employment as a measure of releasing pressure from local labour markets.2

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nancially nor socially sufficiently respected task. A comprehensive, multi-facetted picture of the Hungarian situation of care for people in need is being drawn on the basis of quantitative data, surveys and documents, as well as semi-structured interviews with male and female care workers and teachers. The authors analyse role expectations and attitudes towards caring-functions; the distribution and division of tasks and responsibilities (private and institutional); the inuence of demographic developments/ ageing societies; the effects of growing divorce rates on the care situation. The social construction of care-responsibility and its transfer to private, informal, nancially scarcely compensated care services primarily carried out by women according to the authors, contributes to the political and economic underrepresentation, therefore an increasing social vulnerability of women, and last but not least a widening gender gap. Although the authors concede that in Hungary, there is also a general tendency towards a more just distribution of domestic duties between men and women, those tendencies in practice are juxtaposed by prevailing traditional attitudes within society, in the media and public sphere, and in the educational system. In Hungary like elsewhere, care remains as the authors underpin with statistical proof clearly within the female domain of responsibility. Tendencies towards a re-traditionalisation of gender roles on the grounds of patriarchal value orientations can be explained as a reex to socio-economic insecurities going along with transformation.3 How the rebirth of nationalism and discourses on national self-determination in the post-socialist states of Central and South Eastern Europe can accompany these processes of re-patriarchalisation has been discussed by the Albanian study on Gender Relations in Albania (1967-2009). Documents from the Albanian State Archive and the National Library disclose the relevance of gender for employment, poverty, education, religion, and political leading positions in the periods 1967-1989 and 1989-2009. According to the authors, women have been discriminated against in both historical phases (during state socialism as well as after the changes started in the late 1989) on the basis of fundamentally differing ideological discourses. This can be observed in daily practice as well as in rhetoric be it in politics, in family life, in the educational system, or on the labour market. The connection between discourses of national self-affirmation with the phenomena of ageing societies, declining birth-rates, and migration with which post-socialist transformation societies like others are deeply concerned has been addressed in the Ukrainian study Mothering the Nation. Demographic politics, gender and parenting in Ukraine. The author Tatiana Zhurzhenko develops a comprehensive analysis of demographic politics in Ukraine by interpreting media discourses, official speeches and expert interviews, particularly in the period after the Orange Revolution (2005-2009). She describes the reduction of fertility and birth rates since the 1990s; the low socio-economic living standards, housing problems; the deterioration of health care; high mortality rates of men, mothers and infants. Scenarios of a

threatened Ukrainian ethnicity and fear of depopulation dominate discourses in the political and public arenas. What happens when nationalism is interwoven with familialism can, according to Zhurzhenko, be studied in pro-natalist political programs, where families are stylized as symbols for and saviours of the nation. Such programs are equipped with nancial support for families but as the author argues disregard any measures that would support a career-family balance. Reacting to discrimination on the formal labour market, women are looking for new employment opportunities and strategies to secure the family income and by doing so discover new career paths. Newly emerging role denitions, which reach far beyond the role of the mother, reect those developments in Ukraine. In public discourse, however, exactly because of those developments, women are held responsible for declining birth rates and are being reminded of their traditional and natural obligations and roles. Men on the contrary are pictured as victims of transformation and released from demographic responsibilities. It is remarkable that under such circumstances a new normative model of responsible parenthood (number of children, age of the mother, and available capital for investment in education and health care) embodied by the new middle class has been promoted and proclaimed. The author argues that reproduction in Ukraine is increasingly a class issue. She addresses therefore the urgent need for a gender-sensitive politics, which has to address debates about new gender roles and the division of responsibilities already conducted within the wider public. New family models should rst of all build on a gender-equal division of tasks and responsibilities. Any progressive family policy would have to be based on such equal share of rights and duties, and only from there could sustainable concepts for balancing work and family/parenting be provided.

Representations of gender in politics and media

The case studies from diverse elds of research all point out that role models which are shaped by norms internalized during state socialism and which remain aligned with traditional patterns of labour division have started to soften and to transform. Everyday-life needs and necessities require and eventually lead to alternative, plural role denitions. This transformation of role denitions and gender identities apparently is only slowly and hesitantly reected in media representations of male and female gender roles. Media, and particularly advertising, keep reproducing the usual gender stereotypical and discriminatory images. A macho-image of men is maintained presenting them as sole providers and guarantors of the family vitality. Women likewise remain depicted in and reduced to the position of self-sacricing mothers and wives by his side, who outside their homely duties have mainly decorative roles and are objects of mens desires. Alternative images of gender roles appear very slowly a still feeble reection of the steady pluralisation of role concepts and models.

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The case study about Gender Identities in Transition: The Role of Popular Culture and the Media in Bulgaria after 1989 presents the result of a sociological survey, which looked into the perception of gender roles among young adults. The multidisciplinary research team also analyses concepts of femininity and masculinity in magazines for men and women, in television culture, in fashion, advertising, sports, entertainment and popular music, and in movies before and after 1989. The authors analyse discourses and images in Bulgarian media and popular culture and trace changes in the visualisations of gender roles in political, social and cultural settings before and after the collapse of state socialism. The evaluation of the survey among young adults men and women brought forward that this generation on the one hand clings to both very traditional as well as role concepts propagated during socialism. Women continue to be seen as mothers and caretakers, but also as comrades and co-workers equally engaged in the building of society. On the other hand, tendencies to dene male/female relations as a role and responsibility sharing partnership are expressed as well. Nevertheless, the case study clearly states that young adults primarily identify with stereotypical, patriarchal and discriminatory media images of gender prevalent in the public sphere. Although the fact that women increasingly hold public positions is being reected in the media, the representation of womens upward mobility into powerful and inuential public functions cannot do without sexualising interpretation. During socialism, on the contrary, sex-appeal was seen as bourgeois and de-sexualized images of women dominated the scene. The way in which men are represented in media and popular culture in contemporary Bulgaria is equally focused on stereotypical associations with power, competitiveness, decisiveness, physical strength, and the classical role of the sole provider. Fashion before 1989 also reected the idealised stereotype of equality, modesty, simplicity, which was stylized in uniformity and the aesthetics of collectivity. During the Bulgarian fashion boom in the 1990s, around 150 lifestyle magazines swept onto the market, which in contrast to previous ideals celebrated distinction, individuality, glamour and hedonism. Counter-narratives were created, which aesthetically marked individual distinctiveness and social divisions. Fashion and popular culture according to the Bulgarian case study visually represent the changing of a culture of production and a euphemism of deciency into a culture of consumption and an ideal of hedonism and waste. The Slovak case study Towards Gender Equality in Slovakia? Women in Political and Civic Life looks into the representation of gender in politics since 1989 and follows the issue to what extent has gender equality made it into politics and civil society in Slovakia during the past two decades. The team observes the trends of female participation in politics and civil society by analysing statistical and public discourses. Particular attention is paid to political attitudes and ways of treating gender issues during socialism and after 1989. Finally, the gender issues are discussed through three

recent election campaigns: the presidential elections in spring 2009, the elections to the European Parliament in summer 2009, and regional elections in Slovakia in late fall 2009. Zora Btorov, who coordinated the study and wrote the nal text, remarks a continued marginalisation of women in the public sphere into the present. Mainly womens and other NGOs are those which, according to her, are driving forces of gender equalisation, whereas prominent female representatives in politics avoid this issue. Recapitulating her ndings, Btorov ends by rhetorically asking the question: for how long will female and male politicians be able to afford gender indifference and avoid discussions on gender issues, while at the same time ignoring the fact that there is increasing sensibility towards gender inequality and gender discrimination within Slovak society.

Social exclusion and cultural marginalisation

Wherever in the case studies the issue of social exclusion and cultural marginalisation has been addressed, the authors regularly emphasise the lack of statistical data and empirical information. This might be rst of all due to the fact that often hidden, slow processes of exclusion and long-term structural dynamics of marginalisation may slip away from institutional as well as from social or political attention. It is also more a rule than an exception that vulnerable social groups that are affected by marginalisation and exclusion are often not only ignored but even put under taboo. In her aforementioned study about single parents, Marina Blagojevi has pointed out that this growing and increasingly relevant social group, which nds itself under considerable economic and social pressure, has not been paid attention. It might not come as a surprise that such a group is non-existent as a legal category, and that therefore neither adequate institutional measures nor programs are at hand nor legal security to meet their needs. The case study about Gender Experiences of Homelessness in Croatia draws attention in a compelling way to a widely disregarded, completely understudied, though increasingly permanent phenomenon in the successor states of the former Yugoslavia: the visible, overlooked male and female homelessness. Using anthropological eldwork methods participant observation in shelters, semi-structured interviews with homeless people and social workers, life histories of homeless women and men the author Lynette iki-Mianovi and her team provide a substantial description of the psycho-social conditions, of ways into and out of homelessness, and of survival strategies in homeless peoples everyday lives. The author points out that homeless people institutionally as well as legally, socially and culturally have to be considered drop-outs. As a marginalised group with special needs and interests, homeless people are neither politically represented nor do they have a lobby within the Croatian society. The phenomenon of female homelessness in particular has been completely neglected so far. This case study convincingly demonstrates that ways into and out of homelessness, coping strategies and experiences of homelessness are gender-specic.

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As there are no official data about homelessness in Croatia, prevention or reintegration programs are likewise missing. In such a context, the insights of the research team can serve as the basis for urgently needed institutional reactions to the problem of homelessness. Another dynamic of cultural marginalisation and of exclusion from the constructed self-image of a young state and its body politic is being looked into by the case study Sexualities in Transition: Discourses, Power and Sexual Minorities in Transitional Macedonia. The analysis focuses on texts taken out of (contemporary and archival) media, legal documents, art- and schoolbooks, and other educational materials. The research team also draws on scholarly and journalistic publications about nonnormative sexual practices and identities. Life-history interviews with homo sexuals (activists), intellectuals, artists, authors, art critics and literature historians shed light on discourses of people concerned, activists and analysts. The team presents a picture of identity hierarchies in contemporary Macedonia. Homosexual identity, which was uncovered in the last two decades and only slowly emerged in public consciousness, is being discussed in comparison to other collective identications. By doing so, the authors show that political discrimination, homophobic discourses and practices are far from being overcome in everyday Macedonia. Even though those discourses focus on male homosexuality, the connection of homophobia with nationalistic and ultra-conservative discursive patterns becomes really apparent only when female homo sexuality is concerned. Self-determined female sexuality and sexual identity is excluded from the basic social consensus as a deviation supposedly undermining the national integrity of Macedonian society. However, the Macedonian research team also acknowledges tendencies of liberalising legal denitions and regulations as well as general attitudes towards sexual minorities. Those tendencies increasingly contradict still widespread homophobia and set a sign and an example for processes of social and cultural pluralisation. The Romanian case study Womens Social Exclusion and Feminism. Living in parallel worlds? looks into structures and mechanisms of social marginalisation, as well. By doing so, this research self-critically confronts the shortcomings of feminism and its ignorance towards the social and political exclusion of women in Romania. The team has analysed not only official sources and documents but has also conducted seventytwo interviews with feminist activists and members of social groups threatened by social exclusion in eight different cities. Changes in everyday life during the period of transition are being sketched. The Romanian developments after 1989 conrm as well the underrepresentation of women in the public sphere, the female withdrawal into the connements of the family and self-reduction to a reproductive and care-taking role in the light of transitional structural changes and labour market competition. With the displacement from formal employment, women as the research team points out have lost their entitlements to a pension and health care. At the same time they drop out of any social network apart from home and family, and are like elsewhere politically underrepresented. While women pragmatically adapt to and cope with their new

social, political and economic situation, feminism has meanwhile lost touch with those realities. Other than feminist activists or NGOs, feminist discourse is leading a kind of autonomous, self-centred life and thus fails to react politically to the marginalisation and social exclusion of women in transitional Romania. As other examples have shown, political representation of women and their interests remains under the advocacy of informal actors and agencies in civil society. Besides pluralisation dynamics, as discussed in most of the case studies, processes outspoken or silent of marginalisation and exclusion of vulnerable social groups seem to generally slip off political, institutional or public perception, as is overall being shown and supported with new data. Having done so, they can ll the gap left by missing reliable statistics and information, which to a signicant degree is responsible for insufficient legal security, lacking prevention programs or measures that would protect and support members of society threatened by social disintegration and potential exclusion. The studies of Gendering Post-Socialist Transition presented in this volume not only follow the economic, political, social and cultural effects and traces of system changes in the lives of women and men after 1989 in eleven countries of Central- and South Eastern Europe, but also look into the meaning of these changes for the relationships between men and women, for gender roles and representations, and for the development of normative discourses about femininity and masculinity. With respect to gender relations, these case studies in fact deal with changing values and mentalities in transformation and once again show that poverty, social exclusion, nationalism, social and healthcare systems, all have a profound gendered dimension.

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Tables
The data for the creation of the tables that follow derives from the Human Development Report and Eurostat. The topics of the tables are those that have been conventionally linked to gender relations and reproductive behaviour. Tables 1-7 have the advantage of providing ranked positions for the respective countries in worldwide perspective. The countries comprised in this volume are ranked very differently in European comparison. Generally they do not belong to the most advanced European countries in terms of economic status and of gender relations. In worldwide perspective, the bulk of countries comprised in this volume belong to a broad middle eld. Tables 8-11 also document a broad variety of reproductive and marital behaviour in the countries mentioned in this volume. The general impression is that the Balkan countries show more traditional behaviour than the Central-East European countries. Striking is the Bulgarian data with relatively low marriage rates and a high percentage of births out of wedlock.

The Human Development Index (HDI) is a comparative measure of life expectancy, literacy, education and standards of living for countries worldwide. It is a standard means of measuring well-being, especially child welfare. It is used to distinguish whether the country is a developed, a developing or an underdeveloped country, and also to measure the impact of economic policies on quality of life. The rank of Hungary marks the threshold between very high (developed country) and high (developing country).

COUNTRY Sweden Germany France Macedonia

RANK 2010 3 19 60 23 42 49 53 70 71 72 95 97 107 114

% OF SEATS 2010 45.0 32.8 18.9 30.9 23.5 21.6 20.8 16.7 16.4 16.0 11,6 11.1 9.1 8.0

% OF SEATS 2000 42.7 33.6 9.1 7.5 7.1 10.8 21.0 5.2 12.7 5.6 8.3 7.8

COUNTRY Norway Germany France Slovakia Hungary Montenegro Romania Croatia Bulgaria Serbia Albania Bosnia-Herzegovina Ukraine Macedonia

RANK 1 10 14 31 36 49 50 51 58 60 64 68 69 71

INDEX 0.938 0.885 0.872 0.818 0.805 0.769 0.767 0.767 0.743 0.735 0.719 0.710 0.710 0.701

Croatia Serbia Bulgaria Bosnia-Herzegovina Albania Slovakia Romania Montenegro Hungary Ukraine

TABLE 2: Women in National Parliaments in June 2010 compared to January 2000 Source: http://www.ipu.org/wmn-e/classif.htm; http://www.cities-localgovernments.org/uclg/upload/ docs/shareofwomenseatsinparliamentspercountry(unifem2000).pdf

TABLE 1: Human Development Index and Rank 2011 Source: http://hdr.undp.org/en/data/build

Interestingly, most of the countries researched in this volume made signicant progress in women representatives in national parliaments. Outstanding is the data for Macedonia, where the percentage jumped from 7.5 (2000) to 30.9 (2011). The country is ranked 23 compared to 60 worldwide for France.

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COUNTRY Country Sweden France Germany Bulgaria Ukraine Bosnia-Herzegovina Croatia Hungary Slovakia Romania Albania Macedonia Montenegro Serbia

RANK Rank 13 39 47 49 50 61 68 71 75 81 106 120

INDEX Index 0.910 0.848 0.830 0.829 0.828 0.808 0.793 0.778 0.773 0.775 0.701 0.650

Hungary Ukraine Romania Montenegro Serbia Bosnia-Herzegovina

54 75 76

0.349 0.305 0.305

TABLE 4: Gender Relations* (141 countries) Source: http://hdr.undp.org/en/data/build * Factors: 1) Labour force participation rate; 2) Population with at least secondary education; 3) Adolescent fertility rate (women 15-19 years); 4) Shares in parliament; 5) Maternal mortality ratio

COUNTRY Liechtenstein Norway Germany France Slovakia Hungary Croatia Romania Montenegro

RANK 1 4 20 27 44 48 52 69 70 74 77 80 92 94 99

INDEX 1000 0.616 0.367 0.350 0.236 0.201 0.180 0.137 0.132 0.122 0.112 0.101 0.084 0.082 0.068

TABLE 3: Labour force participation rate, female-male ratio (177 countries)* Source: http://hdr.undp.org/en/data/build * Percentage of working-age population (ages 15-64) that actively engages in the labour market by either working or actively looking for work. )

COUNTRY Netherlands Germany France Croatia Macedonia Albania Slovakia Bulgaria Hungary

RANK 1 8 13 30 34 42 44 52 54

INDEX 0.687 0.558 0.502 0.430 0.409 0.389 0.386 0.355 0.349

Bulgaria Serbia Macedonia Bosnia-Herzegovina Albania Ukraine

TABLE 5: GDP per capita (2008 PPP US$, 184 countries) Source: http://hdr.undp.org/en/data/build

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29

COUNTRY Norway Lichtenstein France Germany Albania Romania Slovakia Hungary Bulgaria Bosnia-Herzegovina Croatia Ukraine Macedonia Montenegro Serbia

RANK 48 85 138 139 7 13 17 23 101 115 119 144 155 178 183

INDEX 6.62 5.31 3.77 3.72 10.01 9.30 9.03 8.31 4.76 4.42 4.32 3.33 3.01 2.11 1.35

Albania Montenegro Bosnia-Herzegovina Hungary Slovakia Macedonia Serbia Ukraine Romania Bulgaria

35 37 41 55 56 59 61 72 76 95

0.223 0.215 0.198 0.157 0.153 0.146 0.143 0.112 0.101 0.075

TABLE 7: Adolescent fertility rate (women aged 15-19 years), births per 1,000 women (2008)* Source: http://hdr.undp.org/en/data/build * Number of births to women aged 15-19, expressed per 1000 women of the same age

COUNTRY EU 27 Bulgaria

1999 5.19 4.08 4.44 5.07 5.27 6.23 7.03

2004 4.85 3.99 4.33 5.18 5.11 5.28 (2005) 6.61 6.92

2010 4.73 (2008) 3.22 3.55 4.68 5.05 (2009) 6.06 (2009) 5.40 6.89

TABLE 6: Countries by GDP growth 1990-2007 Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_growth_1990%E2%80%932007

Hungary Slovakia

Tables 5 and 6 need a synopsis. Table 5 shows a relatively clear divide between the Central European countries and the Balkan countries as well as the Ukraine. Among the Balkan countries, Albania had been catching up most remarkably from 1990 to 2007, whereas the former Yugoslav countries and Ukraine made comparably slow economic progress.

Croatia Montenegro Romania Macedonia

COUNTRY France Sweden Germany Croatia

RANK 13 15 17 34

INDEX 0.459 0.409 0.409 0.224

TABLE 8: Marriage rates (per 1000 persons) Source: http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/page/portal/population/data/main_tables Eurostat does not provide gures for Albania, Serbia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and the Ukraine. Except Montenegro, marriage rates are declining. The rates of Montenegro, Romania and Macedonia exceed the average EU rates.

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31

COUNTRY EU 27 Macedonia Montenegro Croatia Bulgaria Romania Slovakia Hungary

1999 1.8 0.5 0.8 1.2 1.5 1.8 2.5

2004 2.0 0.8 0.8 (2005) 1.1 1.9 1.6 2.0 2.4

2010 2.0 (2008) 0.8 0.7 (2009) 1.1 (2009) 1.5 1.5 2.2 2.4

COUNTRY EU 27 Montenegro Macedonia Croatia Bulgaria Hungary Romania Slovakia

1990 2.23 (1994) 1.82 1.87 1.83 2.09

2009 1.60 (2008) 1.85 1.52 1.49 1.57 1.32 1.38 1.41

TABLE 9: Divorce rates (per 1000 persons Source: http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/page/portal/population/data/main_tables Eurostat does not provide gures for Albania, Serbia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and the Ukraine. Marriage is most stable in Macedonia and Montenegro with high marriage rates and low divorce rates. Hungary shows opposite features. Consequently, in Macedonia and Montenegro, births out of wedlock are relatively rare, whereas in Bulgaria more than half of births occur out of wedlock (table 10), accompanied by relatively high natality (table 11). The high natality rates of Macedonia and Slovakia dropped under the EU 27-average.

TABLE 10: Natality (average number of live births of a woman in life course) Source: http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/page/portal/population/data/main_tables

COUNTRY EU 27 Bulgaria Hungary Romania Slovakia Montenegro Croatia Macedonia

1999 24.43 31.46 26.60 22.97 15.33 8.12 9.50

2004 29.16 (2003) 48.71 34.05 29.40 24.78 16.78 (2005) 10.38 12.27

2010 36.91 (2009) 54.10 40.84 27.69 32.96 15.66 (2009) 12.94 (2009) 12.17

TABLE 10: Births out of wedlock (share of overall live births in %) Source: http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/page/portal/population/data/main_tables

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ENDNOTES

For a recent example of how international donor institutions inuence the local academic and political contexts in the countries in Transition, see Dostena Lavergne, La main invisible de la Transition. Think tanks et transition dmocratique en Bulgarie aprs 1989, Ph.D. Thesis, Paris, EHESS, 2007. See particularly Susan Gal and Gail Kligman (eds.), Reproducing Gender: Politics, Publics, and Everyday Life after Socialism, Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2000; See also their award winning comparative text: Susan Gal and Gail Kligman, The Politics of Gender After Socialism: A Comparative-Historical Essay, Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2000. Karl Kaser has recently argued that patriarchal structures have been revitalised in postsocialist societies by economic insecurity and the wars in former Yugoslavia. See: Kaser, Karl, Patriarchy after Patriarchy. Gender Relations in the Balkans and Turkey, 1500-2000, Vienna, Berlin, Lit Verlag, 2008. However, while using the term re-traditionalisation, we should keep in mind that it is not clear at all to what extent former state socialist European societies really departed from traditional gender notions, roles and practices, so that one may now speak about return to tradition. In fact, as many feminist scholars have pointed out, the socialist emancipation of women only scratched the surface of gender relations, especially within the family domain and even the massive inux of women into paid work did not signicantly change the power asymmetry and division of labour within the family but just added it to the

burden of domestic everyday chores. So, since the traditionalism was never replaced, retraditionalisation seems to be a false danger. More about this in Krassimira Daskalova, Womens Problems, Womens Discourses in Bulgaria, in Susan Gal and Gail Kligman (eds.), Reproducing Gender: Politics, Publics, and Everyday Life after Socialism, Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2000, p. 337-369, esp. p. 343. See also Barbara Einhorn Citizenship in an Enlarging Europe, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010. About various gender aspects of social and political transformation in Europe (both West and East), see the four volumes published by Palgrave Macmillan as a result of the project Network for European Womens Rights, initiated and directed by Birmingham University, UK: Christien van den Anker and Jeroen Doomernik, eds., Trafficking and Womens Rights, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006; Audrey Guichon, Christien van den Anker and Irina Novikova, eds., Womens Social Rights and Entitlements, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006; Sirkku K. Hellsten, Anne Maria Holli and Krassimira Daskalova, eds., Womens Citizenship and Political Rights, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006; Heather Widdows, Itziar Alkorta Idiakez and Aitziber Emaldi Cirin, eds., Womens Reproductive Rights, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006. Especially for the transformations in the former state socialist states, see Jasmina Luki, Joanna Regulska and Darja Zavirsek, eds., Women and Citizenship in Central and Eastern Europe, Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing, 2006.

ALBANIA

Gender Relations in Albania (1967-2009) Fatmira Musaj, Fatmira Rama, Enriketa Pandelejmoni

Albania

37

A B ST RA C T

This study1 aims at analysing issues related to gender relations in the elds of education, employment and poverty, representation in leadership and decisionmaking as well as in religious affiliations. Each of its three sections is divided into two parts, reecting two political, economic, and social periods. The rst part covers the communist period, 1967-1990, the second the transition period, 1990-2009. For the purpose of this study a survey was conducted. Approximately three hundred questionnaires were distributed out of which only sixty-one copies were returned. The questionnaire was distributed in eight cities: Tirana, Vlor, Shkodr, Kor, Elbasan, Durrs, Mirdit, and Lushnj. All of the interviewees were women between 18 and 65 years of age. The preliminary results of the survey have been incorporated in the study. However, the completed results will be published in an extended version of this study.

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The year 1967 has been selected as the starting point of the study, because in this year the Party of Labour of Albania (PLA), inuenced by the Chinese Cultural Revolution, initiated a series of ideological, political, economic, and social reforms, which aimed at strengthening the control of the state party over the lives of the countrys citizens. Different from other communist countries of Eastern Europe, which began to experiment with forms of liberalisation in the late 1960s, in Albania, the PLA switched to a radical stand, which had a direct impact on gender policies: revolutionary steps towards the emancipation of women were launched, initiated, and directed from above and spread out across the country. This was accompanied by the prohibition of public exercise of faith as well as the closure of religious institutions, economic reforms, reforms of health care and culture, and an intensied battle against enemies of the socialist order. At the end of the 1970s, the economic, political, and ideological relations with China, which had been established in the middle of the 1960s, ceased because of ideological disputes. This ended up in a complete isolation of Albania, since also the relations to the Soviet Union were poisoned. The economic crisis deepened, and the Albanian society experienced a signicant increase in poverty. The population was increasingly dissatised, which, at the end of 1980s and at the beginning of 1990s, resulted in a massive opposition against the communist regime and aimed at establishing political pluralism. The political, economic, and social reforms, which were initiated at the beginning of the transition period, created legal requirements for women to organise themselves and to practice religion publicly again. Simultaneously, the transition period in the former socialist countries and in particular in Albania confronted women with new challenges. The quick transition from public to private economy, the lack of foreign and local investments, the fragile activity of the new state institutions, the weakening of the educational and health care systems, and the worsening of the living conditions, especially in the rural areas, led to an increase of womens unemployment, and weakened their status in family and society. This was accompanied by a re-traditionalisation of gender relations, expressed by a decrease of their participation in social and public life. Gradually, with the stabilisation of the economic, political, and social life in the country, the organised womens movements and their cooperation with the state institutions on gender issues expanded and consolidated. In implementation of obligations for EU integration, the National Strategy on Gender Equality was drafted and efforts have been made to implement it in the elds of education, employment, participation in leadership and decision-making, and to ensure the freedom of religious practices. The authors of this study intend to reect the changes of fundamental aspects of womens education and educational policies in Albania in the course of the previous four decades and also to identify their impact on womens position in family

and society. Results of massive employment of women in the period from 1967 to 1990 and the subsequent economic downfall of Albanian women and families are analysed. Womens position in emerging market economy and the levels of unemployment and poverty during the transition years will also be analysed, as well as the efforts for the integration of women to the new economic and social context. Moreover, the study aims to reect on the participation of women in leadership and decision-making over the last twenty years of the communist regime and the impact of the PLA and other factors in this process. The reasons for the decrease of womens representation in leadership and decision-making during the democratic transition and the efforts for improving this situation will be analysed. The aim of the religion and gender relations section is to focus on understanding to what degree ideology and politics of the PLA had an impact on the religious institutions and how and to what degree this situation was mirrored in gender relations and womens lives between 1967 and 1990. The transition section intends to explain the new situation, which followed the religious revival in the country, and how religious women adapted themselves to transition issues focusing on the oscillation between the private and public realm. A special emphasis will be put on the documents of the Central Committees Archive of the PLA for the years 1960-1980, which were recently made available to researchers. They have been very valuable to this study, since they constitute internal Party documents that reect realistically the problems the country was confronted with, and were not made public. Also of interest is the data published in the Statistical Yearbooks of the SPRA (Socialist Peoples Republic of Albania) as well as magazines and publications of that time. Monographic studies and research articles dedicated to gender issues were scarce at a time when womens issues occupied considerable space in political pamphlets and propaganda material. Here, we would especially mention the monographic study of D. Sadikaj (1982).2 The author addresses some fundamental aspects of the movement for continuing the emancipation of women. Even though the study remains within the political and party frame of that time, it presents data that is of interest to contemporary researchers. Similar studies were carried out by P. Lalaj,3 H. Hako,4 and R. Zojzi,5 who address relevant issues such as religion and its impact on the situation of women and also point at patriarchal elements of Albanian family life. Important studies on the political, economic, and social aspects of the totalitarian political system and also on gender issues in the countries of Eastern and South Eastern Europe were carried out by researchers such as K. Verdery (1996),6 M. Burawoy and K. Verdery (1999),7 S. Gal and K. Kligman (2000),8 U. Brunnbauer (2007)9 and K. Kaser (2008).10 Their analyses and conclusions on gender equality issues have served as a theoretical and comparative framework for those parts of this study, which compare Albania to other countries in the region during the last two

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decades of the communist system. Gender issues of the transition period in Eastern and South Eastern European countries have been tackled by various Western authors. M. Rueschemeyer (1998)11 and C. Corrin (1999)12 have analysed womens changing situation in these countries. Of interest are the analysis and conclusions of K. Kaser,13 who emphasises that one of the key issues regarding gender in the region, which is also visible in Albania, is the resurfacing of modern forms of traditional patriarchy and gender discrimination. Monographs on gender equality issues in Albania during the democratic transition are lacking. However, a series of studies have been carried out by teams of authors, state institutions, non-governmental organisations, and international foundations.14 Of outstanding importance are pertinent publications by INSTAT (Albanian Institute of Statistics) for the years 2004-2008.15 This institute has published studies, which are based on research by local and foreign authors on different aspects of gender relations. These studies have been valuable for this project, given that until the beginning of the 2000s, statistical data had been incomplete. Other studies, which do not address gender equality issues exclusively, such as a study of the Albanian educational system during the transition period by N. Dudwick and H. Shahrari,16 have been integrated.

the productive work process and military training, a standardisation of education for women in line with the prefabricated clichs, and a sort of puritanism and Spartan training. Towards the end of the 1960s and at the beginning of the 1970s, the walls of schools were painted with denunciations (et-rrufe) and caricatures of Western lifestyle and fashion.19 However, in the rural areas, where the standard of living was low, this movement remained formal. Here, the Party propaganda spread beyond schools and it was aimed at countering the patriarchal mentality and marriage at a young age, and it propagated school attendance of girls and improvement of hygiene. The educational reform targeted the increase of the quality of womens education at all school categories and levels. In 1989, the womens portion of enrollment in eight-year elementary schools was 47.8 percent.20 This was accompanied by an increase of enrollment of girls in high schools. The educational policies aimed at attracting more than 50 percent of the female students who graduated from elementary school to secondary education.21 In the 1970s, a signicant number of high schools general high schools and agricultural vocational high schools opened up, especially in the urban areas. In 1989, the percentage of girls attending high schools increased up to 44.2 percent of all school attendants compared to 40.9 percent in 1970.22 Similar efforts were undertaken in the sector of the part-time vocational high schools, which were established by public enterprises and agricultural farms, accompanied by numerous two to three month courses. In this spirit, a dictated boom of women workers enrollment was experienced in these schools and courses, targeting not only the continued emancipation of women in line with the Party ideology, but also their further professional training.23 In fact, publications of the Party indicate that in the 1970s many women, especially in the rural areas, but also in some urban areas, had only elementary education or were illiterate. Instances of school drop-outs particularly by girls were recorded due to a backward mentality, according to which education was unnecessary or even harmful for womens morale.24 Women workers who attended evening schools faced great difficulties both at work and in their families. However, an interesting phenomenon was observed: married women were more interested in attending school, probably due to the desire for higher income and the ambition to strengthen their own authority in family and society.25 These phenomena in many aspects resemble phenomena observed in other former socialist countries, such as in the republics of the former Soviet Union, in which the purpose was not simply womens liberalisation but also their organisation as a political and economic force, which would later contribute to a more efficient economy.26

Education
One of the priorities of the PLA consisted in the increase of literacy rates. At the end of the Second World War, approximately 80 percent of Albanias population was illiterate. In 1952, a mandatory seven-year school education was imposed and in 1955, the complete eradication of illiteracy among the population up to 40 years of age was announced. In 1963, mandatory education was extended to eight years and high school education expanded gradually across the country.17 However, high school and university education standards with regard to women in the early 1960s were still far from European standards and those of neighbouring countries, which reected the weak position of women in family and society, especially in rural areas. Womens Emancipation and Education The reforms undertaken in the second half of the 1960s in the cultural and ideological domains for continued emancipation of women parallel to the movement for the continued revolutionising of the school in the years 1967-1970, changed the educational system and content thoroughly. An extreme politicisation and ideologisation and the schools reliance on the three core revolutionary components: a combination of learning, productive work, physical and military education was introduced.18 Basically, this resulted in the reduction of education, tremendous difficulties in organising

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At the end of the 1960s and in the rst half of the 1970s, the Womens Union also organised a series of three-month courses that were attended by hundreds of women, mainly from the rural areas. The participants in these courses were called lufttaret e s res (ghters for innovation), as they would bring a new mentality to their villages and areas of origin.27 In this period, the number of women graduating from full-time and parttime university programs increased, reaching 57.35 percent in 1989 compared to men, even though their number was still not high in total (13,310 students). In this context, the number of female teachers reached 55.4 percent28 in 1989 a fact that played a signicant role for the emancipation of women, especially in the suburban and rural areas. However, the model of the msueses dhe i aktivistes shoqrore (woman teacher and social activist) was weakening day by day, especially in the 1980s, as the economy was weakening and teachers encountered increasing difficulties.29 Despite official equal access to education, young men and women who, according to the principle of the class struggle, had njoll n biogra (aws in their family background) were not allowed to attend university. Ideological and political selection occurred even among teachers, in particular among university instructors.

After a period of stabilisation (1993-1996), the dramatic revolts of 1997, which caused the collapse of the public institutions, another period of general insecurity followed.32 Stability increased gradually until the year 2000. In the school year 1997/1998, the percentage by girls attending elementary school was 48.29 percent compared to boys. The percentage of school attendance of girls was lower in the rural regions than in the urban areas.33 The situation improved in the years that followed. In the school years 2002/2003 and 2004/2005, in elementary and secondary education the number of female students was already similar to that of male students.34 The declining tendency of school drop-outs in elementary schools beginning in 2000 was a result of the re-establishment of security and peace in the country, the signicant improvement of the road infrastructure and the public transport of students to schools introduced by the government. However, elementary education could still not be made obligatory, especially for girls, and that brought about the increase of illiteracy rates. Even though much has been said about the decrease of illiteracy rates in the last few years, the official data are not convincing. Thus, it is a known fact that illiteracy among Roma children, especially Roma girls, is much higher than the average, which, however, is not reected as a separate item in any of the statistics.35 However, in the 1990s and 2000s enrollment of girls in the elementary schools increased continuously. The percentage of female students graduating from high schools and universities has become higher than that of male students. In the academic year 2006/2007, the female high school graduates comprised 54.4 percent of the total number of the students, while the percentage of female university graduates was 56.7 percent of the total number of students.36 It is evident that at all levels of education, women are more dedicated when it comes to attendance and preparation for class. Currently, slightly over 50 percent of the instructors at the State University of Tirana are women.37 Despite all emerging problems, the tradition established under communism in Albanian families to educate girls has been preserved and has overcome the transition period in Albania successfully. However, the number of high schools in rural areas has decreased drastically. The closing down of schools and the considerable geographical distance from their homes was in many cases one of the main reasons for young women not to attend high school.38 The situation was obviously affected by massive internal migration, even though comprehensive statistics are lacking. This situation created a suffocating social and cultural climate, the interruption of continued education as well as psychological traumas, and in some cases young women looked out for alternatives, becoming victims of international prostitu-

Transition and Education

Severe changes occurred after the fall of communism in Albania in 1990. The extreme politicisation and ideologisation were eliminated, and the productive work and military training components were removed. Under these circumstances and considering the difficult and long transition period, the Albanian educational system and the education of Albanian women in particular were confronted with numerous challenges. Among others, the anarchy of the early transition period (1991 and 1992) and the massive external and internal migration of Albanians have to be mentioned. Frequently, everything that could be related to the past was identied with communism, and everything that was public was considered a commodity without an owner. Attacks on and destruction of educational and cultural institutions were frequent, especially in the small towns and rural areas.30 The general state of insecurity prevented students, especially senior students of elementary schools and students of high schools from attending classes on a regular basis. This caused temporarily the loss of the schools prestige and the drop-out of many girls, especially in rural areas. The percentage of school drop-outs in elementary education increased up to 6.34 percent, gradually decreasing in the years that followed. The uncontrolled internal migration, the lack of complete information on migration intensity, and the lack or insufficiency of school facilities in residential quarters established by the new emigrants had an impact on drop-out gures.31

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tion networks.39 Studies point out that hundreds of Albanian women work as prostitutes in the streets of European cities; around 60 percent of them are under age. In certain rural areas, 90 percent of girls over 14 do not attend school, and one of the reasons for that is fear of trafficking.40 Another reason, especially among poor families, is that their parents are allegedly unable to pay for their education. Especially in remote small towns and rural areas, a patriarchal mentality has resurfaced; this results, for instance, in marrying girls off as early as possible in order to alleviate the heavy economic household burden and protect them from becoming victims of trafficking.41

Despite the measures taken to attract women to the Party, their membership level improved very slowly; in 1986, the rate of female members was 32.2 percent.51 The slow pace of womens enrollment in the Party is easily explained by the conservatism of the Party leaders, pressure on women by their families not to participate in party activities, the lack of leisure time because of womens double burden, and the social pressure not to join.52 In addition, another hindrance to party membership were the criteria for joining, such as ideological rmness, a long probation, which had to be spent in difficult production sectors, and a quantitative limitation for intellectuals. In the 1980s, the alleged severity of the class struggle, the increase of economic difficulties, and the imposition of volunteer work, led to a decreased level of interest by women to join the Party. The representation of women was and has remained low within the leading structures of the PLA. This can be explained not only by the prevalence of conservative/patriarchal concepts in the Party, but also by the strict rules and norms in training the leading staff. Thus, in 1966,53 of 61 members of the Central Committee of the PLA, only 6.5 percent were women and in 1986, out of 85 deputies to the plenary only 16 percent were women.54 The PLA policies regarding the continued representation of women became visible especially in the Peoples Assembly and the local governmental institutions. This was directly linked to the election process. Elections were not free and there was only one candidate running for each position. The candidates were proposed by the Party organisation, which also controlled the voting machinery. The victory of the Party candidates was guaranteed. Thus, in 1966, women occupied 16.3 percent of the seats in the Peoples Assembly; this percentage increased to 29.2 percent in 1987.55 In 1966, women constituted 33.12 percent of the elected candidates in the peoples councils and in 1978, 44 percent of the candidates.56 Even though the representation in the Assembly was a positive step forward, at its core it remained formal. The activity of the Peoples Assembly was limited to the transformation of decisions of the Politburo into formal laws.57 The percentage of women in leading positions in state administration and economic units was even lower. This was linked also to the fact that power positions were eyed by men. In order to preserve their domination, they were putting pressure on women by exaggerating the responsibility and the commitment required for leadership. The lack of leisure time and a male-centred mentality, which was still vivid among women, made them withdraw from applying for leading positions. This was especially evident in the villages, where agricultural work was hard, educational level low, and conservatism as well as lack of condence in women was considerable. In 1973, women constituted ten percent of the leaders of state institutions and three percent of the chairs of agricultural cooperatives.58 In 1972, they constituted 17 percent of the leading positions in economic enterprises 59 and the same percentage was registered in 1980.60

Leadership and Decision-making

The equal participation of Albanian women in leadership and decisionmaking has been and still remains a very important, but also difficult aspect of gender equality. The written and unwritten laws had denied this right to women in the past.42 Immediately after the Second World War, the Communist Party of Albania (which was later renamed PLA) linked the improvement of womens position in family and society closely to political, legislative, economic, social, and cultural progress. In 1945, the electoral law for the Constitutional Assembly recognised the right of women to vote.43 The equality of men and women was sanctioned in the Constitution of 1946, which stated: Women have equal rights to men in private, political, and social life.44 By the end of the 1960s, it became clear that the representation of women in decision-making and leadership positions remained low compared to their representation in education and employment. In 1966, women occupied only 16.3 percent of the seats45 in the Peoples Assembly (the Parliament) and constituted 33.12 percent of the elected candidates for the district councils.46 In the analysis carried out by the party leaders, the traditional and religious norms, the patriarchal concepts, and the inferior position of women in the family were identied as obstacles for achieving higher rates. A series of directives of the PLA at the end of the 1960s and throughout the 1970s emphasised the strengthening of the ideological war against these obstacles and suggested social, economic, and cultural measures to the benet of women.47 The state party that was leading and controlling the countrys life had the monopoly of appointing personnel, both in the Party and in state administration. Promotions to leading positions in the Party as well as to economic and administrative institutions were carried out based on dened criteria, the most important of which was membership in the PLA. At the end of the 1960s and in the beginning of the 1970s, the proportion of womens membership in the Party was low: they constituted 12.47 percent of the members.48 One third of the Party organisations in the economic enterprises had no women members.49 Also their presence in the villages was low, and approximately 800 rural Party organisations counted no women members at all.50

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The lack of equality in leadership and power was also conditioned by the position of women in the family. In the 1970s, this issue became the subject of a serious debate throughout the country. Analysing the data and information provided by the Party organs in the districts, we conclude that the socialist reforms did not contribute to the dissolution of the patriarchal family and its ideology. Especially in the rural areas, mens authority remained intact.61 The representation of women in decision-making and leadership in the third and fourth decades of the communist regime, although the situation had improved, still remained far from the claimed aims. The measures undertaken were mostly of ideological character, and the work to implement them simply remained at a propaganda level. The improper reforms undertaken in the economic sector impoverished people and especially women to an extreme, increased womens burdens and reduced the leisure time that might have been used to participate in political and public life. The ideological framework of the movement for womens emancipation did not create opportunities for women to learn and increase their level of awareness related to fundamental freedoms.62 The criteria established by the PLA, especially the political and ideological ones for Party membership and nomination to leading positions, became obstacles for the proper participation of women in leading positions. Women had to work, take care of the family, provide childcare, and overcome the shortage of available goods.63 Despite all existing limitations, the increasing representation of women in leadership and decision-making challenged the patriarchal mentality that had excluded women from the political and public life in the decades before.

In the course of the transition period, women were confronted with previously unknown phenomena such as drugs, prostitution, child trafficking, lack of law and order, massive migration of men, and increase of unemployment due to the economic crisis. As a result, the low economic, social, and cultural status of women and girls had an impact on both the political and private realm.66

YEAR Percentage of female Parliamentarians Percentage of female ministers

19911 20.0

20052 7.1

20073 7.1

20094 16.4

4.0

6.1

14.0

7.1

TABLE 1: Percentage of women in Parliament and government (1991-2009)

REPRESENTATION OF WOMEN Major Chair Chair of commune Prefect

PERCENTAGE 1.5 1.9 16.0 8.3

67

TABLE 2: Percentage of women in local government (2007)

Transition
At the beginning of the 1990s, women actively took part in overthrowing the totalitarian system and in establishing democratic procedures as well as political pluralism. They contributed to the establishment of a variety of political parties, and soon constituted 40 percent of the members in the Democratic Party and the Socialist Party (the transformed PLA) and 24.6 percent of the members in the Social Democratic Party.64 However, womens representation in the leading structures of the parties remained low. They were dominated by men and can easily be classied as klube burrash (mens clubs). This constellation was favoured by various factors such as the reinforced patriarchal mentality of the society, to some degree accepted by women as well, which provided it with a wide social dimension,65 the impact of a still existing paternalistic mentality and practices, inherited from the communist system, in selecting and dening leading positions, the failure of the party leaders to respect the genderequality programs announced by them, and also the gravity of the conict embedded in the emerging political culture of the country.

Tables 1 and 2 demonstrate that the percentage of women in Parliament, central government and local government has been decreasing. Even at university level, where women constituted 43.6 percent of the academic staff and 38 percent of them held academic and scientic degrees in 2007, their representation in top management was low. In 2007, they constituted zero percent of the rectors, ten percent of the deputy rectors and 27 percent of the deans.68 According to K. Kaser, in 2003/2004, compared to the other Eurasian Minor countries, Albania ranked sixth after Serbia, lower than Turkey69 as well, in terms of womens representation in Parliament. According to an inter-parliamentarian world classication of womens representation in government, Albania ranked 105 among 138 states in 2005.70

Study on the participation of women in politics, Women Center, p. 6. Femra dhe meshkuj n Shqipri (Women and Men in Albania), INSTAT, 2005, p. 38. 3 Information made available to us by the Ministry of Labour, Social Affairs and Equal Opportunities, Tirana 2009. 4 The actual government has only one woman minister among fourteen ministers.
1 2

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In order to improve this situation and to implement the conditions for European integration, the state drafted and approved the National Strategy for Gender Equality and Against Domestic Violence in cooperation with women NGOs and their networks. In this framework, Article 15 of the Act On Gender Equality sanctioned a 30 percent gender quota for womens representation in the legislative, executive, and judicial bodies as well as in other public institutions.71 Based on our survey, and under the current circumstances in the country, the 30 percent quota of womens representation in Parliament has been assessed as a mandatory and necessary measure by 67 percent of the people interviewed. They believe that competing would be the best way towards womens participation in politics.72 The 30 percent quota was sanctioned in the Electoral Code of the Republic of Albania in 2008, on the basis of which the elections of 28 June 2009 were conducted. Even though they voted for these laws, the political parties, guided by the sense of benet, neglected the implementation of these laws. The problems observed during the election process and especially during the counting process led to a lower representation of women in the Parliament of 2009 at the rate of 16.4 percent.73 The laws were not even observed in the formation of the government; there is only one woman minister out of fourteen. This result is an expression of prevailing masculinity and the low level of democratic, economic, and social development.

1950 18.0%

1970 39.0%

1989 46.0%

TABLE 3: Female work power according to years in percentage (compared to the total work power)

In the health sector, women almost held a monopoly by constituting 78.8 percent of the general number of employees in 1989, while in agriculture, education, the textile industry and trade, they constituted almost 50 percent of the labour force. In 1967, the communist leadership announced a series of measures aiming at the full emancipation of women. The program called on the public opinion, especially the Party opinion, to denounce the traditional practices and mentalities of conning women within households. Further, it reected the need for womens participation in all sectors of economy as a condition for their emancipation. At rst sight, the program seems to have been dictated by the economic factors. At this stage, the Albanian economy had entered its extensive stage of development and was in need of labour force. This was the time when a number of new industrial facilities were established. In terms of numbers, women constituted roughly 50 percent of the population; thus, they could ll this gap accordingly. This way, the government managed to acquire a labour force for the big textile and food industry factories. The program could be considered as the rst of its kind, which created employment opportunities for women. However, it did not ensure an equal economic status for them compared to men due to the politicisation of its content. It treated womens employment as a political necessity, rather than as a need for economic and social progress. The work factor, as Enver Hoxha emphasised, is a major economic, ideological, and political liberation factor for women.75 In the Marxist concept of economic independence, the genuine gender equality could be achieved only through the liquidation of private ownership and the establishment of the social and collective property. Through collective work, women affirm their personality, acquire political and ideological awareness, become free of backward mentalities and are educated as the new women of the social society.76 Private property, however, was no guarantee for being independent and active members of society. From this point of view, gender equality lost its genuine meaning and turned into a propaganda farce. As a consequence, the process of womens employment encountered serious difficulties. Social work not only mitigated, but on the contrary, complicated womens economic position. In fact, women were frequently forced to accomplish work that was harmful to their health.77

Womens Employment During the Communist Regime

Just like in every other sector, in terms of employment and efforts for the economic emancipation of women, the communist regime treated employment as a process and implemented it in line with the concrete economic conditions of the country. Many social, cultural, and educational factors impacted the progress of this process. Traditional factors played an important role as well. The Albanian society was still characterised by a distinguished spirit of conservatism and patriarchy. In many cases, the male ego and the feeling of being owners of their wives surfaced and prevailed among men. Thus, womens functions extended to household chores and caring for household economy and it seems that even women themselves accepted this distinguished feeling of inferiority. Under such circumstances, the process of attracting women to the production sector improved slowly. Initially, the main employment front for women was education, health, and partly state administration. In 1960, women constituted 25.1 percent of the total number of employees in these sectors.74 With the expansion of the economy and the establishment of new enterprises, the demand for female work power increased.

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Being unable to withstand male prejudice, women themselves displayed a lack of faith in their own abilities. Men used this to send them to the most difficult work fronts. They speculated with their feeling of submission and availability and forced them to work extra hours and on weekends. Based on the data, women working in the commercial sector contributed 60-62 hours of work per week. The so-called trade unions, which were supposedly supervising the implementation of laws, agreed with the arbitrary actions of the administration. In the agricultural sector, the situation was similarly grave; three fourth of the women worked in this sector. In the cooperatives, women used to work 12-14 hours against a minimal compensation. When the workload reached its peak, women worked non-stop and performed most of the tasks in the agricultural sector to the degree that their work encouraged a kind of male parasitism. Men normally performed easier and more specialised work. The public perception was also clearly that men lived off the work of women. The cooperatives did not guarantee any of the labour laws for women such as the weekly break, annual vacation, compensation for temporary invalidity and not even maternity leave. In addition to this, they imposed strict disciplinary measures for non-participation at work. Another discriminating factor for women was the low level of qualication in comparison to men, which was clearly visible in their minimal compensation. Due to this, women almost never were called to leading positions in the administration, not even in the health and education sector, where women dominated in terms of numbers and qualication.78 Collective property resulted in the loss of individual autonomy and harmed womens interest in public labour. This gradually brought about the reduction of economic productivity and the worsening of their economic status. The most negative effects were caused by the cutting off of foreign aid and loans and as a result, real income per capita fell from 12 percent to 3.5 percent between 1976 and 1980.79 Even though the economic immunity was trumpeted widely, the socialist market was not able to employ the potential labour force. Women were most affected, as for them unemployment became a premise for deepening gender inequality. Although kept condential, it was calculated that seven percent of womens labour force was unemployed. A study conducted in 1973, based on official data, identied about 6,000 unemployed women in the cities only, not including women who were not registered in the labour offices.80 Eighty-ve percent of the unemployed work force in the country was not registered. Unemployment was higher among young girls and women between fteen and thirty years of age; those having received higher education such as teachers or economists were all employed.

In the villages womens unemployment was expressed in a different form: as a revolt against the primitive methods of cultivating the land and as a challenge to the cooperatives discipline, women would abandon work every now and then. According to a report drafted for the key leaders, only in the summer of 1974, about 40,000 women did not full their working obligations. In the winter period of 1974-1975, 35,000 women per month were absent from their work place.81 In order to heal this wound, the PLA eliminated individual yards on the pretence of encouraging parasitism and held back the socialist development of agriculture. However, this measure had the opposite effect: it accelerated the economic crisis and the fall of the Communist regime.

Aspects of Gender Equality and Poverty (1990-2008)

Upon the collapse of the communist regime, Albania entered a period of serious political, economic, and social reforms. These reforms aimed at the establishment of a democratic system, the protection of human rights, free movement within the country and the increase of the standard of living by introducing market economy. The process of transition from planned to market economy was accompanied by the closing of the non-prot enterprises, which in turn caused the increase of unemployment and poverty. About one fourth of the active population, among them many people with university educations, left the country. These processes were accompanied by a deepening of the social and economic inequality and social exclusion. According to INSTAT, in 1996, only 82 percent of the labour force was employed despite the high gure of labour migration. A total of 1,065,104 people were employed, 71 percent of which worked in the agricultural sector, 19 percent in the public sector, and ten percent in the non-agricultural private sector.82 These gures overturned the situation of 1989, when only the public sector of employment existed, counting 1,440,000 employees, 551,000 of which worked in the agricultural sector. However, until that point, women enjoyed formally equal rights to men with regard to education, employment, and participation in social life. After the fall of communism, womens contribution to the work force decreased.83

TOTAL 13.8%

MEN 11.8%
84

WOMEN 16.8%

TABLE 4: Percentage of unemployed men and women (2006)

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Between 1996 and 2006, female unemployment increased. Unemployment in younger age groups was higher, whereas the employment level for the age group older than 45 years of age remained almost the same. Since 2006, employment rates for women have increased, but mens employment rates have increased even faster (see Table 5). The difference was more distinguished in the agricultural sector with only 25 percent women employed.85

Despite Albanias ratication of the Convention for the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women, the level of womens employment remains visibly lower than that of men.88 De jure, the labour legislation not only does not discriminate against women, but some categories of women such as mothers of many children are given priority in terms of employment. Women constitute 51 percent of the population in the country and contribute considerably to the economic development. Besides that, they are involved in economy by being employed in the public sector (education, health care, public administration, central and local governmental institutions, telecommunication and social institutions).
YEAR 2005 MEN 57.6 45.8 74.2 57.9 WOMEN 42.4 54.2 25.8 42.1
89

EMPLOYMENT 2005 2006 2007

MEN 51.4% 58.8% 63.6%

86

WOMEN 38.6% 38.2% 49.3%

SECTOR

TOTAL 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0

TABLE 5: Percentage of employed men and women (2005-2007)

Public Agricultural Non-agricultural Total

The report on mens and womens employment stresses ratio differences and a hierarchy in the local (communes and prefectures) and higher public administration (see Table 6). At the local administration level, the percentage of female employees is lower than in the municipalities.

TABLE 7: Employment of men and women in various sectors in percentage (2005) TOTAL 43.3 % HIGH-RANKED OFFICIALS 24.6 %
87

LOW-RANKED OFFICIALS 57.0 %

TABLE 6: Employment rates of women in the public sector (2007)

Although gures show a low inclusion of women in the labour force and lower employment rates compared to men, this does not undermine their role and contribution to the economic development of the country. The main concern emerges from the fact that womens actual employment rate is not reected in statistics. Many women are not officially registered as employed, a phenomenon that impacts their rights and leaves them outside the social insurance scheme. In general, the level of unemployment increased until the early 2000s. This is due to a number of factors such as the closing of industrial enterprises after 1990, which had employed a high number of women; the foundation of commercial and construction enterprises, which prefer male employment; and the internal migration movements, which obstructs womens access to the urban labour market. This is a result of the discrepancy between the low level of education and training of women and the increasing level of technology at workplaces.

Besides the closing of state enterprises in the 1990s, which caused many women to lose their jobs, the tendency of the employers of new companies to prefer male employees, the weak infrastructure, the lack of nurseries and kindergartens, and the internal migration of people from rural to urban areas have had an impact on womens employment. Many female migrants to urban areas could not nd employment due to their low level of education, the long distances between their residences and workplaces, the lack of transportation, and the traditional gender-related mentalities and stereotypes.

Religion
Another major question is whether religious affiliation has an impact on gender relations.90 Four religious communities are officially acknowledged: Muslim Sunni, Muslim Bektashi (a kind of order that deviates from Sunni in various aspects), Roman Catholic and Orthodox Christian. Approximately 70 percent of the population are Muslims, 20 percent are Orthodox and ten percent are Catholic. Besides that, various religious sects have emerged, which were imported from other countries after the fall of communism. This study analyses only three religious communities: Sunnis, Catholics and Orthodox. The Bektashi have to be left out because of the lack of data.

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The social history of religion is not well developed in Albania and the relationship between religion, family, and gender relations has not yet been investigated. Studies that at least touch upon this topic tend to focus on one specic religious community or a single denomination and usually stress the harmony and the religious tolerance among Albanians.91 Only in recent years efforts have been made to challenge this myth of religious tolerance.92 Socialist Period The studies on religion in the socialist period, especially since 1967, can be characterised generally as having a deeply ideological, critical, and sceptical bias. According to most of the studies, religion was harmful to the Albanian family, and the religious impact on society and especially on women was considered very regressive because of its conservative ideology.93 From 1965, the year when Enver Hoxha94 spoke on the need to improve womens lives and opposed religious dogmas and practices in everyday life vigorously,95 the so-called period of the revolutionising of life, education, and womens status began. The propaganda machinery declared the necessity of ghting all backward customs and beliefs. Religion was considered hostile for the new socialist society.96 Religious education was also considered obstructive for the new path (the Partys path) that Albanian society would pursue. Parallel to the demolition of many sacred sites, the government, under the pretence of ghting religious prejudices, made relentless atheistic propaganda, which was particularly directed toward the youth of the country. The state repression of religion culminated in 1967, when Hoxha, mimicking his Chinese ally, started the Albanian cultural revolution. The state propaganda focused mostly on the necessity to educate the new socialist man, on class struggle, and on the ght against old traditions and mentalities. The Constitution of 1976 abolished the exercise of religion in public and Albania was declared an atheist state. In the framework of the movement for womens emancipation, the solution proposed by Albanias communist leaders circled around one central idea: the MarxistLeninist theory of society. The emancipation of Albanian women, they believed, should be guided by the Marxist-Leninist theory of the economic development of society. This means above all that women must break out of their connement at home and participate in the production process. For the new socialist woman, emancipation would mean waging war against traditional customs and beliefs. Religion was considered harmful to gender equality and to women, as it was a masculine hierarchic ideology and practice and stressed womens inferiority in society. The religious dogmas and rules were considered as invisible spiritual handcuffs that gloried womens social slavery and their oppression in society and within the family in the name of God. Emphasis was put on the allegedly negative role of religion on peoples family habits and customs, as only marriages within the confessional community were blessed and inter-

confessional marriages were prohibited. The only path to be followed according to the PLA leadership was that of communist ideology, which meant the building up of an atheist state and society. In fact, not everything went without opposition to the state policy. In several regions, people protested and wanted to protect their sacred sites. Thus, in 1967 in Himara, the towns Orthodox women protested against the closing of their church and against the removal of the holy icons from the church. In this case, the PLAs Central Committee advised the local authorities not to exercise violence, but to persuade people of the necessity of actions against religion, as religion was opposed to womens emancipation. Despite the efforts to extinguish religion from everyday life, some people did preserve their beliefs and rituals in certain remote regions in the highlands. Many Albanians continued to practice their religion by adjusting themselves to the new conditions. This, however, was very difficult, since the state authorities were watchful to the point that even children were asked in class what feasts are celebrated at home or what kind of menu was served at (abolished) religious feasts. From a gender perspective, the secret exercise of beliefs and rituals by women was obviously more pronounced than by men. Usually women wore crucixes, small icons or religious symbols hidden under their clothes. They prepared religious dishes such as halva, grur and ashure, Easter eggs and secretly distributed them to the other believers. All this contributed to the survival of religious beliefs during the socialist period in a rudimentary form. Transition, Religion and Gender In Public and Private In 1990, Albania abolished the law on prohibition of religious propaganda and the so-called revival period of religion and religious institutions began. People were nally free to exercise their beliefs. The economic and social changes in the beginning of the 1990s had an utmost important impact on the Albanian family. After the demise of communism, however, as Duijzings asserted, faith has regained some of its previous signicance in the lives of ordinary Albanians. Traditional cultural and social values experienced a revival. But it is still too early to assess their impact on gender relations. In the early phase of transition, many women backed out from political and public life and gender equality was discredited in the socialist period. Religion was pushed into the private realm and tended to reinforce womens domestication by becoming the guardian of private life and family values. At this stage, religious institutions became involved in discussing the social problems and challenges of transition, such as the loss of moral values and spiritual virtues as well as divorce, abortion, and domestic violence. Contemporary family problems were linked to the apparent decline of faith. The importance of family values was stressed for overcoming the social problems caused by post-socialist economy.

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Recently, religious leaders began to encourage religious women to enter the public and non-religious spheres. Both Muslim and Christian leaders participated in public discourses on transition and its impact on womens religious life. According to them, this is the right moment for religious women to be assigned the deserved contribution in politics, public, and intellectual life and, society needs a womans love for human beings. The Christian spiritual leaders attribute to the presence of women in society the image of the mother. Similarly, in the Church, it is the image of Virgin Mary and her humility, purity, beauty and constancy that would save society from aggressiveness. It seems that the idealisation of motherhood is especially powerful, partly because of the particular popularity of the devotional cult of Mary among Catholic and Orthodox believers and partly because of the general valorisation of motherhood in public opinion. The religious women activists in Albania are still making efforts to clear up the clichs about beliefs and religious women and to promote womens integration in economic development and the increase of their participation in public and political life, which, according to them, will contribute to gender equality in Albanian society. Examples of the attitude to go public came also from women who are active in religious NGOs. Nowadays it is normal for them to attend religious gatherings or rituals. They take professional courses (on tailoring, computing, foreign language, nursing etc.) managed by their religious institutions. Some Christian activist women serve as office personnel and nurses in Christian clinics and religious cafeterias and organise summer courses and camps. However, as Woodhead pointed out, women face a tension when they decide to enter public life. According to them, religion in general has become a natural environment for the articulation of womens lives and desires lives that are centred on home, family, children and husband. Women who moved into public life by (for example) exercising a profession, however, would experience tension between traditional religious values and the values of their public/professional lives. While speaking with religious activists, this tension was conrmed as they pointed out the difficulties they had faced with their husbands due to their desire to attend courses or open their own business. The husbands felt neglected as their wives were not home caring for them, cooking for them and looking after the children. Many women feel independent from their husbands as soon as they start making their own money. Tension becomes obvious also when women complain about the amount of work they have to do, besides providing for the husband: Hell, I have to go home and cook for him! (Dreq, duhet t shkoj n shtpi t gatuaj per t!).

Conclusion
In the course of the last two decades of the communist regime, the PLA conceived and led the movement for the continued emancipation of women at various fronts. This impacted education, economy, gender relations, and religion. The Party made the professional promotion of women and their membership in the Party its monopoly. Despite the propaganda to introduce it as a movement initiated by women, the PLA limited the movement to being the Partys own. Furthermore, it should be presented as the ideological frame for the development of the new woman, who was directly dependent on the Party. Women were more often put to the task of constructing socialism rather than promoting their own emancipation. In the 1960s and the beginning of 1970s, satisfactory formal levels were achieved in education, employment, and participation in leadership and decision-making, which improved womens situation in family and society. The eight-year mandatory education was consolidated and girls constituted approximately 50 percent of the students at high schools and universities. Womens public employment was increasing in the 1970s; the state announced that the womens problem was resolved. The involvement of women in leadership and decision-making resulted in an increase of up to 33.6 percent (in 1974) in the Parliament and up to 32.2 percent in Party membership (in 1986). These processes were advertised as an achievement of the PLA and a value of the socialist system and were not seen as a logical progress of a developing country. The propaganda continued with the same intensity during the second half of the 1970s and during the 1980s, when it became clear that the complete isolation of the country and its economic downfall had a great impact on the families and women. This situation led to a shrinking of the economy, to an increase of the workload of women, both in the rural and urban areas, including the intellectual strata of society as well. Poverty and unemployment were phenomena that were unacceptable to the PLA. The educational infrastructure and the living standards of teachers and instructors were affected, and the political criteria for admission to university were strengthened, especially for the so-called favourable majors. Womens education was characteristically Spartan, in line with the prefabricated clichs. Female pupils and students got involved in physical and military training, thus facing various difficulties. The grave economic situation and the strengthening of control by the senior leaders of the PLA led to lowering the level of representation of women in several sectors. This was also due to the more intense involvement of women in the family.

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The movement against religion, banning the exercise of religion and the activity of the religious institutions was developed also alongside the movement for the emancipation of women. This greatly affected the rights of women to practice religion and religious rituals, as well as their rapport with society, family, and state. In general, religious women used a form of passive resistance against these measures by observing religious rituals in hiding and preserving cultural objects, thus becoming an important element of preserving religious values in Albanian society. The transition of society at the beginning of the 1990s to market economy and a political pluralist system created new venues for the Albanian women to take part in public life and in free market activity, although their participation is limited. The right to compete created opportunities for women to display their intellectual, managerial, and leadership capabilities. Women began to organise themselves and their networks, and at the same time, their involvement in protecting their rights and freedoms have become stable. The law on the right to exercise religion and the establishment of religious institutions has created opportunities for women to practice religious rituals and take part in the re-establishment of religious institutions and organise themselves in religious NGOs. An evolution of religious institutions took place especially within the Muslim communities with regard to admitting and involving women in the public religious life. The processes for achieving gender equality in Albania during the postsocialist period have faced various challenges. Several factors, such as massive un employment resulting from the closing down of state enterprises, massive internal and external migration, serious political confrontation and conicts, inefficiency of the state institutions to preserve law and order, as well as the governments and political parties negligence to implement the gender programs announced by them, led to a decline of womens employment, increase of poverty, increase of womens responsibility for the family due to the massive male labour emigration, especially in the rural areas, and the drastic decline of their representation in Parliament, leadership and local government. At the beginning of the 2000s, as a result of the economic, political, and social stability in the country, positive steps could be observed towards the improvement of the position of women in education, employment, leadership and decisionmaking, as well as the womens movement consolidation. Despite the increased rates of school drop-outs, the attendance of high schools and universities by women regained higher levels compared to men. An increase in the number of female instructors at the university level has to be positively recognised. Education and qualication created new employment opportunities for women. Womens initiatives to contribute to small businesses in rural and urban areas has increased signicantly. A positive role in the improvement of womens position in society can be seen in the enhanced cooperation between the state, women-based NGOs and international organisations to

draft and approve the National Strategy on Gender Equality (2007), the approval of the Act On Gender Equality (2008), and the identication of a 30 percent quota of womens representation in the legislative, executive, and judicial structures. However, in the Parliamentary elections of 2009, the 30 percent quota was not respected and womens representation in Parliament increased only from seven percent in 2005 to 16.4 percent. However, it is logical that the implementation of the national program on gender equality will take its time.

Short Biographies
Fatmira Musaj is research professor at the Institute of History in the Centre for the Study of Albanology, Tirana. Her eld is the history of modern Albania, with the interwar period as her specialty. Besides numerous articles, she has published the monographs Isa Boletini, 1864-1916 (Academy of Sciences, 1987) and Gruaja n Shqipri 1912-1939 (Women in Albania 1912-1939) (Academy of Sciences, 2002). Her most recent book, Republika Shqiptare, 1925-1928, is in press. Fatmira Rama is professor at the Faculty of History of the University of Tirana. Her eld is the history of interwar Albania. Besides publishing numerous articles, she is author and co-author of several books. Her recent books are Educational characteristics during World War II in Albania (in press), Education and pedagogical thought in Albania: 1944-1948 (in press). Enriketa Pandelejmoni is researcher and university lector at the Faculty of History of the University of Tirana. Her eld is the history of interwar Albania, urban anthropology and urban history. She is at the nal phase of completing her PhD Thesis on interwar Shkodra. Besides publishing several articles, she is co-author of the book Albania: Family, Society and Culture in the 20th Century (Munster 2010). Rajmonda Prifti and Marjeta Vinjau are NGO activists. R. Prifti is member of several networks and women coalitions dealing with gender relations in Southeast Europe. She is co-author of several studies on women and is currently involved in the preparation of a national strategy for gender equality. M. Vinjau has been a freelance journalist with TVSH (Albanian State Television) for thirty years.

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ENDNOTES

This project is supported by ERSTE Stiftung. It is developed within the framework of a larger project sponsored by ERSTE Stiftung, Transitions in Central and South Eastern Europe Changing Gender Perspectives (JanuaryDecember 2009). Sadikaj, Lvizja pr emancipimin (The movement for the full emancipation). Lalaj, Feja dhe gruaja (Religion). (Peoples Voice).

4 Hako, Feja armike (Religion), Zri i Popullit

official platforms on gender issues. See also: National Strategy on Gender Equality and Domestic Violence, Tirana, 2008; The Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women, Tirana, 2007; The Albanian Woman and the Issue of Gender Equality, Tirana, 2007; Culture of Rural Families, Tirana, 2003; National Platform for Equality Between Women and Men, Tirana, 1999; Annual report of the Committee for Women and Family, Tirana, 1999.
15 Femra dhe meshkuj (Women and Men). 16 Dudwick and Shahriari, Education in Albania. 17 Koliqi, Historia e arsimit (History of the Alba-

32 Dudwick and Shahriari, Education in Albania,

p. 34.
33 Statistical Yearbook, 1989, p. 19. 34 Femra dhe meshkujt n Shqipri (Women and

of the Secretariat of the Central Committee of the PLA, 18 October 1969.

48 Fifth Congress of the PLA, Tirana, 1966, p. 347. 49 AQSH. F. 14/AP, strukture, 1970, D. 242, p. 7. 50 Ibid., p. 9. 51 Ninth Congress of the PLA, Tirana, 1986, p.

Men in Albania), INSTAT, Tirana, 2008, p. 27.

35 Soros Foundation (ed.), Harmonizimi i poli-

tikave (Harmonization of the social policies), p. 62.

36 Femra dhe meshkuj (Women and Men), p. 27. 37 Shekulli (The Century), 10 November 2009,

393-394.
52 Ibid. 53 Fifth Congress, p. 399-400. 54 Ninth Congress, p. 393-394. 55 Statistical Yearbook, 1981, p. 29. 56 Institute of Marxism-Leninism (ed.), Historia e

Zojzi, Mbeturina t familjes (The remains of the patriarchal family), Studime Historike (Historical Studies), p. 33-37. Verdery, What was Socialism and What Comes Next?. Burawoy and Verdery, (eds.), Uncertain Transition, 1999. Gal and Kligman, The Politics of Gender, 2000. Brunnbauer, Die sozialistische Lebensweise, 2007.

no. 2787.
38 Soros Foundation, Harmonizimi i politikave

nian education).
18 Academy of Sciences of Albania (ed.), Historia

(Harmonization of social policies), p. 62.

39 Fuga, Dervishi, and Gjika, Midis humbtirs

e Popullit Shqiptar (The history of the Albanian people), p. 289.

19 The publications of the time featured many

kulturore (Between the cultural backwardness), p. 10.

40 Embassy of Great Britain, a movie to raise

Partis s Puns (The History of the Party of Labour), p. 435.

57 Dervishi, Grat n syrin e ciklonit (Women in

8 9

articles and photos on this issue. The author, a pupil and a student during that time, have witnessed these movements.
20 Statistical Yearbook of Albania, 1990, p. 151, 153. 21 Islami, Mbi shtrirjen dhe masivizimin, p. 54-57. 22 Statistical Yearbook, p. 151, 153. 23 Revista Shqiptarja e Re (The New Albanian

childrens awareness. Shekulli (The Century), 2009.

41 Dudwick and Shahriari, Education in Albania,

the midst of the cyclone), p. 96.

58 AQSH. F. 14/AP, strukture, 1973, D. 195, p. 10-11. 59 Ibid., p. 2. 60 Ibid., 1983, D. 95, p. 20. 61 Ibid., 1970, D. 1, p. 24-25; D. 267, p. 88-91. 62 Gal and Kligman, Reproducing gender. 63 Kaser, Patriarchy, p. 145. 64 Katro, Mekanizmat (Mechanisms), p. 11. 65 A study on the gender equality situation in

XVII.
42 Musaj and Nicholson, Women activists in

10 Kaser, Patriarchy, 2008. 11 Rueschemeyer, Women in the Politics of Post-

Albania.
43 Law no. 124, dated 28 September 1945, on

Communist Eastern Europe, 1998.

12 Corrin, Gender and Identity, 1999. 13 Kaser, Patriarchy, 2008. 14 Katro et al. (eds.), Mekanizmi institucional (In-

Woman Journal), p. 3.
24 AQSH. F. 14/AP. strukture, 1970, D. 478, p. 8. 25 Revista Shqiptarja e Re (The New Albanian

the election of the peoples representative to the Constitutional Assembly. Published on 1 October 1945.
44 Constitution of Peoples Republic of Albania,

stitutional mechanisms), Tirana: Lila, 1999; The Law on Gender Equality and the lobbying for its enforcement, Tirana: Millenium, 2004; Studim i situats s barazis gjinore n Shqipri (A study on the gender equality situation in Albania), Publication of MOLSAEO, Tirana, 2007; Gaia, Quarterly Magazine on Gender Issues, Tirana, 2006-2008; The division of private and public life in the Albanian Households A gender-based approach, Tirana, 2008. The Department for Equal Opportunities in the Ministry of Labour, Social Affairs and Equal Opportunities has regularly published reports and

Woman Journal), p. 20.

26 Kaser, Patriarchy, p. 150-151. 27 AQSH. F.14/AP, strukture, 1970, D. 478, p. 8. 28 Statistical Yearbook, p. 153. 29 Revista Shqiptarja e Re (The New Albanian

Tirana, 1946.
45 Statistical Yearbook, 1989, p. 23. 46 Institute of Marxism-Leninism (ed.), Historia e

Albania, Publication of the Ministry of Labour, Social Affairs and Equal Opportunities, p. 24.
66 Ibid., p. 6. 67 Information made available to us by the

Partis s Puns t Shqipris (The History of the Labour Party of Albania), p. 435.
47 Hoxha, Enver, Speech delieverd on 6 February

Ministry of Labour, Social Affairs and Equal Opportunities, Tirana 2009.

68 Ibid. 69 Kaser, Patriarchy, 221; Blagojevic, Report,

Woman Journal), p. 2, p. 6.
30 Jacques, Shqiptart (The Albanians), p. 748. 31 Katro, Mekanizmi (Mechanism), p. 33.

1967; Zri i Popullit (Peoples Voice), 7 February 1967; Alia, Ramiz, Speech held in the Second Plenum of the Central Committee of the PLA, 15 June, 1967; Discussion at the meeting

Serbia, NHDR, 2007, p. 8.

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70 Koi, Vendimarrja (Decision-making), 2007. 71 Law on Gender Equality in Albania, Tirana,

91 See also: essays published by the Catholic

2008, p. 13.
72 Survey data gathered in the framework of the

project.
73 Information provided by the Albanian Parlia-

ment during the project eldwork.

74 30 Vjet (30 Years), 1974, p. 42. 75 Hoxha, Mbi problemin e gruas (On the problem

Archbishop conference on Christendom and Albanians: Archbishop Conference of Albania, Christianity among Albanians, International Symposium, Tirana, 16-19 November, 1999. Shkodr, 2000; Sherif Delvina, Albania. The country of inter-religious harmony, Tirana, 2006.
92 Worth mentioning are the publications of the

revolutionary movement against religion in the 1960s), Studime Historike (Historical Studies), no. 4, 1981, p. 111-144.
97 Reso, Socializmi dhe Feja (Socialism and reli-

107 Sidoma, Report on Albanian Atheism, 1982. 108 Typical religious food eaten usually during

religious celebrations by Muslims, Christians and Bektashis.

109 Duijzings, Religion and the Politics of

gion), Rruga e Partis (The way of the party), 1960, p. 50-58; Foto ami et.al., Feja sht opium pr popullin (Religion is the opium of the people).
98 Vokopola, Church and State in Albania, p. 36. 99 Duka, Historia e Shqipris (The history of

Alba nianism, p. 60-69.

110 Archbishop Conference of Albania, Letr

of women), 1973, p. 54.

76 AQSH. F.14/AP, strukture, 1967, D. 202, p. 215. 77 AQSH. F. 14/ AP, strukture, 1970, D. 295, p.

Albanian journal Prpjekja (Endeavour) and the book Albanian Identities by Stephanie Schwandner-Sievers and Bernd J. Fischer.
93 During communism, all studies had a clear

Familjes (Letter to families), p. 13-18.

111 Ibid.

Albania), p. 280.
100 Gashi, Lufta kundr fes (The ght against

51-52.
78 Sadikaj, Lvizja (Movement), p. 47. 79 Academy of Sciences, Historia e Popullit (The

History of the People) vol. 4, p. 279.

80 AQSH. F.14/AP, strukture, 1973, D. 168, p. 7. 81 AQSH. F.14/AP, strukture, 1975, D. 261, p. 2. 82 Institute of Statistics (INSTAT), Zhvillimi

(Development), 2000.
83 Ibid. 84 Femra dhe meshkuj (Women and Men), 2007,

p. 7.
85 INSTAT, Tregu i Puns 2007 (Labour Market

2007), p. 11.
86 Femra dhe meshkuj (Women and Men), 2006,

political character. All of them would demons trate the official ideological and political policy of the Albanian Labour Party. Such are the following studies: Bajo, Fatos, Feja Roli reaksionar dhe antikombtar (Religion The reactionary and anti-national role), Ylli (The Star) no. 1, 1969, 22-23; Haskaj, Zihni, Feja Roli reaksionar dhe antikombtar (Religion The reactionary and anti-national role), Msuesi (The Teacher), 9 April 1969; Hasko, Hulusi, Feja armike e egr e gruas (Religion A erce enemy of the woman), Zri i Popullit (Peoples Voice), 4 March 1969; Lalaj, Petro, Feja dhe gruaja shqiptare (Religion and the Albanian woman), Studime Historike (Historical Studies) no. 3, 1969, 105-123; Arif Gashi, Feja Roli i kulturs n luftn antifetare (Religion The role of culture in the anti-religious war), Delivered in the Scientic-Cultural Session. Tirana, 1974, p. 128-131.
94 Secretary General of the Party of Labour of

religion), 1974; Academy of Sciences of Albania (ed.). Historia e Popullit Shqiptar IV. Shqiptart gjat Lufts s Dyt Botrore dhe pas saj 1939-1990 (The History of the Albanian People IV. Albanians during WW II and afterwards 1939-1990), Tirana, 2008, p. 286.
101 Putsch-Weber, Sa keq q (Too bad), p. 39. 102 Mustaqi, Posi burrat (Women as equals of

Speech by Haxhi Selim Mua, Head of the Albanian Muslim Community, Special issue of the conference proceedings, The role of religious women in society, held in Tirana, 5 February 2008, p. 14.
112 Speech by Joan Pelushi, Orthodox Metropolit

men), p. 3.
103 The term handcuff (Albanian: pranga) was

one of the most frequently used terms in the studies on religion during the socialist period in Albania.
104 Sadikaj, Lvizja, pr emancipimin (The move-

of Kora. Special issue of the conference proceedings, The role of religious women in society, held in Tirana, 5 February 2008, p. 21; Speech of Msgn. Rrok Mirdita, Catholic Bishop of Tirana and Durrs; Special issue of the conference proceedings The role of religious women in society, held in Tirana, 5 February 2008, p. 17-18.
113 Mai, Femra besimtare (The religious woman),

p. 33-35.
114 Woodhead, Women and Religion, p. 333. 115 In Tirana, several religious women opened

ment for the full emancipation), p. 109.

105 Shahu, Shteti komunist (The communist state),

p. 362-363.
106 AQSH. F. 14/AP, strukture, 1967, D. 6, 8-9;

up their own shops to serve their religious clients.

116 AQSH. F. 14/AP, strukture, 1970, D. 295,

p. 26.
87 Ibid. 88 Official Journal no. 13, 1994, 809; Law no.

Albania (PLA) and the Albanian dictator from 1945 until his death on 11 April 1985.
95 Hoxha, Lufta kundra (The war against back-

AQSH. F. 14/AP, strukture, 1967, D. 26, p. 59.

p. 51.

7767, 9 November 1993, On the Ratication of Convention for the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women.
89 INSTAT, Rezultate t ankets (The results of the

ward traditions), 1965.

96 Hako, Feja armike e gruas (Religion, the enemy

survey), 2005.
90 This part of the research was conducted by

Enriketa Pandelejmoni, who would like to express her gratitude to Iris Gjinishi of the Albanian Muslim Community, to Monsg. George Frendo of the Catholic Church in Albania and to Rajmonda Shqevi of the Orthodox Autocephalous Church of Albania for helping her with sources and materials on their communities.

of the woman), Shqiptarja e Re (The New Albanian Woman Journal) no. 4, 1967, p. 12; Hako, Hulusi, Gruaja dhe fmija viktimat m t ndjeshme t ideologjis fetare (The woman and the child the most vulnerable victims of the religious ideology), Tirana, 1968; Frahja, Luigj, Ideologjia fetare dhe kanunore armike e betuar e t drejtave t gruas (Religious and kanun ideology, sworn enemies of women rights), Jeta e Re (New Life), 19 August 1970; Hako, Hulusi, Shoqria e liruar nga prangat e fes (Society liberated from the chains of religion), Ylli (The Star) no. 1, 1980, 6; Sadikaj, Dilaver, Lvizja revolucionare kundr fes n vitet 60-t (The

B U LG A R I A

Gender Identities in Transition: The Role of Popular Culture and the Media in Bulgaria After 1989 Milena Kirova, Kornelia Slavova

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A B ST RA C T

The project Gender Identities in Transition: The Role of Popular Culture and the Media in Bulgaria After 1989 was carried out by the Bulgarian Association of University Women (BAUW) in 2009. The rst part of the project included a sociological survey among young people in post-communist Bulgaria in order to collect data on the role of the media and popular culture in reconstructing gender identities in postcommunist Bulgaria. The second part analysed the changing gender dynamics after 1989 through specic case studies on popular culture and media consumption, trying to outline the tensions and contradictions between the old gender patterns, marked by patriarchal traditions and the totalitarian state legacy, and the newly emerging denitions of femininity and masculinity, triggered by Western consumer- and celebrity culture.

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Both popular culture and the media play a highly inuential role in identity construction and this is why the project of the Bulgarian Association of University Women has focused on their impact in the transitional period in Bulgaria after the fall of communism in 1989. What is more, they have been studied through the lens of the category of gender a non-existing category of social analysis in social sciences under communism. Thus, the project works at the intersection of popular culture, media studies and gender studies extremely dynamic and topical areas of research, which were neglected and underestimated during communism. This article sums up the nal outcome of the research project. First, it briey introduces the research questions, methodology and activities of the project, as well as the major tendencies observed in the changing social traditions and attitudes towards gender. The second part of the article describes the end result of the project, namely the publication of the book, entitled Identichnosti v prehod: rod, medii i populyarna kultura v Bulgaria sled 1989 (Identities in Transition: Gender, Media and Popular Culture in Bulgaria after 1989),1 based on twelve case studies dealing with gender issues as reected in the popular press, TV culture, advertising, lm, crime ction, fashion, sports and others. The conclusions sum up the contradictory processes in gender reconstruction due to the clash between high-brow culture and popular culture, between pre-modern patriarchal traditions and postmodern global inuences as well as generational shifts.

the media, gender patterning in interpreting gendered forms of popular culture, and many other relevant and important issues. Some questions in the questionnaire were multiple-choice questions, whereas others were open-ended and requested personal and analytical answers on a specic theme according to the respondents individual preferences. The rst part of the questionnaire collecting data on gender roles and social traditions immediately brought forth some surprising results. Although the respondents in the survey are supposedly the next generation of educated people in twenty-rst-century Bulgaria, one third of the female students support the rather traditional concept that caring for the children and the home is as signicant as professional fullment. At the same time, 78 percent of the female students, supported by almost half of the male students, express their belief that women are better politicians than men. Surprisingly, taking care of the home and the family is believed to be as rewarding as paid work by 35 percent of the young women and 56 percent of the men (who, quite obviously, do not identify themselves with the same perspective). Almost half of the female respondents (47 percent) and only one fth (22 percent) of the men agree with the statement that the child should stay with the mother in case the parents separate. At the same time, 91 percent of women and 86 percent of men still share the understanding that the man in a couple should be older than the woman.4 As we can see, the answers of the interviewed young people are pulling in many different directions as far as their attitudes to family values and structures are concerned. Yet, there is a clear indication that there is still a profound disposition towards traditional gender roles, whereas the new gender roles are still in the making. Obviously, the survey reveals that social inclinations uctuate enormously in a postcommunist, market-oriented society still in the process of being restructured and re-dened as the old and new preconceptions intermingle, and the traditional and postmodern understanding of gender roles co-exist. The paradigm of womens roles seems to be in a state of deeper change, whereas mens roles have a stronger tendency to stay steady. In this respect, it is pertinent to mention the impact of the media in inuencing these shifting processes and values. As already mentioned, the greatest gender-based distinction in terms of the respondents expectations and attitudes concerns womens capability and performance in politics. Many students refer to womens lifestyle magazines as representing new images of women politicians, thus breaking up the traditional views. For example, several students refer to Nadezhda Mihailova (former Bulgarian Minister of Foreign Affairs) whose image appeared recently on the front cover of Eva magazine under the title: Women who stick out.5 It is common practice in the media today to present public gures of femininity by implying phallocentric symbols of masculinity in them.

Sociological Data on Gendered Media Consumption

At the beginning of 2009, a team of sociologists, led by Roumyana Stoilova and Tanya Kotzeva,2 started working on compiling empirical data on the gendered perceptions and consumption of popular culture and the media in contemporary Bulgarian society. A sociological questionnaire was prepared and then, in the course of a month, the survey itself was carried out. Although there had been some existent studies on attitudes and habits of young people in Bulgaria,3 this sociological survey is the rst of its kind in post-communist Bulgaria because it covered a large group of respondents from different universities and regions in the country, while at the same time focusing on gender issues. In addition, the project has used an innovative interdisciplinary approach to the problems of investigation especially the understanding of identities as discursive constructs, i.e., as both reecting changing social discourses and being simultaneously constructed in/through public and media discourses. The target group of the survey consisted of 550 students from eight Bulgarian universities (both state and private, in the capital and in the country). They gave in a written form their responses to forty questions related to gender stereotypes and traditional attitudes to femininity and masculinity, educational background, the use of

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In addition, the sociological survey provides useful data concerning the impact of the media and popular culture on everyday activities of young people in Bulgaria as the media environment has become increasingly diversied in the postcommunist context. Sixty-four percent of the interviewees mention that watching TV, DVDs and videos takes the greatest part of their leisure time, and they enjoy this form of visual entertainment.6 It looks somewhat optimistic that 30 percent of the respondents still nd reading books very pleasurable, and another 29 percent like doing it, which makes a total of 58 percent reading with (some degree of) pleasure. At the same time, there are about 5 percent of students who declare that they do not read books a shocking statement in view of the fact that the respondents are university students.7 In the discussions about entertainment and leisure, gender differentiation is most interesting in relation to sports. On the whole, 86 percent of the students are physically active the most common activities they are involved in being keep-t exercises, aerobics, yoga, swimming, and jogging. Half of the men say that they are motivated to practice sports by their desire to compete with others, while the same motivation is valid for only 17 percent of the women. There is nothing surprising in these results in view of established sociological studies such as Pierre Bourdieus Male Domination,8 where competitiveness is analysed as one of the major pillars of masculinity. What is rather surprising is that an almost equal number of male and female students in the survey explain that they practice sports in order to look good: ninety-one percent of women compared to eighty-eight percent of men.9 It seems that Bourdieus characteristics of masculinity cannot be of much help when analysing very recent changes in gender patterning. The last part of the survey explores the desire of young people to identify with popular public gures. I have to confess my astonishment when I read that 82 percent of the respondents declared having no specic idol or role model. According to Kotzeva and Stoilova, the sociologists conducting the survey, this phenomenon can be explained with the lack of inuential persons and models in the rapidly transforming Bulgarian society as well as the impossibility to attain public consensus in todays divided society.10 Of course, this unwillingness on behalf of young people to emulate role models can be easily attributed to the overall deance of social conventions, which is typical of young people as a whole.

lm in order to trace the changing dynamics of gender in two different political, social and cultural settings. For this second part of the project, eleven scholars (both men and women) from different Bulgarian universities were recruited. The participants in this part of the project are leading scholars in the areas of gender studies and cultural studies, as well as in studies of lm, literature and language.11 All of them have studied the changing conceptions of femininity and masculinity before and after 1989, according to their specic interests and expertise. In September 2009, while the research was still under way, the regular Bulgarian issue of the prominent journal Foreign Policy came out. In it we nd in translation Reihan Salams article, The Death of Macho12; obviously the Bulgarian editors have found the title provocative and sensational enough to announce it in huge letters on the cover page. At the very beginning of the article the author declares quite categorically that the time of machos is coming to an end. The process has been accelerated and speeded up by the big nancial crisis that the world went through last year. In his opinion, this tendency is the crisis most permanent consequence. From now on, machismo has no chance to survive, it has no future; men have to face a huge dilemma: either to accept this obvious historical fact or to resist it the latter leading to deeply negative consequences for humanity. Have we really witnessed such a deep and irreversible shift? Have we really lived to see the nal redenition of male/female roles, which began right after the Second World War in Tofflers opinion?13 Along the lines of these important global questions, the current Bulgarian project is extremely topical and timely as it traces a similar trajectory in the transitional development of Bulgaria. More precisely, it is trying to answer a whole set of burning questions: what are the media representations of the various gender/sexual groups in Bulgaria? What is the situation with homophobia? Can we say that we are witnessing the beginning of a more tolerant attitude towards sexual minorities? Is there anything like the concept of political gender having in mind the broad interest in political news and the print and electronic media?

Advertising and Gender Construction in Bulgaria

There is one public space where a person any person comes into contact with mass/popular culture by accident, with no right to choose, sometimes even without realizing that subconsciously, he or she has internalized the popular messages clothed in popular images. This special space belongs to advertising the most widely, involuntarily (even subconsciously) consumed product. We are surrounded by ads every where: on the streets and on the highways, in the kitchen and in bed, while watching TV before falling asleep. In September 2008, the European Parliament adopted a resolution about the inuence of marketing and advertising on the equality between

Changing Gender Dynamics in Bulgarian Society: Case Studies on Popular Culture and Media Consumption
Building upon the empirical results and observations from the sociological survey, the project entered its second, analytical stage: to explore specic empirical material and practices from popular culture and the media such as womens and mens magazines, TV culture, crime ction, fashion, advertising, sports, popular music and

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women and men. The resolution calls for a change in the established stereotypes, which reproduce a world dividing people along gender/sexual lines.14 Two separate studies in the project, conducted by Rumyana Stoilova and myself, discuss advertisements and their often imperceptible intrusiveness.15 According to Stoilova, the Bulgarian advertising terrain is still dominated by stereotypical gender roles and images, which serve as an additional factor to keep reproducing the social inequalities between men and women. There are very few uncommon, challenging and gender-transgressive advertisements a fact that contributes to the problematic adaptability of both women and men in the changing reality of the worlds they live in. The stereotypical division of gender roles according to Stoilova can be summed up as follows: The dominant type of masculinity, decoded in qualities such as determination, physical strength and resilience is opposed to a traditional understanding of femininity restricted to the domain of family responsibility and sexual attractiveness.16 In the few cases where there has been a noticeable effort to nd more suitable images to reect the new public functions performed by women, the very forms of expression combine in a grotesque manner elements of both old and new conceptions, as well as the home and public aspects of womens existence. For example, a woman running for a mayor in a big city is shown on an election campaign poster wearing six rows of pearls; a pop singer runs for a member of the Municipal Council by simply replacing her stage costume with a more stern-looking suit of a business lady. Such ads create the impression that women rule by a twist of putting on a new type of clothing or a new social role. Stoilova offers yet another example of the contradictory messages in gender terms: one newspaper places on its front page the photos of the six Bulgarian women who have been elected to be members of the European Parliament but the caption by the photos is extremely discriminatory: The Bulgarian SEXtet in the European Parliament. Diagnosis with no prescriptions for treatment.17 In the existing world of males and females, men are no lesser victims than women to the traditionally dened roles, according to which men must assert themselves by opposing women. Stoilova gives a very adequate example: in the summer of 2009, the whole of Bulgaria was literally and metaphorically ooded by the new advertising campaign of the Kamenitsa Beer brand, led under the motto: Lets Save Man. In many TV clips and billboards of the campaign, men are shown asserting their masculinity by simply rejecting the boring demands of their wives such as not to open the beer bottle with a fork, not to talk on the phone with their mothers, to look after their personal belongings, to walk the dog and so on. In this case, male identity is dened in negative no terms: that is, the real man is the one who can say no to women despite the fact that their family demands are fair.

My own research also pays attention to advertising strategies this time in the form of TV clips and billboards, which circulate sexist messages. Almost 60 percent of the analysed material are ads for cheap alcohol; undoubtedly they are the loudest and most tasteless ones.18 As a rule, they portray pop-folk music stars dishing out aggressively their esh as an embodiment of their display of femininity. The rest of the 40 percent of the sexist types of advertisements usually present typically masculine professions, activities or attributes through the mediation of the female body, which supposedly can sell anything: for example, outdoor paint is being sold through the image of a naked female bottom with the imprint of a male hand on top of it; a car wash service boasts of its cleanliness, which allows a half-naked woman to lie back on top of the front cover of a car that has just been washed; instruments for welding are being offered in the form of a gun, pressed against a luscious girl dressed in a monokini.19 In addition to the fact that such types of advertisements obviously violate the abovementioned European resolution, they reproduce not only the stereotypical gender roles but also the sexist perceptions, which might seem to be funny and innocent, but in practice suggest the idea of social inequality between the two sexes. The research is based also on interviews with people from the Bulgarian advertising industry: namely, two directors of advertisement clips for TV broadcasting and two executive directors of big advertising agencies. From those conversations it has become clear that social and sexual segregation is already present at the level of the target group, as well as in the very approach, characteristic of Bulgarian advertising clients and advertising producers. Alcohol and even beer are considered to be targeted at men only. Therefore, it is not surprising that in such ads women appear in the form of a commodity, which makes the life of man, i.e., the male human being, easier. Advertising of high technology products is targeted exclusively at the group of people of 35-40 years of age.20 Sexism often veers towards pornography. In fact, advertisements tend to be one of the major channels through which pornography enters mass culture. The process seems so popular and natural i.e., so imperceptible, that we can observe it even in the pre-election campaign of the Bulgarian Socialist Party (the party of former communists) what is more, in the very process of trying to better present their candidates in the elections for the European Parliament. Advertising in all its possible forms such as TV clips, billboard print and electronic forms can reveal better than any other media and popular culture products the difference in the social use of gender stereotypes before and after 1989. During the communist regime, sexual characteristics had to be subjugated to class identication. The women from the respective classes workers, peasants or progressively-minded members of the intelligentsia were deliberately desexualised for years on end. The sex appeal of ones own wife was a taboo; it could be represented only as part of the characteristic features of the foreign enemy countries and classes. Official ideology did not allow for any sexist manifestations because women (at least according to

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propaganda) were considered to be equal to men as constructors of the proletarian world. Any attempt to propagate in public the inequality between men and women or even any discussion of the differences between the two sexes in literature or art was severely penalized. For a few decades, advertising was absent from the everyday life of communist citizens. In economic terms, this was easy to explain: the reason behind it was the natural decit of goods on the mass market. What was the point of advertising a specic make of a car when in order to buy even a cardboard Trabant one had to wait for 7-8 years? Even around the end of the 1970s, when the rst Sotz ads appeared, they used to present not so much a specic product but rather the state enterprise behind it, i.e., the very producer being advertised through the mediation of the product.21 Since the beginning of the twenty-rst century, the advertising industry has gained momentum quickly in Bulgaria. Today, about fty percent of the ads on our market are locally produced, whereas in the 1990s, their number hardly amounted to ten percent.22 Another curious fact is that many women work in the advertising industry about half of the people employed in it. Indeed, most of the graphic designers and creative-directors are men but women tend to dominate at the level of directors of advertising agencies. This is a rare example of a modern and well-paid profession, where women have asserted themselves mostly because of the decent competition in the selection of staff and the gradual promotion of specialists in the eld. In general terms, the advertised images of men and women in Bulgaria belong to the so called southern type, meaning the selection of pronouncedly beautiful, proportionate, and glamorous-looking faces, bodies and clothing. No identication is sought with distinct categories of men and women instead, identication is sought with the broadest possible standards of femininity and masculinity. In this context, we can understand easily the growing role of the fashion industry, built to a great extent on the idea of selling beauty and glamour.

Applying this understanding of fashion as a sign of the modern self, the text traces processes of modernising the individual and the collective body under communism and their drastic transformations today. In the early 1950s and 1960s, fashion (like popular culture itself) did not exist as a separate eld in communist discourses it was a taboo topic because of its association with the Western bourgeois way of life and the respective values of individualism, self-expression, narcissism, pleasure seeking, luxury, etc. But since the late 1960s, fashion started gaining prominence, and exploded in the mid-1990s where more than 150 lifestyle magazines were introduced (local and imported global ones). In the beginning, there were only two socialist womens magazines dealing with fashion: Zhenata Dnes (The Woman Today), which appeared in 1945 and is still popular after sixty-four years, and Lada (since 1959), which was more fashion-oriented; there were no mens magazines at the time. Slavova analyses several issues of these two milestone magazines (in terms of their messages, images and overall discourses) as well as more recent issues of Western (in Bulgarian versions) and Bulgarian fashion and womens and mens lifestyle magazines (e.g., Moda, Elle, Blyasuk (Glamour), Cosmopolitan, Grazia, Mary, Maxim, FHM, etc.). In addition, she refers to examples from fashion TV channels today and provides content analysis of the two most popular books about fashion during communism to trace the dynamics of fashion under the inuence of two different ideological, social and political systems. She comments on the twofold attitude to fashion under communism: in official discourses, it is used to reject Western bourgeois decadence and extravagance, whereas in unofficial discourses it signies a secret longing for Western pop culture products thus, she claims, the longing for jeans was not simply a longing for an inaccessible Western product but a super sign of the longing for freedom.25 If fashion under communism was used to produce the standardised and uniform body of the working class heroes by emphasising its productivity, work habits and a modest way of living, after 1989, it became a tool of class, gender and ethnic differentiation in tune with the overall social processes of movement from equality and sameness to inequality and proliferating differences. In her comparative analysis, the author observes several major shifts in the altered status of fashion from communism to post-communism: 1) From a relative insignicance of fashion in an economy of decit and scarcity to its highly visible presence in a capitalist consumer culture and todays obsession with Western brand names and fashion practices; 2) From being used as an instrument of idealization of socialist men and women as working class heroes (i.e., idealisation of the socialist order) to a marker of class and gender distinction; 3) From the utilitarian use of fashion to express the simplicity and rigidity of the socialist collective lifestyle to a greater glamour and exoticism as well as using it as a tool of self-fashioning and self-expression.26 The major conclusion reached is that changing fashion practices reect the overall movement from a culture of need and decit to a culture of consumption, celebrity culture and enterprise culture. Fashion can be perceived as a distinctive marker of gender transformation, too, especially for women. In a

Fashion and Self-Fashioning Gender Identities in Times of Transition

In her study, Kornelia Slavova examines changing gender identities in Bulgaria before and after 1989 through the lens of fashion as one of the major pillars of popular culture.23 For her analysis, she does not approach fashion simply as art or industry but in terms of cultural studies i.e., fashion as a system of social encoding (according to Roland Barthes) and as related to the construction and representation of identity, body and status (following Teresa de Lauretiss and Pierre Bourdieus24 theories).

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culture that valued womens productive and reproductive capacity, they were dressed in a simple and healthy manner so that they could operate as symbols of socialist ideology and unication, whereas nowadays they are more and more seen as consumers or objects of fashion consumption. As for men, fashion was a non-issue under communism whereas now they, too, are heavily inuenced by new trends especially the younger generation and the so-called metrosexual urban men. The dictate of fashion has become possible only through the mediation of TV and the print media. At the same time, however, the Bulgarian press is heavily politicised: politics still plays a major role in the everyday life of society and the individual.

common category what is more, synonymous with the notions of corruption, maa and plundering. As far as gender roles are concerned, the author claims that some changes can be felt only in Soa and a number of big cities; during the last two decades, in the greater part of the country the stereotypes of the pre-modern Bulgarian patriarchy have not been destroyed. On the contrary, they have been reinforced, additionally strengthened at times by a dose of local patriotism and even neo-nationalism. All these social processes have been widely supported by the media. The mass media space today is lled with reality TV and show biz entertainment industry as well as soap operas, whereas high culture and political journalism are in decline. The number of lifestyle magazines only is over 600. The most visible feature of media messages is the emphasis on the political in all its forms, but the political in its turn is neutral to the men/women dichotomy or the male world versus the female world. The political is interested only in the redenition of political roles. This is why the redenition of gender roles happens rst on the level of the political, and from there it is being transferred onto other social spheres. The most paradoxical result from the shifts in the social sphere is todays peaceful coexistence of the pre-modern with the post-modern, and media culture mediates and balances between the two. Western TV companies cannot even imagine a show format where the subject of the silicone breasts of a folk-singer can be introduced simultaneously with interviews with ministers or members of parliament. There are no pure genres in Bulgarian TV programs; consequently, the generic boundaries cannot serve as a barrier between the high-brow and the low-brow or between the serious and the entertaining. It is not accidental that there has been a transition towards developing new and adequate gender roles. In Monovas opinion, this is why the tabloid press and commercial TV channels disseminate the classical patterns of relationships between the two sexes even slanting towards their vulgar deformation. Thus, masculinity has become synonymous with power and money through its association with bullet-proof jeeps, dark sunglasses and thick gold chains around the neck. The man is the one who provides money for the home and education of children; he is the master of social and domestic space. Femininity is synonymous with perfect appearance, with exhausting care to look beautiful, perhaps with silicone attributes to guarantee perfection but at all costs with brand name clothing. The Lady shines at receptions and social parties, she is a decoration to the man and he is proud of her, but when her glamour starts to fade, the decorative object is replaced with a new one. Of particular interest is the emergence of a new gender type, circulated by the media: the widow of the newly-rich man. This role is directly generated by social reality where the murders of newly rich maa men, bankers or criminals have become a common phenomenon. It is hard to separate all these media images from the genre of kitsch but the social opinion polls show, unfortunately, that it is exactly these types of roles and

Media Representations of Gender Roles

Media images have a strong impact on young people in terms of their upbringing as well as the forming and maintaining their views on gender roles. In her study, Totka Monova explores the language of the press, more precisely, the discourses of the popular press and some commercial TV channels.27 Her goal is to study the ways in which these media present men and women and their complex relationships, and to come up with an analysis of the dominant tendencies. Monova agrees with the opinion of Marchella Abrasheva regional director of Gallup/Bulgaria who insists that in Bulgarian social life, the dominant model is the following: a traditional male domination in decision-making processes, combined with a broad presence of women in all areas of business, the state sector, politics and administration.28 Judging from the Bulgarian experience it does not seem that the political macho type is seriously affected by the current recession in world capitalism. Perhaps the best proof for that is the extremely high popularity of the current Bulgarian prime minister, described by a BBC journalist as a fearful man with a shaved head, a thick neck and huge shoulders of a wrestler as he was in the past indeed.29 Let us remember this denition because it will be helpful later when we reach the discussion on sports and the so-called thug-masculinity in another study of the research project. Monova develops an idiosyncratic thesis. In her opinion, in the communist world there were no classical social roles, including gender roles; instead, they were replaced by pseudo-roles not only controlled by the state but also ideologically imagined. Thinking along these lines the question arises: Is it possible in times of transition to redene social roles, which, in some sense, never existed before? The provisional no answer could explain why in the post-totalitarian period the concepts of the so-called moutra (thug) and moutressa (thug-she-mate) have become role models emulated by a great number of teenagers, whereas the newly-rich man and the white collar type imported from the London City are thought of as identical, as belonging to one

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relationships that operate as the ideal, dreamed by so many of the adolescents. Yet, parallel to that, some serious sociological studies from the last years in Bulgaria reveal paradoxically that the masculinity index (MAS) of men has become lower than the same index (MAS) of women. As the author concludes, we can speculate about the emerging hypothesis-question: Has indeed the Bulgarian man started voluntarily to give up his functions to women as a result of the never-ending Transition? According to the tabloid press and the commercial TV channels this has not happened at all what is more, it cannot happen in the future either their messages as a whole are so openly macho. Yet, data concerning the psychological and emotional attitudes during the last couple of years point to totally different conclusions. Perhaps the fact that we have become a part of the globalising world will force the Bulgarian woman and man to leap directly from the pre-modern into the hyper-modern? Against the background of these considerations we can go back to the sociological research done by Stoilova. Its second part is dedicated to the ways in which young people accept male/female roles by associating them with the media and popular culture, consumed by them in their leisure time. Here, we can come across some observations that support what has been argued by Totka Monova. Over half of the men (55.8 percent) believe that the care for the home and the family can be as rewarding as professional realisation. Is it that they subconsciously associate this possibility with the womens position only or perhaps they are not afraid to stay at home?30 Does this mean that young men are ready to devote their free time to raising a child? A billboard in the capital city, advertising mineral water, portrays a muscular and t young man, naked to the waist, embracing a baby. The caption next to it reads: Water as pure as a child. Can we believe that the implied message is that both water and child are recommended as equally important for the life of the contemporary Bulgarian man?

In their personal stories, men tend to give specic information without resorting to additional considerations and clarications unlike women, who often use details and additional elements in their exposition. In principle, women tend to talk more about other people than about themselves. Even when the facts concern them specically, the women involved in telling their story usually identify with a group of people. Often they use verbs in the second person singular (you) even when the verbs should be in the rst person singular (i.e., I). The position taken by female narrators is usually the position of a witness rather than an active participant. Women show greater passion for an effective and powerful way of retelling. They tend to often use hyperboles not because they want to exaggerate facts but because they want to draw and keep the attention of the listener. Unlike women, men often use verbs in the rst person singular even when they do not talk directly about themselves. They do not attempt to express their attitude and have no necessity to keep the channel of communication open through explicit markers of communicability in the conversational situation. They do not seek appreciation of what they have said. Dachevas research on oral autobiographical stories reveals that the peculiarities of mens and womens talking about themselves and the surrounding world show some continuity as far as the topics, problems and ways of self-expression are concerned. In addition, older men and women tend to limit themselves thematically as they talk about a narrower circle of events and factors, whereas younger men and women tend to open up to the maximum towards the world and towards a more positive attitude to otherness.

Media Representations of Gender Minorities

An important part of the overall project is the research on media images and representations of sexual minorities in Bulgaria. This topic has been little researched in general, and in Bulgaria in particular it is almost a blank spot. Therefore, the two separate studies dealing with this issue are very topical. The rst study by Elka Dobreva32 offers a linguistic-semiotic analysis of 697 texts, randomly taken from various issues of forty Bulgarian newspapers that were published during the period from 2001 to 2007. The second study is written by Nikolay Atanassov,33 a young gay-activist and famous poet. On the surface it reads like a unique personal story, which, however, constructs a bigger historical story of the societal attitude towards homosexuality in Bulgaria before and after 1989. Having researched a huge amount of material from Bulgarian dailies and weekly newspapers, Dobreva reaches to some interesting and well-founded statements. In her opinion, the media portrait of homosexual, bisexual and transsexual people in Bulgaria has been drawn from a clearly dened, hetero-normative position. The

Gendered Ways of Verbal Expression

A different approach to gender stereotyping in Bulgarian culture is offered in the study of Gergana Dacheva.31 Her observations are based on twenty interviews ten with women and ten with men, between 20 and 45 years old; half of the interviewees in each subgroup have higher education, whereas the others have high-school education. The different ways of talking of men and women are analysed along three major parameters: 1) connection between gender identity and the topics around which each personal story revolves; 2) differentiation of the linguistic phenomena specic for the separate groups of men and women; and 3) denition of the characteristic features marking the two types of talking at the level of language. The major part of the collected interviews represents oral autobiographical stories and the results are based mainly on these narratives. Here are some of the main conclusions reached:

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newspapers write much and willingly about them, using both established and newly coined names to refer to them (a process known in linguistics as hyper-lexicalisation). She refers to some neologisms such as Sotz-gay, Euro-gay, Roma-gay and others.34 The theme has been usually addressed by the media as sensational, shocking and provocative, referring to marginality and even abnormality. The journalists negativity is strongly felt in the very titles of the articles this fact shows that newspapers seek deliberately a scandalous effect by exploiting the homosexuality theme in public. It seems that this is the main purpose of Bulgarian print media from the researched period when discussing sexual minorities in the country. Of course, the offensive titles do not simply meet the existing social expectations related to the topics sensationalism, but they also serve to ignite the feeling about the abnormality of sexual minorities. Contrary to the sensational titles, the content of the articles shows different tendencies at times even tolerant. The rst clarication made by Dobreva is that the attitudes towards gay men and homosexual women are far from being the same. Men are the real target of intolerance. The researcher speaks of a remarkable andro-centricity in the negative attitude towards sexual minorities and she supports her observations numerically. In the corpus she has analysed ten times more texts about gay men than about lesbian women. Whereas 69 percent of the materials about homosexual men are openly negative and hostile, only 4 percent of the texts deal at all with homosexual women. In principle, the latter are discussed in strongly negative terms only when seen as part of the overall homosexual community (i.e., together with gay men). But when separate cases of lesbian women are discussed, the attitude towards them is with one exception only always neutral. For example, Doctor Ivan Kozovski, a member of the National Assembly from the Attaka Party, who is an adamant enemy of homosexual people, makes the following benevolent statement (further quoted by sixteen newspapers): The women inheritors of the traditions of the Island of Lesbos can be spared it is a normal thing among women, I know it because Im a gynecologist.35 The negative andro-centricity observed in social attitudes can be explained with the strong patriarchal traditions in the Balkans. At the same time, however, this reaction can be interpreted as a sign of anxiety and fear of the emerging destabilisation of traditional male roles and fear of the new reality of the globalised world. (Perhaps Reihan Salam is right after all.) As far as the other three sexual minorities are concerned namely, the transsexual, the transgender and the transvestite ones their media images have been undifferentiated within the subgroups, and they often merge with the overall group of homosexual men. In such cases, they also have to take upon themselves the negativity typical for the group as a whole, but when approached as a separate subgroup, they enjoy a rather neutral attitude similar to the attitude towards lesbian women.

The sensationalism in media representations of homosexual men is also discussed in Nikolay Atanassovs study. However, he denes three different periods in approaching the issue and its social treatment. What is interesting is that these three periods overlap with three different stages of the biographical narrative of the author himself, who is twenty-seven years old at the moment. In the 1980s, the Bulgarian media pretended hypocritically that homosexual people did not exist after the clearly dened and strictly repressive politics towards them in the previous three decades of communism. The author admits that the rst kiss between men he saw was in the 1991 documentary movie In Bed with Madonna. He describes the moment as follows: I realised I wasnt alone in the heterosexist hell of publicity.36 As we can conclude, popular culture serves not only to unify and limit the personal but in some cases, it can even work towards enlightening and opening up the individual. The second period delineated by the author in his research is the time of the 1990s. Then, the homosexuality issue although somewhat timidly began to enter the Bulgarian media: rst, on the pages of tabloids predominantly referring to foreign people, and increasingly it entered the daily press. The 1990s were characterised by an extremely negative attitude towards gay men in Bulgaria; the author even calls it gay-witch hunting.37 A very widespread phenomenon during the period was the practice of uncovering homosexuals and using the information to discredit political gures. Very few were the cases when a famous man (for example, actors such as Marius Kurkinski and Kamen Vodenicharov) came out of the closet and declared being gay in public. According to Atanassov, the third stage began at the turn of the twenty-rst century; then the homosexual topic lost all its ambiguity and closeted nature; it began to be impudently exploited for various purposes and in various directions.38 What seemed sensational and abnormal became a market commodity; sexual difference has become omnipresent on the terrain of entertainment TV shows what is more, it is being talked about not through the voices of its own representatives but through the loud, shrill and blatant voices of the heterosexual norm. Gay men have been talked about incessantly but almost always they are presented in the register of the sensational and the grotesque. Their representation as normal people is still unacceptable because it threatens the myth about heterosexuality as a precondition for normalcy. A typical example of benevolent attitude are the cases when gays are talked about as people who pay much attention to their appearance, who dress in good taste or are extremely intelligent and of exuberant imagination. In other words, they are better (in some respect) or worse, but only in their capacity to be not (like) ordinary people.

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Gender Stereotypes in Popular Culture

Three separate studies within the framework of the project are dedicated to gender stereotypes in art, which is trying to be popular among greater audiences. The rst study is written by Vladimir Trendalov.39 It is a pioneer study in the history of Bulgarian culture because of its thematic focus and because it explores for the rst time the presence of women in the genre of crime ction in Bulgaria both as writers and as characters. Crime ction appeared in Bulgaria with a delay as late as the 1950s under the inuence of the Soviet ction of investigation. Until 1989, it remained a territory inhabited almost always by men writers. The rst attempt for a woman to work in the genre was made in 1972, followed by three more crime novels all of them written by women (though none of the writers made a second attempt to work in this generic eld after that). All four novels, written by women, cannot be considered well-liked and popular. Until 1989, the woman gure was missing in Bulgarian crime ction even as a relatively active character in the plot of the novel there was no single image of a woman-detective. In fact, she couldnt have been an amateur detective like Miss Marple for the simple reason that it was impossible in communist reality to have detectives outside the system of state institutions. Indeed, there were a number of women working at the Ministry of Internal Affairs but only in the eld of administration. The dominant method of socialist realism did not allow the fabrication of circumstances that did not exist in reality. This is why the few women characters present if present at all served mostly as secondary characters against the background of the crime-related action or as victims of the crime that is being investigated. In rare cases when women were allowed to be active participants in the plot, they were criminals or saboteurs rather than participants in the exposure of the crime. Some changes along these lines began after 1989 when the rst Bulgarian professional woman writer of crime ction emerged Donka Petrunova. In fact, she is an innovator in two ways: she is the rst woman writer of detective ction as well as the creator of the rst female detective character in Bulgarian literature in 1995 (as Vladimir Trendalov reminds us, the rst woman-detective character appeared in English literature as early as 1861, whereas the rst English woman writer of detective ction appeared in 187840 precisely the date when Bulgaria was liberated from the ve-hundred-year-long Turkish domination). Since 1989, the women characters in Bulgarian crime novels have become emancipated; a greater number of them have been integrated into the plot and could be seen even at the centre of the crime action. They have been less often presented as an appendage to a male gure and more often as his equal or semi-equal partner.

Gradually, the differences in the literary behaviour of men and women have begun to be blurred, although the tendency has been rather negative: the representatives of both sexes act aggressively, they curse on a regular basis, they think cynically, act impulsively and uncontrolled. In sexual terms, the women characters of popular ction have become much more open and bold; they have acquired the typical masculine features associated with male behaviour under such circumstances. All in all despite the often repulsive (from a moral and aesthetic point of view) qualities of the new women-characters we can say that popular ction after 1989 has brought about the boosting of female condence and the diversication of the roles taken up by women in public life. The second study, carried out by Lyudmil Dimitrov56 along similar lines, has a more complex character. It was conducted outside Bulgaria at the University of Ljubljana, Slovenia and includes both research and empirical work with Bulgarian philology students there. The Slovenian students (approximately 30 in number) watched two Bulgarian lms namely the feature lm Goat Horn (1972) and the prizewinning documentary Whose is This Song? (2003). After the screening they discussed the lms, shared their impressions, and lled in a questionnaire (the results from which have been enclosed in the documentation of the project). The experiment has aimed at tracing the foreign (south) Slavonic reception of gender stereotypes in Bulgarian cinema before and after 1989. Moreover, the reception has been further interpreted through the categories of own/alien, gender/identity, imposed on the multi-ethnic and multi-religious Slavonic community in the Balkans. The Goat Horn (directed by Methodi Andonov) is perhaps the boldest lm produced in Bulgaria before 1989 as far as the play with traditional gender roles is concerned. In it a young girl is being raised by her father as a vengeful and evil man. But by encountering love, the girl starts learning slowly and hesitantly to be a woman. The students from todays Slovenia have had no problems in recognising the attempt to experiment with the traditional mens and womens roles in a patriarchal world; they express highly emotionally their approval of the lmmakers idea to present gender differences as something subject to construction and not as inherent or eternal human qualities. The documentary lm Whose Is This Song? (directed by Adela Peeva) was created by a woman lmmaker. It traces the various transformations of Balkan masculinity against the background of the specic ways in which six Balkan countries use (idiosyncratically) one and the same musical motif, developed into a popular folk song. The use of masculine gender stereotypes immediately provokes the students to discuss the lm predominantly around the ethnic and religious problems touched upon in it. In the cases where the musical motif becomes a love song or a song about everyday life, it is dened by the interviewees as a feminine motif, whereas in the cases where it

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sounds like marching music or a hymn as a masculine one.42 In the end it turns out that gender polarisations in the students evaluations are stronger and more universal in comparison with the political, ethnic and religious oppositions. Transformations in popular culture are the object of investigation in the study conducted by Dimiter Kambourov43 with the provocative title Polorodut na pop muzikata (The sexual gender of pop music). The author begins with the assumption (rather subjective) that music is the most unbalanced art in terms of female-male presence. Music classics, which have been remembered and performed, are only male. Until twenty years ago, women had no access to the eld of classical music neither as composers, nor as conductors. It is only in contemporary music that women have been acknowledged, including names such as Soa Gubaidulina and Kaija Saariaho. At the same time, even a brief comparison with pop music reveals that the latter has widely opened its doors to welcome women. This is where the major research question of the study arises: once women have been allowed to enter pop music, what is their role in it? What does womens presence in it come to symbolise and what is the message of female domination on the terrain of pop music? And, of course, what impact does all that have on the denition and juxtaposition of gender roles in that type of music? Kambourovs most general answer to these questions can be summed up as follows: The success of women in twentieth-century pop music is due to the growing importance of voice in this epoch.44 Women have restored the power of song and voice, somewhat lost in the golden years of rock music especially in its hard rock, heavy metal and symphony rock versions. Through voice and song, women have imposed the principle of repetition; they have limited improvisation, simplied arrangement and turned the instrumental part into an accompanying element. What is more, together with their voice they have inserted their bodies, used as autonomous entities, which can generate and create their own symbolic messages. Popular music has begun to transform into a space of simple and primitive sexy entertainment.45 It is no longer sheer music; it has turned into a medium itself, a fashion, culture and above all, a market commodity. As for the men in pop music, the author claims that success has been relegated predominantly to the infantile-feminine representatives of their sex such as Michael Jackson and Prince. Turning our gaze to the situation in Bulgaria we can see that current phenomena repeat to a great extent the global tendencies and in this sense; the watershed year of 1989 has had no signicance in terms of the gender dynamics of pop music. When all bans on listening to the music of the ideological enemy fell, the possibility for a strong Bulgarian competition died out. Before 1989, communism in Bulgaria as well as in the other Eastern European countries developed the melodious type of variety music; there were important male bands such as Shturtsite (The Grasshoppers) and FSB as well as great singers such as Lily Ivanova and Pasha Hristova. During the

last two decades of the transition, the most sensational phenomenon has been the emergence and ourishing of the so called chalga music, gradually established as pop-folk. Today, it is the most popular musical genre among people. It is not accidental that in this type of music, women have conquered the stage, even if it is only to impose themselves as sexual objects. Pop-folk singers willingly and complacently have propagated and embodied the most elementary and stereotypical gender clichs; they sing praise to the patriarchal union between the sexes as the only possible alternative and as eternal. The silicone bust has become the emblem of their position. In brief, according to the rhetoric of pop-folk, women have gained independence only to be able to choose between being a sexual slave or an erotic doll. Against this background, the true freedom of contemporary gender choice has been, paradoxically, defended by a man: the uneducated, primitive singer of Roma descent, Azis. With shocking imagination and much daring, he plays with the multiple roles of both an active and a passive gay, of a homosexual husband and wife, of a heterosexual man and a father, of a woman with motherly ambitions, i.e., performing anything and everything possible along the axes of ethnicity, religion, gender and sexual orientation choice. All this has made the modest man Azis into the single genius music performer and gender performer on the terrain of pop music as well as on the terrain of popular culture during the transition.

The Role of Sports in the Production and Reproduction of Gender Roles

The work of Ralitsa Muharska deserves a special place among the studies in this project.46 Entitled Mutromuzhestvenost i sports, her paper focuses on the central male segment in popular culture: sports. Unlike most of the other studies, it is specically oriented towards masculinity as related to sports developments in Bulgaria before and after 1989. The most important question the author raises is to a great extent a political issue: How did it happen that a great part of the respected and before 1989 nationally appreciated Bulgarian sportsmen turned easily and quickly into thugs in the 1990s (in Bulgarian moutri i.e., ugly looking people, involved in shady activities) i.e., into criminal representatives of illegal businesses, who gained their fortune basically through blackmail under the cover of insurance companies and security companies? Muharskas argument is grounded in the assumption that the interest in sports before 1989 and now is one of the major elements of mens socialising; it works through some of the most signicant and stereotypically patriarchal characteristics of masculinity such as activity, mobility, cult of physical strength and the body, aggression. With its almost entirely male audience (although womens participation in sports is about forty percent, it gets as little as eight percent in the media coverage) sports is a male business: the buyers and the sellers, as well as the actors in it are all men.47

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In communist Bulgaria, sports was exploited very successfully and consistently by the nationalist propaganda; hence, sportsmen saw themselves as preserving the legacy of the heroes from the national liberation movement into present times. Among them and through them was generated and inculcated a war-like mentality; sports values usually include machismo, toughness, self-centeredness, negligent attitude towards women, hatred for the loser and anybody who can be called weak in some respect. Obviously, the author claims, some of these values if taken seriously are verging on socio-pathology; they are also typical of the underworld.48 Yet, before 1989, sports in Bulgaria was an important state enterprise, directed and managed at the highest political level. On the one hand, it was used as a means of diverting peoples attention from the real situation in the country; on the other hand, it was used to create the felling of victory and triumph among the people thus suggesting the advantages of the socialist order. Weightlifters and wrestlers became the new national heroes. Artistic gymnastics, however, (which was highly successful in the 1980s) reinforces the traditional stereotypes of femininity, and in such a way it complemented admirably the overall picture of gender roles, formed under the impact of sports. Before 1989, good sportsmen enjoyed extraordinary privileges, including regular trips abroad, special material awards and bonuses, being granted higher education diplomas and pleasing job appointments. This made sportsmen feel as if they were omni-powerful, as if they were above all laws. In addition, a relatively big part of them was recruited to work in State Security and in such a way they were turned into loyal people who could be assigned special tasks when necessary, but also people who could be easily discredited under other circumstances. These are the reasons why after 1989, a great number of sportsmen joined the newly emerging group of gangsters. And despite the fact that there were representatives of diverse sports volleyball players, wrestlers, football players, oarsmen, etc. it was the wrestlers who became the icons of this transformation in social consciousness. The historical changes turned some of these former sportsmen into instruments of the services of state investigation. Others faced need for money (unknown in earlier times), while still others followed their interest in gaining power or in entertainment. They all were trained to perform orders, assigned by some kind of a leader (most often the coach). At the same time, all of them had the internal feeling of being able to break the rules as in sports, but also in their relationships with other people and the surrounding world as a whole. As for the former wrestlers, the fact that they were the ones who gave the original name to the whole group of gangsters, ourishing in the early years of the transition, reects yet another important aspect of hyper-masculinity where everything boils down to the binary opposition aggressor vs. victim. This particular kind of sports suggests directly that might is right, i.e., that the (physically) strong determine the rules of the game. After 1989, the situation has degenerated as many wrestlers or thugs (both names are synonymous in Bulgarian) felt untouchable and invulnerable both by other people as well as by the sanctions of the law.

Conclusion
Gender roles and models established in communist society in Bulgaria before 1989 were a unique combination of traditional patriarchal relationships and modern public relationships especially in the case of women. While being enclosed in their duty to take upon themselves all care for the family and the home, they were simultaneously proclaimed equal constructors of the new society thus gaining social rights unfamiliar to women in many capitalist countries. This ambivalence in the distribution of gender roles did not disappear with a magic wand with the advent of 1989 but was further developed and enriched along new directions. Any attempt to come up with one single formula dening the gender situation in todays Bulgaria will be doomed to failure. The exploration of the media and popular culture practices has best illustrated the complexity of the picture and the impossibility to provide denitive one-sided generalisations. Although the transitional period was officially over in 2007, when Bulgaria became a member of the European Union, the transformational processes that started in the 1990s are still going on and continue to develop at a speed amazingly fast by the standards of the traditional views of history. In this sense, a serious scholarly exploration can speak more about tendencies in rather than realities of public consciousness. One of the most visible effects of the transition has been the new type of social stratication appearing after 1989 and still in the making i.e., the restructuring of society into various groups, each of which can be dened as an approximate entity in gender terms according to its attitude to media and popular culture. In most general terms, we can observe the formation of three such groups of course, without precluding the possibility of specic, partial and temporary in-between border cases among them. The group of those people who still need the so-called highbrow culture and who are repulsed by tabloids is getting smaller, although they still have the consciousness of a surviving knighthood. The easiest way to describe them would be to say that these are the people of the middle generation who were raised before 1989. But this is not the whole truth. Although a minority, there are young people who also read good literature, quickly spot the sexist messages in advertising, do not follow blindly the latest fashion of the day, hate chalga music, aspire to a high-level profession, and are, in principle, tolerant of the public presence of sexual minorities.49 Their contact with the media is expressed in their preference to read specialised journals and newspapers, which contain serious political commentaries, as well as to watch selected TV products (mainly feature lms, documentaries and informative scientic programs). As far as the gender roles and relationships are concerned within this rst group, we can observe a symptomatic division. The older male intellectuals (over 5055 years of age) have managed to preserve the well-delineated traditional patriarchal

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scheme of gender roles, especially in view of their own home lifestyle. Contrary to them, women of the same age group have demonstrated a greater adaptability to the freedom and independence available to them after 1989. This tendency is strongest among the women who have managed to gain nancial independence. The opening up of gender identities is even more common among the young members of this group, although the process is again more problematic among men. The entire group lives predominantly in the big cities. The second, bigger group involves the people who prefer popular culture, who do not think much about the implied messages in advertising, who are ready to make sacrices in the name of fashion, and listen to pop-folk, though occasionally. At the same time, they have not developed homophobic attitudes, they buy newspapers on a daily basis without necessarily showing preference for tabloids or being inuenced by the mass dispositions in social reality; they do not tend to go for extremes (such as chauvinism or ethnic intolerance). This group is represented by people of all ages; here, the changes in gender attitudes and the distribution of gender roles happen more slowly, but under no circumstances do they go unnoticed. As a whole, within this group, there is a balance in the aptitude of the two sexes to embrace the new ideas of gender equality. The third group is the biggest in terms of numbers and in some sense is the most interesting to explore as it shows a deliberate stubbornness not simply to preserve but to restore triumphantly the most conservative patriarchal models in gender relationships as well as the distribution of social roles. These people often without higher education and a modern professional realisation consume voluptuously the lowest products of popular culture (for example, chalga music, sensational literature and tabloids, low-quality action movies and pornography); they enjoy the cheap sexist advertisements and are sincerely addicted to vulgar TV reality shows. The women in this third group totally identify with their role of a commodity or an object of desire; they follow fanatically the latest fashions of the day, and worship brand name clothes and silicone improvements for their bodies. Here belongs a special layer of the Bulgarian population, which emerged during the transition the newly-rich, who have made fortunes by being involved in a shady often criminal business. It is among these people that we can observe the extremities of the patriarchal norm in its most hyperbolic and grotesquely repulsive form. Twenty years after the fall of communism, we can observe a peculiar map of gender roles and relations. The economic instability and the relatively poor living standards have forced a certain restructuring of family roles. On the one hand, a great number of Bulgarian men can no longer full the traditional function of breadwinners, which has led to the decline in their patriarchal authority at home. On the other hand, many women have entered the sphere of private business and they earn no less

(sometimes even more) than their husbands. This has boosted their self-condence and authority, although at times, this change has caused direct identication with the model of patriarchal male domination. In both cases, men are the losers from the situation. Economic instabilities have affected mens psyches enormously. The period since 1989 has been stamped by growing insecurity and anxiety in social behaviour of Bulgarian men and the most vulnerable among them have turned out to be those who have been socialised most strictly along the prescriptions of the traditional patriarchal norms of masculinity. The inux of Western consumer and celebrity culture has operated as a powerful process with a snowball effect during the transition. Twenty years after 1989, we can easily say that the traces of the socialist type of culture have been totally obliterated in Bulgarian social life, whereas its inuence on the consciousness and behaviour of the younger generation (people under 30) is negligible. However, as far as the impact of global popular culture on gender identities is concerned, the situation is rather complicated and ambiguous. Socialist ideology was trying to raise a new type of socialist people. For example, women could not be simply mothers and housewives; above all, they had to be comrades of men. Due to this propaganda, the most conservative patriarchal womens roles had been suppressed and formally unacceptable during the entire period of the communist regime. The changes after 1989 brought back triumphantly these old roles both in the public and private spheres of life. Popular culture had a major role in this re-traditionalisation process: it acted as a powerful catalyst for neo-conservatism in the public perceptions of the place of men and women. Bulgarian society went back to the past decades back, even centuries. Paradoxically enough, because of previous taboos on these roles, today they are perceived by many as modern, Western, and even emancipatory in terms of women. Against this background it is not difficult to imagine the overall attitude to gender and sexual minority groups in Bulgaria today: homophobic attitudes go along with other social reactions such as nationalism and right-wing ultra-conservatism. The 1990s were dominated by open public disdain of gay men, whereas in the beginning of the twenty-rst century, the attitude towards them as revealed in the media moves between show-exhibitionism and entertaining ridicule. However, the picture in this respect is also contradictory. Apart from gay men, all the other gender minorities do not seem to be in the spotlight of media attention. For example, transvestite people are usually ridiculed only when they are perceived as part of the gay minority in Bulgaria. They rather stay beyond public focus. This attitude of neglect is even more typical when lesbian women are concerned; there exists an unwritten social contract, which envelops their existence in total silence.

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To wrap up our research we would like to point out that all results from the case studies discussed so far are valid for the current moment. But since the process of social transformation in Bulgaria has moved very dynamically and has been heavily inuenced by the changing political and economic context, it needs to be further explored on a regular basis. What we can be really certain about is the following: patriarchal stereotypes are falling apart like elsewhere in Europe but we cannot be certain yet (unlike the American scholar Reihan Salam) to what extent this process is really irreversible.

ENDNOTES

Kirova and Slavova, Identichnisti v prehod (Gender Identities), 2010. Dr. Roumiana Stoilova is a senior researcher at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, whereas Dr. Tatyana Kotzeva is lecturer at Free University of Bourgas. A good comparative analysis of patterns of reading, outdoor activities and media use in ve European countries (Bulgaria, Estonia, Finland, France and Germany) is provided in the report on cross-cultural practices of reading among high-school students, entitled Cultural Activities in Five European Countries by Raine Koskimaa, Juvaskyla: Publications of the Research Unit for Contemporary Culture at the University of Jyvaskyla, 1996. Roumiana Stoilovas article Neravenstvoto na polovete v masovata kultura. Sotziologicheski prochi. (Gender Inequalities in Mass Culture. A Sociological Interpretation) in Identichnosti v prehod, M. Kirova and K. Slavova (eds.), Polis, 2010: p. 11-26. All subsequent references to the sociological survey are from this article.

8 9

Bourdieu, Male Domination, 1998. Stoilova, Neravenstvoto na polovete, p. 23.

10 Ibid., p. 27. 11 These are the authors of the twelve articles in

Short Biographies
Milena Kirova (Dr. Habil.) is professor of Bulgarian Literature, Cultural Anthropology and Gender Studies at the University of Soa, where she is also chair of the Dept. of Bulgarian Literature. Author of nine books and more than 500 articles and studies in different collective publications, in scientic and cultural periodicals. Editor of many books in Bulgarian literature and Gender Studies. Among the books written by her are: Biblical Femininity. Mechanisms of Construction, Strategies of Representation (2005), The Problematic Realism (2002), The Dream of the Meduze. Towards Psychoanalysis of Bulgarian Literature (1995). Currently, she is president of the Bulgarian Association of University Women. Kornelia Slavova, Ph.D., is associate professor of American culture and literature at the Department of English and American Studies, University of Soa St. Kliment Ohridski. Her publications are in the eld of cross-cultural studies, American drama, and gender studies. She has edited and co-edited several books of gender theory and literary criticism; she is the author of The Gender Frontier in Sam Shepards and Marsha Normans Drama (Polis Publishers, 2002) and The Traumatic Re/Turn of History in Postmodern American Drama (Soa University Press, 2009). Since 2008, she has been associate editor for The European Journal of Womens Studies, SAGE Publishers.
3

Identichnosti v Prehod, who will be referred to separately in the following pages of the present article.
12 Salam, Smurtta na Machoto (The Death of

Macho), 2009, p. 35-45.

13 Toffler, Probing into the Future. 14 European Parliament Resolution 2008/ 2038

INI.
15 See Roumiana Stoilovas article Neravenstvoto

4 All the given examples are discussed in

na polovete and Milena Kirovas article Da otgledash neravenstvo, ili gender identichnosti v bulgarskata reklama (Breeding Inequalities Or Gender Identities in Bulgarian Advertising).
16 Stoilova, Neravenstvoto na polovete, p. 25. 17 Ibid., p. 15. 18 Kirova, Da otgledash neravenstvo, p. 56. 19 Ibid., p. 61. 20 Aggressiveness can reach high levels

5 6 7

Stoilova, Neravenstvoto na polovete, p. 23. Ibid., p. 20-22. Here, we can observe a drastic change in comparison with earlier statistics: not only has reading declined but the time spent on watching television has also decreased since the 1990s as the new media have become competitors to television. For example, Kornelia Merdjanskas 1994 study of media usage among young Bulgarians states that two of three young Bulgarians read often books connected with their work or studies and Bulgarians are the most active ction readers (in Koshkimaa, 1996: p. 15-25) compared to the reading audience in Estonia, Finland, France and Germany as revealed in a cross-cultural project, carried out by the Research Unit for Contemporary Culture at the University of Jyvaskyla, Finland.

for example, in 2007, one Mobil Tel ad discriminated against old people so openly and abusively that it had to be withdrawn from the air because of a lawsuit against the company.
21 Kirova, Da otgledash neravenstvo, p. 51. 22 Ibid. 23 Slavova, Moda i modelirane (Fashion and Self-

Fashioning), in Identichnosti v prehod, 2010, p. 129-152.

24 C.f., more precisely, Barthess cultural studies

analysis of the fashion industry in his book The Fashion System. (Trans. Matthew Ward, New York: Hill, 1983); Teresa de Lauretiss idea of technologies (including fashion), which produce gender as a social construct

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(Technologies of Gender: Essays on Theory, Film and Fiction. Bloomington Indiana: Indiana UP, 1987) as well as Bourdieus idea of symbolic capital as discussed in his book Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste. (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard UP, 1984).
25 Slavova, Moda i modelirane, p. 137. 26 Ibid., p. 149-150. 27 Monova, Vremeto na zhenite (Womens Time),

36 Atanassov, Mediinata vidimost, p. 93. 37 Ibid., p. 104. 38 Ibid, p. 102. 39 Trendalov, Zhenata (The Woman Figure), p.

153-172.
40 Ibid., p. 156. See also: Craig and Cadogan, The

Lady Investigates, 1982; Scaggs, Crime Fiction, 2005.

41 Dimitrov, Gender stereotipi (Gender

in Identichnosti v prehod, 2010, p. 27-49.

28 Ibid., p. 44. 29 Quoted in Dimitrova, B. The Macho Political

Stereotypes), p. 173-195.
42 Ibid., p. 184. 43 Kambourov, Polorodut na popmuzikata (The

Politics in a Bulgarian Version, Foreign Policy, Bulgarian edition, August/ September 2009, p. 42.
30 Stoilova, Neravenstvoto na polovete, p. 20. 31 Dacheva, Kak zhenite (How Women and Men),

gender of Pop-music), p. 196-216.

44 Ibid., p. 202. 45 Ibid., p. 212. 46 Muharska, Mutromuzhestvenost, (Thug

in Identichnosti v prehod, 2010, p. 110-125.

32 Dobreva, Za mediiniya (Media Representa-

Masculinity), p. 217-233.
47 Ibid., p. 218. 48 Ibid., p. 220. 49 For more on the controversial processes

tions), in Identichnosti v prehod, 2010, p. 76-92.

33 Atanassov, Mediinata vidimost (Media

Visibility), in Identichnosti v prehod, 2010, p. 93-109.

34 Dobreva, Za mediiniya obraz, p. 80. 35 Ibid., p. 77.

behind the popularity of chalga music in contemporary Bulgaria, see Rosemary Statelovas book The Seven Sins of Chalga: Towards an Anthropology of Ethnopop Music. Soa: Prosveta Publishers, 2007.

C R OAT I A

Gender Experiences of Homelessness in Croatia Lynette iki-Mianovi

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A B ST RA C T

This research project examines the ways women and men experience homelessness in Croatia and aims to contribute new qualitative data on an unexplored phenomenon. It attempts to recognise the full complexity as well as dimensionality of homelessness and endeavours to place gender in the descriptive and analytical account. It specically focuses on visible homelessness (both men and women who use shelters in seven cities throughout Croatia) and employs qualitative ethnographic methods. Results indicate that while sharing many features with homeless men, womens homelessness reects their subordinate and disadvantaged position in society. Finally, ndings show that there is a denite need for further qualitative research through a feminist lens to dispel and dismantle myths and stereotypes of homeless people and to increase our understanding of this relatively new phenomenon in Croatia.

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Homelessness is a relatively new phenomenon in most Croatian cities that has been largely ignored by policymakers and social scientists over the last two decades. This study is a response to the urgent need of gaining a fuller understanding of homelessness in the country. It aims to contribute new data (on a completely unexplored social group in Croatia) to the emerging qualitative literature on the process of becoming homeless and remaining homeless. This study incorporates a holistic approach that takes a broad, ecological, gendered perspective viewing an individuals homelessness within larger processes in society. In other words, it seeks to discover the social and cultural conditions that are linked to an individuals experience of homelessness as well as to offer a portrait of the complexities of this lived experience. This qualitative study focuses on the ways women and men experience homelessness with special attention to the social constructions of femininity and masculinity. This is an indispensable area of research because too often, homelessness is dened exclusively as a male phenomenon due to the larger number of visible male homeless persons on the streets and in shelters. In response to a need for researchers to pay attention to women and their unique problems as well as needs, this article focuses on visible female homelessness as distinct from visible male homelessness in Croatia. Prior to any discussion of these experiences of homelessness in Croatia, it is important to dene this concept. It has been claimed that homelessness is difficult to dene and therefore also to measure. It can, most narrowly, be taken to refer to people living on the streets; or more broadly, to include those threatened with losing their accommodation; or still more broadly, those who aspire to a home of their own.1 Other researchers have suggested that the meaning of homelessness is uid and elusive, changing over time and between places. It has widened out from the narrow denition of rooessness, embracing only those sleeping rough, to one including risk and causality.2 This recognises that homelessness is not only a housing problem, but also a wider personal, social, cultural, economic and political issue with policy implications depending on how it is dened (or not dened). To date, there is no official denition of homelessness or data on its extent in Croatia. For this study, a broader denition developed by the European Federation of National Organisations working with the Homeless (FEANTSA) has been used..3 This denition classies homeless people according to their living situation: i) rooessness (without a shelter of any kind, sleeping rough); ii) houselessness (with a place to sleep but temporary in institutions or shelters); iii) living in insecure housing (threatened with severe exclusion due to insecure tenancies, eviction, domestic violence); and iv) living in inadequate housing (in caravans on illegal campsites, in unt housing, in extreme overcrowding).4 Moreover, it is important to use a broader denition when dening gendered experiences of homelessness to garner a full understanding of the extent of the problem. As Keri Weber Sikich argues, this is important for two reasons: (1) female homelessness looks very different from male homelessness and (2) female homelessness takes on different forms depending on where a woman lives.5 In any case, homelessness is a historically and culturally specic concept and its official denition has implications for research and policy.

Homelessness and the Post-Transition Context

Clearly, homelessness as a social phenomenon takes different forms depending on social, economic, political and legislative factors in a particular country. Researchers conrm that homelessness existed in the socialist period, but rough sleepers with no job or shelter were treated as criminals and, for this reason, they tried to hide their conditions (escaping at least into workers hostels or hospitals).6 According to Gregory Andrusz, the socialist city had its quota of poor people. They were, though, almost wholly invisible, did not form pressure groups or demonstrate, and were rarely, if ever, the subject of articles in daily newspapers and popular magazines or even scholarly journals [I]deologically, such groups could not exist, and when they did appear, the agents of social control dealt with them under the appropriate anti-parasite legislation.7 Since transition, according to expert estimates, street homelessness is a more widespread phenomenon in Central European countries (in the Czech Republic 75,000; in Hungary 25,000-50,000; in Poland 35,000-500,000), than it is in Southeastern European countries (in Bulgaria 7,000; in Romania 5,000).8 However, it is difficult to say whether Central European countries really do have higher rates of homelessness because of the earlier spread of a market-orientated housing policy, or whether this is more the consequence of differences in methods, observations and estimates.9 Undeniably, the risk of homelessness became a gruelling reality for many people in post-transition countries as economic reforms and political liberalisation transformed institutional structures, including social services, beyond recognition. Researchers have reported that the elimination of job security and security of tenure, the explosion of public utility prices, the disappearance of workers hostels and the decrease in hospital beds, etc., led to increased homelessness in the larger cities of Eastern and Central Europe.10 These socio-economic and political changes resulted in a rapid and large growth of social inequalities in all transition countries.11 Many citizens were unprepared for these changes, which jeopardised their cradle to grave security that seriously affected their well-being in the post-transition period. Social policy in socialist countries was part of the ideology; it was integrated in the political systems and part of the political rhetoric. Many of the advantages such as full employment, social security, food/housing subventions, free healthcare, free education, gender equality, etc., during socialism12 were lost or transformed, which increased vulnerabilities. Further, the transition phase of the economy from a socialist to a market economy was complicated by the war in Croatia (1991-1995). This had a devastating impact on Croatias economic and social fabric characterised by hyperination and a decline in output, especially industrial output, depreciation of the countrys currency,

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increasing rates of unemployment, higher levels of poverty, and the growth of an informal economy.13 This produced an enormous population of poor unemployed persons, displaced persons, and refugees that were dependant on relatives, friends, humanitarian organisations and the state. Moreover, there was a marked lack of NGOs in Croatia in the early 1990s to alleviate these problems. Unfortunately, very little data is available on the social inequalities that were exacerbated and the poverty that emerged prior to and as a result of these changes. As inequalities were largely ignored at the political level, survey-based social statistics were not developed in Croatia in the pre-transition period. Correspondingly, hardly any media attention was given to these themes and any attempt to document inequalities was hidden from public view.14 Accordingly, following the collapse of socialism, countries were literally unprepared for a phenomenon such as homelessness as they lacked resources and understanding.

qualitative research has been conducted with this marginalised group yet.19 Therefore, the study responds to an urgent need to examine the characteristics of people experiencing homelessness (time span, range of living situations, needs, difficulties and aspirations) in Croatia from a gendered perspective as the experiences of New Member States20 have shown that another transition (integration) has increased the number of homeless in Europe. This pioneering national study ttingly coincides with the 2010 European Year for Combating Poverty and Social Exclusion.

Methodology
As this was a qualitative study, it was not designed to generate a statistically representative prole of homeless people in Croatia; the concern was rather to explore the array of relevant gendered experiences. Feminist researchers have noted a special compatibility between feminist research and the principles and methods associated with qualitative research.21 To explore and unpack the experiences of visible homelessness, ethnographic methods (participant observation and in-depth interviews) were employed in this research project because they are useful for obtaining culturally pertinent information about marginalised populations. Essentially, ethnographic qualitative research is crucial to understanding the needs and experiences of homeless people in Croatia and can help in changing our understanding of homelessness. Through eldwork (participant observation), cultural behaviours and actions as well as the understanding of behaviour and beliefs can be understood more fully. This research project primarily involved interviews with homeless persons who use shelters as well as shelter coordinators/workers. Apart from careful, intensive eldwork and a philosophy of cultural relativism, participants were asked to give their life histories as this approach allows an in-depth investigation of different social, economic, political and historical contexts. Special attention was given to ethical considerations, since this work targets a marginalised population in crisis. For this reason, workshops that explored the complex ethical issues raised by ethnographic practice were organised with all research team members prior to eldwork. These included the nature of informed/renegotiable consent, researcher relations, condentiality anonymity, power, responsibility and ownership of knowledge. With regard to our presence and interactions in the eld, we found that what Nancy Scheper-Hughes so movingly described in her research work, that most people welcomed the chance to talk, to be heard, to feel that their experiences held signicance for others.22 Most of the participants thanked the research team for listening to them and hearing their stories and we in turn gave them a gift23 for allowing us to learn about their experiences that are important and valid sources of information. Fieldwork was carried out in seven cities: Zagreb (capital of Croatia); Varadin; Karlovac; Osijek; Rijeka; Split; and Zadar by a team of researchers from the Institute of Social Sciences Ivo Pilar and a number of students. All participants were

State of Affairs for Homeless People in Croatia

There are a number of structural causes of vulnerabilities that contribute to increasing homelessness in Croatia. First, the right to housing is not explicitly specied in the Constitution of the Republic of Croatia; it rather states that the state must ensure the right to a dignied life particularly to those with disabilities, those who are helpless, unemployed or those who are not able to work. Second, only one percent of the GDP is reserved for unemployed and poor people in Croatia.15 Homogeneously, almost all homeless persons in Croatia are not part of the formal economy and are poor. Third, homeless people in Croatia have no legal status. In other words, there is no law in Croatia that guarantees the social inclusion of homeless people. This creates enormous problems for persons with no addresses since benets of or rights to employment are only available through the welfare system/employment bureau based on county residence, i.e., a valid address. Fourth, homeless people in Croatia have no political representation or a supportive lobby group, which implies that no one is responsible for their welfare. Fifth, there are no national housing programmes for vulnerable groups such as homeless people. Finally, there are no national prevention programmes (e.g., for the young who grew up in institutions and become homeless as adults). The establishment of shelters for homeless people, particularly in the last decade, is evidence of their ever-increasing numbers and vulnerabilities. In response to an obvious need, seven more shelters are planned throughout Croatia (Pula, Vukovar, Slavonski Brod, Vinkovci, Dubrovnik, Sisak, and Petrinja). Finally, media analysis shows that the media has increased its representation of this phenomenon considerably since transition.16 Rough estimates on the number of homeless people range from around 400 for Zagreb, between 50 and 100 for Osijek, around 30 in both Split and Rijeka, and between 20 and 25 in Varadin.17 Only one quantitative study was conducted on the socio-demographic features of homeless people in Zagreb in 2002,18 while no

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assured of anonymity so all names in this study are pseudonyms and other biographical details have been erased. In addition, we assured our participants that all responses would remain condential, and that the information would be used only to develop better ways to help homeless people. Since homeless people are a hard-to-reach group, research was mainly conducted at shelters throughout Croatia (arrangements were always made with shelter coordinators prior to eldwork). As is evident in Table1, shelters cater primarily to homeless adults who are more often male than female and where there are no facilities for children under the age of eighteen.24

NAME OF SHELTER Red Cross City of Zagreb Caritas/Rakitje City of Varadin Caritas/Osijek MOST MOST Rue sv. Franje Caritas/Zadar HVIDR

LOCATION Zagreb Zagreb Zagreb Varadin Osijek Split Split Rijeka Zadar Karlovac

YEAR OF ESTABLISHMENT 1943 1992 2003 2001 1999 2000 2003 2007 2007 2008

CAPACITY/MEN 65 76 45-50 14 10 16 13 12 8

CAPACITY/ WOMEN 25 10 3 10 8 4 1

In an attempt to learn more about homeless people in Croatia and their gendered life trajectories, some of the research questions in this study included: descriptions of their lives before they were homeless and the subsequent patterns of their homelessness; the paths that led them to homelessness (structural or personal reasons) and aggravating factors; descriptions of their lives and experiences as homeless persons (gendered expectations, perceptions and aspirations); the problems (barriers to change) that are associated with homelessness; and descriptions of the strategies that they need to adopt to survive (recommendations/improvements). The project was designed to give voice to participants and interview transcriptions are collections of their perspectives that were sometimes conrmed, refuted or claried by other shelter users and shelter coordinators/workers. Ongoing consultation with shelter coordinators and workers was indispensable throughout the research and proved to be invaluable when participants were not able to respond to questions or when questions were perceived as invasive and threatening as well as when there were too many inconsistencies in their stories. Sylvia Novac, Joyce Brown and Gloria Gallant also encountered these difficulties and concluded that pooling the observations of those with many years of experience is a particularly effective method for learning about the experiences of persons who are unlikely or unable to answer demanding questions for research purposes.25 Research also revealed that some may choose not to reveal the past as it actually was and other authors have noted that when talking about their lives, people lie sometimes, forget a lot, exaggerate, become confused and get things wrong.26 Regardless of these drawbacks, Connolly argues that this is useful because it gives us the opportunity to think about their experiences and the way in which they contextualise them through the production of a life story.27 Field research started in April 2009 and continued until the summer holiday at all of the shelters included in this study. It resumed in autumn 2009 at specic shelters that accommodate women with the specic goal of including more women into the sample. Cooperation and collaboration with shelter coordinators/workers was very important for the success of this study as they also assisted in recruiting participants and providing spaces (offices/rooms/outdoor benches) for eldwork interviews and participant observation. In total, twenty women and sixty-ve men, who were using shelter facilities at the time of eldwork, were included in both the quantitative and the qualitative analysis. Access to women depended on the number of women using shelter services (i.e., the number of shelter beds available for women at each shelter). This number is always much smaller than the number available for men, which seems to suggest that homelessness is a much more dangerous condition and more hidden for women than men.28

TABLE 1: Shelters included in this study

Research showed that shelter life can offer a number of provisions to homeless people such as food, water, shelter, security, safe sleep, a place for their possessions, healthcare, structure to their day, companionship, independence, dignity, selfrespect, hope, etc. (but this largely depends on the shelter, i.e., their objectives, services and the staff). For this reason, a national sample was very useful to understand the range of care that is available for homeless people throughout Croatia. The extent of shelters varies from very basic shelter/emergency assistance to supportive holistic assistance (life skills, therapy, housing, job training, etc.) that aspires to provide rehabilitation, re-socialisation, and reintegration. Most of the shelters in this sample are the basic shelter/emergency type that provides a place to sleep and wash without any supportive services. Although this is indispensable, most of the shelters in this sample are not good at completely resolving the multiplicity and complexity of the difficulties that are so characteristic of homeless people.

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Demographic Characteristics
Findings based on these demographic characteristics show that homeless people in this study have limited access to economic and cultural capital, which considerably contributes to their social exclusion and marginalisation. In most cases, they do not have enough to live on or any other asset (land, at/house, investments/shares) to supplement this deciency. In addition, they do not have the possibilities to re-qualify, i.e., to improve their chances of nding a job in the formal economy considering their low levels of education because they are either too old or too sick to work. Clearly, they are excluded and marginalised from participating in activities (economic, social, cultural, and symbolic) that are the norm for other people by virtue of their demographic characteristics. Over half of the females in this sample are in their 40s and 50s (twelve out of twenty women) while as many men are in their 50s and 60s (forty out of sixty-ve men). However, the average age for males is 52.4 years, which is only slightly higher than the average age for women, which is 50.6 years. A high percentage of the participants (72 percent) in this research were born in Croatia while just over a quarter (26 percent) was born in former Yugoslavia. Over a third (36 percent) have lived (from birth) in the city where eldwork was conducted. Almost all participants hold Croatian citizenship (95 percent) and are of Croatian nationality (88 percent). Likewise, a high number of participants are Catholics (70 percent) while a smaller number (13 percent) do not belong to any denomination. Most of the men in this sample are divorced (thirty-six out of sixty-ve men), while a third of them are single. As for the women, eight are single and six are divorced while four are married and two are widows. About two thirds of the research participants have children (14 of the women; 37 of the men). Two thirds of the males and half of females have a secondary school education, while a smaller number only have a primary school education. A question related to their skills was also included in the questionnaire. Results show that almost half of homeless people know another language (42 percent) while almost a third of the sample has a drivers licence (28 percent). Only a small number have computer literacy (nine percent). With a lack of educational opportunities (re-qualication), homeless people in this sample do not have the cultural capital that is necessary to overcome obstacles of the market economy. Undoubtedly, the risk of poverty is particularly high when low levels of education are combined with unemployment. The majority of research participants (69 percent) in this study are not formally employed but depend on social welfare (between 500 and 1000 HRK/67 to 135 EUR monthly) or pensions (invalid, war veteran, or retirement between 1000 and 3000 HRK/135 to 406 EUR monthly). Almost half (45 percent) attempt to supplement this by working in the shadow economy (e.g., collection of recyclable bottles, construction work, care work, etc). Many participants in this study have nancial problems and do not feel valued, independent or connected to others because i) their social benets/pensions are inadequate and ii) the work that

they do to make ends meet is often characterised by irregularities, difficult conditions, poor pay, lack of security, discrimination and ill-treatment. Only thirty-four percent have a bank account, which implies that the rest do not have a need for bank facilities or access to savings. With regard to formal employment, almost all the research participants were employed (61 out of 65 men and all the women except for one) prior to homelessness. Alarmingly, years of work service in the formal economy are very high; over a third worked between ten and twenty years, while a fth worked between twenty and thirty years.

Periods of Homelessness
The literature on homelessness tends to dene chronic homelessness as being without a permanent domicile for at least a year.29 Results from this study show that only about a fth of the sample has been homeless for less than a year. Clearly, homelessness is chronic for all other participants in this study. Alarmingly, the average length of homelessness among men is 6.78 years, while for women it is 3.81 years in this study. Out of a need to see homelessness as something dynamic that may involve movement into and out of housing and other supports over time, this study also investigated periods of homelessness. Hence, especially for women, homelessness may include repeated ight strategies from home, from abusive relationships, from foster homes, from relatives/friends, etc. Patterns of homelessness in this study cannot be described as a one-off or infrequent experience but are more likely to be series of homelessness periods at different sites. In some cases, the experience of homelessness is a temporary episode, but results from this study strikingly show that homelessness is often a manifestation of a continuing poverty of personal and social resources, involving repeated episodes of homelessness at different locations. Figure 1 shows that shelter services have been used by the largest number of participants across all time periods except in the last (more than twenty years). The average length of stay at shelters for men is 2.7 years compared to 2.3 years for women. The longest stay for a male (Ivan, 64) was sixteen years during ve different periods of homelessness while for a female (Zora, 70) it was fourteen years on a continual basis.

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40

35

Relatives/Friends Street/barracks Shelter Prison/Hospital Foster home

30

25

20

etc.; ideal constructions of femininity and masculinity; identity; plans for the future and suggestions for improvement. Interviews were of varying length; most of the interviews lasted for an hour, while the longest was three hours long. In this pioneering national project, with over 1,250 pages of transcriptions, this study has accumulated a wealth of invaluable information on the topic of homelessness in Croatia that has not been researched qualitatively until now. In this article (considering the amount of material that has been generated through eldwork with homeless people and shelter staff), I will only draw on certain themes that are specically related to the gendered experiences and differences between homeless men and women.

15

Homelessness and Gender

The literature on homelessness has only recently expanded to include or focus on womens experiences.32 Sophie Watson and Helen Austerberrys book on women and homelessness, published in 1986, was the rst comprehensive analysis of patriarchal policies that favour nuclear families, accounting for single womens vulnerability to homelessness within a market-dominated housing system.33 At the wider European level, the national reports of the research correspondents of the European Observatory on Homelessness suggest that there is little official recognition that homelessness among women is a particular problem or that the nature of the problem merits closer policy scrutiny.34 This has been attributed to the traditional perception of homelessness being regarded as a male experience; gender does not enter the analytic or explanatory account.35 Nevertheless, this is changing with the growing numbers of homeless women. On the other hand, the ability of women to hide their homelessness within the supportive connes of their social networks not only demonstrates an effective coping strategy but importantly also has the potential of disguising the full extent of the problem from public gaze and hence as a welfare issue.36 Researchers have reported that women in fact are likely to deploy a number of tactics to avoid the streets, ranging from remaining in abusive relationships to embarking upon extended periods of sofa surng.37 In much the same way, homelessness among women in Croatia has not been recognised.38 Aptly, it has been noted that womens experiences of homelessness, while sharing many features with experiences with homeless men, reect in addition their subordinate and disadvantaged position in society.39 Watson and Austerberry argued that recognising the position of women in a patriarchal society and the barriers such a society creates for women, is essential to understanding the distinctive factors, which affect and exacerbate womens housing problems.40 In other words, while homelessness is conventionally viewed as an economic or income problem, womens homelessness is also structured by gender relations of power, especially family- or household relations.

10

0 <6mo 6mo1yr 12yrs 25yrs 510yrs 1020yrs >20yrs

FIGURE 1: Lengths of homelessness at different places

A very signicant number of participants (nine out of the twenty women interviewed) recounted periods of rough sleeping (on the street or in abandoned buildings/barracks). Almost as many of the women as men interviewed (almost half in both samples) had slept rough at some point in the past. Notable too was that a small number of the women had slept rough on a continual basis for considerable periods of time from three days to ve years in the case of one female participant, while for men, this ranged between ten days and ten years. Short-term transitory periods of accommodation (staying with a friend or relative) can also be noted in Figure 1. As it has been noted in the literature, this is probably short-term because people often use up their social networks by relying overly on friends and family for support and a sofa for the night, eventually wearing out their welcome and ending up on the street.30

Qualitative Research
Semi-structured interviews were conducted with twenty women and fortythree men at different shelters for homeless people throughout Croatia.31 Interview questions focussed on the following areas: life prior to homelessness; paths to and out of homelessness/aggravating factors; typical routines daily activities, relationships, social capital, etc; problems existential, psychological, health-related, institutional,

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Paths Into Homelessness

In the past, debates on causes of homelessness have polarised around socio-structural causes concerned with changing labour markets, poverty, the housing system, and the nature of the welfare state, or alternatively, on individualist and psychological factors reecting individual agency, including alcohol dependence, substance use, social and behavioural problems, etc.41 Since neither of these approaches recognises the full complexity and dimensionality of homelessness, some authors have suggested that a continuum of causes that crosses both structural and individual issues would be more appropriate.42 Recently, there has been a growing consensus that the personal, relational and social dimensions of homelessness are interwoven and that it often stems from vulnerability to poverty exacerbated by a combination of traumatic life events such as family deaths, abuse, relationship breakdowns, mental illness, substance misuse and job loss.43 In any case, quite clearly most of the homeless people in this study never intended to become homeless; this was never a choice that they intentionally made. In this study, both men and women spoke about their paths into homelessness. Clearly, there is never just one path or one situation but the path is rather a process that has many routes and aggravating factors. Paths into homelessness include: i) violence and trauma (abuse and neglect) in childhood (dysfunctional families, institutionalised childhoods); ii) job loss and not being able to get another job (even after years of work experience); iii) nancial problems/debts; iv) poor health; v) forced exile; vi) family break-up following divorces; vii) loss of home/displacement due to war; viii) death of a spouse; ix) imprisonment; x) ight from abusive relationships; and xi) life choice. Aggravating factors include: i) inadequate services; ii) unemployment/ lack of nances; iii) personal inertness; and iv) the lack of family/friend support. In most cases, individual experiences of homelessness were connected to larger social processes and conditions so that routes into homelessness were often triggered by situational factors rather than being inherent in the individual. In other words, a persons involvement in substance abuse, crime and prostitution were viewed within the broader contexts of poverty, lack of employment and educational opportunities, lack of affordable housing, recession and neglect of social safety nets. Evidently, macrostructural factors within a particular socio-cultural historical context cannot be ignored because they often combine with personal vulnerabilities and render people homeless.

often the precipitating factor in a process of marginalisation. More specically, Novac argues that while mens homelessness is attributed primarily to unemployment, for women it is more likely to be family breakdown and abuse by a husband or father.45 Research has found that homelessness, for many women, is an initial solution to unsafe housing and homes. These women leave their homes because of physical or sexual violence and exploitation. They are homeless in both the short-term and the long-term because of either abuse in their homes of origin or abuse in intimate relationships.46 Based on interview material with twenty women from this study, paths into homelessness for women were more likely to be related to the impact of violence47 than was it was for men. More than half of the women mentioned either abuse/neglect during childhood, in institutionalised care, in intimate relationships and/or in work relationships. These were often cases of repetitive violence. Nearly all of these women had early experiences of violence during childhood either in their homes of origin, in foster care or other child welfare institutions. This suggests that the process of becoming homeless can begin in childhood; the abuse/neglect that is sustained inevitably constrains further life chances. Predictably, life is all downhill from then on. The importance of relationship breakdown as a trigger in female homelessness (e.g., eeing from domestic violence and widowhood)48 was also apparent among almost half of the women in this study. Characteristically, women (in comparison to men) stay in contact with their children during homelessness (even though shelters of this kind do not cater to children that are under eighteen and mothers cannot bring their children to shelters for visits). It is also their children (especially if young) that determine their whereabouts. Not all paths into homelessness for women were linked to violence. A fth of these women linked their homelessness to a difficult nancial situation due to debt, loss of job, or death of a spouse. In any case, most of these women were vulnerable to poverty that was often exacerbated by a combination of traumatic life events that eventually led to their homelessness. Case 1: Katarina, 46, divorced with 5 children Losing her job was the nal blow. This automatically meant that she could not afford to live alone with her youngest child (conceived in a de facto relationship) who was three years old at the time. She had to move into a shelter for homeless people and her daughter was put into a home. This was her path into homelessness this time; there had been others. The domestic violence she had suffered earlier in her life during her marriage left her in a coma for twenty-one days. She says that her husband was loving and caring before he enlisted. Then he suffered from alcoholism and PTSD; she blames the war for the failure of their marriage. He was responsible for her economic insecurity because not only did he physically abuse her, he spent all the household money on gambling and alcohol. In these particularly difficult circumstances as a mother of four children, this severe poverty and mental strain compelled her to commit illegal acts. She was imprisoned for stealing twice. Her prison sentences disrupted ties with her children and she also lost their trust and respect. Without their social support,

Women and Their Paths Into Homelessness

According to Novac et al., the impact of violence on homeless women, past and present, is a signicant factor that triggers womens routes into homelessness.44 They found that most homeless women have known violence since childhood, and this is

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she sought a home with another man but also had to ee his abuse and alcoholism. As a result of all these factors (ight from two abusive relationships and an attempt to attain what she never had through stealing) she lost her bearings. She says that she was psychologically destroyed. Case 2: Vinja, 56, divorced Her mothers death was the turning point in her life and essentially marked her entry in homelessness. She lost the will to work and soon found it very difficult to meet public utility payments. She was hospitalised twice after suicide attempts. She claims that inadequate social services aggravated her situation. Dismally, even after twenty-three years of work service as a head accountant at a company that was privatised thirteen years ago, she was unable to nd work in the formal economy that would provide her with more security. Regardless of her work experience, she was told that she was too old at forty. In the last case, there was no prior history of violence but this woman obviously lacks state or social support of any kind that could alleviate her nancial problems and help her out of homelessness. Quite typically, for this age group, particularly among men, this is their fate. In the post-transition/war period, many lost their jobs and were unable to nd work again. Moreover, if they also have chronic health problems, it is often impossible for them to nd work in the rst place or manage work and these problems at the same time.

I havent forgotten him, oh God no way, that he is rejected as I was dumped by my parents. No, I love him even more because I have never felt love, I have to show him love because I never felt love. He is not underprivileged. Marija, 42. This quote also illustrates the presence of God that was found in many of the womens discourses. To a large extent, women are more religious than men in this sample. For many, as a means of coping with adversity, they often turn to God for hope and a sense of self-worth to give their lives meaning. Their religion and faith is described as something that is fullling and enlightening; a guiding force; and strength to help them get through all the discomforts of homelessness. Further, women are more likely to stay in contact and secure support from their families or their supportive social networks than men. It has been noted that women are more easily viewed as dependent and arouse more sympathy and less hostility than men.50 Correspondingly, Joanne Passaro argues that homeless women are seen as the apotheosis because their individual failures are not compounded by gender failure a dependent needy woman, after all, is no challenge to dominant beliefs.51 Strikingly, men are less inclined to seek help and seemingly prefer to assume inert positions, which in all probability keep them homeless for longer periods.

Gendered Differences
The daily struggles homeless people face is some measure of control over their immediate environments. Pertinently, Passaro asks: How do they make themselves at home outside?52 Women, in particular, need to devise special survival strategies to make themselves less visible outside. Women in this study talked about the discomfort of being in public spaces, particularly in smaller towns, where they often face stigmatisation and feel threatened by others. Consistently, women faced the dilemma of where to go and what to do, especially in less favourable weather conditions. One woman described the difficulty of being outdoors every day for twelve hours a day. She said that she feels awkward because she doesnt have anywhere to go or to do during this time if she is not working. She explained that Sundays are the worst because on this day of rest, she has nowhere to rest. She claimed that as a female, she does not feel comfortable sitting on a park bench all day and cannot, as men, lie around and sleep for a couple of hours on benches in parks. Security of their person and possessions was particularly important to the women in this study. Storage of their personal belongings (women tend to have more than men) in an absence of space was also a distinct concern among women. Researchers have also noted the presence of more social control in the form of domestication at shelters.53 For instance, women reported that they are expected to perform more domestic work than men within shelters if it is a mixed

Women and Relationships

Consistent with other ndings,49 the homeless women in this study are more likely than men to have dependent children for whom they maintain some responsibility. Women with children are particularly vulnerable as there are no resources for homeless mothers and children at shelters for homeless people in Croatia. The sense of powerlessness as a mother that accompanies the homeless situation was pervasive. In their accounts, their children are clearly a motivating and driving force to get out of homelessness. This is because their state of homelessness frequently means that their ability to regain custody of their children who are in homes is impossible as long as they are homeless. Overall, there was a strong sense of determination among homeless mothers living in shelters. They placed a high value on their ability to be good mothers and to provide (within their limited possibilities) for their children. In the next quote, this devotion and dedication is evident. This woman, who was abandoned by her own parents at birth and grew up in an institution until she was eighteen, sees her son twice a week. He is in a childrens home now because as a single mother with no family support and no assets, she could not afford to support him and pay rent.

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shelter. Even though everyone (male and female) is included in the cleaning roster, one woman claimed that they have learned that I will do it and that I cannot handle lth as this eats me up alive. Finally, when asked about gender differences between homeless people, this woman who never let her unemployment or her difficult nancial and living situation incapacitate her to the point she could not get up the next day quite succinctly explained: Women are frailer but they mend more quickly; they have the strength of phoenixes. Men here are headed towards death. Women work more, they wash more, they are cleaner than men, but there are exceptions, of course. Vinja, 56. In addition, females who are homeless may have more identity management dilemmas because women are held to higher appearance standards. Like female inmates in total institutions, homeless women typically lack an identity kit54 that includes cosmetics, grooming items, clothes that help maintain a feminine front as well as unlimited access to bathrooms. Many women complained about having to share a bathroom with so many other people including men rendering it impossible to keep themselves presentable to enhance their own feelings of self-respect. The struggles of women to surmount the hardships of homelessness are compelling but also undeniably and potentially dangerous for women who have already sustained abuse and are vulnerable in so many ways. This is well illustrated in the next quote from a woman who has been struggling to nd a home all of her life following continual spells of parental/ institutional neglect and abuse from her former husband. I dont know, they [men] just become too slack here, they are like, I dont know who, this is like their home while we [women] still try to ght somehow to get out of here, to get out, and thats why I married Darko. I didnt get married to Darko because I adore Darko; he has a at in Borovje [a suburb in Zagreb] I married him so that I would have a roof over my head, he is a good guy, I dont believe that he would ever hit me. The fact that he is younger, this is not that noticeable, not by the way we look, not by, a little by the way we think, he is still a little lively and that. But, there you go, I think, Ill have a roof over my head. Ivanka, 38.

Conclusion
Findings from this research show that homelessness is hard living particularly when access to different forms of capital (economic, cultural and social) is limited. In addition, with fewer resources, homeless people are often not in a strong bargaining position and their needs are less easily articulated, as they have no political/social/ symbolic power. Their humanity is under constant threat and most are engaged in a constant struggle to remain human in the face of inhumane conditions. Although the problems associated with homelessness were not specically addressed in this article, ndings suggest that homelessness is a mortifying55 and impoverishing experience, in which a person is stripped of all identity and deprived of so many rights (to housing, suitable healthcare, social services, a respectable job, self-dignity, social networks, legal rights, privacy, etc.). Thus, it is crucial to take into account the cumulative effect of all these problems in a context of non-recognition, stigmatisation and lack of support. Incontestably, further qualitative research with both homeless men and women will dispel and dismantle myths and stereotypes about this marginalised social group and increase our understanding of this relatively new phenomenon in Croatia. Importantly, this research should use a feminist lens that enables researchers to focus on the ways in which a patriarchal society has oppressed and marginalised women, in particular. Without this research, solutions are unlikely to be effective. As a group, homeless people in this study appear homogeneous by virtue of their lower levels of education and economic capital, citizenship, nationality, religion, welfare dependency, and work in the grey economy. However, as gendered individuals, they are a very heterogeneous group. Importantly, the diversity of womens and mens situations and individual experiences has to be acknowledged for the development of a full and constructive understanding of homelessness. Moreover, despite a variety of experiences, there are some common underlying needs that are also gendered.

Acknowledgements
I am grateful to my colleagues at the Institute of Social Sciences Ivo Pilar, who signicantly contributed to this study. They include: Marija Geiger, Jadranka Rebeka Ani, Ivana Miji, and Marica Marinovi Golubi as well as a number of students. In addition, this research would not have been possible without the homeless people who were a part of this study, from whom we were able to collect a unique body of data that has generated a wealth of knowledge, insights and understanding about homelessness in Croatia.

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Short Biography
Lynette iki-Mianovi is a research associate at the Institute of Social Sciences Ivo Pilar in Zagreb, Croatia, where she has been employed since 1995. She received her Ph.D. in anthropology in 2005. She has worked on a number of national and international research projects where her analytical focus has been on gender. Her research interests include: rural/farm women, Roma women and children, qualitative research methods, and homeless people in Croatia. She is rmly dedicated to conducting further anthropological research among marginal social groups in Croatia as there is an urgent need to increase understanding so that myths can be dismantled and suitable social policies can be developed for these groups.

ENDNOTES

1 2 3

Room, Observatory on National Policies,p. 87. Edgar, Services for homeless people, p. 3. Research for this project was selectively with homeless people that sleep in shelters throughout Croatia, see ii). working with the Homeless (FEANTSA). ETHOS European Typology on Homelessness and Housing Exclusion. Available at: http://www.feantsa.org/code/en/ pg.asp?Page=484 (5 February 2010).

14 For example, a ten-minute documentary lm

4 European Federation of National Organisations

by Petar Krelja called Splendid Isolation (1973) that describes the fate of the homeless at the meagre Red Cross Shelter in Zagreb situated behind the luxurious ve-star hotel Esplanade was banned by authorities and was not publicly shown until 1992.
15 Babi, Socijalni transferi (Social transfers). 16 Archival material from media sources

shows that only ten articles were found on homelessness twenty years prior to 1991, compared to over 400 in the following years.
17 Beovan, Subvencioniranje najamnina

Weber Sikich, Global Female Homelessness, p. 147-156. Tosics,Housing in south-eastern Europe, p. 123-150, www.ceeol.com (6 January 2010). Andrusz, Post-Socialist City (2001) http://www.anthropolis.de/andrusz_2.htm (15 January 2010). Hertting, Housing in Southeastern Europe, p. 134. Lower homelessness gures are partly the result of less satisfactory methods of recording homelessness (undercounts or double counts), especially if a country does not have an official denition and if this problem is not officially recognised or monitored. Further estimates of homeless populations are also affected by the problem of mobility and hidden homelessness. p. 129.

(Subsidies for rent and living expenses), p. 23.

18 Bakula-Aneli, Beskunici Grada Zagreba,

(The Homeless of the City of Zagreb), p. 399-412.

19 Except for a study with two focus groups (with

8 9

eleven homeless persons in Zagreb and seven in Split) for a project on the Quality of Life in the Republic of Croatia: The risk of social exclusion. See Human Development Report Croatia, Unplugged: Faces of social exclusion in Croatia, United Nations Development Programme Zagreb, Croatia, 2006.
20 Candidate country status was granted to

Croatia by the European Council in mid-2004.

21 Harding, Is there a Feminist Method?, p. 1-14;

10 Hertting,Housing in Southeastern Europe,

Fonow, Beyond Methodology; Henwood, Remaking the Link, p. 7-30.

22 Scheper-Hughes, Death without Weeping. 23 As it has been noted that it is never ethically

11 Biani, The challenges of real and subjective,

p. 13-16.
12 Social policy under socialism repeatedly

showed itself to have been used as a reward for those classes who were politically loyal, while social rights per se remained an unachievable ideal. See Novak, Mojca, Reconsidering the socialist welfare state model, p. 111.
13 Human Development Report Croatia (1997),

appropriate to give research participants monetary reimbursements (see Hutz, Claudio S. and Koller, Silvia H., Methodological and ethical issues in research with street children, New Directions for Child and Adolescent Development, p. 5970), so we gave our participants either a small radio or toiletries.
24 Researchers have found that internationally,

United Nations Development Programme Zagreb, Croatia.

women face problems of attaining shelter that are directly related to their gender. See

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Dandekar, Hemalata C. and Sujata, Shetty, Hosting an international conference on women and shelter: pedagogic and logistical insights, in Journal of Planning Education and Research, p. 203-213.
25 Novac, Women on the rough edge, p. 4. 26 Barbre, Interpreting Womens Lives. 27 Connolly, Homeless mothers. 28 According to Webb, hidden homelessness

shelter in Split was initially rejected by the Ministry of Social Welfare because they claimed that this phenomenon does not exist among women in Croatia (personal communication with shelter coordinator).
39 Doherty, Gendering homelessness, p. 9. 40 Watson, A womans place, p. 91. 41 Glasser, Homelessness in global perspective,

takes many forms, for instance, a nomadic existence of moving from household to household among family and friends, or being trapped, sometimes suffering harassment or abuse, but unable to secure alternative accommodation. See Webb, Sarah, My Address Is Not My Home: Hidden Homelessness and Single Women in Scotland, Edinburgh: Scottish Council for Single Homeless.
29 Brown, A feminist approach to working with

1994; Joanne, Homelessness and theory reconsidered, p. 4763.

42 Avramov, Coping with homelessness; Ray,

The new landscape of precariousness, p. 1736; Tomas and Dittmar, The experience of homeless women, p. 493515.
43 Morrell-Bellai, Becoming and remaining

homeless, p. 581-604; Toohey, Social networks and homelessness, p. 7-20.

44 Novac, No room of her own, p. 20-23. 45 Novac, Seeking shelter, p. 59. 46 Ralston, Nobody wants to hear our truth. 47 It should be noted that the experience of

homeless women, p. 7-26.

30 Morrell-Bellai, Becoming and remaining

homeless, p. 581-604; Toohey, Social networks and homelessness, p. 7-20.

31 Interviews were also conducted with shelter

coordinators and workers throughout eldwork to increase our understanding of homelessness issues.
32 Bridgman, Safe Haven; Connolly, Homeless

mothers; Edgar, Women and homelessness in Europe; Liebow, Tell Them Who I Am; Novac, No room of her own; Passaro, The unequal homeless; Calterone, A Roof Over My Head.
33 Watson, Housing and Homelessness. 34 Edgar, Women and the housing market, p. 21-45. 35 Novac et al., No room of her own, p. 1. 36 Doherty, Gendering homelessness, p. 9-20. 37 Tomas, The experience of homeless women, p.

violence among women is higher at shelters, specically for battered women. This type of shelter was not included in this sample because they are a different type even though these women are also homeless. The addresses of these shelters are publicly unknown to protect these women from further abuse.
48 In the cases of widowhood (3), abuse/neglect

were not mentioned.

49 Novac, No room of her own, p. 17-19. 50 Ibid., p. 6. 51 Passaro, The unequal homeless, p. 2. 52 Ibid., p. 81. 53 Baxter, Private Lives/Public Spaces; Bachrach,

493515.
38 An application for funding for the womens

Chronic mentally ill women, p. 1063-1069.

54 Goffman, Asylums, p. 29. 55 Ibid., p. 24.

H U N G A RY

(De)Valuing Care Traditional and Alternative Patterns in the Social Construction of Care in Hungary After the Transition Judit Acsdy, Anna Biegelbauer, Veronika Paksi, Boglrka Somogyi, Ivett Szalma

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A B ST RA C T

Those who conscientiously care for others are not seeking primarily to further their own individual interests; their interests are intertwined with the persons they care for.
Virginia Held

The aim of this study is to present research on circumstances of care work and social construction of care itself, arguing that this subject has a lot to say about gender relations of the given society. It further aims to create a sensitive tool that is able to grasp the alternative attitudes and practices in society in understanding and practicing care. These might open to a new understanding of human relations of care redening its place in the system of values so much centred in our times around material well-being and individual liberty. In the context of transition in the ex-Soviet bloc we could see that the study of changing gender relations after the transition includes mostly the measurement of inequalities, the comparison of economic activity, the evaluation of attitudes and values concerning gender roles, womens representation in public life, media representations, cultural stereotypes and individual life stories. The eld of care giving has less been in focus so far. Therefore, the research aimed to add a new aspect to the topics discussed earlier and at the same time, it aims to offer a reading of everyday experience of care materialised in the interviews that might open a path to more universalistic perspectives as well.

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What is the place of care, responsible thinking about others, empathy and solidarity among values in a society that experienced economic, political and ethical changes, resulting in the primacy of competition after the transition to a marketoriented system? That question was the base of the inquiry in the research project that was hosted by the Sociology Research Institute of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.1 The research project aimed to contribute to the understanding of construction of gendered value systems and role expectations by generating qualitative data about interpretations of care-giving functions and responsibilities besides the analyses of quantitative data available from former databases. The collection of background material with consultations and evaluation of formerly existing databases and the organising of interviews started in January 2009. In this rst phase the aim was to give an overview of earlier studies completed in the eld of attitudes of care and related subjects in Hungary. As an addition to this, the team also employed the data basis of two large surveys: European Social Survey, 2006, and letnk fordulpontjai (Turning points of our lives) a demographic survey by the Hungarian Central Statistical Office, 2006. The qualitative interviews were recorded between April 2009 and January 2010 in three groups, among care workers, teachers and a group of adults working in services.

the 55th place in 2006. In three years, Hungarys position in this rank has worsened; it dropped to the 67th place by 2009. This shows that, in spite of certain (sometimes contradictory) governmental efforts to implement gender mainstreaming and adjust to the gender roadmap of the EU, the result is a worsening situation in terms of equality. To illustrate it in detail, the data of political representation, economic activity, domestic share of labour, attitudes toward gender roles and participation in NGOs are examined. Hungary has a bad position among European nations in terms of womens political representation in Parliament. The most recent statistic for female MPs is 11.1 percent. Thus, Hungary is behind the positions of all the neighbouring countries of the Central Eastern European region and the ex-Soviet bloc and the second to last in the list of EU countries. (Source: Women in National Parliaments, UN, Situation as of November 2008 and also KSH 2008) While in Europe in the last few decades the number of women entering the labour market increased considerably and emancipation has started to shape the division of domestic labour, in Hungary the number of employed women signicantly dropped since the late 1980s. Recently, 50.4 percent of women of working age and 63 percent of men are employed.2 Part-time work is signicantly less available (hardly ever present) in Hungary compared to that of the average European country.3 In all European countries, men take the biggest part in paid work; however, the difference between mens and womens economic activities is relatively smaller in the countries of high employment rates. In the share of domestic labour, Hungary shows the dominance of traditional patterns. In a comparative study Hungary showed the highest rate of acceptance (71 percent) with the statement: It is the husbands responsibility to earn money to support his family, and the wifes task is to perform household work.4 Timeuse surveys show that couples in Hungary living together (either married or in other forms of cohabitation) do not share the domestic responsibilities fairly. Men spend more time on paid work than women, while women perform most of the household and childcare work. According to a European time-use survey, it is the Hungarian women who spend the greatest amount of time on household and childcare (EUROSTAT, 2004), working almost three times more at home than their spouses.

Gender Relations in Hungary After the Transition

Similarly to other countries of the ex-Soviet bloc after the transition, Hungary became a market-oriented country with the heritage of an authoritarian leadership model. However, the social and political history and the cultural traditions engaged the values of modernity in different ways compared to Western democracies. All this has affected gender relations. Gender inequality in Hungary is not among the primary concerns. Expectations and divisions of labour measured by surveys reect stereotypical gender roles. In this system, care as a basic function of human life is supposed to be strongly linked to women. Gender relations in Hungary recently are dened by the relevant tendencies of European countries, the heritage of the post-Soviet societies and prevailing cultural traditions. Womens presence in the labour market and political representation that was made remarkably high due to a strong state policy before 1989, turned into a weak representation and disappearance from paid work after the transition, similarly to the countries of the ex-Soviet bloc. The literature of transitology describes this process in detail. However, the answer to the question to what degree the dictates of the former regime served a real emancipation of women is still to be elaborated further. The rate of inequality between men and women can fairly be illustrated by the so-called gender gap gure that makes a comparison among different countries possible. This measurement combines the gender-divided data of economic activity, education, political representation, health and survival. A large-scale register is issued by the World Economic Forum every year. In the rank of 130 countries, Hungary occupied

MEN 11

WOMEN 27.7

TABLE 1: Average of the number of hours spent on domestic work per week

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Yet the same survey by the Central Statistical Office (KSH) gave evidence that about one third of men and women raising children together say that they share everyday tasks when it comes to occupying themselves with the child, e.g., helping the child to put on their clothes, taking them to bed, staying at home if the child is ill, helping them with school work, taking the child to school (Turning points survey, 2005). The way women and men share everyday household duties and child-care responsibilities are largely dened by womens employment and the mentality in the given country. In most European countries, women do twice as much caring for children than men.5 In countries where an emancipated approach to sharing work is accepted (e.g., The Netherlands), the majority of respondents believe that switching gender roles is normal. On the contrast, in Hungary, switching the traditional gender roles is largely rejected. Sixty-eight percent of the respondents in the survey mentioned above agreed with the following statement: It is not good when the husband is at home, raising the children and the wife is the breadwinner in the family (Turning Points. 2005, KSH Database). Opinions on gender roles, according to a former study of the mid 1990s, tend to reect more conservative views than what the real practice shows.6 For example, the child and family-oriented dispositions are still very widespread in Hungary compared to the neighbouring countries. Especially elderly people tend to evaluate marriage more because of economic safety.7 In new ways of life for example, the life of educated, single professionals, young people in their twenties and thirties do not engage in long-term, deep relationships. They see advantage in a free lifestyle to be able to facilitate their carrier and prefer not to take personal responsibilities for a partner. gnes Utasi in her book about young singles in Hungary pointed out that women express more preference for marriage than men, but young men benet more from not being engaged in responsible/ caring relations.8 Traditional values about gender roles became more dominant after the Transition and are reinforced by the current media and even school curriculum. Women are almost invisible in textbooks. Their role is mainly connected to housework, taking care of children and grandparents.9 Similarly to earlier ndings, a recent international comparative study also shows that among the European countries examined, Hungarian respondents proved to express the most traditional views in terms of gender relations.10 The value system is reected in the time scales and also in the division of domestic responsibilities between men and women. For the survey question Who usually does the housework in your home?, 71 percent of women say that they do.

ME Female respondent Male respondent 71%

MY PARTNER 2%

WE SHARE 34%

SOMEONE ELSE 2%

TOTAL% 100

3%

69%

24%

4%

100

TABLE 2: Who does the housework in your home usually? (Source: Pongrcz, 2005, page 80)

Education and age have a strong impact on the formulation of views about the traditional share of domestic labour. According to a recent representative survey, the elderly generation and less educated people agreed more with a stereotypical statement about gendered share of household responsibilities and paid labour. The following charts show the percentage of respondents agreeing with the following statement in their age group and people with the same level of education: It is proper if the husband takes more interest in paid work and women in domestic responsibilities, even if both of them are employed. (KSH)

70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 18-29 30-39 40-49 50-59 60-69 70-75 % of those agreeing with the statement in given age group

FIGURE 1: It is proper if the husband takes more interest in paid work and women in domestic responsibilities, even if both of them are employed. Answers according to age groups.

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70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 FIGURE 2: It is proper if the husband takes more interest in paid work and women in domestic responsibilities, even if both of them are employed. Answers according to education groups. % of those with the statement within group of people with the same educational level

low. Therefore [] family relations can provide people with some kind of a shelter.15 Yet people sense the controversies and missing functions of the family as a shelter. This will be discussed later on in this report when interviews on care will be examined. The problems and contradictions of family life are, however, not widely revealed. Documentation of violent relationships and rescue paths from them are not available for the public. Problems and possible solutions after divorces are not discussed widely. Social workers in family care centres in Hungary recently have dened a deepening crisis in terms of care of children of divorced couples and single or widowed mothers. Divorced parents often do not have a relevant and feasible model of how to agree on caring functions and this is a source of many conicts.16 Yet, these problems are not articulated in depth in public life. Stepping out of the family circle, even less and less mutual support and solidarity is experienced. The way citizens support each other in everyday life and the benet of such support on a personal level from their spouse, relatives, neighbours, friends, or other members of the community contributes to social cohesion and also the health and well-being of the individual. A National Representative Health Survey (OLEF) in 2003 showed a minor increase in the eld of such personal care in the Hungarian population. Yet in the European comparison, the frequency of personally helping others in Hungary is about half of the European average (ESS, 2006). Thus, the number of those who stay without personal social support is still relatively high, and there is a large group of people facing the risk of deteriorating living or health conditions.

Central Statistical Office (KSH), 2005, Turning Points database

In Hungary, the value system can be characterised as family-centred. The results of the so-called Rokech scale conrm it. Out of the list of eighteen values, most of the respondents chose family security as the most important one.11 Surveys show that the majority of respondents claim to highly value marriage.12 According to the quoted international comparative study, Hungarian respondents showed the highest rate (79 percent) of agreement with the statement that Although work is important for most women, home and children are more important.13. However, in this context the interpretation of the demographic tendencies that are present in most of the European countries (high divorce rate, a decreasing number of marriages and signicant and permanent drop in the number of childbirths) is difficult. Almost every second marriage ends with divorce in Hungary, and the fertility rate is almost the lowest in Hungary compared to the rest of the EU countries. The number of marriages per thousand women above the age fteen in 1990 was 35.9. According to latest statistics, this number is 15.8 and 20.0 among men.14 The family-centred value system was named familism and interpreted as a possible rescue: Familism as a social condition seems to be suitable for describing those societies where the level of trust in other human beings and social institutions is very

80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 Austria Belgium Norway Finnland Slovenia Slovakia Poland Germany Denmark Netherlands Hungary Bulgaria SW. Spain Ireland Russ. Fed.

FIGURE 3: Percentage of population involved in voluntary/charitable organisations (Source: Eurostat, 2008)

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Examining further the civil sector in Hungary we can see that, similar to the rest of Europe, female activity is lower than that of males. However, the rate of members of non-prot organisations within the adult population in Hungary is signicantly smaller compared to the European average. The activity in non-prot organisations is the highest in the Netherlands.

FEMALE Hungary Netherland EU average 18% 78% 50%

MALE 28% 84% 59%

Virginia Helds Ethics of Care challenges the former concepts of individuals and criticises the liberal denition of the autonomous person seeking their own interest in all activities. Instead of the concept of the autonomous, isolated self-sufcient individual as the base of society, Held sees individuals as dened in their relation to others in a given social context.21 In the rst case individuals as independent, autonomous units cooperate only when they see it as benecial; however, in the alternative understanding of human behaviour cooperating/supporting others is not against, but serves the given individuals interest. In terms of moral theories, Held argues that: Dominant moral theories tend to interpret moral problems as if they were conicts between egoistic individual interest on the one hand and universal moral principles on the other. The extremes of selsh individual and humanity are recognised but what lies between these is often overlooked. The ethics of care, in contrast, focuses especially on the area between these two extremes. Those who conscientiously care for others are not seeking primarily to further their own individual interests; their interests are intertwined with the persons they care for. Neither are they acting for the sake of all others or humanity in general; they seek instead to preserve or promote an actual human relation between themselves and particular others. Persons in caring relations are acting for self-and-other together. Their characteristics stance is neither egoistic nor altruistic; these are the options in a conicting situation, but the well-being of a caring relation involves the cooperative well-being of those in the relation and the well-being of the relation itself.22 Care has been associated historically and symbolically with women. Before the emergence of feminist critical theories and theories of social construction of reality23 (and that of gender roles), care was understood as naturally linked to women, primarily because of womens role in nurturing children. In the new approach fostered by Held, care is understood as a universal human responsibility and is not restricted to womens activities. Care is surely a form of labour, but it is also much more.24 In feminist literature, special attention was given to care as a particular form of work (very often taken for granted) revealing the underlying difficulties of it as well: The notion of caring work has gained widespread usage because it alludes to the contradictory and sometimes poignant mix of labor that is often burdensome and inequitably distributed, with experiences of caring and love. Feminist scholars have studied the caring work of mothers, teachers, social workers, community activists, day-care workers and those, paid or unpaid,

TABLE 3: Members in non-prot organisations in Europe: percentages of population (ESS, 2003)

The representation of gender issues, the care for womens equal opportunities in society in Hungary is relatively weak compared to many of the ex-Soviet bloc countries, as was concluded by the research of the international MONEE project.17 The number of womens organisations illustrates this fact well. According to the register of NIOK,18 the number of legally existing civil organisations is around 60,000 (yet it is difcult to tell how many out of these organisations are active). From this relatively large number, only about one hundred organisations are listed as being concerned about womens issues. Even though there is effort on the governmental level to adjust to the EU norms, without the activity of the civil sector, voicing gender issues in Hungarian public life is rather difficult. Care as a Gender Issue Care is viewed in this study as one of the fundamental functions in human relations. The understanding of care here is based on Virginia Helds work on the Ethics of Care.19 As she points out, care is a universal experience of every one of us. As an infant, all human beings have been cared for, otherwise we would not be alive.20 In everyday life, care means attending, recognising and meeting the needs of particular others for whom we take responsibility. It is the performance of inevitable services and tasks for the sake of others. As a fundamental human behaviour, care is essential to social integration. By taking responsibility for others we contribute to maintaining their health and to formulating balanced relationships. Taking care might also be an act of solidarity that strengthens social cohesion.

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who care for the elderly and the disabled. Caring work connects households with hospitals, nursing homes, day-care centers and schools. When done for pay, it is usually devalued; when unpaid, it is often taken for granted. 25 Care presupposes a special relation between the carer and the person who is taken care of. As Virginia Held points out, controlling domination might be a danger of care relations. She argues that the concept of care should not be naturalised but placed into a framework of ethics: Since even the helpful emotions can often become misguided or worse as when empathy with others leads to wrongful degree of selfdenial or when benevolent concern crosses over into controlling domination we need an ethics of care.26 By pointing out these dangers, Held contributes to dening relational ties that are oppressive. Besides the attempt to create an approach of balanced caring attitudes of humans, feminism also expands to formulate a moral relationship to the non-human world, especially in the eco-feminist efforts.27 Even though social changes in the twentieth century challenged the gendered determination of the performance of care, the data concerning the circumstances, the recent share and the evaluation of care work and caring activities reconstructs gender inequality in most of the countries.28 Besides the measurement of inequalities, gender relations of a given society can be described by analysing how and by whom care tasks are performed, to what degree society acknowledges the importance of and respects care work, both on the individual and the institutional level. Gender relations of a given society are also reected in the way caring tasks are dened and related to or released from gender stereotypes. The Report of the WP4 Project, Surveying Demand, Supply and Use of Care29 stated in 2002 that those employed in the eld of institutionalised care are mostly women. Gender segregation was strong in each country taking part in the research, especially in the eld of badly paid personal care, such as helpers and assistants. The conditions under which people work in institutionalised care are often bad, there is a lack of adequate equipment, supplies, stuff, and funding. They are often even endangered by risky situations, emotional involvement, tension, and stress that could be helped or compensated by proper supervision. The gendered segregation of this eld is not that strong in countries where policy makers and society support the idea of gender equality and where gender stereotypes are not that strong any longer.

Care Workers Social Situation in Hungary It is important to note that in Hungary, as in many other transitional countries, the function of the state changed in institutional care as well. The state withdrew from the overall paternalistic-caring function and gave way to market-oriented services. Very little attention has been devoted yet to the participants of institutionalised care, i.e., those who are employed in such institutions. However, a large database was created (Gondoskodk Adatbzisa, KSH Database of Care workers, Hungarian Central Statistical Office) to gather the information about this eld, primarily those employed in social work or personal care, etc.30 Yet, the everyday experience of those working in the eld of institutionalised care is not widely discussed in the public nor in the academic world. The profession of social work and social care and other forms of care work do not enjoy social support and appreciation (as we will see the instances extracted from the interview texts). The importance of the value of providing help for others signicantly decreased according to the value system survey quoted earlier (employing the Rokeach scale), especially among young people.31 In Hungarian care provision, there are more employees with social qualications than before, but their numbers are still insufficient because a lot of social workers are without proper certication or have got other education than social work. Qualied social workers often leave their jobs because of low payment and enter often in other sectors of service provision.32 The comparison shows that the monthly payment of those employed in social care eld is much lower than the average.

Average monthly income in Hungary (2007) Average monthly income in social care (2007)

HUF 185,000.00

EUR 686.00 (EUR 740.00 in 2009) EUR 500.00

HUF 135,000.00

TABLE 4: Average monthly incomes in comparison; Source: KSH (Central Statistical Agency)

Ninety-ve percent of the people registered in the central database of social and care workers in Hungary are women; however, both men and women are employed in providing care for different social groups, e.g., care for elderly, disabled, addicts, homeless, needy, and children.33 The average age of social workers registered in this data base is 42 years.34 As previously mentioned, young qualied professionals often leave their jobs, especially in the state-run budget institutions (as it will be detailed later, based on interviews) and face better running private foundations or newly founded non-prots that might be able to offer them better payment and professionally better organised work.

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Besides the group of professionals registered in the Database of Care workers, the recent research aims to include a larger professional circle and extends the circle of care workers to the following: personal care workers, informal helpers working in communities, care of the elderly, sick and disabled, those who provide mental help and support, support for drug addicts, support and care for the homeless, refugees, those care workers who work in child home institutions (orphanages, temporary shelters), nurses, consultants, helpers at family care centres. (The selection is based on the list of Carers International Association, on the denitions of care work by the authors, Thomas Cockburn and Virginia Held.)

Primarily, we aimed to reach those people who work as professional caregivers to see how they identify with the task and how they see this functioning in recent social setting. As control groups, we identied two further professional groups whose everyday work involves contact with people, treating people, caring about people (teaching, providing service) who are, however, not classied as caregivers. The way of selecting the interviewees was the following: 1. A thorough study of the care-providing sector gave us an overlook of the kind of institutions in this sphere. We identied state-run institutions (and organisations linked to the municipalities) and NGO-managed ones.

Construction of Care Report of Interviews

I think life in itself is a process of caring.35 Care is the basic condition for life. (interview quotes)36 Results of social study surveys have demonstrated that the place of care work in recent European societies is dened by the prevailing division of gender roles. Thus, its recognition and evaluation is determined. However, the signicance of care work in terms of promoting balanced human relations, providing tools for a healthier way of life, creating cooperation, responsible thinking and thus social cohesion is elaborated much more in theoretical works. To explore the experiences, feelings, attitudes of care providers, the present research project worked out a method based on qualitative, thematic interviews. Similarly to the research delivered by Vivienne E Cree in Scotland,37 this research was interested in how the care providers themselves construct the notions about care work, what is their motivation to enter into this profession and what are the challenges and the fruitful results during their everyday work. Finally, the research included an aspect for evaluating to what extent the interviewees relate care work to gender. The Sample The group of interviewees was elected on a qualied basis. Three professional groups were identied: care providers, teachers and people who work in service providing sectors38 (e.g., shop keepers, assistants, maintainers, gas station employees, etc.). The reason for the selection is the following: the primary goal of the research was to gain a picture of the social construction of care, of its evaluation and the understanding of how much this term is related to gender stereotypes in Hungary.

2. The institutions run by the state or the local government were selected according to location to allow for possible differences (mostly from various districts of Budapest39 and also from the countryside). In the selection process, we also followed the advice of experts of this eld whom we consulted personally. 3. As far as the civil sector is concerned, the selection was done on the database of the NIOK40 professional NGOs list. Institutions were selected to reect diverse functions. 4. Teachers from schools were selected to represent diversity according to location (different districts of Budapest and the countryside). According to the social prestige, there is a strict hierarchy of schools. We aimed to include teachers from both the prestigious, elite schools and the devalued ones (e.g., from working class neighbourhoods). 5. In the second control group people working in service providing, the interviewers approached people in their own neighbourhoods (respondents in this group are all from Budapest, representing different localities). The age of the interviewees was not a selection criterion (by denition, they were all of working age); however, we tended to include young, middle-aged and experienced professionals as well. We had one retired person who was employed after retirement. Out of the list of care-providing institutions that was generated on the NIOK data base, we got in contact with those who actually provide some form of practical care work and have chosen the following sites for interviews:

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Orphanages temporary homes Homes and daycare centres for elderly people Hospital (nurses) Drug ambulance Battered womens rescue Homeless shelter Disabled peoples daycare centre Clown doctors (Red Nose) foundation Family care centres (social workers) Special education school Daily occupational centre for disabled persons

the subject and the aim of the interview. We had printed information material that we provided for those who asked for more information. When xing interview dates with respondents in institutions (care centres, schools, etc.) we emailed the information sheet to the head of the institution as well. However, we asked for interviews with employees. In a few cases when heads of institutions who were experienced in the given profession, who had previously worked as care providers or teachers and were willing to contribute, we recorded interviews with them as well. Respondents were told on each occasion that giving answers is voluntary and the answers are kept condentially, and that respondents were guaranteed anonymity. The research team experienced no refusals at all to answer questions (out of 83 requests, there were only two denials42 and one unrecorded interview, when the respondent answered but refused to be recorded). All respondents were open and cooperative. Out of this condence of the majority and the positive attitude, we might conclude that, generally speaking, the subject of care generates good feelings in people who were approached. Often we felt that people were glad that someone is interested in their opinions and they were ready to formulate the answers. In all cases we saw that the respondent interpreted care as a relevant social issue. The following subjects emerged out of the answers: everyday need for care, the pain when it is lacking, and the necessity of the attention to people who provide care.

Interviews took an average of 45 minutes (30-60 mins.). In the case of the control group (with people employed in services) the interviews were denitely shorter.41 They were recorded and transcribed and catalogued. Besides the forty-two interviews in the care-providing sector (working in a state institution or an NGO), two further groups of respondents were identied. Teachers of elementary and secondary schools (50 percent from Budapest, and 50 percent from other towns and the countryside) constituted the second group. People working in service provision (e.g., shop assistants, bartenders, maintenance workers) constituted the third one. In each group, there was an effort to create an equal share of women and men respondents (it was done not to represent gender distribution among care workers but because we were interested in mens and womens attitudes concerning care in the same way). Altogether, eighty interviews were recorded (41 caregivers, 21 teachers, 18 people working in the service sector). The team recorded the interviews using a previously edited interview script that was printed in advance. Thus, each interview was structured in the same way; however, there were identical diversities, which is usual in this methodology. The script contained open questions. Openness, Positive Approach Practice and experience in recording interviews shows that not all interview questions and topics are received in the same way by the respondents. In certain cases, respondents might become less cooperative or less open, or emotionally involved, disturbed, moved, frustrated or angry. They might even refuse to give answers. In the research about the subject of care, our experience showed that people were open and positive. Before the recording started we always informed the respondents about

Care As a Construction: Sense and Sensibility, Rationality and Emotions

gender does not count (interview quote)43 As we saw earlier from statistical data, survey methods conrm that people have strong gendered stereotypes about the division of tasks in Hungary. European comparative research demonstrated that most of the people employed in paid careproviding work are women. Time use statistics prove that women in domestic work still do most of the caring tasks. The statistical data presented earlier in this study suggest that care is gendered, it is connected mostly to women and its social signicance is often minimised. Care as such was not recognised as a special value. The data gained with the methodology worked out for this present research, i.e., qualitative individual interviews with open questions, only partly reinforces the previous ndings but mostly gives a new perspective. Besides mapping and describing the gendered attitudes, we would like to draw attention to what we call alternative approach. The analyses showed a great variety in answers for the questions about how people would dene care44 and what they think about individual responsibilities. However, there were signicant trends in the answers.

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According to the way people formulated their answers in the interviews about the notion of care, three groups were identied: conservative (traditional) alternative pragmatic Opposite to the formerly quoted survey ndings that presented overwhelming conservative attitudes about gender roles, we found it remarkable that the distribution of the answers showed a different pattern. When presenting this we are aware that this method obviously can not serve as the basis of any generalisation. The data is not representative; however, the selection criteria might be a guarantee to provide a relevant picture of the values and attitudes attributed to care among the people interviewed. Most of the answers among professional care providers, teachers or those who work in the service sector fell into the category that we named as alternative. These answers dened care according to diverse motives and did not link it specically to womens nature born activity. For example: No, no, no. I denitely do not think that care can be related to gender. Care was understood as an activity that can be performed by men and women in the same way. The professional background, proper qualication and the capability to recognise and full other peoples need make everyone able to perform care, regardless of gender. Both women and men respondents shared this view. Less than ten percent of the respondents (in each professional groups) gave a strictly conservative answer, dening care as womens responsibility. Therefore, such answers as the following were rather rare: As a man I think that of course, women have the leading role in caring (50 year-old man, shop keeper, S11/1). Care can be related much more to women. It is usually their responsibility (25 year-old woman, special education teacher, C 38/3). Finally, we found the expression pragmatic for those who spoke about the recent practice of women doing the majority of care work; who however thought that men could do the same activities as well. We can say professional care is feminised. But this is not because only women can solve this task (Man, employed in a childcare institution, C 42/9).

Those respondents whose answers were classied as pragmatic spoke usually about mutual responsibilities in households, mutual parenting, and shared domestic tasks. In professional work they did not think that care-providing jobs in any way should be related to gender, they believed that men and women are capable of performing these tasks; however, it was mentioned that there are certain specialised tasks (e.g., battered women) that should be done gender-specically. We observed also the openness of the younger generation, especially of men working in caring professions. Their denitions reected their work experience and did not contain gender stereotypes. Their everyday dealing with clients/children and being responsible for other peoples well-being, health or social problems gave them evidence that care is not to be linked to gender. Care: Range Perspective Responsibilities Care is: to help people in nding their own places and if they lost their balance help to nd it back with their own strength. Care is paying attention, turning to the needy. Care is the time you devote to others, energy, giving help, physical, mental needs (27 year-old woman, assistant in battered womens shelter, C 27/2). Care is love, family, friends (S 3/1). Care is special gentle warmth, being together, and caress (53 year-old woman, educator in an orphanage, C 21/3). Care was in most of the answers understood as a universal call, a moral incentive to pay attention, recognise the needs, deal with, help, and care about others. In the case of religious respondents, this call was a divine one and the act of care was the only relevant attitude towards fellow people. The notion of care in certain answers was extended to care not only for humans but for all living beings around, animals, plants, and the planet in general.45 Several respondents associated the feeding of animals when hearing the term care. About one third of the respondents primarily linked care to family relations. In about one tenth of the cases, the mother-child relation was described as a primary, basic pattern of care.

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In Hungarian society, the expectations towards the family as the basic provider of security and well-being in physical and emotional sense are high. Also, caring for the elderly is a very often emerging matter and it is understood as the responsibility of the respective children. In this sense, the parent-child relation is a mutual linkage of care and responsibility. When a child is small, parents are responsible and when parents get old their children are responsible for them. However, data shows that it is just a high expectation and families are not able to provide the care for family members. There was a relatively often emerging motive in the interviews that care in general is always the responsibility of those who are in a better position: the wealthier, the stronger, those who are in the position to help. This attitude is often voiced in the interviews. It suggests that not everybody is in the situation to care for or help others. This view presupposes a precondition for providing care. The precondition in this sense is the capability of the person who is providing care. This notion is linked to the understanding of care as a way for people to be able to care for themselves. Especially consultants in, for example, drug ambulances formulated a notion of care that it is something that can enable the person who is being taken care of. How care can be a burden as well was described in the context when the person who is in a responsible position might not have all the potentials needed in that position, or the obligation is stronger than the persons capacity (when, e.g., people feel they do not have any other choice): Care can also be an enormous burden. I see single parents/mothers doing heroic jobs. They do their jobs as mothers, parents, and as an employed adult. It is incredibly too much on them. That is my professional experience (54 year-old woman, psychologist, married with two children, C 12/7). Virginia Held mentioned in her theoretical work the danger of a caring relation when the task absorbs the caring person to an unintended extent. We saw examples of such instances as well: This is a notion that is hard to dene, because practically this is what my life is about to care for my children. Also, the same kind of ultimate involvement and being absorbed in the task was mentioned by educators employed in orphanages, whose work was dened in a very complex way. It seemed to be overwhelming. The role of the carer seemed to absorb their personality. These respondents did not seem to exist but in a full identication with their caring function. Probably a better organising of tasks and a more considerate denition of work obligation or supervision could help this situation. The matter of the symmetry or hierarchy in caring relations was articulated in some of the answers as well. Professionals tended to be conscious of the questions of the positions.

Related to the concern that the mighty can care about the others, issues of the paternalistic state emerged in many answers. The state was often seen as an agent whose responsibility is to care for its citizens. This view might relate to the overwhelming presence of state before 1989 in all spheres of life. However, it is remarkable that twenty years after the transition, this view is still strongly present. Lack of Care Pains The description of recent society as a realm of lack of care/support/ solidarity was an often returning matter in the interviews. On the national level, care is not functioning well (T 1/4). When I hear the term care, the lack of care comes to my mind instead. It is not present in recent Hungarian society. The state does not take care of its citizens, young people do not care about the elderly the way they should, and social networks do not exist. It is over. People are alienated from each other, families fell apart. It is a problem that the traditional/provincial way of life has ceased to exist, everyone is heading for the city. During my work as a massage therapist, I met elderly women who hardly know their own grandchildren, even though they grew up in large families of several generations living together. The big family gave the feeling of security (C 17/3). The lack of care on various levels of society (parenting, family circles, neighbours, community, and state) was articulated by almost all professionals, teachers, and educators and seen mostly as a national problem of values: care fell out of human virtues/values. Kids nowadays mostly aim for material well-being. That reects their parents values (T2/3). at the nursery it is possible to observe which parents leave their children in emotional abandonment. You can see it by the way they communicate, the way they greet and treat the child (40 year-old man, employed in childcare institution, C 2/5). The collapse of the bank system, the recent economic crisis is a sign of lack of care. Responsible people, decision makers were not considerate to make such systems (T4/4) Some respondents became emotional about what they experience as the lack of care: I am angry and desperate about the carelessness of people and society (C 24/6).

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Motivations and Challenges Although it was not the explicit aim of the research to describe the recent situation of institutional care in Hungary, the situation of institutionalised care contributes to the understanding of the interpretation and the place of care among values in a given society. Since the recording of the interviews happened in the institutions themselves and respondents were describing their own work, the personal visits and the narratives gave us a special insight into the situation. Generally speaking, the venues were in good condition, many of them were renovated recently after the transition. We visited several institutions that were located in buildings of brand new construction. They were clean and light and had a good atmosphere. However, those institutes in the countryside, the suburbs and in districts of Budapest that could not receive enough support for maintenance, functioned in buildings of worse conditions. All organisations, regardless of the physical condition of their buildings, were struggling with nancial problems. Often enough, even though the outward appearance seemed to be shining and relatively prosperous, it turned out that employees receive low payment, the budget is managed very strictly and often does not let the institution realise the program they aim for. Examining the individuals, we experienced that there was an observable difference between the attitudes of care providers employed by institutions run by the state and those organisations that provided help that were founded by civil initiatives. This difference was articulated, for example, in the narratives of caregivers when they spoke about their motivations to take their present jobs:46 what motivated me in my whole life was to help people (C 4/2). Data gathered in this research gave examples that the personal feeling of vocation was much more signicant in the case of those working in the newly founded care-providing organisations (NGOs). In these civil society initiatives, foundations, church-owned organisations, the staffs devotion, the sense of professional involvement was more explicit. However, we also experienced a very high degree of involvement and devotion in state-run institutions as well. We felt that involvement and enthusiasm were not different between men and women. My choice was conscious to become a care worker. I was really interested in humans and their fates, in who is going where and how far they got. And why that is so. However, in certain cases we experienced that the caregiver told us about getting into that profession by chance, accidentally. It was not their original plan, they just happened to nd this employment, as they could not nd another job. These

people did not have the professional background and had no qualications by being employed and doing the care work, they gained experience or became skilled in it. We found examples of this motivation in state-run institutions and care centres, retirement homes, etc. Another source of motivation to become a care provider is personal involvement, for example because of a family member, e.g., a disabled family member: . my child was born with a disability. Or: My fathers leg was mutilated. Also, it happens that the care provider follows a pattern given by parents: my mother is an infants nurse in an orphanage. Obviously, the diverse background of motivations does not necessarily qualify the actual work of the caregivers; however, the degree of devotion and emotions attached to the work might inuence performance. As it was verbalised by one of the clown doctors47 in an interview, For the performance of care, you need the balance of emotion and rationality (C 24/6). Challenges care workers themselves symbolise the situation of the vulnerable (Katalin Pik).48 Finally, we would like to draw attention to the difficulties and challenges people have to face who are employed as professional caregivers nowadays. These circumstances contribute to the unfortunate, low prestige and the devaluation of this eld in recent Hungarian society. In the interviews, there was an overall, manifested feeling of care providers that their work is not valued in society. However, there was a difference between the way people see them, with whom they work, and society at large. In their explanation, the closer circle of people who knew them personally, from the neighbourhood, etc., tended to give positive feedback and seemed to value their work. Society in general seems to be very ignorant and indifferent about these professions of care work: Well, this is very interesting, people in my immediate environment, those who know me or those with whom I speak about my job value this work highly, yet in a broader context, people rather feel pity for me or they say: Well, it could be awfully difficult for you, or: Wow, you must be a patient person. (38 year-old woman, special education teacher, C 346/2)

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Lack of nancing, and low wages devalue those who earn their income in this eld according to most of the respondents: It is very controversial to be a social worker nowadays in Hungary. (C 3/4), as the profession itself has a very inefficient defence of self-interest. In other words, people who help others often cannot articulate and represent their own needs and interests effectively. Other respondents also experienced that This profession has no prestige. A young social worker woman has pointed out what is experienced by many others working in the same eld: social work is looked down on from the position of other social science elds. Financially speaking, neither care providers nor teachers feel that their work is sufficiently appreciated: [Low wages are] part of the lack of social acknowledgment of the value of our work. And this is an unpleasant feeling. It must be so, because what we do is not so important for our society (31/2). Insufficiently dened responsibilities, overburdening tasks, and work overload make the performance of quality work difficult in many cases: Because of the workloads we work as if we were on the assembly line. (C 1/2). The experience of the interviews gave evidence that, without a reexive intellectual tool or professional help, care workers might shift into what, according to Virgina Helds theory, we dened as the dangers of care work. Excessive empathy with others might lead to a wrongful degree of self-denial of the care provider. Also, in other cases, both in professional setting and personal life, benevolent concerns might shift into controlling domination. Both of these challenges can be treated by a properly working supervision system and the consciousness of the care providers. This can be helped by good communication. In the interviews we saw several examples of good working communities, professional teams who might be able to face such challenges. In spite of all difficulties in the everyday practicing of care work, there is a hardly denable element that compensates and lls the caregivers with a positive feeling. During the interviews when they spoke about it, respondents often became moved, some were even weeping. This feeling is due to the feedback of those who are cared for (clients, patients, children, and seniors) or due to the visible result of the act of care. There was a case told by a clown doctor when they were singing and providing amusement for a little boy who was in a coma because of an accident. No one knew if the boy would ever recover. Weeks after the rst meeting with the boy, he woke up and remembered the songs and sung them together with the visiting clown doctor (interview 25). The interviewee, when telling the story, was struggling with tears of joy and being touched. Similarly, an educator in an orphanage with long decades of

experience was moved and had tears in her eyes when she recalled seeing some of the kids growing up and having a successful and contented life. For her, it was a reward for all the effort she made in educating the orphans. This extra, inexplicable motive was described also by the special education teacher who explained to us what it is to teach a mentally challenged child the letters of the alphabet. There was joy and fullment in her voice (interview 36). No payment whatsoever can evoke such feelings. Several interviewees said that the positive feedback of their clients/children is the motive that makes them continue their work, even among difficult circumstances and despite the lack of social acknowledgment and prestige. This strong identication with the clients was very strongly present in the interviews.

Conclusion
The research focussed on the understanding of care, its social prestige and care providers social situation in Hungary as a relevant indicator of gender relations. Gender gap gures show that, recently, inequality has been deepening between men and women in spite of government measures taken. Values and attitudes examined by survey methods (ESS and value studies) provide a picture of a society with traditionalist views on gender relations and family-centeredness in Hungary. However, the family as an institution faces severe difficulties as a basic provider of intimate and caring relations. The number of marriages dropped signicantly and the divorce rate has been increasing in the past decades. Fertility is rather low compared to other EU countries. Young couples have difficulties to engage in long-lasting partnerships/marriages or parenthood. Civil society as a potential for performing care is rather weak and people are reluctant to engage in voluntary or community work. Following a gendered pattern of division of labour, as in most European countries, care workers in Hungary are mostly women; however, men appear in different elds of this profession either as trained or qualied employees. Care workers are low-paid. According to the experience voiced in the interviews, they feel that society is rather indifferent. This study based on a qualitative method of combinations of narrative and thematic interviews revealed signicant differences between the motivations and professional experience of care workers employed in state-run institutions and those working for newly-founded civil society organisations. Devotion to their work was characteristic of both groups; however, in state institutions, there was a larger frequency of those working occasionally as care providers. Challenges of overwhelming workload and poorly organised tasks were present in formerly founded, centrally budgeted institutions. There were cases of lack of adequate supervision.

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A typology was created to classify the gendered nature of the respondents construction of the notion of care. Both men and women working as professional care providers formulated their notions about care in a surprisingly less gendered way than expected. An alternative approach could be traced in their narratives. The motherchild relation as a basic pattern of caring relations was not seen as a determinant of only women being capable of taking caring functions. On the contrary, the interviews recorded in the circle of care workers showed that the majority of the respondents (both men and women) constructed the notion of care in universal terms, regardless of gendered stereotypes. Care was seen as based on love and understanding of other peoples needs. In this professional group, as well as in the control groups of teachers and service providers, the respondents expressed that society lacks the recognition of the importance of care.

Short Biographies
Judit Acsdy, Ph.D., sociologist, has been employed by the Sociology Research Institute of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences since 1995. She graduated from ELTE University, Budapest and attended postgraduate courses at the University of Amsterdam (ACCESS Program) and at EHESS, Paris. Judit Acsdy attained her PhD degree in 2005 (Dissertation: Emancipation and Identity). Her main research eld includes: changes in gender relations after the transition in Hungary, representation of gender relations, construction of emancipation in public life, history of debates on the woman question, history of feminist movements in Hungary (19th, 20th centuries). Judit Acsdy is a founding member of the Feminist Network (1990) and she was a coeditor of its journal (until 1998). As a student, she was active in grass-root movements until the mid-1990s. Judit Acsdy is mother of a 12-year-old boy, Aron. Anna Biegelbauer attained her MA with an excellent qualication as a social worker at the ELTE University Budapest in 2010. Her thesis: Employment as a rehabilitation of people with challenges was offered for publication and was nominated for the Best thesis of the yearaward of the university. Recently, Anna Biegelbauer has been involved in research on social work, and has recently begun a job at the National Institute of Blind Peoples Education. Veronika Paksi graduated from the University of Pcs, Hungary. She was a Ph.D. student at the Corvinus University, Budapest and has been research assistant and scientic secretary at the Institute of Sociology of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences since 2007. Veronika Pakiss research interests include: Female and male researches in the eld of science, work-life balance, obstacles to professional progress, the timing of life events, particularly certain phases of becoming adults, as well as the age norms of ideal, too early and too late timing of childbearing. She was appointed secretary general of the Hungarian Sociology Association in 2009. Boglrka Somogyi has recently completed her MA in German Language at ELTE University Budapest and obtained her BA in Germanistics at the University of Miskolc. Her research elds include: gendered communication, doing gender, differences in interactions/media, second wave of feminism and womens literature. Boglrka Somogyi participated extensively as an activist in womens organisations both in Hungary and in Berlin, Germany. She has a qualication as a La Leche Ligue consultant and has been active in promoting institutional changes in health care to foster safe home birth. Boglrka Somogyi is mother of two boys, Kristf (7) and Miln (3), who was born at home.

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Ivett Szalma has completed her Ph.D. studies at the Institute of Sociology and Social Policy, Corvinus University of Budapest, Hungary. She is a researcher at the Sociology Institute of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (HAS) and she also works at the Demographic Research Institute, Hungarian Central Statistical Office (HCSO) as a temporary employee. Her research interests are the consequences of labour market uncertainties on partnership formation and fertility patterns and life course research.

ENDNOTES

This study is based on the ndings of the New Perspectives, Old Dilemmas. The Gendered Construction of Care after the Transition in Hungary research project that was delivered as one of the Small Research Projects of the Transitions in Central and South Eastern Europe Changing Gender Perspectives project by ERSTE Stiftung in 2009-2010. Tasks in Budapest were shared in a research team: Judit Acsdy, Ph.D. (project leader, recording interviews, analyses, writing research reports), Fruzsina Albert, Ph.D. (interviews), Anna Biegelbauer (interviews and analyses: gendered constructions of care) Veronika Paksi (interviews, organiszing work), Boglrka Somogyi (interviews and analyses: gendered constructions of care), Ivett Szalma (interviews, statistical data: gender roles, care in Hungary and EU, and text analyses: values concerning care). Katalin Erdei (psychologist and cultural anthropologist) with her special experience and knowledge contributed greatly with consultations on qualitative interview methodology and recording interviews. Special thanks to Lszl Fsts, the Leader of the Workshop for Analyses of Social Science Data (TEAM, HAS) for providing very useful research ndings about value systems. Also, a fellow colleague, Judit Takcs, Ph.D., (Sociology Research Institution, HAS) has kindly shared her research nding with the team during consultation. I am thankful to Krassimira Daskalova for her professional help, for suggesting reading material and for her personal support. EUROSTAT, 2008. The employment data of the Hungarian Central Statistical Office KSH (Kzponti Statisztikai Hivatal) for 2007 is: 51.9 percent of women and 64 percent of men (age 15-64) are active in Hungary. EU 27 average: thirty percent of women and seven percent of men (of allin the entire work force) work part time. In Hungary, of all employed persons, only nine percent of women and four percent of men of all employed work part time. (Source: Nk s frak Magyarorszgon 2008. [Women and Men in Hungary 2008]. Kzponti Statisztikai Hivatal,

Szocilis s Munkagyi Minisztrium. Budapest, 2009, p. 109).

4 Pongrcz, Opinions on Gender Roles. Find-

ings of an International Comparative Study. p. 71-85, and Acsdy, Images tenaces. Attitudes et reprsentations des relations de genres en Hongrie, p. 185-194.
5

Swinnen, GENDERWISE: The Role of Men as agents of Change in Reconciling Work and Family Life. Final Report of the Third Transnational Workshop. Tth, Attitdvltozsok a ni munkavllals megtlsben (Changes of attitude in judging womens employment) p. 71-86. Pongrcz and S. Molnr-Dobossy, p. 24. Utasi, Felldozott kapcsolatok. A magyar szingli. (Sacriced relationships. Singles in Hungary). Thun, Gender Representation in Educational Materials in the Period of Transition in Hungary, p. 125-141. munkamegoszts. Azonossgok s klnbsgek Eurpban. (Division of Domestic Labour. Similarities and Differences in Europe.), p. 95-116.

7 8

10 Pongrcz and Tiborn-Murink, Hztartsi

11 Fsts and Szalma, rtkvltozs Mag-

yarorszgon 1978-2008 (Changing values in Hungary), p. 3-31.

12 Tth, p. 80. 13 Pongrcz, Opinions on Gender Roles, p. 80. 14 Nk s frak Magyarorszgon 2008. (Women

and Men in Hungary 2008), p. 12, 14 and 16.

15 Tth and Dupcsik, Feminizmus helyett

familizmus. (Familism instead of feminism), p. 329-355.

16 Frin Szab, Felboml csaldok s j

egyttlsi formk. Nem hagyomnyos csaldi rendszerek. (Dissolving families, new ways of living together. Non-traditional family systems),

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Paper based on the presentation at the Hungarian Family Therapy Conference, 2006. (manuscript).
17 Women in Transition. The MONEE Project.

32 Paphzi, Szocilis gondoskodk II (Social care

46 Further observations pointed out that a dif-

workers II).
33 Ibid., p. 111-112. 34 Paphzi, Szocilis gondoskodk I. (Social care

CEE/CIS/Baltics. Regional Monitoring Report. 1999. UNICEF.

18 NIOK Non-prot Informcis Kzpont (Non-

workers I.), p. 478.

35 Interview, No. 32/5, with a 27-year-old woman,

ference could be detected in the motivation of women and men teachers to choose their profession. However, it will not be detailed here as the analysis of these differences would be too far from the original aim of this present research.
47 A clown doctor is a professional actor who is

doctors and staff in hospitals where the clown doctors are welcome. The Hungarian Foundation of Clown Doctors was established with the professional assistance of an Austrian fellow organisation. The Hungarian Clown Doctors visit homes of elderly as well.
48 Pik, Katalin (1993, quoted by Paphzi, 2005)

Prot Information Center), located in Budapest, keeps a register of organisations.

19 Held, Introduction, p. 3-8, The Ethics of Care

teacher of disabled children.

36 Interview, No. 22/2, woman, psychologist, on

maternity leave at the time of the interview.

37 Cree, Why do men care?, p. 65-87. 38 The three groups in the references to inter-

as Moral Theory, ibid., p. 9-23, Care as Practice and Value, ibid., p. 29-43, and The Caring Person, ibid., p. 44-58.
20 Ibid., p. 3. 21 Ibid., p. 13. 22 Ibid., p. 12. 23 Feminist criticism of biological original and

visiting children in hospitals and, by performing entertaining pieces, amusing and playing with the children, contributes to the emotional well-being of the patients, thus helping them to recover. This work is acknowledged by

was a well-known sociologist, social worker and social policy expert in Hungary. She was member of the SZETA movement, voluntary helpers of poor families under the Kdr regime when such activity was illegal. She died unexpectedly in 2001.

views are marked as: C (care workers), T (teachers), S (employees in services).

39 In Budapest, there are signicant differences

the naturaliszation of gender roles go back to the emergence of feminism (from Wollstonecraft on, who argues that with the same education, women could achieve the same as men. I understand feminist criticism here as a critique of essentialism; however, within feminist literature there are examples of essentialism, too.)
24 Held, Ethics of Care, p. 37. 25 Thorne, Feminism and the family. Two decades

among the social situations of the population of different districts. They differ in terms of infrastructure and development. There is a division (cultural, social, and economic) also between the districts on the two sides of the Danube River, Pest and Buda.
40 Non-prot Information Centre (Non-prot

Informcis kzpont, NIOK, Budapest) is collecting data about the civil sector and provides a regularly updated list of them according to their types and functions.
41 It was because we omitted the question about

of thought in Rethinking the Family. Some Feminist Questions, p. 13-30.

26 Held, Ethics of Care, p. 11. 27 Warren, Ecological Feminist Philosophies. 28 Pascal/Kwak suggest that institutions of care

the motivation to take the job. This is because the scope of the research was to nd out the motivations of care givercaregivers and not to nd out and compare motivations in all professional groups.
42 The refusal happened because of the lack of

should be part of policies of gender equality. Pascal, G. and Kwak, A., Map of gender equality policies and models, Gender Regimes in Transition in Central and Eastern Europe, p. 36.
29 Escobedo, Moreno, Moss, Care Work in

time (unforeseen work obligations at the time of the scheduled date) of the interviewee.
43 Interview quote: 30-year-old woman, breast-

feeding consultant, married with four children.

44 Our related questions were intentionally very

Europe. Current Understandings and Future Directions. WP4. Surveying Demand, Supply and Use of Care. Summary of Consolidated Report. 2002.
30 Paphzi, Szocilis gondoskodk I. (Social care

workers I.) p. 473-500 and Paphzi, Szocilis gondoskodk II (Social care workers II.), p. 101-120.
31 Fsts and Szalma, rtkvltozs (Changing

general, we let the respondents interpret the question in their own way: We asked: What do you mean by care? What does the term care suggest to you? In your opinion, whose responsibility is it to care? (In case the respondents did not include the gender aspect in their answer, we added one more question: In your opinion, is care related to gender?
45 Interview with 56-year-old woman, ower

shop, married (S8).

of values), p. 24.

M AC E D O N I A

Sexualities in Transition: Discourses, Power and Sexual Minorities in Transitional Macedonia Slavco Dimitrov, Katerina Kolozova

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A B ST RA C T

Sexualities in Transition: Discourses, Power and Sexual Minorities in Transitional Macedonia explores and analyses the correlation of hegemonic discourses about sexual minorities on the one hand, and the social and conceptual development of the queer movement including the status and experiences of oppression of sexual minorities in Macedonia in the eighteen-year-long period of Transition, on the other hand. In order to achieve this goal, the conducted research included the mapping of changes that have marked each of the two correlative instances. The overall goal of research was to prepare an integral analysis of the discursive representations and cultural attitudes of/towards sexuality, sexual minorities in particular, the power relations implicated within the representations/knowledge production of/on sexuality and the inuence they have on the perception, auto-perception and development of sexual minorities culture in Macedonia during the 17-year-long transitional period in the country.

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The General Context

The Republic of Macedonia separated from the Yugoslav Federation without an armed conict and is the only one among the ex-Yugoslavian republics from which the Yugoslavian National Army retrieved voluntarily. The Republic of Macedonia declared independence in 1991 on the basis of the plebiscite expressed in a national referendum. On the Albanian parties appeal, the Albanian population boycotted the referendum. When the constitution was delivered in 1992, the Albanian political block demanded for the Albanian ethnic community the status of one of the constitutional nations. Evidently, the notions of nation and ethnicity have been conated since the constitution of the independent state of Macedonia. Thus, the ethnic structure was directly reected in the political structuring of the nation and its institutions. Political parties were ethnically based, and collective ethnic interests have always been more central than the individual political rights. In 2001, Macedonia went through a conict between its security forces and the troops of the Liberation Army of Albanians. The conict ended upon a direct diplomatic intervention of the International Community resulting in the Ohrid Framework Agreement. This Agreement provided the Albanian community with some of the rights they insisted upon at the occasion of establishing the independent Republic of Macedonia, among them that of becoming one of the constitutional nations. In spite of the essentially ethnic concerns of the conict, by way of its insistence on the values of multiculturalism, the Ohrid Framework Agreement has contributed to the development of a citizenship-centred nation. However, Macedonia is still listed as one of the so-called divided societies, in which political division is structured on an ethnic basis. The civil society sector is fundamentally split on an ethnic basis, and virtually every initiative, organisation or association bears the prex of either Macedonian or Albanian. The multicultural mosaic is expressed in a plural yet divided society.1 The multiplicity of identities individuals accept has been overshadowed by a supreme form of identity ethnicity, which was not even shattered by the negative effects of the economic transition. The monolithic character of the ethnic division was supplanted by the drastic impoverishment of large-scale classes and the overnight emergence of the high class of remarkable wealth formed by a small circle of people representing the new elite. The intensity of these events and their continuation indicated the persistence of some fundamental problems of the system: the inefficiency of the institutions and their inability to establish conditions for the rule of law, which denitely affected the legitimacy and the credibility of the authority.2

The Context Regarding Sexual Minorities Rights

Up to 1996, male homosexuality in Macedonia was legally treated as a criminal act punishable by imprisonment. The years preceding 1996 are still widely known as the dark period for LGBTQ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer) people in Macedonia, since secret dossiers have been archived for all public persons assumed to be homosexuals. The years following 1996, and the beginning of the twenty-rst century were marked by the rst attempts for initiating an LGBTQ movement and raising issues concerning sexual minorities. In 2004, the rst officially declared LGBTQ organisation MASSO (Macedonian Association for Free Sexual Orientation) was established and the rst gay coming out was made on a national TV. Hence, the question of queer sexualities and non-heterosexual identities is interwoven in a complex constellation comprising a multicultural national context as a eld of several cultures with homogenising and essentialising tendencies. It is the source of constant panic of threat and uncertainty of the national identities. An important factor for the treatment of queer sexualities as threatening to the normal/ ising National Self is also the fact that, in 1991, Macedonia gained independence for the rst time in its history. For the last two decades, the country has been in a ceaseless process of state- and nation-building, a process normally followed by a sense of insecurity regarding issues of identity. Independence caused contestation of the national identity in various manners by neighbouring countries that only reinforced the sense of identitary insecurity and the need for a rm, enlightened and almost heroic national self.3 Hence, the elementary democratisation processes, those concerning the citizen and their rights, were suppressed by the state and the nation-building processes. The growing political and ideological inuence of the Church contributed to the affirmation of the strong tradition of gender asymmetry. Religion has become a remarkable ethnonational marker and the ultimate moral authority. A nationalistic context that has been politically predominant in the recent years as the result of the ethnic conict and division in society has been the reason for neglecting the political relevance of gay rights and issues. Consequently, it has been seen as a threat to national reproduction (which comes down, quite simply, to birth rate), embodied in the nuclear, heterosexual family. On the other side of the coin is the problem introduced with capitalism. John DEmilio in one of his most prominent papers4 argues that the relative dissolution of the nuclear family as the goods producing unit was initiated by the fact that family members, children mostly, acquired relative autonomy by the means of free waged labour, and were no longer as dependent on the family ties and production in order to create a sustainable existence. This would further incite the consolidation of the privatised gay identity and pave the way for the creation of new community identications and lives based on erotic interests, affections and similarities.

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The social and political constellation, in which nationalist and capitalist strategies in regards to family overlap has created a fertile ground for the production of discourses that dene homosexuality as the main threat to social and national security. The homophobic discourses manipulate this political and discursive positioning of homosexuality in order to de-legitimise non-heterosexual forms of affections and loves, and eradicate the possibility of radical restructuring of the concept of family, in a manner that would open its borders and include homosexual marriage as an intelligible form of love recognised by state institutions. The entrance of the capitalist mode of production in the process of transition, as well as the aspirations towards accession to the European Union introduced signicant changes in the representations of gender patterns in the region of Southeastern Europe in general. The social-economic crisis has also shifted the dominant labour relations, putting into question the dominant role of men as breadwinners in the home and has caused a gender-identity crisis. However, this crisis of the collective male identity in the economically more developed portions of the population and cities in the state seems to be already resolved or at least sedated by adopting a Western-like professional image. Among older generations this new individualism is often synonymous with embarrassment, materialism and cynicism.5 The high rate of violence and discrimination LGBTQ people are suffering on a daily basis, the lack of non-discrimination laws and hate speech regulation, as well as other non-discriminatory legal provisions are some of the main reasons why queer people develop an underground culture and do not speak of their sexual and intimate lives publicly. This leads to a lack of data collected on the basis of personal histories (oral or written), which would represent queer experience from a queer perspective and would provide a different kind of discourse under conditions where the subaltern can speak. This constellation comprising queer identities and their treatment on the political, social and cultural level is nonetheless very similar to other countries in the region. Homosexuality is plainly unacceptable, for example, for more than half of the Slovene citizens.6 Slovene researchers note that one part of the Slovene society is characterised by hypocritical tolerance and that homosexuality still causes uncertainty and uncomfortable feelings, fear and apprehension. As a result, clear references to the issues of homosexuality in public or popular discourse are suppressed, subdued, and hidden within stereotyped images, which can be comfortably integrated into the readers or viewers representations of homosexuality without causing any commotion.7 In 2001, Belgrade Pride was violently broken up by groups of nationalists and members of right-wing organisations. Since then, no Pride event has taken place in Belgrade.Scheduled to be held in the centre of Belgrade on Sunday, 20 September 2009, the Pride March was cancelled by the Serbian authorities due to high security

risks and a lack of cooperation from the state and the police to secure the event. Regarding the report on Croatia, the European Parliament expressed concerns about the ban on Zagreb Pride, and several calls were made on the government to effectively implement and enforce protection against discrimination.8 On 27 September 2008 during the opening of the rst Queer Festival in Sarajevo, a mob of 150 people, most of them young soccer team supporters, hooligans and members of the Muslim sect Vehabi, armed with stones, rocks, knives and guns, used most brutal physical aggression on the guests at the opening of the festival. A recent important change in the region is the fact that virtually all of the neighbouring countries adopted non-discrimination laws prohibiting discrimination on the ground of sexual orientation. Unlike the rest of the region, Macedonia has not yet adopted such a law.9 In this type of context, the overall goal of the research Sexualities in Transition: Discourses, Power and Sexual Minorities in Transitional Macedonia was to prepare an integral analysis of the discursive representations and cultural attitudes of/towards sexuality, sexual minorities in particular, the power relations implicated within the representations/knowledge production of/on sexuality and the inuence they have on the perception, auto-perception and development of sexual minorities culture in Macedonia during the eighteen-year transitional period in the country. In a comparative and diachronically oriented manner, the research focuses on three paradigmatic periods: a) post-communist and independence period till 1996; b) from 1996 when male homosexuality was decriminalised till 2000 and c) after 2004 when the rst LGBTQ (non-governmental) organisation was established. These periods were chosen because of their contextual, political and social specics and the particular status LGBT issues have in each of them.

Epistemological and Methodological Framework

Although differentiating in certain aspects, our epistemological position regarding the concept of identity and sexual identity in particular is in the closest sense related to the constructivist perspective, according to which identities are regarded as the product of negotiation, interpretation, and presentation rather than biologically preordained, structurally given, or dispositionally determined. Discursive and social interaction processes, such as framing, gure prominently in identity construction.10 In this direction, our framework in regards to identity observed the same through the lens of the notions of socialisation and identication.11 Thus, identity was conceived more or less as a conscious and unstable effect of the processes of identity work, which includes the activities (acts, gestures, beliefs, attitudes, behavioural patterns, life style,

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body postures, emotions, relational networks and structures, and images, even desires, etc.), through which the groups and individuals give themselves meaning by selectively re-presenting, negotiating and sustaining their identities a propos their interests. In the course of the research we did not analyse the relations between the hegemonic discourses and practises and sexual minorities through the prism of power conceived exclusively as a repressive and oppressive force. Rather, in Foucauldian terms, power is conceived as ambivalent, as both oppressive as well as positive and productive. Unlike the severe divisions between personal, individual and collective identity offered by traditional sociologists,12 our perspective departs from the assumption that the individual self-images and group self-images are separate things. In the most general frame we conceived sexual identity as a collective identity which, in the Macedonian context, is based on biological, psychological and structurally determined attributes, shared by a community of people who, on the basis of these attributes, create a uniformed meaning for themselves and a singular social experience. Thus, it is from such a perspective that LGBTQ human rights activists (including media, journalists, psychologists, legal experts and the general population) make essentialist claims in regards to sexual self-identity. This research, in its historical dimension, tries to contest the foundations of these identity claims and to recon ceptualise it through the notion of the performative as conceived by the post-feminist theoretician Judith Butler.13 Additionally, in the same fashion, we perceive identity as relational and participating in a differential signifying system naturalised through the dyadic/binary logics (homosexual/heterosexual, male/female, normal/abnormal, Macedonian/Western-European), which presupposes the isolation of the constitutive outside as its precondition that is the exclusion of the unanticipated number of other identities that do not t in the binary logic. The explication of the hetero/homo opposition as a cultural product must also direct the readers towards all the other excluded forms of sexuality14 that this dyad presupposes as its own precondition, constitutes them as such, negates them and implicates them simultaneously. Collective identity in these terms presents a frame that determines, anticipates and directs the choice of actions and behaviours. Collective identity designates the individual cognitive, moral and emotional relation with a wider community, categories, practise or institution. It is the perception of a shared status or relation, imagined more than directly experienced, and also the same is different from the personal identity although it can form it.15 Thus, our research interest focuses on the degree of constructing the collective identity from outside and its

interpellative dimension, enforcement and acceptance from those on whom it is being applied, and reversely, its discursive formation in the process of replying, negotiating, negation and counter-dening in relation to the opposed discourses and identities. We tried to map the reasons for identity salience of the homosexual identity and identity commitment to the same, in relation to the other social and collective identications that have been conceptualised as being ordered in a salience hierarchy.16 To this group of questions we added the question regarding pervasiveness or comprehensiveness,17 which evokes the different degrees of salience and attachment to a certain identity in the identity hierarchy in a diachronic and context-based perspective. These differences can be conditioned from many factors and expressed in different social context and relations, that is, domains in social life. Furthermore, group identity is considered as a strategic construction of political and cultural resistance in a process of activism, struggle and combat for equal political and legal status of the LGBTQ movement and human rights activism. This view determines identity again in opposition to the side it confronts. As a resistance identity it is conceived as transformative identity by means of restructuring the power relations and hegemonic relations in a given society and political eld. This transformability is two-sided. It transforms the agent of struggle and the object of agency, which consequently shifts the traditional notions of identity as an essentialised and xed category of self-identication, and re-conceptualises it as a product of negotiation and transformation of the current power relations, oppression and equality. In analysing the politicisation of group identity, the accent was put on the question of whether group identity has to be already salient in order for the possibility of political struggle to be realised, or whether group identity emerges during the process of political struggle. This reconceptualisation of homosexual identity, from social into political identity, was extremely important for the purpose of this study, namely to research minority sexual identities in a diachronic perspective and in their relation to hegemonic heteronormative identities and discourses. The methodological approach comprised interviews with self-identied LGBTQ individuals, an overview of the legal framework in regards to identity rights and discrimination, analyses of data human rights NGOs poses in regards to human rights of sexual minorities and questionnaires for political parties, interviews with intellectuals, artists, writers, art critics and literary historians, historical reviews of theory related to sexuality and feminism in Macedonia, mapping issues and subjects of sexuality in curricula in Humanities and Social Sciences at the State University, discursive analyses of textbooks and media articles treating issues related to non-normative sexual practises and identities in three comparative temporal points, and newspapers archives research.

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The research questions that we came out with after framing our epistemological and methodological grid were divided into four major groups and the same will further dene the main research pillars. These four groups of questions are the following: 1. The pre-organisational life of LGBTQ the questions are focused on auto-perception, the models of communication with other people identied as LGBTQ, political consciousness of sexual minorities, their reception of the heteronormative perception and representations, circulation of information and knowledge about sexuality, homosexuality and sexual identities, the feeling of being part of or not part of a community and shared identity, discrimination and social exclusion and coming out, etc.; 2. Academic Perception analysis of textbooks that explicitly treat homosexuality, the question of incorporation of methodology/epistemology of sexuality and gender studies in curricula and already existing scientic disciplines, LGBTQ lifestyles in arts and literature, public advocacy of minority rights from academics, the presence of theoretical literature from the domain of sexuality produced by Macedonian authors or translations, etc.; 3. Organisational life of LGBT and political advocacy this section will include the same questions as the rst one, but they were analysed in a comparative and diachronic manner; another interesting question is the one regarding the collective claims made by the official movement, movements strategies and their implication on identity formation; and 4. Representation of non-normative sexual identities this includes arts, media, political parties, government and law in relation to nonnormative sexual identities and their representations of the same.

within the so-called gay community, d) the perception non-heterosexuals have of the general atmosphere in regards to sexual minorities, e) their reactions to the political/ activist LGBTQ movement and f) whether or not they have suffered discrimination or human rights violations. Statements referring to ones own gay identity from an essentialist position were very frequent in the course of the interviews. The most frequents syntax used in this direction consisted of statements such as what I truly am, I knew all along what I am and who I am, now I can say I am gay and Im proud of it, it is what matters the most for me because it is still in the end a physiological need, etc. These univocal statements were greatly contradicted when they were asked to dene the meanings they assign to their being homosexual, or list the attributes and characteristics they nd to be derived from their so-called gayness. Although some of the interviewees enumerated several of the positive stereotypes mostly related to homosexuals, such as intellectual superiority, creativity, artistic aspirations, etc., most of the interviewees mentioned their sexual orientation and their emotional, affective and sexual attraction to people of the same gender as the determinant specic to their being homosexual. Differentiation Along the Ethnic and Gender Lines Furthermore, internal differences in this allegedly unitary categorisation and classication could be noticed on the basis of multiple axes of differentiation within the gay community, such as nationality (Macedonians/Albanians/Roma), class, profession, lifestyles, interactions with other social spheres and collectivities, sex, gender identications and age. Non-heterosexuals from the Albanian ethnic community are organised in a much more fragmented manner, and according to our interviewees, they very rarely gather and unite themselves in smaller communities or friendship circles of gay men, as it is usually the case with Macedonians. Furthermore, their sexual identication is dened more in dependence to their sexual position/role than to the sexual partners gender. Having same-sex sexual relations is not to be considered as dening one as homosexual. That is to say, the division between active/passive as sexual roles in same-sex male acts among Albanian males is still highly connected to gender hierarchy, masculine/feminine, and it further denes the sexual identity: one is considered heterosexual if one is active in homosexual relationship; being active equals masculine; whereas the latter, passive part equals homosexual/feminine. Further differences are to be marked on the gender axis, that is to say, between lesbians and male gays. There is still a high division in the gay community between lesbians and gays, and still a considerable lack of communication. Some of the interviewed women emphasised the greater degree of closeted-ness of the lesbian community in comparison to the male gay community. Another difference that was pointed out was the manner of communication. Namely, lesbians in Macedonia do not use

Identity/Community The Subalterns Perspective

Dening Oneself An important methodological tool in analysing the research questions and accomplishing the research goals was considered to be the collection of oral history interviews by the means of organising focus groups and conducting individual interviews with a semi-structured questionnaire. The goal of these interviews was to get deeper insight into a) the processes of self-identication, its models and phases, b) the different patterns of identity construction and consolidation, c) the differences among different generations of non-heterosexual individuals as well as the differences existing

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Internet social forums frequently, such as Gay Romeo for men. Their communication is mostly based on smaller networks between friends. A 24-year-old woman stated that her identication with heterosexual women is stronger than with gay men. Almost all of the interviewed women noted that the debates around homosexuality are exclusively focused on male homosexuality, which, as they pointed out, is best illustrated in the media, where images of lesbians are very rare to be found when homosexuality is discussed. Generational Differentiation: Questioning the Processes of Transition What signicantly accentuates these differences is the generational gap among the interviewees. Elder homosexuals narrated different patterns of communication among gay people in the beginning of the 1990s in comparison to that which structures and mediates communication models nowadays. Their attitudes towards gay friendship, sexual- and love relationships are accompanied by the perception of the younger generation indicating an internal division within the same category and, also, an important structure of identication which, in this case includes the differentiation from and opposition to younger generations of non-heterosexuals projected as the Other by which gay identity is enforced. One could conclude that the dominant monogamous and permanent relationship was the ideal that was nourished in Macedonian society in the transitional beginnings of the state and reects the general impression about sexuality as a phenomenon related exclusively to the domain of the private, the bedroom and ones intimacy. To cite one of the interviewed males: My intimacy is my business; publicity will not prove ones love, it can only be proved by deeds.18 Gay lives are marked by constrained social organisation of sexuality as what belongs to the zone of invisibility, that is to say, exclusively to the private sphere. In contrast to the exaggeration (promiscuous behaviour) with ones sexuality nowadays, the elder homosexuals stated that sexuality was not visible before. Even the cultural life of homosexuals used to be privatised in a way, because it was a matter of private gatherings at which different topics were raised, thematic evenings were organised, and a lot of those people became culturally and publicly prominent.19 Although some of the elder interviewees manifest nostalgia for these golden times and privileging of this sexual way of life, in opposition to contemporary attitudes and expressions of sexuality, another contradiction can be noted in the narrations referring to the fear of outing ones sexual identity, the possible discrimination that could be faced, even the violence some of them have suffered and made them leave the country for a certain period or permanently. The claims elder interviewees made that discrimination, violence, police rates in cruising areas were less intense in the beginning of the 1990s, appears to be the result of the invisibility of homosexuals, rather than consequence of a more tolerant society and culture and politics based on the principles of equality and rule of law, since, as they claim, confessing ones sexual identity could have been encountered by exclusion, discrimination, and even violence. Dragan, a 38-year-old male, stated: There

used to be even internalised homophobia. Personally, I was ashamed walking around with someone publicly known as gay. Now people are more relaxed, which is reected in the way they approach each other and communicate with one another. According to the stories narrated,20 in the 1980s, public discourses on homosexuality were incidental and related mostly to news about Hollywood stars, AIDS deaths of actors (Rock Hudson), musicians (Freddy Mercury), etc. The rst gay disco clubs they remember were in Zagreb, Belgrade and Ljubljana in 1983-1984. They have told us that K4, one of the rst gay magazines, used to be published in Belgrade in 1985-86. They evoke Spartakus, a gay guide that contained locations where gay people could be met in Yugoslavia, and they recall the advertisements in Erotica, a Croatian magazine. There is also a great difference in the diachronic perspective in relation to the quantity of gay lms available. This difference is symptomatic of the effect the increased presence of Western culture has had on the gay community, shaping the queer lifestyles in Macedonia, since the beginning of the transition period. If, in the early 1990s, there was only one or there were a few movie/s circulating from hand to hand, there has been a complete reversal of the situation since 2000. Zunica LGBT Festival, as a festival targeting LGBTQ people, was inaugurated in Skopje several years ago. This accessibility of information, discourses and role models has great inuence as well. It offers identication role models and helps in self-acceptance. It is a process that reects the mimetic process involved in identity construction as something inherently related to the performativity involved in any identity formation. But, on the other side, this position also reects the agency inclusion which would inaugurate negotiation and the consequent transformation, or reection, cognition and demodulation in the process of self-identity creation. Particularly interesting in this context is the statement made by Koco Andonovski, the former president of the rst publicly declared LGBTQ organisation, and the rst gay man that made a public/media coming out. He points out that the accessibility of information, movies, arts and culture has had great inuence in terms of self-perception and self-identication: it offers models for self-identication, positive models as well, but on the other side, it also offers you examples and makes you examine yourself. Personally, this third component is what has been most benecial for me in these processes, the boost for self-examination in relation to these models, apropos them, or counter these models.21 A Brief History of the Word Gay in Macedonian The rst context in which the interviewees have encountered the word homosexual was almost in all cases a negative, pejorative, derogative one. Faggot was the word referring to homosexuals they all heard for the rst time in situations when someone

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was aiming at insulting or degrading someone else. This out-group categorisation seems to be the initial identication matrix, in which they could inscribe their desires, fantasies, loves, orientations, attributes, etc., and, subsequently, position themselves as subjects in the social order. Although negative, it seems to be indispensable, since it offers ontological certainty: bad identication could be even better than no identication. Otherwise, everything that would not conform to the normative order would be conceived as being unintelligible, not recognised, de-realised and de-legitimised, or the other way round, constructed as the bad other. Further re-evaluation of ones subject position is what has followed this phase of confusion and self-depreciation. Positive images, visibility of the identity, available discourses that would introduce these desires in the domain of the sayable would be some of the most important patterns of self-consolidation and self-evaluation, which would override the primary negative representations by the other. Group identity is tightly connected to these out-group categorisations. Collective self-denition in the process of drawing lines of difference and similarities between ones own group and others is what very often presupposes this nomination coming from the outside. A group is thus always realised on the basis of primary intersubjectivity. 22 However, it should also be noted that the discursive background is the soil from which this retrospective narrative identity is reinterpreted as well. Heteroglossia, multivocality and discursive dialogism, when references to individual or collective identity are at stake, could be noticed in the enunciations of the other interviewees. Some of the interviewees made explicit references to psychoanalytical authors such as Fromm and Freud, whose discursive inuence could be traced in the speech of the interviewees when they attempted to dene the meaning of gay identity or explain the etymology of the sexual orientation. In the process of formation of his homosexual identity, B. (43, male) says that he has been through ve phases about which he has heard later through some research. The rst three phases from these ve in total are related to the refusal of his sexual orientation. Then follows the fourth, which is actually self-acceptance, so that in the end, that is now, he is living the fth phase pride. He says: Now I am proud to be gay. It is very hard to distinguish his genuine self-analysis discourse from the analysis and models of developmental processes/phases of LGBT individuals offered by Cass,23 Coleman24or Lipkin.25 Another important point that can be inferred from the collected interviews refers to the politicisation of identity. We use this phrase by simultaneously referring to the political claims made by LGBTQ activists within the political movement for gay liberation, as well as to the oppositional structure that more or less codies identity in the process of struggle and antagonism. Not only that the intensication of political LGBTQ activism has contributed to making homosexuality visible, but it has also inuenced the stratication and xation of gay identity. Accordingly, we can quote one more statement of the interviewee Andonovski: The gay identication in my self-identication was not that salient until I started working as a gay activist My coming out

had great inuence on my identication as a gay person, but not because I perceive myself that much as such, but because that is the dominant way others see you and identify you and cannot see you in any other way. This statement clearly indicates a strategic identitary construction, which can further be conscious or unconscious, of political and cultural resistance in the process of protest and dialogue, as well as in the process of activism and struggle for equality, which re-affirms itself through the opposition it confronts. It is political struggle that enables a group to learn exactly how and for what reasons it is oppressed, to create its consciousness as a group for itself, to bring into being a new, collective subject of history and knowledge.26 This further leads to the assumption that social identities are better understood as referring to the reality of how a given society is structured than to some natural fact about a persons body.27 However, this standpoint does not imply that these identities are structurally and socially xed. Quite the contrary, they are historically and contextually exible and contingent. Dragans (38, male) statement in regards to the importance gay identity has in his self-identication clearly addresses this assumption: If we lived in ideal conditions, my gay identication wouldnt matter to me I can freely say that Im proud to be Macedonian, I am proud to be Christian and no one would condemn it, it is widely accepted; but, matters of sexuality are not yet recognised, and it gives much bigger importance to the fact that I am gay just because I am prouder when saying I am homosexual in an environment where it is illegal, and you are doing something illegal, doing something which is harder to be acknowledged and confessed.28 Socio-political and cultural changes in general have contributed in a salient manner to community- and identity-building and transformation. The introduction of liberal-democracy principles and market economy has dragged with itself not only a slight political liberation in relation to non-heterosexual practises and identities (hetero sexual as well), but it has also inuenced the increase of public talk and consequently, the visibility of homosexuality. This visibility has further consolidated homosexual identity as a form of property, that is to say a privatisation of sexuality, not closeting, has emerged hand in hand with the privatisation of identity/subjectivity.

Legislation: Human Rights and Non-Discrimination

As a transitional democratic country, after its independence, Macedonia has obliged itself to adopt, respect and promote the principles of rule of law, equality, human rights, universality and political autonomy. The Constitution of Macedonia was promulgated on 1 November 1991, and was modelled on constitutions of established democracies.

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Until 1996, Article 101 of the Macedonian Criminal Code criminalised male homosexuality as sodomy against nature, punishable by law with prison up to one year. Since the membership in the European Council was conditioned by decriminalisation of male homosexuality, the Macedonian Government had to take corresponding measures, without ever giving it publicity. While Macedonia made a step forward by decriminalising consensual homosexual intercourse, there have been some setbacks. Namely, unlike other constitutions, the Macedonian does not mention sexual orientation and gender identity/expression. Until 2004, the Law on Military Service in Article 121, Paragraph 2, stipulated that sexual abuse or homosexuality was a breach against discipline.29 The Law on Family in Macedonian legislation is governed and structured in accordance with the traditional notions of family determined by a heteronormative dyadic relationship between a man and a woman. The Law on Family sets forth the legal provisions for marriage, family and family relations. Thus, Article 6 stipulates that marriage is a union between a man and a woman regulated by law, and that the man and the woman determine their relations by their own decision based on equality, mutual respect and assistance. This denition of marriage is further consolidated in the law by Article 17 stipulating that a marriage can be concluded between two persons of opposite sex.30 Furthermore, the state provides protection of marriage and family from violence within the family and marriage. Within the same law, Article 6 regulates family violence in intimate relationships as well. With the amendments to the Law on Family in 2007 (to be more precise, to Article 6 of the new draft law, i.e., the amendments to Article 94-6, Paragraph 2), the denition of family violence has been changed in a direction that was not in favour of same-sex partners. Thus, with the new legal amendments, non-heterosexuals are not only denied the right to form the union of marriage, but to live out of wedlock as well, as it is granted to heterosexuals. The corollary of such legal provisions is that non-heterosexuals who live in illegal unions or are in a partnership cannot enjoy protection from domestic violence. Ignoring certain sufferings, violence, loves and lives implicates the ignoring of the victims of the same violence. By de-realising a particular group of citizens, this legal act negates and neglects the violence to which this group is being subjected or to which they could be subjected in the future. The Law on Labour Relations (LLR) and the Law for Protection of Patients Rights are the only existing laws in Macedonian legislation that explicitly provide protection from discrimination on the ground of sexual orientation, which covers protection from discrimination of homosexuals and bisexuals.

The term used to cover sexual orientation as a prohibited ground for discrimination in the LLR paradigmatically reects the cultural background of conceiving sexuality in the Macedonian cultural and social milieu. Namely, the term used in the law is polova nasochenost, which, translated into English, would be close to sex orientation, implies reference to the biological sex. This naturalisation of sexuality reects the general image by which sexual discourses are disseminated in Macedonia. Although the international legal terminology employed in non-discriminatory provisions is also reduced to sexual orientation, thus narrowing the concept and potentials of sexuality and sexual identities to the well-known binary logic of sexual orientation, the usage of the concept of sexuality still opens up the possibility of understanding sexuality in cultural-political terms. The Law on Non-Discrimination has not been introduced in the Macedonian legislation.31 Bearing in mind the previously elaborated situation with the legal provisions on discrimination, particularly in regards to sexual minorities, it can be concluded that there is no efficient legal system for protection from discrimination yet, and this is the main reason why human rights activists and experts put this question on the front line of public debates and advocacy programmes as a pressing and urgent matter. The Republic of Macedonia does not have any official data which would present the concrete situation with human rights violations and discrimination of sexual minorities. None of the human rights institutions steers permanent monitoring of these problems in a systematic manner. This would include not only the Ombudsman, but also the Ministry of Interior and the Ministry of Justice when physical and psychological violence is at stake. Although it does not provide any integral picture and a precise and completely accurate insight to the problem, NGOs have developed appropriate mechanisms for monitoring and documenting human rights violations and discrimination of different marginalised communities, sexual minorities included. The reports published by LGBTQ human activists and organisations showcase a high level of human rights violations, stigma, social exclusion and discrimination.32 This has further been conrmed with the reports issued by international organisations and human rights bodies, such as the Progress Reports for Macedonia of the European Commission for 2008 and 2009.33 There is also great fear of social exclusion and stigmatisation among nonheterosexuals. A recent research questionnaire showed that the majority of citizens disapprove of homosexuality (91.6 percent),34 which is a higher percentage than the one resulted from a research conducted a year earlier,35 when the majority of Macedonian citizens answered that it is not acceptable to have neighbours who have sexual relations with people from the same sex (62.2 percent). Although more than ten years after the decriminalisation of male homosexuality, every third participant in the survey shares the position (33.7 percent) that same-sex relations should be considered a

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criminal offence, and still, eight years after the removal of homosexuality from the list of diseases by the Macedonian Psychiatric Association, and seventeen years after the same was done by the WHO in 1991,36 for most of the interviewees, homosexuality is a disease (48 percent), while one-third (33 percent) does not agree with this diagnosis. At the same time, every fth interviewee (19 percent) answered do not know in terms of dening homosexuality.37

What can be derived as a general conclusion is that there is still signicant reluctance in the political parties block towards promoting LGBTQ rights in their political agendas and among their supporters as well as in the public. This claim can be further conrmed by the results from a recent research38 that showed that there is almost no difference in the attitudes of the general population towards issues related to homosexuality, regardless of the interviewees political opinion of them.

Political Parties and Non-Heterosexual Identities and Practises

As one of the crucial opinion makers in the country, political parties can be seen not only as important in terms of lobbying into parliamentary structures, but also as political agents that can inuence the public on a wider social and political scale for the purposes of introducing changes. From this point, we found mapping the political parties attitudes towards issues related to equality and rights of sexual minorities to be of great importance in tracing the changes in the diachronical perspective of the status of sexual minorities in Macedonia, in particular from the period Macedonia has transitioned into a pluralist multi-party system democracy. Except for the Liberal Party, none of the parties replied to our questionnaire. The attitude elaborated by the Liberal Party was that they have unreservedly supported the decriminalisation of male homosexuality in Criminal Law, that their attitude towards these issues has not been changed since the beginnings of the party, and nally, that they support same-sex registered partnership. In February 2006, the Macedonian Association for Free Sexual Orientation MASSO prepared and distributed a questionnaire for the political parties in order to test their opinion in regards to legal issues related to LGBTQ people. This was also done a few months prior to the official parliamentary elections in 2006. It was only the ethnic Macedonian political block that replied, while no response was received from the Albanian political parties. MASSO got support from LDP (Liberal-Democrat Party), DOM (Democratic Reformation of Macedonia), DA (Democratic Alternative), NSDP (New Social-Democrat Party), LP (Liberal Party) and SDSM (Social-Democrat Union of Macedonia). Later on, SDSM stated in their election platform that they will support the passing of the draft law on Registered Partnerships prepared by MASSO. This was a crucial step forward, since it was the rst time in the history of Macedonia for a political party to announce, in their political programme, support for the rights of gay people and, even more importantly, support for registered partnerships. The rest of the parties, except LP, stated that they will either support or do not oppose the passing of registered partnerships. LP said that they do not see any current discrimination and thus are not ready to support the draft law on registered partnerships.

Arts and Non-Heterosexual Practises and Identities in Macedonia

Understanding arts as not just an aesthetic and stylistic practise and production that would replicate, transform and (re)invent its own poetics or codes, but rather looking at arts as a potent medium for production, reproduction, articulation, re-articulation and circulation of cultural, social and political codes and meanings, one of the main objectives of this research was to provide an overview of the history and models of representation of non-heterosexual practises and identities in Macedonian art in the period of transition. This would include models of representation and the status of non-heterosexual desires, pleasures, identities and acts in different art media, including visual arts, lm, literature and contemporary art production in general. The general conclusion that can be made is that in Macedonian art and literature, motives and themes related to non-heterosexual practises, identities, loves and desires have almost not been tackled at all. There is a small progress that can be noted in the last decade, but still it is the matter of a few artworks or modest insinuations, to be more precise, the lack of direct, immediate reference or suggestion to aspects, problems and issues related to non-heterosexual practises and identities, or gender non-conformity. Professor Jasna Koteska from the University St. Cyril and Methodius would remark39 that when subjects of this kind are treated in Macedonia, which is a very rare phenomenon, almost completely absent, they are generally treated as a subcultural category, a hard alternative, unlike the modern literature worldwide, where examples show that non-heterosexual practises are treated as a normal, common component of the ctional universe the narrator creates. On the opposite side of these examples, the ones that can be traced in older literary production represent homosexual characters as embodying negative stereotypes, or the Western negative capitalist decadent values such as the foreigner in Goran Stefanovskis play Wild Flesh (1979). Minor representations of homoeroticism can be traced in Dejan Dukovsis plays where non-heterosexual eroticism is treated as a transient element in the text. In visual arts, although there are some examples of tackling gender and feminist issues, mostly by female authors, still, references to lesbians cannot be traced.

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The lack of artistic practices can be also found in the lack of interest among artists in dealing with these problems, which more or less can be found as contemporary social problems in the concrete context. Prof. Nebojsa Vilic emphasised40 this disinterestedness of young Macedonian artists who seem to avoid this theme and seem unwilling to confront the general, stagnant and stale understanding of the new situations ooding the Macedonian society (and other societies). On the other hand, this lack can also be derived from the general artistic practise in the art institution itself in the Macedonian context, which is still by and large determined by modernist formalism.41 An important note that has been raised in relation to these questions is professor Vilics emphasis on the lack of affirmative solidarity in the Macedonian art scene, in the sense that only non-heterosexuals talk about the non-heterosexual practises. Non-heterosexuals seem to have been left to ght alone for the presence of these themes in the realms of the artistic, and therefore in the realm of the public. However, changes are about to be mapped. Although not exclusively in the realm of sexuality, but changes have been made in the representational modes when gender matters. If eroticised nude paintings from some of the founders of Macedonian modern art fetishises the female body (even sometimes treating it as a sex object), like Lazar Licenoskis paintings from his Belgrade period before the Second World War, in the paintings on the same subject, the contemporary artist Aleksandar Stankovski for example, reduces this masculinity (expressed as super-superiority of the male over the female) to a parody and sarcasm in which masculinity chiey appears as a discharge of frustrations, much more than fetishisation of femininity (as sheer corporeity). As far as female artists are concerned, there are examples when the female artists body has been incorporated as an agent that derogates the female objectication, or as a nude work for the purpose of quoting art works from the history of art. Such is the example of Irena Paskalis work from 2004 Spatial-Temporal Authenticity I. On the other hand, aneta Vangelis 2002 work On the Ontological Failure of Tragedy, no longer nds pleasure in female corporeity (like Nikola Martinovski), or scandal (like Aleksandar Stankovski), or artistic material drawn from the history of art (like Irena Paskali), but rather a code for opening a differential culturological discourse, so topical during the past decade. In this sense, the differences emerge (though they are later insufficiently numerous) as a different understanding and sensibilisation of sexuality and its treatment in artistic formation, overcoming the exclusively male use of this theme and entering the female artists sphere of interest. Unlike the practice in the nearest countries in the region, like Serbia, Croatia, Bulgaria and Slovenia, where there is already an established practise of organisation of queer festivals within the frames of which national artists are presented, among the international guests, as well, there has not been an event of exactly this type in Macedonia. However, progress has been made since the beginning of the LGBGTQ political

movement through projects such as Koo Andonovskis project in 2008 at Post Office 2 (the window service) in Skopje A Letter to an Unknown Friend and the multimedia project The Walk by Velimir Zernovski (which won the main prize of the 2008 Youth Biennale). The rst literary book that explicitly deals with the issues of lesbian sexuality and love is Orgazmicni pisma (Orgasmic Letters) published in 2007, authored by the Macedonian young writer, theoretician and human rights activist, Irena Cvetkovik.

Higher Education and Sciences

Although there are a few positive examples, the Macedonian institutional scientic (and educational) system still lacks a serious interdisciplinary approach that would reconsider issues of culture, gender and sexuality in its approach and curricula. This is rmly connected to the same lack in epistemologies and methodologies with which arts, humanities and social sciences are operating. There is still a signicant lack of direct tackling of issues of sexuality in academic curricula. Only two courses in the curricula of the entire Faculty of Philology Blaze Koneski unequivocally name homosexuality as their teaching subject, both of which are held at the chair for General and Comparative Literature. At the Faculty of Philosophy of the State University St. Cyril and Methodius, a different situation can be noticed. Different subjects exist at the Institute for Social Labour and Social Policy, which are related with the issues of non-heterosexual identities, such as discrimination, minority groups and health, family structures, social systems and systems of values and attitudes, gender equality, social inclusion, etc. However, there are no subjects dedicated to non-heterosexual identities and social reality in a direct and explicit way. Nothing could be found in the official graduate programme of the Institute of Philosophy, and the same can be said of the Institute for Psychology as well. Homophobic discourses can be noted in a number of textbooks. Subjects related to gender, gender equality and non-heterosexual identities are much more frequent in the programme of the Institute of Sociology. In fact, several courses can be found that tackle these issues, such as Sociology of the Relations Among Sexes, Sociology of Youth (subjects of gender and sexual identities among the young), and Sociology of Societal Movements, a course that directly refers to homosexual movements in the course description in the manual. A signicant move forward has been introduced at the Faculty of Philosophy with the opening of the new Institute for Gender Studies, founded in 2007. The official graduate programme of the Institute, aside from the gender-coloured programme in its entirety, includes two more courses with direct reference to sexuality and sexual orientation: Gender, Sexuality and Identity Deconstruction, and Sexual Orientations and Politics.

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It is important to note that the historic shift has been made outside the state-sponsored academic institutions. Namely, The Research Centre in Gender Studies at the Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences Research Euro-Balkan Skopje is the rst research and academic centre that has been established in Macedonia with a focus on the area of gender, sexuality, culture and politics. The Centre (now Department of Gender Studies) has introduced numerous regional initiatives and international summer schools in the area of gender and womens studies. Particularly important is its publication of the bilingual (Macedonian-English) Journal for Gender, Culture and Politics Identities. Since 2007, the Institute was accredited for a postgraduate studies programme in the eld of Gender Studies (Sociology of Gender and Philosophy of Gender) and Political Studies of South-Eastern Europe. The postgraduate studies programme in gender studies is the rst accredited academic programme in the country that has introduced the subject of Queer Theory and Queer Politics in its official curriculum. Besides this, subjects of sexuality are incorporated in series of other courses held in the frames of the programme. The list of academic papers dealing with the issues of queer identities is very short. Identities, Journal for Gender, Culture and Politics seems to be the only academic journal in the country that has continually dealt with issues of sexuality. Several names can be mentioned that are focused on sexuality researches, analysis and theory. Snezana Vrangalovas book on The Mystery of the Sexual Orientation Contemporary Concepts, Macedonian Perspectives is a pioneer scientic work in Macedonia that has unequivocally tackled and discussed the problem of sexual orientation from the psychological perspective. The importance of this book should be emphasised not only because of the extensive analyses it provides of contemporary psychological and sociological concepts of sexual orientation, including historical perspectives of sexual orientation, health issues related to sexual orientation, sexual behaviours, sexual and gender identities. Even more importantly, this book offers a research-based analysis of the issues elaborated in the Macedonian social and political context. Noteworthy progress has been also found in the public discourses raised by some of the above-mentioned theoreticians and activists. Thus, in the period of two years, from 2006 to 2007, MASSO has invited a number of intellectuals, university professors, psychiatrists, and cultural-, gender- and sexuality theoreticians from Macedonia to write columns for the daily newspaper Vreme (Time). Fifteen and more columns have been written in the course of these two years, which while utilizing the columnist genre included numerous scientic and theoretical discourses and perspectives in the problems discussed. The general conclusion that can be made on the basis of the above elaborated, is that although the Macedonian academia has made signicant progress in the last years in relation to issues of gender equality, there is still a signicant degree of

reluctance towards the inclusion of subjects tackling problems of sexuality and sexual minorities in a more explicit manner and as a main subject matter.

Media and Non-Heterosexuals

Establishing their own specic language, the mass media function as a radically potent discursive practise par excellence, deeply rooted in the decentralised and multifaceted network of power relations within the boundaries of the social and political body. Functioning as a direct reection of the Macedonian patriarchal culture, media generate and consolidate existing identities and gender and sexual stereotypes in the name of one timeless truth, naturalising and essentialising what is a historic and cultural phenomenon all forms of identity, including the gendered one and those pertaining to sexuality. In the course of research, our team focused on two newspapers Nova Makedonija (New Macedonia) and Vecer (Night) in the period from 1991 to 1997. This period has been selected due to its social, political and legal framing of homosexuality. In fact, this is the period of criminalisation of homosexuality. In the selected period, these newspapers were actually the only existing daily newspapers in Macedonia, and the oldest ones as well. The research was done by a detailed mapping of all the articles that could be found in these newspapers in the national library archive. Starting from 1999-2000, certain pluralism has marked the Macedonian media space, which is best illustrated by the emergence of several new daily newspapers. The research made on this period was adjusted to the availability of the electronic archives of the newspapers. Out of the existing newspapers, for the period following 2000, four other newspapers were analysed: Utrinski vesnik (Morning Newspaper), Dnevnik (Daily), Vreme (Time) and Vest (News). It should be emphasised that electronic and alternative media were not taken into consideration for our research. In the period from 1991 to 1996, we registered 55 articles related to homosexuality, transsexuals and transvestites in the daily newspaper Nova Makedonija (New Macedonia). In the same newspaper in 1997, there were only three articles related to homosexuality. In the period from 1991 to 1996, fty-eight articles were found in the daily newspaper Vecer (Night). Only three of the 58 articles in this period were related to the subject of homosexuality in the context of Macedonia. In the same newspaper in 1997, sixteen articles were registered tackling these problems. What can be noticed as the most salient characteristic in regards to media reporting on issues related to LGBTQ in this period is what we will call the westernisation of non-heterosexuality/homosexuality. This discursive construction of non-heterosexual identities and practises is realised by the process of implicitly drawing a differential line between Us (the Macedonians) and Them (the Westerners), by means of which homosexuality, bisexuality and transsexualism is casted out into the Western

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world. Questions related to these identities in Macedonia were left invisible and nonexistent. Almost all of the articles that could be found are treating these issues in the context of Western Europe, the USA or some other South-American countries. The iconographic material conjoining these articles reects an attitude that can be named sexualisation of non-heterosexuality. In fact, in the greatest number of texts published, the photographic material included represents mostly naked men, groups of naked men in saunas, gay pride frames of half-naked men, men in leather, or with other fetish requisites. An important aspect of the representation of non-heterosexual practises and identities in Macedonian media is that mostly male homosexuality is represented. Not only that the texts written are referring in the greatest number to male gay issues, but also the iconographic material used is almost always representing gay male couples. We would call this strategy of representation the masculinisation of homosexuality. In general, it can be concluded that reporting on issues related to LGBTQ is mostly neutral in this period, although deeper layers of analyses reveal meanings that we have just pointed out. From 1999-2000 onwards, the situation has drastically changed, which has been inuenced by the growing emergence of new media, both printed and electronic. It should still be noticed that this phenomenon has been followed by an increase in the number of articles related to non-heterosexuals and Macedonia. This has further been caused mostly by the emergence of LGBTQ activism. The Centre for Civil and Human Rights that was established in 2001/2002 has put homosexual rights high on its agenda. Its reactions and press releases to media have consequently increased the number of articles tackling issues related to homosexuality in Macedonia. Furthermore, activism of the Macedonian Helsinki Committee, as well as the launch of the rst publicly declared NGO targeting the rights of LGBTQ people MASSO (Macedonian Association for Free Sexual Orientation) in 2004/2005, had the same kind of inuence. Although none of the above-mentioned organisations are functioning at the moment, the inuence on the media has been continued by the work of the Coalition for Protection and Promotion of Sexual and Health Rights of Marginalised Communities, which targets LGBTQ rights together with the rights of sex workers, drug users and people living with HIV/AIDS. Starting from 2006 up until 2008, Hello, the rst Macedonian LGBT magazine, was published. This magazine covered information related to everyday life of LGBT in Macedonia, the region and worldwide, and it was initiated by the Centre for Civil and Human Rights.

The main characteristics of the newspapers articles from this period, and their main difference from the previous one is that homosexuality is not anymore just a Western phenomenon, but it has now acquired the status of visibility in the local context as well. An important discursive characteristic of the newspapers articles from this period is the tendency towards normalisation. In a text from 2003, where a confession of a gay man is included, the journalist writes: A testimony of a homosexual from Skopje, an attractive boy, with no feminised gestures and clear attitudes about his choice. In the same text, in the confessional part, the boy says I dont like promiscuous boyfriends (unluckily most of them are), and I am very faithful and devoted. Further in another text, in an interview taken from MASSOs president, Koco Andonovski, he claims that the legalisation of gay marriages would mean a change in the perception of homosexuals, because currently these people are considered as a kind of outcasts in society, regardless of their being productive and contributing to the development of society. There is still a paradoxical situation of the overlapping of liberalisation and progress in democratisation and further circulation of the old-gendered power relations. The biggest number of articles contain a neutral or affirmative attitude towards homosexuals. The use of stigmatising terms and words has decreased, but has not vanished. Homophobic discourses could be noticed mostly in columnists texts written by church representatives or right-wing authors. One of the best-known homophobic journalists in Macedonia is Dragan Pavlovic Latas, currently chief editor of the daily newspaper Vecer and of the TV news of the national channel Sitel. In 2006, on the International Day against Homophobia, MASSO declared him as the most homophobic public person of the year under the motto of Homophobia is Gay. The agrant homophobia is clearly visible from the titles of his articles and columns: Faggotology Assholes and Butt holes Eurovision and others. In his column Faggotology, Latas says And faggots are nothing else but people who commune with those like themselves. A closed circle. They are afraid of those who are different. Here we can notice a reverse (or rather per-verse) (ab)use of the political vocabulary characteristic of the discourses of the minority groups movements. Besides the positive progress that can be noticed in the media since 2000, there is still a lack of sensitive approach towards issues related to non-heterosexuals. In a recently conducted research, the collected data and the interviews held with journalists and editors showed that the still existing discriminatory media policies are the result of the deeply ingrained hetero-patriarchal matrix that is, the traditional values, attitudes and stereotypes which are further perpetuated by the media and reect the current conservative politics of the government of Macedonia. Furthermore, the same research concluded that media are still very insensitive towards issues of human rights

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and non-discrimination and that very rarely are the human rights of homosexuals promoted and the negative stereotypes and prejudges addressed. In some media, the negative stereo types and prejudices are particularly present in comments, followed by homophobic statements and hate speech towards homosexuals.

activism. An important discursive characteristic of printed media articles from this period is the tendency towards normalisation. Most of these arguments in favour of gay and queer rights are made by way of resorting to justication in terms of the rights ascribed to the general population, that is, to heterosexuals. The use of stigmatising words has decreased signicantly. The supposed unitary gay community has been deconstructed by way of unravelling the internal differences it entails in the processes of identity formation. The axis of differentiation of the gay identity includes the categories of nationality, class, profession, lifestyles, sex, gender identications and age. The generational differentiation has been particularly important for the purposes of the diachronical analysis of the processes of transition and the ways in which they have been reected in the queer or gay experiences. One could infer that the homosexual identity appears to be much more a queer identity that is always dened as the identity which is no identity. The supposedly substantive identity appears to be much more relational and oppositional than essential. Consequently, this would further reect on the conclusions that can be derived from this perspective with regard to group identity, or the gay community itself. It is not a matter of only an imagined community as Benedict Anderson would call the nation because of the impossibility of its members to meet all the other members of their presupposed community and consequently imagine their belonging to this joint and unied notion of the community. It would be even more appropriate to describe this community as a process comprising, although never totalising them, the heterogeneity of subjectivities, identities, intensities, desires, pleasures, genders and sexualities, multiple reference points inclined towards transformation and permanent restructuration of the modes of relations they establish in this imagined unit of community, and the social and political eld in its entirety. The existence of multiple internal differences within the gay community that has been emphasised in the research does not go in the direction of de-legitimisation of the gay or queer subject as a political subject. On the contrary, our claim is that this differentiation across multiple axes and their discursive liminality provides a political space that is much wider in terms of strategic manoeuvres and negotiations, as well as in terms of the possibilities it opens for construction of new political and resistance allegiances.

Conclusion
The general conclusion that can be made from the research is that certain progress has been made in terms of affirming rights and lending a voice to the marginalised, sexual minorities-related cultures and queer identities, in all areas researched: media, legislation, education, arts and civil society movements. Let us sum up that, although there are a few positive examples, the Macedonian institutional scientic (and educational) system still lacks a serious interdisciplinary approach that would reconsider issues of culture, gender and sexuality in its teaching approach, curricula and in research in particular. This is rmly connected to the lack of insight or subscription to the contemporary epistemologies and methodologies that prevail in arts, humanities and social sciences. With regard to arts and culture, the general conclusion that can be made is that in Macedonia, motives and themes related to non-heterosexual practises, identities, loves and desires are almost not tackled at all. There is small progress that can be noted in the last decade, which comes down to a few artworks or modest insinuations. The absence of direct, immediate reference to issues related to non-heterosexual practises and identities remains. Gradual changes have been noticed in media discourses as well. The quantitative and qualitative differences in media reporting before and after 1996 should be underlined. What can be noticed as the most salient characteristic with regard to media reporting on issues related to LGBTQ in the period before 1996/1997 is what we termed as westernisation of non-heterosexuality/homosexuality. The latter refers to a discursive construction of non-heterosexual identities and practises as something that essentially relates to the Westerners or Them as opposed to the Macedonians, or the Us. The iconographic material conjoining these articles reects an attitude that we called sexualisation of non-heterosexuality. In general, it can be concluded that reporting on issues related to LGBTQ is mostly neutral in the period between 1991 and 1997, although deeper layers of analyses reveal meanings that we have just pointed out. Since 1999-2000, the situation has drastically changed, which has been inuenced by the growing emergence of new media, printed and electronic as well. We noted an increase in the number of articles related to non-heterosexuals and Macedonia, which is a process that has been seriously inuenced mostly by the emergence of LGBTQ

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Short Biographies
Slavco Dimitrov holds a diploma in Comparative and General Literature from the University of St. Cyril and Methodius and a MA in Gender Studies and Philosophy from the Euro-Balkan Institute. Currently, he is a Ph.D. student of Gender Studies (Gender and Philosophy) at the Euro-Balkan Institute, where he is also working as a junior researcher, teaching assistant and project coordinator in the Visual and Cultural Research Centre. In the last several years he has coordinated several projects concerning the human rights and non-discrimination of minority communities in Macedonia. At the moment he is also coordinating the Coalition for Sexual and Health Rights of Marginalised Communities. His main theoretical and writing interests are related to issues of gender, culture, body, identity and narration, deconstruction of subjectivity and queer theory. He has published several academic and curatorial texts in Macedonia and abroad on the subject of literary and lm theory and interpretations, gender, sexuality and identity, and contemporary arts in Macedonia. Katerina Kolozova is the dean of the Institute in Social Sciences and Humanities Euro-Balkan from Skopje (Macedonia), and professor of philosophy, gender studies and epistemology. She holds a Ph.D. in philosophy and teaches at her home institution, in addition to several other universities in former Yugoslavia and Bulgaria (Universities of Skopje, Sarajevo, Belgrade and Soa). Kolozova is the author of The Lived Revolution: Solidarity with the Body in Pain as the New Political Universal (2010) The Real and I: On the Limit and the Self (2006), The Crisis of the Subject with Judith Butler and Zarko Trajanovski (2002) and has co-edited with Svetlana Slapshak and Jelisaveta Blagojevic Gender and Identity: Theories from/on Southeastern Europe a publication of The European Network for Womens and Feminist Studies Athena Network (2006).

ENDNOTES

Hristova, Democratic Consolidation of Divided Societies the Macedonian Case, in New Balkan Politics, vol. 9, 2005. Ibid. See Rossos, The Macedonian Question of Instability in the Balkans, in Yugoslavia and its Historians, p. 140-160. Lesbian and Gay Studies Reader, p. 467-479.

16 Stryker, Symbolic Interactionism: A Social

Structural Version.
17 Cornell and Hartman, Ethnicity and Race: Mak-

2 3

ing Identities in a Changing World.

18 Interview with Mile, 15 July 2009, Skopje. 19 Interview with Dragan, 3 July 2009, Skopje. 20 Interviews with Dragan and Mile, Skopje. 21 Interview with Koco Andonovski, 17 July 2009,

4 DEmilio, Capitalism and Gay Identity, in The

Sandfort and Stolhofer, Introduction: Sexuality and Gender in Times of Transition in Sexuality and Gender in Times of Transition, p. 4. Kuhar, Media Representations of Homosexuality: An Analysis of the Print Media in Slovenia, p. 94. Ibid. http://www.ilgaeurope.org/europe/news/latest_news/european_parliament_european_union_candidate_countries_have_to_respect_ the_rights_of_lgbt_people In the year of publication of this paper, the Non-discrimination Law was adopted. Series of homophobic debates have been the cause for leaving out homosexuals from the act that has been termed as anti-discrimination law. In the current legal act covering the issue of anti-discrimination, homosexuality is not stated as one of the prohibited grounds for discrimination. p. 392.

Skopje.
22 Jenkins, Social Identity. 23 Cass, Homosexual Identity Formation: A Theo-

retical Model, p. 143-167.

24 Coleman, Developmental Stages of the

7 8

Coming-Out Process, p. 31-34.

25 Lipkin, Understanding Homosexuality. 26 Harding, Transformation vs. Resistance Iden-

tity Projects: Epistemological Resources for Social Justice Movements, in Identity Politics Reconsidered, p. 254.
27 Hames-Garca, Whats at Stake in Gay Identi-

ties?, p. 88.
28 Interview with Dragan. 29 Macedonian Association for Free Sexual

Orientation, Legal Overview, Skopje: MASSO, 2007, p. 164.

30 Law on Family. Official Gazette of RM, No.

10 Ritzer, Encyclopedia of Social Theory,

11 Ibid. 12 Ashmore and Jussim, Self and Identity: Funda-

80/92, 9/96, 38/04, 33/06, 84/08 (rened text: 22 December 2008).

31 See Note 9. 32 For more information, see: MASSO, Report,

mental Issues.
13 Butler, Gender Trouble. 14 Cerulo, Identity Construction: New Issues, New

Skopje: MASSO, 2008.

33 European Commission, The Former Yu-

Directions, p. 390.
15 Jasper and Polletta, Collective Identity and

Social Movements, p. 295.

goslav Republic of Macedonia Progress Report 2009, https://webgate.ec.europa. eu/olacrf/20091014Elarg/MK_Rapport_to_ press_13_10.pdf

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34 The questionnaire was conducted in March

2009 among 1,600 respondents. See Saso Klekovski, Attitudes Towards Traditional/ Secular Values, Skopje: MCMS, 2009.
35 Simoska, Gaber, Jovevska, Atanasov, Babunski,

Homosexuals by order of the mothers gene. Vecer, 05/06 April 1997; Who is guilty of homosexuality? Nova Makedonija, 29 February 1992.
52 In the daily newspaper (Morn-

How Inclusive Is the Macedonian Society.

36 World Health Organization, Classication of

Mental and Behavioral Disorders: Clinical Descriptions and Diagnostic Guidelines (ICD-10), Geneva: World Health Organization, 1992
37 Ibid. 38 Klekovski, Attitudes Towards Traditional/

Secular Values, p. 10.

39 Interview with Jasna Koteska, 20 August 2009,

Skopje.
40 Interview with Nebojsa Vilic, 2 August 2009,

Ohrid.
41 Such is also the case with the exhibition

Female Narcissisms, when the journalist Jasna Frangovska, then writing for the Makedonija Denes Daily, made a series of interviews with the participants at the exhibition. Their statements and views begged the common conclusion that they themselves neither felt nor thought that they were creating female art, which was one of Abadiveas starting assumptions.
42 Interview with Nebojsa Vilic, 2 August 2009. 43 Ibid. 44 Cvetkovik, Orgasmic Letters ( ,

ing Newspaper, started officially in 1999) for example, approximately 140 homosexuality-, bisexuality- and transsexual-related articles have been published starting from 2003 until 2009. Approximately thirty of the published articles are related to issues of non-heterosexuality in Macedonia. The daily newspaper (Time), which was launched in 2004, has since published around 140 articles related to LGBRQ issues. Around twenty-ve of the published articles were related to the issue in the context of Macedonia. In 2000, the rst number of the daily newspaper (News) was issued. Starting from 2001, this newspaper has published around 150 articles related to LGBTQ issues, and approximately fteen of them are referring to this subject in the context of Macedonia. About seventy-ve articles writing about LGBTQ issues were published in the daily newspaper Dnevnik (since 1996) in the period from 2006 to 2009. Around fteen of these articles have focused on the LGBTQ issues in Macedonia.
53 For further discussion on this problem, see

Seidman Steven, Beyond the Closet (The Transformation of Gay and Lesbian Life), New York: Routledge, 2002, p. 133.
54 Pocevska, Homosexuality in Macedonia: Facing

the Difference.
55 Dragi, The Homosexual Marriage Will

. : , 2007).
45 The Novel and the Unhappy Consciousness,

Consolidate the Family Values.

56 Latas Pavlovik, Faggotology, in Vecer,

and Literature and Sexual Politics.

46 Skaric, Developmental Psychology, p. 215

10 September 2007.
57 Latas Pavlovik, Assholes and Butt holes,

( , , : , 2004, p. 215); Cadlovski, Psychiatry, ( , ); Cadlovski, Medical Psychology, ( , ).

47 Manual of the Institute for Sociology,

in Vecer, 24 September 2007.

58 Latas Pavlovik, Eurovision, in Vecer,

18 May 2009.
59 Latas Pavlovik, Faggotology. 60 Cvetkovic, Dimitrov; Trajanoski, Media, Non-

2004/2005.
48 See http://identities.org.mk/eng/index.asp 49 Ibid. 50 Macedonian Association for Free Sexual

Discrimination and Marginalised Communities.

61 Ibid. 62 Ibid., p. 4.

Orientation. Columns, Skopje: MASSO, 2006.

51 Genetics proves the sexual deviations:

ROMANIA

Womens Social Exclusion and Feminisms: Living in Parallel Worlds? The Romanian Case Iancu Alice, Oana Blu, Alina Dragolea, Bogdan Florian

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A B ST RA C T

Eastern feminism and women living in Eastern Europe in the last twenty years have lived their specic distinct realities. While growing gender inequalities affected women during transition, Romanian feminists have faced specic difficulties of their own, both theoretical and practical. How to use Western perspectives to analyse a distinct Romanian gender reality, how to ensure the relevance of analysis through both theoretical positioning and empirical research, these were typical dilemmas during the transition. The aim of this article is twofold: to present both Romanian feminist developments and Romanian womens social exclusion risks and to analyse how and if these two worlds interact with one another. A brief overview of the Romanian transition, for Romanian women in general and Romanian feminists in particular is presented in the rst part of the paper. The subsequent chapters investigate how our research conducted as part of the Social Exclusion and Third Wave Feminism in Romania project illuminated further specicities of the Romanian context and the interaction between Romanian feminisms and Romanian womens experiences. The nal part offers some indications and recommendations for future research and activism.

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Women, Men and Feminists Surviving Transition. A Regional and National Overview
Women and men in Romania were confronted with different transitions, experiencing the post-communist world differently. These differences translated into deeply entrenched inequalities between men and women, in social, political and economic terms. Some of these processes were typical for Central and Eastern Europe, while others were specic to the Romanian setting. The entire region was marked by the 1989 move away from communism, the return of the nationalist and traditional rhetoric and the appearance of the neo-liberal discourse.1 The EU integration process also formed part of the post-communist picture, at least for some of the countries in the region, Romania included. Gender disparities in transition affected the political representation of women, their position in the market, and Romanian family life. The number of female representatives and ministers decreased drastically immediately after 1989 and almost twenty years later, the last elections, held in 2008, resulted in 9.76 percent of the seats being occupied by women. Women are paid lower wages and they are facing more difficulties in accessing the labour market and in securing a good income within a segregated market, both horizontally and vertically. Top management positions as well as the well-paid economic branches are male-dominated.2 The public agenda and the public education system became dominated by discourses supporting traditional gender roles and stereotypes.3 These discourses came from political and important public gures, intellectuals included.4 Romanian family life reects the rigid gender roles present in mainstream discourse, as well as previous communist realities where women had to take up multiple roles,5 leading to a severe deepening of womens double burden.6 Reconciliation between work and private life is not a priority for policy makers, the transition years being marked by a shift of responsibility for childcare from state-funded facilities to the family (i.e., women).7 For men, traditional gender roles meant that they were only marginally regarded as caring responsibilities within the family (other than earning an income). For women, the role pattern translated into more difficulties in terms of labour market participation, with long-term consequences for their professional experience and incomes, leading into their retirement years. Consequently, women are on the losing side in terms of political representation, position in the labour market, income, and the overall workload they have to carry both within and outside the family. Men, in general, are better off: they are overwhelmingly more present in the political representative bodies, earn more money and are

care-receivers within the family while their responsibility (workload) in the household has been culturally shaped as insignicant. While Romanian women tried to cope with the changes brought on by the transformations of the Romanian political, economic and social landscape, another actor to re-emerge on the scene was Romanian feminism.8 In Romania, we can identify three different paths undertaken within feminism during Transition: 1) recovering feminism and Romanian feminist historical traces, 2) contextualising feminism (through more substantive empirical research) and 3) room-service political feminism via the European Union.9 These paths cannot be thought of in terms of a strict timeline and the reference years provided below have more of a guiding role. Recovering feminism in this context meant both discovering Western feminism and recovering Romanian feminism. This path can be roughly attributed to the rst ten years of Transition. The rst contacts with Western feminism took place in 1990-9110 through different seminars and visits to the USA and Western Europe. The recovering of Romanian feminist historical traces of the nineteenth and of the rst half of the twentieth century aimed to overcome11 a certain form of amnesia concerning the Romanian womens movement.12 In this context, it could be demonstrated that Romanian feminist women (accompanied by few men) demanded equal rights and full citizenship for women long before the communist regime. This helped to ght against what might have been an incoming myth, namely that Romanian feminism was a cultural import without a history of its own. This myth was supported by prominent public gures, religious and secular, public officials, intellectuals and journalists, but their anti-feminism has been more of a preventive type since no strong and coherent feminist movement menacing the status quo consolidated during the rst ten years of transition. In Dening Feminism: A Comparative Historical Approach (1988) and European Feminisms, 17001950: A Political History (2000), Karen Offen argues that the vocabulary of rights is more common to the Western tradition, being developed both in political theory and practice, especially in Great Britain and the United States. This legalistic understanding inuenced the feminist agenda that focused more on vote, property and access to positions and professions dominated by men (Offen, 1988; 2000). How does this understanding affect European feminism? According to Offen, European feminism cannot be adequately understood through the rights-based approach. However, rights were indeed at the core of the Romanian feminist discourse in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Concepts such as equality and rights are central to dening and analysing Romanian feminism in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The Romanian historian tefania Mihilescu continuously emphasises the struggle for equal rights of the foremothers of Romanian feminism, for changing the

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juridical and political statute of Romanian women.13 In 1913, the feminist organisation Emanciparea Femeii (The Emancipation of Women) changed its name into Drepturile Femeii (The Rights of Women), while in the year 1917, numerous groups of feminists petitioned the Senate for granting women full rights. The struggle for rights was a key issue for socialist feminists as well, who broadened the access to rights perspective in order to include worker and peasant women.14 Even in 1921, when the feminist organisations federalised, they included in their constitutive documents gaining full equal rights for women.15 Moreover, when Eleonora Stratilescu resumes in 1919 the Agenda of the Romanian feminist movement, she emphasises economic, cultural, family- and social rights; equality and equal access to various rights and services, participation, all of which are key concepts in her work.16 In the beginning of the twentieth century, Eugenia de Reuss-Ianculescu17 resumes the essence of feminism like this: True feminism is not concerned with womans pride, nor her liberty to love someone, but with her legal, economic and political rights. The interest of feminism is to make the woman see herself and be seen by others as a selfsovereign being, and not as an object possessed and ruled by others.18 A second very important step of Romanian feminism during Transition was to discover womens and mens public and private lives during the period, by contextualising feminism and relating it to Romanian women (through eld research). Engendering people and understanding them as women and men was a central concern for feminism during transition. Communism had tried to create the new man, who was marked by a mutilated masculinity and a mutilated femininity.19 At the beginning of transition, both social research and the state-imposed policies have suffered from a certain disconnection from the gendered reality on the ground.20 Starting in 1995, research has been conducted in Romania on gender in education and politics, reproduction policies in communist Romania, the gender dimension of violence, gender roles in private life, and women and the media. Later in the transition, a more domestic-oriented feminist agenda started to emerge, on the civil society side (through NGO activity and academic research). This agenda translated into more empirical research being done and more analysis being offered on Romanian state policies and legislation. In 2000, the rst Gender Barometer was conducted, the rst research aiming at offering a comprehensive view of the Romanian society using gender as the main variable of analysis. Moreover, empirical research developed dealing with the representation of womens interests21 or womens status on the labour market.22 Analyses of state policies on a number of issues such as the gender aspects of political representation, the labour market, reconciliation, social exclusion, education and budgeting also emerged and numerous studies were published on these subjects.23

The European integration process brought with it a new brand of feminism called room-service political feminism. The state-side approach to gender policies has been decient in two ways. First, there was a lack of attention given to the specicity of the Romanian context. It represented top-down emancipation.24 Second, this state-supplied emancipation lacked seriousness and commitment, both from the part of local politicians and EU institutions. Even if the necessary laws for gender equity were voted in, we are facing costless-state feminism, with little if any effect on state budgets. There was little pressure from the EU to go beyond the formal, a reality found not only in Romania, but also in other candidate states.25 The re-calibrating of the Romanian feminist agenda to better account for the gendered aspects of transition and to better address them in the future is still an on-going process. The research conducted within the ERSTE Stiftungs Social Exclusion and Third Wave Feminism in Romania project is part of this process and aims at offering better insights both into Romanian womens and mens social exclusion, as well as into how Romanian feminism has addressed the issue so far in the context of specic national developments.

Womens Social Exclusion and Romanian Feminisms

Within this article, we focus mostly on results obtained through the Social Exclusion and Third Wave Feminism in Romania project,26 founded by the ERSTE Stiftung foundation. The research aimed to further the knowledge on gendered social exclusion in Romania and on how the feminist movement in Romania related to this issue, with a second goal of formulating recommendations for future research. Special attention has been given to determining how the specicity of the Romanian context inuenced our results. Our research has been designed to use qualitative methods27 drawing on data collection with previous quantitative research including data not yet published.28 We perceive this research to be only a part of a larger picture and we feel that our account is best read from the perspective of its contribution to future research. The main data collection tool used for this research has been the structured interview, based on a grid of open-ended questions. A total of seventy-two interviews were conducted in eight Romanian cities. Two separate groups were targeted: members of groups vulnerable to social exclusion and people active in the Romanian feminist movement.

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Women and Social Exclusion in Romania Women living through the Romanian Transition were in effect excluded in many ways: they were largely bared from political representation, experienced reduced access to well-paying jobs as well as severely diminished access to childcare. However, when addressing womens social exclusion, not all of these aspects become the focus of research. Theoretical and Methodological Issues Social exclusion emerged as a central concept in European policies and subsequently found its way into political discourses. In the European setting, social exclusion has come to refer to the exclusion of citizens from a range of rights, services and social networks. The European Unions recent policymaking ties social exclusion and social protection together, focusing on three dimensions: 1) access to the labour market and the attainment of decent incomes, 2) access to healthcare and 3) access to adequate pension systems. Thus, the excluded are those who face barriers or difficulties in these three domains.29 Political theorists have been quick to point out that the meaning and usage of social exclusion are inuenced by political traditions and ideological frameworks, leading to a situation where a plurality of denitions and approaches are available.30 While the different paradigms and discourses of social exclusion complete and contest each other in terms of how social exclusion is dened, feminist theorists have raised questions about how gender is included into the analysis, if at all. From the criticism of feminist researchers concerning the current debates on social exclusion, several main themes emerge. The central focus remains on womens roles and work as informal caretakers and on specic womens experiences, such as maternity. Informal care work has signicant impact on womens access to the labour market. Womens social exclusion can be masked by their overinvolvement with the family, should housework and family relations affect womens participation in larger social networks and their civil and market participation.31 At the same time, social relations can become a valuable support system.32 This dual tension is a marked characteristic of womens life course. For our research purposes, the wider domain of social exclusion had to be narrowed down to several key variables. Our goal was to identify a relational model of social exclusion, one that would link womens instances of exclusion (from the market, from access to services) with the social relations they are embedded in. Building on previous data pertaining to Romanian social reality and on feminist theoretical contributions in the eld, several key variables were identied. We have taken the care issue as the central concept of our research. The lack of access to affordable institutionalised care women in Romania are facing today presents them with a situation, in which

coping mechanisms such as forming and maintaining social relations with family members or other social networks able to provide assistance become vital. Previous Romanian research indicated that especially single-mother families can greatly improve their situation where such networks of support are available.33 Recent research conducted in 200634 signalled the impact of dependents in need of care in the household on womens income, informal work, time and access to the labour market, as previously detailed in the rst part of the paper. Our own data showed that women, more than men, when having dependents in the household, earn less money or none at all. For example, sixty-two percent of women with dependents in need of care in the household declared they have no income. Also, women aged between 25 and 45 years, more than men in the same age group, when dependents are present in the household, earn less than 50 EUR per month (50.88 percent women compared to 28.07 percent men). In terms of peoples own assessment of their current problems, those with dependents in need of care in the household believed their main problems to be related to the income they make, their jobs and access to healthcare. The fact that nding a job is the most frequently mentioned problem by persons with children in the household seems to be particularly relevant, as it may indicate obstacles in returning to the market that women face after giving birth. Correlating these insights with the previously identied key European policy areas and feminist theoretical work in the eld, we were able to designate three interest areas for our research: womens access to the labour market, to healthcare services and to social networks. Our research approach on social exclusion is innovative in several ways: it takes gender as its main variable of analysis; it treats the public and the private sphere as interdependent; it focuses on the processes of exclusion and on the end results and investigates the relationships between the selected variables. The sample targeted for interviews was comprised mainly of female respondents and a small group of men used for control purposes. We selected respondents between 25 and 45 years of age with at least one dependent in the household, living in small-sized cities with a mono-industrial economical prole, since these cities represent the typical Romanian post-communist reality.35 Our sample comprised a number of forty-one interviews, 32 with female subjects and 8 with male subjects from three small mono-industrial cities, Clrai, Petroani and Vaslui, from three different regions of the country. Main results: womens social networks, working life and healthcare access Of the three dimensions we addressed as part of our research (access to the labour market, healthcare and social relations), the issue of social networks could be understood as a transversal topic, which links together all other variables related to social exclusion. Different types of social relationships have been addressed in our interviews, in order to identify the social networks most often accessed by people and

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their inuence on working life and healthcare services. We approached the issue of social networks using two perspectives: one focusing on social relations as problemsolving tools (such as nding a suitable doctor, nding a job or help in childcare) and another focusing on social relations as a space for leisure and participation in cultural or other social activities (such as going out with friends or membership in clubs and local associations). The responses we received indicated that participation in different social networks is valued as positive as long as there is no denite cost associated with them, particularly in terms of clearly identiable obligations. For example, it was considered acceptable to ask advice from co-workers regarding a good doctor, but when it comes to lending money or asking for specic help in solving a problem, the social network was often considered useless. Although there were cases where respondents identied the absence of social networks within their communities as being one of the most important topics for discussion, most of them were reluctant. Others argued that lack of social networks affected their personal chances to nd jobs or jobs that provide better working conditions. The rst social network in which persons seem to be involved is the family, not necessarily the extended family. Problems are discussed with the husband/wife; solutions are sought together inside the family unit. Issues are seldom discussed with the children. When it comes to childcare, women usually seek other womens support in the family. Below are some excerpts taken from interviews with female respondents: Woman, 39 years: Yes, once I had a problem, if we refer to nancial issues. About other types of help: sometimes I ask for it, sometimes I dont. Usually I dont. Financially I had a problem once, when the dollar currency exchange changed a lot; it almost doubled in 1999. I had some instalments to pay in dollars and I went for help to a friend. And he told me: If you want us to still be friends, dont ask me for money. That was interesting () No, outside the family I dont (ask for help in childcare). Within the family, we take turns me, my mother-in-law and my mother. Neighbours could be, due to their proximity, another social network, which might be expected to provide support in case of need. However, relations with neighbours could be best described as neutral. Most interactions mentioned are arrangements for maintenance of common living space. Woman, 41 years: Usually we solve our problems inside our couple. If we have any needs, we try to meet them through our own forces. If we cannot solve them I do not think that somebody else could help us; in fact, I cannot remember having been supported by anybody. Maybe sometimes some

relatives, for whom we also provided help at some point, support us with advice. Our parents never did, not because they do not want to, but because they have no means of helping us. Thus, I am alone in the world, just with my husband and my children. Woman, 49 years: People are best friends as long as you do not ask for anything. As soon as you ask them for something you get a very unpleasant reaction from them. Woman, 50 years: Due to my age I have been through a lot and I have a rule: nd a way by yourself. Therefore, I always go to great lengths to be able to solve all my problems alone. And I have another rule, when I have a problem, I put my clothes on and I go out and solve my problem. I think this is the way things have to be done; I think it is a question of respect not to burden somebody else with my problems since we all have our problems. If there is a problem that overcomes me, only then I go and ask the members of my family to help me or a few long-term friends I have. Woman, 35 years: I have never asked my neighbours for anything. We have very normal relations with our neighbours. The only rule is that you have to be polite to each other; this is the reasonable rule when you live in the same apartment block. This is the only type of relationship you have to have with those with whom you live together. But things like borrowing a pot, or a broom, or, I dont know, some our or sugar, or problems there should be no problems involving neighbours, of any type. A neighbour is a neighbour. If they ask me for help I will help them, of course, but I will never ask a neighbour for help. Overall, a community feeling was largely both absent and undervalued. While lacking a cohesive community was perceived by respondents as a negative aspect in their lives, the individuals efforts to create or participate in the community are rather low. In other words, being lonely is a problem, but no personal strategy exists in order to solve this problem. The state is also somewhat distant and respondents do not identify its help as consistent or expected. Mostly, they cite maternity leave and child allowances as the sole, insufficient, support the state offers. Free time is also spent almost entirely with family members, if this free time exists, especially in the case of women. Short trips outside the city are the most common form of family entertainment, since in-city leisure is non-existent. The lack of cinemas, theatres or concert halls is perceived as a problem by some, but not all respondents. Sometimes free time is understood as a luxury and community interactions are viewed with suspicion. Having children, especially children with healthcare problems

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or disabilities, causes women to face a severe lack of free time or leads to the severing of previous social ties. Woman, age unknown: For me, no [I have no free time] I tell you even now I feel, I feel sick, I dont know I feel I told myself once I get my salary on the 10th I will go get calcium again. I feel sick, my head aches I dont have the time to stay in hospital for tests You can imagine I have been walking around for her [a child with disabilities] since she was two months old. Always on the road with a big bag, with changing clothes and all the operations and everything else; it is not easy. Woman, age unknown: When I have free time I do some ironing. Woman, 40 years: Yes, I make sure I have free time meaning I just drop everything and thus I have free time. I go in the park with the children. Woman, 37 years: I spend the evenings in front of the TV, sometimes on the computer or with my husband, sometimes we go to parties, but rarely. Generally, we are too tired to need anything else. Woman, 54 years: In my spare time I take the girl shopping and I sit on a bench for half an hour but mostly I prefer to sit in the house and watch TV when I am not staying in bed because I am tired. If you go outside people gossip and talk about you better in your own house. Woman, 43 years: I used to go out, but now I do it very rarely. Sunday is my day off and I spend it with the family. Woman, 33 years: I lost previous contacts I didnt try to rebuild them because I have the little one and they my friends are married but they have no children. No children and I kind of feel other friends have children but they have grandparents to help they have time I dont. I will probably reconnect with them in a few years after this little one grows up. Working life was approached in terms of access to jobs, working conditions and reconciliation between work and family life. Answers provided allow us to present some general characteristics of work place conditions and the local labour market. The typical job in the cities we visited can be described as follows: a public sector job, low paid, but secure, requiring undergraduate or graduate education (usually just a bachelors degree). Most of those jobs are in the services economic sector, in areas as diverse as education, juridical system, cultural or research institutions or

healthcare facilities. Satisfaction with the current job is generally low, the main complaint being that wages are too low to afford a decent lifestyle, which can be dened as being able to buy food and pay for utilities, rent and such costs. However, exibility and mobility are also generally low in the case of the interviewees. Almost all of the persons interviewed also declared that moving to another city even if they were offered a better paid job is very unlikely due to different causes, especially when children with disabilities were in the household. Woman: My daughter has a disability. Her issue is not the disability in itself, but what I am doing and how useful I can be to her. For one year I commuted to Bucharest for my job. It was very hard, but I had to do it to earn money. But I cannot move from my town, because of my daughter, she has created her own world here, her own environment, it would be really hard for her to move. One central element, common to both men and women, was the need for continuity and the fear of career changes or breaks. We could describe the career path of respondents as linear and continuous, even despite economic conditions that at some point determined the change of the work place. Thus, after completing initial training, usually after obtaining a university degree, most of the people interviewed immediately got a job. This is largely due to the previous communist system, in which all graduates of higher education got a job through the repartitions system, by which they were automatically assigned a job by the state. After 1990, most of the jobs disappeared; however, this meant a simple transfer to another job in a state-owned enterprise without a period of unemployment. Changing jobs with a short period of unemployment between them is not considered a possibility and is mostly seen as a personal failure. Within family units, both the husband and the wife were often employed; however, in some cases, where taking care of sick children is a priority, the wife is usually the one who quits her job in order to provide care. There is a fundamental difference between men and women and their respective points of view. Men usually declare that they share responsibilities within the household, such as shopping, cleaning and caring for children. Women tend to assume a larger number of household-related activities but still generally declare that they share these jobs with their husbands. However, when asked in detail about such activities, such as who takes the children to the doctor when they are sick? or who drops and picks up children from school? the answer is in most cases the wife or a rather neutral formulation whoever has the time or can get a leave from their job. At the same time, in extreme cases, such as children with disabilities or severe health conditions, the mother is almost always the one giving up her working life to stay at home and provide care and support.

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Generally speaking, social networks from the workplace are most often used to obtain information about healthcare and work opportunities. The most common form of support provided by co-workers is covering shifts at work when needed. Informal exible work arrangements are done this way, whenever absence from the job is required by certain family needs, such as taking the children to a doctor. Woman, 40 years: At the workplace I am mostly pleased with my co-workers. I think I was very lucky after 1990, a lot of the ex-colleagues reached the required age and applied for pensions. So me and my current colleagues all arrived within months of each other. We learned together, got married, went to each others weddings, we had children, we celebrated together. I feel like within a family and I like it very much. I really found much support at work so I can solve some family problems for this, we exchange shifts. Education is another variable, which we thought inuences working lives and job quality, for women even more than for men. Having higher education usually improves chances to get a job, but not always. At the same time, lower levels of education do not necessarily mean one will get a lower paid job with worse working conditions. On the other hand, having a higher education degree does not guarantee a job, and economic conditions in the area often render it useless. Women with engineering degrees end up with public administration or librarian jobs. What matters here more is the personal ability to undergo re-training or adult education programs. Thus, education may inuence the ability to get access to jobs but it must be treated with caution and always in relation to other variables that affect job access and job quality. With regard to access to health services, the interviews targeted a number of variables: access to a doctor, quality, and cost of care. Generally speaking, the common opinion is that the healthcare system is of low quality, corrupt and not t for patients needs. By law, all citizens in Romania must be registered with a general practitioner.36 This is the rst level of interaction between individuals and the healthcare system. Citizens have the right of choosing their own general practitioner. The most important criteria were referrals made by friends, co-workers and family and previous experiences with the doctor. Access to a general practitioner is mostly used for the completion of bureaucratic formalities that must be undertaken in order to get access to higher-level medical services, such as specialised care in hospitals. Otherwise, selfmedication is used to treat (perceived) minor health problems. Private healthcare institutions are generally preferred by patients, if they can afford them. This seems to be a personal strategy when it comes to pregnancy in the case of women, if they can afford it. In a rather large number of cases, pregnancy is a women-only event, husbands are rarely involved. Women also have the most contact with healthcare institutions because they are mainly responsible for the childrens

health, which sometimes even leads to women neglecting their own health. Most contacts with the healthcare system occur when children are sick, and the interaction is mostly handled by women. Visits to the doctors are always associated with high costs and access to medical care is restricted by distance and money. Still, the main variable brought up in interviews when addressing health issues is money that has to be paid, irrespective of visiting a state-run medical facility, or a private one. Below are some healthcare-related excerpts from interviews: Woman, age unknown: For me, no [I have no free time]. I tell you even now I feel, I feel sick, I dont know I feel I told myself once I get my salary on the tenth of the month I will go get calcium again. I feel sick, my head aches I dont have the time to stay in hospital for tests. You can imagine, Ive been walking around for her [a child with disabilities] since she was two months old. Always on the road with a big bag, with changing clothes and all the operations and everything else, it is not easy. Woman, 40 years: I am very unsatised by medical care services, very, very unsatised. First of all, we pay both me and my husband a lot of money every month for health insurance. And it is a rather large sum of money, almost 500 RON [approx. 120 EUR], even if we do not go to the hospital very often. And still they claim they do not have enough money. In fact, we go to the doctor only in extreme emergency cases and usually we go directly to the hospital to a specialised physician. For example, last year, one day my son started to vomit. I tried to cure him by giving him the usual medication in this case that I knew and only after he did not respond to medication did I take him to the hospital. There he was put in a so-called private reserve it was full of cockroaches and I was frightened, I couldnt sleep all night. When we need to go to the doctor, I prefer to go to Bucharest. But this costs money and we need to make savings all the time. We can even get a credit from the bank if we need one. For example, my husband has a back condition and he needs to go to Bucharest periodically for tests. Every time we have to go I wonder if we have enough money for the tests. It is very hard, but we save up money and try to cover these expenses. Because of my age, I was 38 years old during my second pregnancy, I had to undergo a series of tests to determine the health of the child. I tried to get the medical insurance to pay for those tests and they told me these tests are not covered by insurance because they are considered luxury testing.

Woman, 49 years: Because of my childs condition I have to go to the doctor every three months. For prescriptions or other papers, I usually go to my general practitioner. But otherwise he is completely useless for me, given my childs condition. So I prefer to go to Bucharest every three months, directly

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to the Municipal Hospital. I know a doctor there, I make a phone call, they schedule me for the next month, I take a free day from work and take my daughter there for regular consultation. I just go without getting a formal piece of paper from my general practitioner, because it is useless. You see, my daughter has spasms, very strong ones; she cannot sleep because of them. So, every three months she needs Botox shots. For her, Botox injections are not a cool thing, it is a need I cannot afford them anymore. I wrote to the Ministry of Health asking for a solution, for some kind of nancial support for these Botox doses. They refused me and that was it. Now I go to the Municipal Hospital, to the only doctor who knows how to administer these shots. I cannot go every three months because I do not have money to pay for the doses The health system is of no use to me, except for the other, usual medication that my daughter has to take, but for the most important part it is completely useless. Woman, 30 years: For minor health issues, I prefer to treat myself and my children at home. With plants, traditional remedies, teas and so on. It is much cheaper and sometimes it is better. For gynecological problems I always go to a private clinic. Now a new one has been opened here in our town and I heard that there are doctors coming all the way over from Iai. I asked around, I talked to my friends and there is where I go, because it is better, if you can afford it, of course. In fact, the only doctors I have seen were the ones during my pregnancy and afterwards the pediatricians. I prefer the private practices because they treat you better. I always have to save up for it when I go to the doctors; for example, once I had to get an eye surgery and I had to delay it until I got the money. In the end, I went to the bank, took out a loan and went and had my surgery. There have been other occasions when I had to postpone visits to doctors for health issues, because of the money. Even if you go to a state-run hospital you have to buy a bottle of alcohol for the doctor or give him some money, so sometimes you just have to wait. Man, 39 years: Since I have been healthy most of my life I cannot say that I had a strong contact with the healthcare system. Recently, I have been diagnosed with a condition, after those compulsory tests we had to do, but the result was sent to me one year later. So I was furious. It is nothing serious, but it could have been. Since I found out, I paid for my tests and my visits to private practices and everything is ok. Our main research areas, access to the labour market, access to healthcare and social relations, proved to be indeed interlinked to different degrees. Social networks are usually the source for nding good doctors or jobs, but at the same time, individual strategies target getting money from other sources, the family, or credits

from banks. It seems that the most preferred strategies are those of saving and, in the case of persons with higher education, bank credits. Quality and cost of healthcare, income and free time could also be regarded as interdependent. While this is generally the case, when children with disabilities are present within the household, this link intensies, with access to healthcare deepening womens involvement in the family at the expense of their mobility, level of income, health or free time. If one could determine several life trajectory patterns, while differences could be identied within the group, a common theme is the overinvolvement in the family, particularly for women after children are born. This leads to lack of free time, which affects their leisure activities with friends or co-workers. Often women lose their social networks with the birth of children, withdraw in the family, and gain new ones when they get a job after maternity leave, which they use in the limits described above. Family is the most trusted and used support system, especially for childcare, and particularly requested of other women in the family or the male partner. When other family members are not available, again the partner offers the main support. Neighbours or co-workers are not substantially viewed as a source for help, with few exceptions. This help mostly involves information: information about jobs, doctors and the like. Participation in community activities is almost absent and not seen as a priority. In this context, going beyond the particular dimensions addressed in the research, larger questions about social cohesion in the case of women, their overall participation in society and decision-making, as well as the character of their possible participation: as a specic group or as isolated individuals, the directions that interaction between feminists and women could take all become relevant for future research. Feminist Discourses in Transition: Theoretical and Methodological Issues As part of our research project, we investigate two interactions: the one between Romanian feminism and Western theoretical frameworks and that between Romanian feminists and the empirical Romanian reality, particularly relating to womens social exclusion. The two dimensions are understood as interlinked and informing each other. This particular section approaches Romanian feminism more from the perspective of a political theorist and leans on theoretical instruments both Romanian and Western. Citing Judith Squires, feminist theory can be understood on the basis of ideological positions, geographical diversity and by delineating a chronological perspective. The equality/difference debate created an additional demarcation line.37 Within this debate, feminisms vary via geographical and also temporal lines, with feminism starting with equality, shifting to difference, and then moving on to resolution of the dichotomy and often this has been linked to the chronology-informed notion of waves.38

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The rst-wave feminism was often equated with equality feminism and focused on formal equality between men and women, mainly equal rights for women and men in laws, practices, and education.39 The second-wave feminism represents the difference feminism. Its theorists and activists challenged the role of women within the private sphere and brought womens experiences to light, calling for a reconsideration of the personal as political. Biology, womens bodies and their specic life experiences (such as maternity) were asserted as relevant and important, calling for a thorough reconsideration of political theory and legislation. On the other hand, third-wave feminism presents itself as a feminism of differences that highly values the differences among women in specic social and political contexts and is heavily inuenced by postmodernism.40 It represents a stage of feminism that reshapes the feminist agenda by rejecting universalism and theoretical dichotomies (nature-culture, public-private, etc.) and by favouring particular contexts and embodiment. Thus, diversity and differences in perspectives among women become focal points,41 accompanied by less academic, more popular and more narrative writing. A major disadvantage of the waves approach for the analysis of Romanian feminism relates to the chronological insight. In this particular historical context, we cannot argue that one wave evolved from a preceding one. We are somehow lost between waves.42 We argue the analysis of Romanian feminism is suited along conceptual lines, across the equality/difference/differences debates. These represent useful categories of analysis and provide broader concepts allowing for an analysis in terms of continuities and discontinuities of feminism, as well as possible contradictions and ambiguities. This approach may simplify complex historical processes but we believe it adequate for the purposes of a general overview presented here. Thus, we framed the plurality of feminisms during the Romanian transition in terms of the simultaneous presence of an equality-feminism, a difference-feminism and a feminism of differences. Two avenues of research were followed as part of our investigations. First, what was the specicity of Romanian feminism, what are the main issues approached by feminist activists and researchers, and second, how do they relate to the specic issue of social exclusion. The interviews were conducted in ve Romanian cities, focal points of feminist development: Bucharest, Iai, Cluj, Timioara and Sibiu. Taking into account the type of feminisms according to areas of manifestations (either activist, academic, journalist, political, cultural), more interviews concentrated on the academic level and on the level of NGOs, reecting the specicity of the development of Romanian feminism. Main Results: Exactly What Kind of Feminisms Do We Have? Based on the previously presented theoretical considerations, we tried to determine what types of feminisms are present in Romania today. The interviews focused on respondents personal experience and activity, their areas of interest,

their evaluation of the current feminist movement and how/whether they approached certain hot spots in their activity, such as womens access to the labour market, education, healthcare, social exclusion or political participation. We also investigated whether there was more of an affinity towards the equality discourse, the one focused on womens specic experiences or the differences among them. As far as equality feminism is concerned, we identied whether our respondents consider it outdated or relevant and to what extent it reects in their own work. Our ndings show that this approach is still considered necessary. While respondents noticed the distinction between formal and substantive equality, they argue that the latter must be pursued continuously because Romania lacks the practice of equality. A possible reason for this could be the wide import of legislation understood as roomservice political feminism. There seems to be a consensus among respondents that equality should not be abandoned since rights awareness is low:43 Livia Popescu, sociologist: If we analyse our legislation, we might be tempted to admit we do not need this path anymore, that this phase has been left behind; but we do have another component: the equality of results, of its consequences. When we look at the implementation level, we understand this stage has not been left behind. Ion Bogdan Lefter, literary critic: The values and the philosophy of the feminist movement have not been attained yet. Even if, in certain countries, rights have already been transposed into legislation or within various aspects of social and political life, nowhere have they been translated into a practice of equality of rights, equality of representation, not even in the most developed countries. Mihaela Frunz, political scientist: Few people know of their rights. Nicoleta Biu, Roma feminist activist: Maybe we have the right laws, but the legislation and the policies have been imposed by the European Commission. They were not the expression of the citizens or of the politicians will. During the interviews, it became apparent that the equal-rights-approach intersects with a concern for differences between women or, in terms of the wave language, there appears to be a peculiar mixture between rst-wave objectives and third-wave themes. Women within the LGBT community, for example, are confronted with a double discrimination that comes from society as a whole and also from within the LGBT community. They are less visible and the projects implemented by the NGO supporting the rights of sexual minorities usually target men. In this particular case, the third-wave theme of differences among women intersects with rst-wave instruments.

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Equality served as a useful paradigm for Romanian feminist writing and researching issues connected to the labour market, domestic violence, rape, and sexual harassment, social and family policies. These womens issues acquired visibility much later in Romania (during the transition) by comparison with Western countries. Due to specic developments of the gender relations in Romania during the communist regime and to the interrupted evolution of Romanian feminism (as a consequence of the communist regime), in the beginning of twenty-rst century, the personal became political within the Romanian transition as a consequence of room-service political feminism, brought on by the European ascension process. As far as difference feminism is concerned, in order to effectively analyse both its presence and perceived usefulness, we included themes such as differences between women and men, equality of opportunities and women as members of a specic group in our interviews. In terms of differences between women and men the opinions are divided some respondents consider feminism of differences useful, others rather problematic. Inequality and how it might relate to gender differences polarised the voices of feminists. This possible tension leads to some voices arguing that focusing on differences can only boast stereotypes and increase the risk of inequality, some preferences for an androgynous approach being expressed. Liliana Popescu, political scientist: You just cannot consider only differences. Of course there are differences between men and women, but they must be used only in terms of contesting the presupposed similarity of men and women. Either erasing or not acknowledging differences is rather counterproductive. Romina Surugiu, academic: I continue to believe that once you work with differences you may determine a chain reaction that comes hand in hand with discrimination. Ioana tefan, philologist: There are still unresolved problems from difference feminism, such as an erroneous interpretation of sexual liberation. Are women now sexually liberated, or are they exploited even worse? Women may use sexuality as a weapon, but this is hardly liberating. Valentina Marinescu, feminist sociologist: Theoretically and legally, we may be in a feminism of differences and autonomy, but within everyday life, women are in need of difference feminism. Mihaela Frunz, political scientist: We kept ourselves a little bit away from difference feminism. We took all feminisms in package.

During the transition, difference feminism represents an important issue since its usual objectives have not been attained: women and men do not enjoy equal opportunities; women in Romania do not understand nor see themselves as members of a distinct group, the political process remains male-dominated. Difference feminism is understood as a necessary tool of redressing the imbalance of power between women and men. Noticing womens and mens specic experiences and values might be an important strategy especially for an Eastern European country, since the communist educational system tried to create a universal new man that had the features of both a mutilated feminine and a mutilated masculine,44 making it more difficult for women to see themselves as a distinct social group with distinct interests. Difference feminism is thus associated with solidarity among women, and some of our respondents were vocal in their support for such an approach. For example it is central in the academic and political activity of Ovidiu Anemoaicei, who argues for the taking into account of the social and cultural differences between women and men, within a new paradigm derived from womens specic experiences. Nicoleta Biu has questioned and dwelled upon her two rather conicting identities: she is a woman feminist activist and a Roma activist. She admits it is important to consider women as a distinct group, but once this has been done the horizon should be widened. Miruna Munteanu, journalist, recognises the differences between women and men especially in terms of specic experiences as human beings endowed with bodies. In her view embodiment, body-related experiences and the differences associated with them are signicant within feminist theories and for political practices because they raise important questions about what is relevant in the public sphere. Romanian feminists have different opinions towards whether women should be considered politically or theoretically as a distinct group. We noticed several important degrees associated to this issue. It is considered strategically important to support this view, together with complementary approaches, and some respondents thought it might not be suited for the long term. Miruna Munteanu, journalist: I think that the voices of women must have a decisive role regarding certain issues. I nd it rather unacceptable that some men decide whether women can have an abortion or not, or how to raise the children There are many things that deeply affect womens lives, in a more considerable manner than they could ever affect mens lives. I dont see it morally right or adequate to leave this decision to men, no matter how intelligent and good intended they might be. They cannot understand the depth of these issues. Veronica Popescu, philologist: This approach creates a balance since women were understood only with instruments created by men, through mens eyes.

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Livia Popescu, sociologist: I do not perceive the end of difference feminism. I still do not see any solidarity between women or a feeling of belonging. I do not see it as having already ended, since women are not yet aware that they are part of a discriminated and subordinated group. Only when women become aware of the solidarity factor, when women do have access to power, can we introduce other nuances. We have to juggle since not all women are victims, not all are confronted with similar problems on the labour market, and not all have poor access to education. Gabriela Creu, politician: I think it is too early to discover the differences among us, even before we have acknowledged the commonalties. Ovidiu Anemoaicei, representative of state feminism: To consider women as members of a group, was and still is a strategic decision. It is useful according to the context, and in Romania, I think it has to be considered an instrument I think within legislation and public policies, the different needs and experiences of women should be valued. Nicoleta Biu, Roma feminist activist: There are differences between women in Romania, but there are also commonalities. There should be themes that bring us together and others that separate us; we all have or have had certain life experiences that must bring us together. Strangely, these differences in terms of ethnicity, sexual orientation tear us apart, we grow apart and we do not succeed in building up a coherent feminist movement. Equality of opportunities is an important objective on the differencefeminism agenda and it was emphasised by many respondents. For two representatives of political feminism, Gabriela Creu and Ovidiu Anemoaicei, the equality of opportunities is central on their agenda and they relate it to labour market issues, education, and politics. Representatives of feminist NGOs raised an important issue in regards of equality of opportunities: many times it was present on the political agenda due to the pressure of the European Union, but there is no perceived national political commitment to support it. Most of the time, equality of opportunity was supported within projects implemented by NGOs and had no substantive continuity due to two major reasons. On one hand, there is a scarcity of nancial resources; on the other hand, working with equal opportunities was the result of a contextual decision, there is no clear vision concerning a long-term strategy. Even if difference-feminism could not develop during the Romanian communist 1960s and 1970s as in the Western context, it has been partially recovered during the transition. NGOs and academic feminists have adopted a perspective that emphasises women as a distinct group, with shared common interests (during the

Transition, mens and womens interests have often been in conict). Within academic feminism, in terms of actually bringing on their agenda themes raised by radical feminists, related to public and private violence against women, such as pornography, prostitution, sexual harassment, domestic violence, this hasnt largely happened, with one exception: domestic violence. Domestic violence was an issue that brought together an NGO coalition that pushed for its inclusion on the public agenda, but the answer of politicians and political parties, regardless of ideology, was simply that it was not the right time. In terms of legislation, it was room-service political feminism that contributed to a top-down, mainly legal emancipation (sexual harassment and domestic violence were banned due to European political pressure). A feminism of differences values differences among women in specic social and political contexts and it could prove problematic in the Romanian context, since it divides women into many groups even before they have understood each other or worked together as a distinct social group. Contradictory or not, womens diversity is valued only within a context where, strategically, women are, as a whole, still considered a distinct social group. Crina Morteanu, a feminist and Roma activist, also embraces this intermediary position stating that while women may have their differences, there are times when they share common interests. The opinion of the feminist sociologist Laura Grnberg separates itself from the others, in her support for this approach: Together with its risks and difficulties. I think we should move on, because I keep reading articles and books that keep talking about womens issues versus mens issues, but besides these universal women, feminism has taken itself a very important step forward from talking about woman to women. Who are these women? Between me and you there are considerable differences in terms of age, economic background, there are differences between me and a Roma woman of my age. There are only few studies in this domain. Objectives pertaining to a feminism of differences were placed on Romanian feminists agenda with developed projects targeting Roma women or women from the rural areas and research conducted on the role of the intersection between gender and ethnicity, disability and age. This particular approach in the context of Romanian heritage is provocative. For many Romanian feminists it appears rather problematic, for others it seems appealing. It was argued that there was no need of repeating the errors of Western feminism criticised for its essentialist ways. For some, this form of openness is only a cultural mirage that is separated from Romanian everyday life. For others, it is nothing but the right answer for womens needs and interests. Caution is cited in saying yes to differences, remembering not to lose sight of womens commonalities.

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A balance could be found between difference-feminism and the feminism of differences, since within the Romanian transition there are diverse feminist voices addressing the multiple problems women face, both common, and different. Thus, the issue of differences among women tends to polarise answers and many nuances are included in the discussion. On the other hand, an equality-feminism discourse is still a necessary road to follow. The equal rights discourse is present for NGOs and academic and political feminism. It reects some of the important goals of Romanian feminism, not only in terms of the similarities between women and men, but also in terms of securing equal rights for specic vulnerable groups of women (such as women living in more traditionalist rural areas). There remains a long list of problems unresolved and not widely acknowledged making difference-feminism necessary and rather urgent: domestic violence, pornography, limited access to many professions, lack of equal opportunities and the persistence of a glass ceiling on the labour market and in politics. In Dening Feminism: A Comparative Historical Approach Karen Offen discusses two distinct modes of argumentation used by women and their male allies: relational and individualistic feminism, which she considers more adequate when analysing the history of feminism in Europe. While the former proposed a gender-based but egalitarian vision of social organisation, emphasising womens rights as women (dened principally by their child-bearing and/or nurturing capacities) in relation to men, the latter posited the individual, irrespective of sex or gender, as the basic unit embracing more abstract concepts of individual human rights and celebrated the quest for personal independence (or autonomy) in all aspects of life.45 In terms of the relational and individualistic feminism embraced by Karen Offen when analysing European feminism, a different methodology is needed in order to research such an approach. Still, some reections can be made. Looking at Romanian feminism after the collapse of communism we notice that feminists turned to and related more to Anglo-American feminism. This has contextual explanations: support scholarships, funding and trainings offered by USA universities, agencies, etc. Western Europe was more cautious. Political or ideological reasons have to be considered as well. Communism and rightsbased discourse obviously did not have a happy marriage, and after 1989, feminist discourses emphasising the rights of women were a breath of fresh air. Questions such as: what were your rst readings?, what feminist authors have been translated until now?, what kind of references does one use?46 are relevant for domestic developments of feminism. One telling example: Karen Offen locates individualistic feminism in John Stuart Mills The Subjection of Women, while Mihaela Miroiu relies in her crucial work The Road Towards Autonomy (2004) on the key concept of autonomy developed by the philosopher. One working hypothesis could be this: relational and individualistic feminism rather intertwine in Eastern Europe, still with a clearer preference for the latter.47 However, the developments of the last twenty years allow for many theoretical challenges

when addressing the equality/difference/differences debates. One should understand Eastern feminism and Romanian feminism in particular, as dynamic and ever changing. Its main concerns continuously shift and adapt, especially with the growing concern for empirical research, such as the one presented in this article. Romanian Feminism and Womens Social Exclusion While the previous section showed that the fundamental orientation of Romanian feminism is marked by a diversity of opinions, within every type of discourse there were bits and pieces pointing towards a connection between the research/activism being carried out and womens social exclusion. At the same time, different theoretical frameworks illuminate womens experiences differently. In terms of how different feminist approaches illuminate the issue of social exclusion, it would be difficult to draw denitive conclusions. However, it does appear that difference-feminism holds particular promise for better addressing womens experiences, as they appear within our research. Differences between women and men should be further explored and underlined. Women face different difficulties, such as access to healthcare during pregnancy. Their personal experiences need to become political, although women themselves do not emphasise this point. Overall reluctance to seek support outside the family, through the community or the state, was a general trend among our respondents. In this context, the issue of women identifying themselves as a specic social group with specic experiences and forming a solidarity feeling among them appears to be both difficult and imperative. Should the family, with its patriarchal structure, particularly in terms of household work distribution, continue to be identied as the main source of support, contestations within the family would be scarce. At the same time, childcare would continue to be a feminised, unpaid, informal task. However, it is difficult to assert how this need for difference-feminism correlates with an Eastern European preference for a more individualistic feminist theory. There is a tension between the individualistic/relational approaches and between raising awareness for womens solidarity and emphasising differences between women. These tensions were present in responses we obtained from feminist activists and theorists. Our research also underlined that while women themselves are overinvolved in the family, feminist theory and activism also targeted the family. Nevertheless, this could be a double-edged sword. While undermining the patriarchal character of the family is a valid concern, greater attention should be paid to giving women viable alternatives of cooperation and support. Most of our respondents were clearly lacking involvement in social networks, and in political and social associations. Awareness-raising about such participation opportunities should be a priority, as well as making such opportunities available to women. Informal childcare affects womens participation in the labour market signicantly, and equal opportunities should be further emphasised as a central issue.

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At the same time, differences between women should be accounted for, at least in ensuring that participation opportunities do not vary widely between groups of women and that certain groups, such as Roma women, would not nd themselves at a disadvantage. Awareness-raising and outreach activities should be accompanied by a concern towards reaching all groups of women equitably. Finally, ensuring substantive equality between men and women could also be addressed as a participation issue. Should women distance themselves from the state and public participation in general, turning formal equality into substantive equality would prove difficult. Thus, concepts from multiple feminist perspectives could be used simultaneously for a common coherent strategy in addressing womens social exclusion. Before that could be accomplished, a word of caution is necessary: while many feminist researchers and activists approached issues related to womens social exclusion, such as access to the labour market and a decent income, access to healthcare services, pensions and the importance of social networks for womens lives, few identify the actual term social exclusion explicitly with their concerns, and the few that do seldom relate to it as a womens issue. This could be due to the concepts relative new arrival on the public discourse scene. Womens position in the labour market is a main concern of the respondents, even if not all of them approached the issue as part of their own activity. Specic issues, such as the feminisation of certain branches, womens lower presence in the market or reconciliation are addressed by the respondents. Also in terms of access to healthcare (particularly regarding reproduction and maternity health issues) and education, the responses indicated personal involvement and knowledge of these issues. When addressing social relations, most respondents referred to the family with regard to two main concerns: womens unpaid work in the household and domestic violence. Ovidiu Anemoaicei, representative of state feminism: Statistically speaking, there are still problems with the labour market. Womens presence in the labour market is still problematic, even if their unemployment levels diminished. Gabriela Cretu, politician: On the labour market, to have a child, to be suspected of getting pregnant, is (considered) an obstacle. But it isnt, even if we always complain about the demographic crisis, about the fact that there will be nobody left to pay for our pensions and that the progress of humanity will suffer because there is not enough workforce. It doesnt seem that somebody deciding to have another child is some great opportunity. The employers, the public institutions are in no hurry to create opportunities so that the personal achievement that is motherhood for a woman or the societys need for children is reconciled with the employers need to have a healthy and qualied workforce.

Irina Barbalata, feminist activist: We tried to help the people who saw their rights being ignored in work relations. Women and men. But the vast majority of those coming to tell their story were women because there were situations that particularly affected women, may they be pregnant women, young women who had been hired and then been exposed to sexual advances, with the job being conditioned on accepting those advances, a lot of these kinds of situations. Dina Loghin, feminist activist: We did some work regarding health. So we worked with reproduction health issues in terms of educating girls and women towards understanding that a child is a big responsibility and one needs to think about if or how many children to have. Georgeta Gebrea, political scientist: Ever since the beginning of my career, I studied the processes of adapting to the transition by the Romanian families through social support networks. At the same time, with few exceptions, social exclusion is not recognised as a concept even by those addressing such issues. Even more, social exclusion is often misunderstood as referring strictly to minorities or other marginalised groups. Thus, when asked specically if ever they approached the issue of social exclusion, the answers were mostly negative, with few exceptions coming mainly from activists engaged in multiple discrimination. Valentina Marinescu, feminist sociologist: No (I didnt approach the issue), because, I told you, I understand the woman, but I dont understand the socially excluded I mean I would have to be completely deviated from norms I cant walk in anothers shoes. Nicoleta Bitu, Roma feminist activist: Yes, yes [I did approach the issue]. Very much. For example, I had some income-generating projects in the Roma communities, which were not at all included in the labour market, and had access to no services. And we tried these income-generating projects. Crina Morteanu, Roma feminist activist: I mostly deal with it [social exclusion]. Generally, my work involves Roma women, but is not limited to them. But within the projects dealing with Roma women, this is what I wanted to refer to, the general approach is social, social exclusion. Miruna Munteanu, journalist: So it appears to me that politics is the main citadel where women go in, but more like decorations, in the sense that they do not have access to real power and their role is mainly to look nice

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in official pictures. In the rest of society I cant say that I see gender-based social exclusion as the most dangerous or revolting in todays Romania. I think there are other types [of exclusion]; more severe ones like the minorities, particularly the Roma, there are certain categories people with disabilities so there are categories that are really being victimised. Compared to them women. Florentina Ionescu, LGBT feminist activist: I only experienced social exclusion related to transsexual persons. I never, under any circumstances, succeeded in getting a transsexual hired. Even the most open minded people didnt agree to do it. The responses we received point to the fact that womens social exclusion, when phrased in these exact words, is largely absent from the feminist discourse. However, when breaking down social exclusion into its main areas of intervention, both researchers and activists were either engaged in them as part of their activity, or had a general knowledge of them.

In general, there is a need for increased visibility of Romanian feminism, past and present, within and outside national borders. This would yield positive outcomes in terms of feminist theory production because it will help redene core notions, for example the wave metaphor, and deepen the understanding of difference-feminism and of feminism of differences in a particular national context. The interviews revealed the central place of academic feminism in Romania within the wider feminist movement. Most publications are rather highly academic, so there is a need for writing that is more popular and more narrative. Within academia, feminism needs more visibility, especially within law schools, in order to promote the teaching of classes on womens rights. In terms of research and theory production, women from rural areas should benet from wider attention. Also, themes such as pornography, prostitution and sexuality, should come on the research and theoretical agenda. Even if Romanian academic feminism is the most developed, it has not isolated itself in an ivory tower, far away from the real problems of real women. This is the consequence of the fact that, during transition, feminists within academia have been involved within the NGO sector, ghting for womens rights while writing for magazines and journals. There is also a need for the development of a unied feminist agenda, with issues acknowledged and embraced by NGOs, academia and politicians, but we think it is hardly possible. We are rather doubtful of the possibility of a wider solidarity, but we do consider that within the intersection of difference-feminism and the feminism of differences, coalitions can be built up with regard to specic issues. The gap between the political arena and feminism needs to be closed. Reexivity becomes as an important feature of Romanian feminism, since, due to specic historical and political developments, paradoxically, different strands of feminism work together. Skipping phases, plunging into differences might leave important blurs within gender issues. Many feminists interviewed remarked on the need for simultaneity. Women have been confronted not with specic types of problems, in a chronological way, but with diverse and wide-ranging issues in an all-types-ofproblem way. Synchrony could be the answer or Romanian feminism could continue to offer rather diachronic answers.

Conclusion
Several general conclusions can be drawn for our research, both in terms of general avenues to be taken by Romanian feminism and in terms of Romanian feminisms relation to womens social exclusion. In terms of how the present feminist researchers and activists relate to womens social exclusion, further efforts should be put into understanding and addressing the issue. As Levitas noted: The danger of the inclusion/exclusion metaphor is that it evokes a dichotomous image of society, in which there are insiders and outsiders, and only the very marginal are a problem.48 Women as a group are difficult to envision on the outside, especially since, as shown earlier, the idea of women as a distinct group still raises difficult questions. A feminist discourse of social exclusion, yet to be fully developed in Romania, should take into consideration this very danger, especially since womens overinclusion in the family masks their exclusion from certain rights and services, a process underlined by the results of our research. A unied discourse concerning social exclusion, which would include problems faced by women in the labour market, in accessing healthcare, in maintaining and using social networks would result in a more coherent approach and, if the concepts Western history is to be of reference, nding a popular umbrella concept would ease an approach between feminist activists and researchers and Romanias larger social group of women.

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Short Biographies
Oana Blu has a Ph.D. in Political Science with a thesis on Gender and Political Interests in Contemporary Romania. She is teaching assistant at the Faculty of Journalism and Mass Communication Studies at the University of Bucharest, President of the feminist NGO FILIA: Centre for Curricular Development and Gender Studies. Her major published studies focus on feminist political theory and gender studies, with the main themes being gender political interests, womens political representation, reconciliation between work and family life, conicts between modernist and postmodernist feminism. She is co-author, coordinator and/or editor of several texts, among them Gender and Political Interests (2008), Equal Partners. Equal Competitors (2007), Gender and Daily Life (2007), Gender and Power. Lions share in Romanian Politics (2006). Alice Iancu holds a Ph.D. in Political Sciences with a thesis centred on Gender and Social Exclusion. Published articles include Conceptual Analysis of Social Exclusion in Gender and Political Interests. Theory and Practice (2008), The Gender Dimension of Social Exclusion in Blu, Oana (coord.), Equal Partners, Equal Competitors (2007), Gender and Power: The Valorisation and Devalorisation of Womens Work in Blu, Oana (coord.), Gender and Power: The Lions Share in Romanian Politics (2006). Alina Dragolea is a Ph.D. student in Political Science at the National School for Political Studies and Public Administration, with a thesis on the mechanisms of gender inequality on the labour market. She is teaching assistant at NSPSPA (teaching feminist political theories and transition and development) and project assistant for FILIA: Centre for Curricular Development and Gender Studies, working on projects concerning reconciliation between work and family life, the labour market and political representation. Published and co-authored articles include: Mechanisms and preferences on the labour market: a gendered analysis (in Gender and Political Interests, 2008); The gender dimension of the labour market (in Equal Partners. Equal Competitors, 2007). Bogdan Florian is currently a Ph.D. student in the nal stage at the National School for Political and Administrative Studies. He is also a research assistant at the Institute for Educational Sciences in Bucharest and teaching assistant at NSPAS. Recently he authored and co-authored: ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND EDUCATION. The Missing Link in International Development Theory and Practice, International Journal of Business and Globalisation, January 2008; Policies for Quality Assurance in Higher Education in Romania study; coordinator for Prof. Adrian Miroiu; Centrul Educatia 2000+, Soros Foundation, Bucharest, 2007; Das Hochschulwesen, in Rumnien (ed. Thede Kahl, Michael Metzeltin, Mihai Rzvan Ungureanu), LIT Verlag, Berlin, 2006.

ENDNOTES

Luki, Regulska and Zavirek, Introduction, p. 6. Dragolea, Dimensiunea de gen a pietei muncii (The Gender Dimension of the Labour Market), p. 25-78; Pasti, Ultima Inegalitate (The Last Inequality), p. 139-141, 156-168; Miroiu, Drumul ctre autonomie (The Road Towards Autonomy), p. 245-279. Magyari-Vincze, Romanian Gender Regimes and Womens Citizenship, p. 31; tefnescu, Dilema de gen a educaiei (The gender dilemma in education), p. 87-152. p. 157.

details on the conceptual contributions and debates of Romanian transition feminisms, see Iancu and Vlad, Theorising Gender in Romania during the Transition: Innovations and Mismatches, forthcoming in Gender and Culture, in GENDER. Zeitschrift fr Geschlecht, Kultur und Gesellschaft, Special Issue, 2011.
10 Maria Luiza Vasilescu interviewed Roma-

nian feminists in 2002, on the beginning of feminism in transition for her Master thesis in order to unravel the The Public and the Private History of Romanian Feminism.
11 In European Feminisms, 1700-1950: A Political

4 Pasti, Ultima Inegalitate (The Last Inequality),

Gal and Kligman, Politicile de gen n perioada post-socialist (Gender Politics in Post-Socialism), p. 77. Romanian women routinely perform 70-80 percent of all household tasks and are considered designated caretakers for dependents in the family. See the Gender Barometer conducted by the Gallup Institute: http:// www.gallup.ro/romana/poll_ro/releases_ro/ pr030411_ro/pr030411_ro.htm. For example, from 1991 to 2006, the number of state-funded kindergartens declined by more than 50 percent (Blu, 2007, 114-116). While Romanian feminism was practically nonexistent during the fty years of communist rule, important feminist organisations had been active during the nineteenth century and in the rst half of the twentieth century. This is why one cannot speak of Romanian feminism beginning after 1990, but rather re-emerging. Room-service feminism is a term coined by Mihaela Miroiu and was widely used by Romanian feminists. By room-service feminism, she referred to the import of gender-sensitive policies via the European Unions authority, without a previous acknowledgement of the genuine necessity of such laws, institutions and policies. (Miroiu, Drumul ctre autonomie [The Road Towards Autonomy], p. 257). For more

History, the historian Karen Offen writes about the amnesia of the generation of feminists in Europe who intended to start in the early 1970s from Year Zero, thus forgetting or ignoring the history of feminism (Offen, 2000, p. 3). Romanian feminism was again excluded from such analysis.
12 This historical recovery was possible due to the

tremendous work of a Romanian historian, Stefania Mihailescu. Stefania Mihailescu published three books on the history of Romanian feminism tracing documents, studies, statutes of the feminist Romanian organisations between 1838 and 1948 (Mihailescu 2002 and Mihailescu 2004).
13 Mihailescu, Din istoria feminismului romanesc.

Antologie de texte (1838-1929); [From the History of Romanian feminism. Anthology of texts (1838-1929)], p. 11-54.
14 Ibid., p. 30. 15 Ibid., p. 41. 16 Stratilescu, Situaia femeii n societate i n stat

(Womens situation within society and state), p. 224-225.

17 Eugenia de Reuss-Ianculescu (1865-1838)

founded the Emanciparea Femeii (Emancipation of Woman Organisation) and supported the federalisation of Romanian feminist associations (Mihilescu apud Miroiu, Dragomir, 2002, p. 224).

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18 De Reuss-Ianculescu, Femeia romn i politica

(The Romanian Woman and Politics) in Drepturile femeii (Womens Rights), 1913.
19 Miroiu, Gndul umbrei (The shadows thought),

p. 26.
20 For example, Mihaela Miroiu remarks that in

in order to have a more solid support for the hypotheses and answers found. We are approaching each topic both from quantitative and qualitative perspectives. For a more detailed description and denition of triangulation, see Berg, Bruce Lawrence, Qualitative Research Methods for the Social Sciences, p. 4-6.
28 The data was obtained through a national-

the early stages of transition feminism, it was oriented in a very Western and often unrealistic way. Foreign funding made the research agenda similar to the Western one for many years, without including anything, for example, about rural patriarchy or the tough patriarchy of Roma communities (Miroiu, Drumul ctre autonomie (The road towards autonomy), p. 257).
21 For example, the CNCSIS (National Centre

representative survey conducted as part of the CNCSIS (National Centre for Scientic Research in Higher Education) Project No. 964 Gen, interese politice i inserie european.
29 In 2009, in addressing social exclusion, the

hit by the fast economic changes that took place during the last twenty years, with the closure of the entire or part of the industrial employer, who was the only job provider for the entire city. Consequently, mass job losses happened almost overnight, with very little if any support from the state. Even though these events were not central to our research, their inuence upon individual lives was evident in our interviews.
36 Informally referred to as the family doctor. 37 Squires, Gender in Political Theory, p. 115. 38 Ibid., p. 246. 39 Miroiu, Drumul ctre autonomie (The road

improving the equal rights legislation. We noticed a rather alarming lack of juridical expertise among feminist activists. This is rather concerning especially since feminist NGOs and more generally oriented human rights NGOs seldom work together. In Romania, there is a rather active informal coalition of NGOs, The Antidiscrimination Coalition, where there are representatives of NGOs that support womens equal opportunities, Roma rights, rights of sexual minorities or human rights in general, but its power is limited.
44 Miroiu, Gndul umbrei (The shadows thought),

for Scientic Research in Higher Education) Project No. 964 Gen, interese politice i inserie european (Gender, political interests and European insertion), coordinated by professor Mihaela Miroiu, developed by SNSPA (the National School of Political Studies and Public Administration).
22 For example the Women and Men in Organisa-

European Union identied new areas of interest: child poverty, decent housing, discrimination and integration of people belonging to vulnerable groups, nancial exclusion and over-indebtedness. However, these remain secondary areas in social exclusion policy. For more details on social inclusion indicators and annual reports, see http://ec.europa.eu/employment_social/spsi/joint_reports_en.htm.
30 Levitas, The Inclusive Society? Social Exclusion

p. 26.
45 Offen, Dening Feminism: A Comparative

towards autonomy), p. 56.

40 Ibid., p. 56-83. 41 Arneil, Politics & Feminism, p. 186-187. 42 See also Graff, Lost Between the Waves?

Historical Approach, p. 76.

46 Acknowledgements go to Myra Marx Ferree for

her multiple questionings of feminisms during the CEU Summer School, Feminist Intersectionality and Political Discourse (July 2010).
47 Brown, The Politics of Individualism, p. 12-14;

tions study, conducted by the Centre for Equality as part of a PHARE-funded project.
23 To give just a few examples of such studies: The

and the New Labour; Silver, Social Exclusion and Social Solidarity: Three Paradigms, p. 5-6.
31 Daly and Saraceno, Social Exclusion and

The Paradoxes of Feminist Chronology and Activism in Contemporary Poland in Journal of International Womens Studies, vol. 4, April 2003.
43 As a side note, at the activist level, even if

Miroiu, Drumul ctre autonomie (The road towards autonomy), p. 13-19, 122-123 and 276-280; Miroiu, Communism Was a State Patriarchy, Not State Feminism, p. 198.
48 Levitas, The Idea of Social Inclusion.

Last Inequality (Pasti, 2003), Gender and Power. The Lions Share in Romanian Politics (Blu, ed.), The Black Book of Equal Opportunities between Men and Women (Grunberg, coord. 2006), Gender and Political Interests. Theory and Practice (Blu, Dragolea, Iancu, 2007), Equal Partners, Equal Competitors (Blu, Dragolea, Iancu, 2007).
24 Miroiu, Drumul ctre autonomie (The road

Gender Relations, p. 99; European Womens Lobby, Who Cares?, 2006, EWL Position Paper on Care Issues, 1.
32 Tobio, Leira, Triletti, Kinship and informal

several representatives of NGOs mentioned legislative problems concerning, for example, domestic violence, little work is done towards

http://www.ccsd.ca/events/inclusion/papers/ rlevitas.htm.

support: care resources for the rst generation of working mothers in Norway, Italy and Spain; Tobio and Triletti, Strategies, everyday practices and social change; Daly, Mary; Saraceno, Chiara, Social Exclusion and Gender Relations; Lewis, Jane; Siim, Birte.
33 Stnculescu and Berevoescu, Srac lipit, caut

towards autonomy), p. 257.

25 Bretherton, Gender mainstreaming and EU en-

largement: swimming against the tide?, p. 75.

26 Acknowledgements go to the BA and PhD

alt via! (Dirt Poor, Looking for a Different Life).

34 The data obtained through a national-

junior students working in different phases of the project: Ioana Vlad, tefan Colbu, Andreea Molocea, Valeriu Antonovici, Diana Neaga, Alexandra Florea, Alexandra Ana, Tudorina Mihai, Ana Ghica, Alexandru Ciparidis. Special acknowledgements go to Professor Mihaela Miroiu, who supervised the entire project.
27 For more theoretical support, we could de-

representative survey conducted as part of the CNCSIS (National Centre for Scientic Research in Higher Education) Project No. 964 Gen, interese politice i inserie european.
35 This mono-industrial prole is a rather impor-

scribe our methodology as a sort of triangulation that combines different methodological approaches and data collection techniques

tant element for describing Romanian cities, which have been developing around a single industrial giant employer. During the communist period, such cities were developed in an effort to quickly develop a national industry. Most of these cities have been the hardest

S E R B I A , B O S N I A A N D H E R Z E G OV I N A , M O N T E N E G R O

Single Parents in the Western Balkans: Between Emotions and Market Marina Blagojevi

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A B ST RA C T

This study presents the ndings from a research project on single parenthood conducted in three countries of the Western Balkans (Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro). It aims at mapping life conditions and coping strategies of single parents, as well as the institutional environment, existing public policies and their effectiveness related to the issue. The research is based on a series of complementary methods: quantitative, qualitative and participatory. The institutional analysis focuses on gender mechanisms, relevant ministries, statistical offices and centres for social work. The analysis of single parenthood from an individual perspective is based on in-depth interviews. It looks into the origins of the single parent situation, living conditions, experiences with institutional support, relationships with the other parent, existing support networks, differences between single mothers and single fathers, labour market and employment situation, time poverty and stress experiences, the experience of loneliness, life satisfaction and happiness. The main conclusion is that the extremely weak institutional support for single parents is compensated by private strategies of building strong familial and kinship support networks.

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We know that all the budgets in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BaH) are under the monitoring of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and others. We get information at the beginning about how much we can use for those categories. You cannot build capitalist society and include emotions. (Ministry for Social Affairs, Republika Srpska, RS) In the Centre for social work, not only were they not kind to me at all, but they also told me, when they sent him an invitation letter: We cannot make anyone come to look after their children. (Single mother, Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, FBaH) The child is in focus, not single parents. By helping the child you help single parents. (Gender Centre, FBaH) If single parenthood was separated as a special vulnerable category, a large space would be opened for manipulation. People would divorce and falsely present their marital status, just to get the entitlement to receive some privileges and benets. (Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs, Serbia) I am not tired, but I do not have time to sleep. (Single mother, Serbia) How do you explain to a blind child what her mother looked like? (Single father, Serbia) This study presents the ndings of a research project on single parenthood in the Western Balkans (Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro). It describes life conditions and coping strategies of single parents, as well as the institutional environment (gender mechanisms, related ministries, national statistical offices and centres for social work). Furthermore, it looks into existing public policies and analyses their effectiveness connected to the issue.1 Although single parents are numerous and represent a large, vulnerable group (estimates are that 10-15 percent of households in the countries discussed here are single parent households, among which the percentage of single mothers ranges from 70-85), the problem is still largely invisible, under-researched and mostly ignored by public policies. This study is exploratory and policy-oriented. It is based on a series of complementary research methods: quantitative, qualitative and participatory, including indepth and focus group interviews, document and demographic analyses. In the rst part of the study, the research background, theoretical framework and research methodology are being laid out. The study is led by the theoretical assumption that there are

two interrelated transition processes the transition of parenthood, and the transition of the societies in question. Furthermore, during transition, common dynamics of retraditionalisation, re-patriarchalisation and re-familiarisation slow down and even partly reverse the modernisation of family life. Along with it goes a process of de-development, which decreases material security and institutional support, thus making single parents particularly vulnerable to the hardships of everyday life. In the second part of the study, the Western Balkan societies are analysed by emphasising the institutional environment (gender mechanisms, respective ministries and centres for social work). The main sources for this part of the research are country reports based on interviews within the institutions in question, as well as analyses of relevant documents. These country reports reveal that single parents are either non-existing in national documents and strategies, or, if present, only few concrete actions have so far been undertaken with regards to them. Official statistical sources show an evident lack of exact data on single-parent households, and an adequate legal denition is missing. However, according to the available data it can be estimated that the proportion of households with single parents is 10 to 15 percent (with and without the extended family), and that the proportion of single mothers ranges from 70 to 85 percent, compared to that of single fathers ranging from 15 to 30 percent, depending on the social and cultural setting. The third part of the study provides a picture of single parenthood from the experiential perspective of individual single parents. It is based on a series of in-depth interviews with single parents in the three countries of the region. It presents a set of phenomena related to single parents everyday life as for instance the origin of the single parent situation, living conditions, experiences with institutional support, relationship with the other parent, existing support networks, differences between single mothers and single fathers, labour market and employment situation, time poverty and stress experiences, experiences of loneliness, life satisfaction and happiness. In the nal part of the study, the main ndings are discussed. Regarding the institutional level it can be concluded that in all three countries the problem of single parenthood is slipping away from any systematic government activity or policy. On an individual level, single parents are not only facing inadequate living conditions, which are primarily related to the fact that they are usually the sole provider, but also to the lack of institutional support. Without being able to rely on institutions, single parents develop private coping strategies. The most common strategy applied by single parents to cope with the problem of the absence of the other parent is to live in extended families. While enabling survival and support, living in extended families at the same time limits freedom and privacy. The most typical problems of single parents in comparison to coupled parents are besides vulnerability to material poverty time poverty, stress and loneliness. However, single parents still succeed in keeping their lives in balance by enjoying high psychological rewards from parenthood. Gender differences between single mothers and single fathers have proven to be except for the causes of single parenting only secondary in comparison to the differences in relation to

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highly individualised living situations. The determining social factor in the experience of single parents clearly is not gender, but rather the caring responsibility and caring work involved in every parenthood situation.

as a deviance from normal family rather than as a widespread phenomenon, or a new social trend and an emerging new norm. The phenomenon of single parenthood is not only gendered but it is also highly diversied along the lines of rural/urban, social class and ethnicity. This research is sketching some of those differences and intersections. Although some major causes of single parenthood could be identied (widowhood, divorce, birth out of wedlock, long-term migration), there are also other situations, as for example the mothers mental sickness, the fathers imprisonment or bigamy. In addition to those differences there are also differences in living conditions, housing standards, employment, age, number of children, health status of single parents (disability) and so forth. These differences create needs for complex policy interventions. Based on statistical sources, our research also provides a rough overview over quantitative aspects of the situation. Single mothers, as shown by the research, are clearly dominating within the category of single parents, while single fathers usually represent but a small minority. Single motherhood is much more widespread throughout the sub-region because of several factors: the patriarchal stereotype that it is the best for a child to live with the mother after divorce; men often do not insist on taking care of the child due to the traditional male gender role as main provider; high male mortality and the fact that due to the war, many women became single mothers. Although the problem of single parents, and especially single mothers, has recently been recognised by some official documents that relate to gender policies in countries of the Western Balkans (Poverty Reduction Strategies, National Plan of Actions for Women, Millennium Goals), there is still a wide gap between the documents and actual measures. The author of this research has been engaged as a gender expert in dening and integrating gender policies into the documents in question throughout the sub-region, and she personally insisted on dening single parents and single mothers particularly as one of the most vulnerable categories. However, the major problem in advocating for the rights of single parents is the lack of knowledge and evidence about their actual situation in the three Western Balkan countries. Therefore, this research is meant to provide knowledge and data, which will hopefully push forward state policies in this regard. Single parents are often not adequately represented in large surveys as it is statistically difficult to trace or locate them as they often live in extended families. However, social entitlements relate only to those single parents who are at the very bottom of the social stratication ladder. Exactly for those reasons, many single parents who are employed and live as professionals in urban areas, who are exposed to the high risk of impoverishment, are often simply left out of any tangible help from the state (i.e., in Serbia, there is no tax exemption for single parents). Another widespread problem is that under the conditions of high unemployment and a very developed grey economy, many fathers quite often either do not pay alimony at all, or largely

Research Background
This research project on single parents in the Western Balkans is looking not only into life conditions and coping strategies of single parents, but also analyses the institutional environment as well as existing public policies with regard to their effectiveness related to the issue. The project was designed to be both exploratory and policy-oriented. It focuses on single parents in three countries: Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Montenegro. Besides sharing many commonalities, the three countries also have strong cooperative links in the eld of gender policies by means of gender mechanisms. It therefore was expected that the research ndings and recommendations based on them could be widely shared throughout the sub-region. The research samples included both female and male single parents in order to explore the gender-dimension in discourses and practices, as well as in institutional responses to single parenthood. Single parenthood in this research is approached as an important site of both transformation and reinforcement of traditional gender roles and identities, and therefore as a kind of specic litmus for evaluating the scope and quality of state interventions into family life, based on the principle of gender equality. Although single parents represent one of the most vulnerable groups in the Western Balkans, which has suffered from both economic deprivation and an often dramatic lack of social and state support, they have so far remained a largely unexplored research subject. This can partly be explained by funding strategies of international donors, who have nanced all kinds of gender-related research but have not shown interest for this topic. Single parenthood has therefore stayed out of focus since it did not t into either of the two typical gender-related subjects in countries in transition: 1) womens victimhood (women victims of domestic violence and war violence, trafficking, ethnic minority women and sexual minorities), or 2) women as development agents (unemployed women, women leaders, women entrepreneurs). On the other hand, single parents themselves have remained mostly silent, since until recently they hardly had any organisation representing their interests. Womens NGOs did not bring the issue forward either, because of an overrepresentation of single women (but not single mothers) within their structures bearing a certain level of blindness towards problems of single mothers and even motherhood in general. Problems faced by single mothers have so far mostly been addressed via issues of poverty, or family violence with the risk of reducing the complexity of single parenthood to one dimension. Due to the variety of life situations and conditions of single parents, it was also difficult to classify them as a group. Last but not least, within patriarchal settings single parenthood is seen more

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underreport their income, thus minimising the alimony payment. Legal mechanisms have proven to be still largely ineffective and slow, which results in a high risk of poverty for single mothers and their children. In the still very patriarchal societies of the Western Balkans, and especially in rural areas, where family is the basic unit of economic survival and the basis for social recognition, single parents, and particularly single mothers, are facing some additional restrictions: stigmatisation, limitations of their social space and communication, social rejection and strong patriarchal control, even from their former partners. Single mothers are expected to sacrice for their children endlessly, otherwise they lose respect and their position both in the community and in relation to their own children. From the perspective of gender and family policies it is important not only to ensure adequate material support for single parents, but also to understand through coaching, counselling and training of single parents what kind of support could be useful for their personal and economic empowerment, as well as for successful and satisfactory parenting. Theoretical Framework Single parenthood is a complex research problem which is situated between the sociology of family, social demography, gender studies and gender policies. Moreover, as a social phenomenon, single parenthood in the Western Balkans could be approached from the perspective of two processes: the transition of parenthood, and the social transition of the countries in the region. These two processes are interrelated and combined with individual and circumstantial factors, thus creating the framework for daily practices and experiences of single parents. The three countries covered by this research Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro and Serbia were parts of the former Yugoslavia, which before the wars was a medium-developed European country with a high level of social welfare. However, the economic crises, which started at the beginning of the 1980s, led to the conicts and wars and nally to the dissolution of Yugoslavia in the 1990s, largely inuenced all aspects of everyday life, including parenthood. Research on marriage and parenthood from an everyday-life perspective, conducted at the end of the 1980s in the former Yugoslavia, has shown that many patterns of everyday life were going through steady transformation, which could be denoted as the modernisation of everyday life, marked by a movement away from traditional values.2 In the domain of parenthood, these changes towards modernisation included two dominant processes: 1) the individualisation of parenthood, and 2) the decrease of alienation from parenthood. In this research, individualisation was explored through individual differences in relation to the number of desired children, the timing of

parenthood, or separation of parenthood from marriage and acceptance of alternative types of parenthood (non-parenthood as a choice, adoption and parenthood in cohabitation, homosexuality and articial insemination) and decreasing gender differences. Alienation in parenthood was explored through focusing on the following issues: the gap between the desired and realised number of children; motivation towards parenthood (traditional vs. modern); satisfaction through and by parenting; family planning or bodily control of reproduction. The main conclusion of this large research was that, while the process of modernisation of parenthood was evident, especially within the younger and urban population, the general crises of everyday life resulting from the economic and deepening social crises in the former Yugoslavia, caused not only the slowdown of these processes, but actually encouraged reverse processes.3 The second process the transition of societies and economies of now independent states in the Western Balkans has equally slowed down the process of modernisation of family life and parenthood. During transition, the processes of re-traditionalisation, re-patriarchalisation and re-familiarisation took place as argued by Milic (1995), Gal and Kligman (2000a, 2000b) and Blagojevi (1999, 2004). These authors have widely discussed the fact that transition is closely connected to the strengthening of patriarchal ideologies, that it goes along with an increasing withdrawal of women to the private sphere, with increasing problems in womens employment, with the strengthening of family solidarity due to the pressures of survival economies, and with increasing misogyny. Above all, due to the structural adjustment policies, family policies were largely reduced, like elsewhere in Eastern Europe, as shown by Gal and Kligman (2000b), Robila (2004), Sirkku, Holli and Daskalova (2006). Looking back on two decades of transition in Eastern Europe and the Balkans it is becoming more and more evident that there are strong backward trends, present in both discourses and practices of everyday life. Single parenthood is faced with more hardships and obstacles than could have been predicted earlier. However, this phenomenon is not unique, nor surprising. It is, in fact, largely a consequence of the process of de-development of the semi-periphery. As Meurs and Ranasinghe (2003) have argued, de-development refers to structural change which, in economic terms, is related to the depreciation of human, institutional and infrastructural capital in countries in transition. In social terms, it is related to increased poverty, increased social insecurity, decreased social protection and stability, institutional destruction, anomie, increased crime and violence, population crises, increased mortality and even barbarisation through violent conicts (Blagojevic, 2009). Both of these processes, the transition of parenthood and the transition of societies, with strongly pronounced reverse trends, frame the problem of single parenthood in the Western Balkans. Instead of being largely a consequence of modernisation of processes, which had their impact on families through increasing individual choices

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and through a higher level of state support for families and children single parenthood in countries of the Western Balkans appears to be most of all the consequence of a lack of individual choice, a solution when other solutions do not exist, or simply a negative, or even tragic individual destiny. On a phenomenological level though, it appears to be a combination of different situations, with only few cases resulting from free choice and in full life satisfaction, being completely separated from a destiny. Methodology This research is based on a series of complementary research methods: quantitative, qualitative and participatory, including interviews, focus groups, document analysis and demographic analysis. It also builds on existing surveys (Gender Barometers) in the three countries of the region.4 The sample of single parents included twenty-ve semi-structured interviews with single parents (BaH 10, Serbia 10, Montenegro 5), both women and men. The general recommendation for the sampling given to the interviewers was to include as many different cases as possible, with regard to urban/rural settlement, profession and social status, and major sources/causes of the single parenthood situation. The interviews usually lasted 2-4 hours, and the questionnaires were lled out with the help of tapes or extensive notes. Additionally to this work with single parents, a team of research assistants collected data following a country questionnaire, an instrument which was constructed to discipline information related to demography, institutional environment, NGOs and the media. There were four country reports: for the Republic of Serbia, the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Republic of Srpska, and Montenegro.5 This enabled structured comparisons of the three countries in question. Samples of different practitioners included: state administrators, representatives of gender mechanisms, judges, lawyers, social workers, and activists of different womens NGOs (related to violence against women, particularly). The methodology applied in this research was a combination of qualitative sociological- and policy research, with the aim to enable insights into the phenomenon that would be both heuristic and would have the potential for practical, policy application.

However, many of the interviewees in different institutions covered by this research were raising the issue of a non-existent denition, meaning the absence of a legal denition. This obstacle is regularly cited as a major reason why there is a lack of knowledge and awareness of the problem. In Centres for Social Work, in ministries, and in statistical institutions, the absence of a legal denition was mentioned over and over again as a major reason for the overall invisibility of the problem in the public, and consequently, for missing policy measures. However, the analysis of the discourses of different social actors in those institutions mainly discovered deep patriarchal prejudices against single mothers and a reluctance to see them as a part of the population that is under high risk of poverty and also facing many other problems. Single parenthood is largely a marginalised issue in public policies, not only due to a lack of clear denition, but also due to a set of other reasons. There is an overall patriarchal expectation that sacrice for children is normal; that family must be sustained at all costs, and that divorce and separation are mainly the responsibility of women who did not sacrice enough for the family to survive. Furthermore, the issue of single parenthood is often, from an institutional perspective, reduced to the issue of nancial support from the state; while other aspects or difficulties of single parenthood are mostly ignored. In all three countries representatives of different institutions have stated that single parents are covered by all existing types of nancial benets for parents, and that the state does not have the capacity to do anything in addition to that normal coverage. In other words, our research has disclosed a deep connection6 between the absence of a legal denition, patriarchal ideology related to mothers and family, the absence of specic and adequate benets for single parents, and the overall invisibility of the problem. Realities The real everyday life of single parents in the Western Balkans has rarely been an object of serious research. Since single parents are not officially recognised as a specic category, and moreover as a vulnerable group, statistical data are also rare or based on surveys which have methodological limitations. However, even in those surveys, there are indications that single parent families do indeed have lower living standards than other types of families. According to the Household Budget Survey (HBS) in BaH from 2007, single parent families have worse living conditions (size and quality of housing), they less frequently own the apartment or house they live in, their homes are not as well equipped, and they are less likely to own cars than two-parent families. The average expenditure of single parent families is 1,355.06 KM7 per month, while the monthly average expenditure of complete families is 1,610.99 KM and 2,039.10 KM with a maximum of two children. If a woman is head of the household, the poverty rate is 22.4 percent in comparison to 17.3 percent in the case of a male head of the household. Finally, the poverty rate for single parents is 17.9 percent while it is 13.3 percent for complete families with one child. However, although these data point into the direction of the differences

Single Parents in the Contexts of Western Balkan Societies

Struggling with the Denition In this research, single parents are dened as single (unmarried and noncohabitating) parents who live with their dependent children, either alone or within an extended family. Single parenthood is usually a consequence of divorce, (long) separation, birth out of wedlock, or widowhood. This is an operational denition of single parenthood, which clearly denes who becomes a single parent on the basis of a few key life events.

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between single parent families and complete ones, the scope of the differences is most probably underestimated due to the methodological limitations of the survey. Methodological limitations in HBS surveys derive from the sampling, denition shortcomings and focus limitations (expenditures and incomes). An especially problematic issue is the denition of the head of the household, which in many countries has revealed an upside-down representation of reality. Not only is this concept anachronistic and as such reinforcing the gender hierarchy within the household, but it is applied to cover very different realities. For example, head of household can be the wife of a migrant, even though he remains the main provider for the family. In egalitarian families, head of household can be a subjective statement depending on who is the respondent. It is also a sensitive issue in cultures, where seniority usually dominates the gender hierarchy. However methodologically limited, the HBS surveys clearly show that single-parent households are more prone to poverty and that, consequently, children from those households suffer more in terms of satisfaction of their material needs and conditions of their upbringing. However, material conditions are only one side of the extremely multidimensional problem of single parenthood. Scope of the Problem Since there is a lack of legal denition and the statistical category of single parents is not really recognised, it is not possible to give exact numbers. However, some estimates can be made on the basis of HBS surveys. In BaH, for example, there were 10.9 percent single-parent households in 2007.8 Out of them, 7.5 percent were households which consisted only of a parent and children, while 3.4 percent of the single parents lived in extended families. Single mothers made up 81 percent and single fathers 19 percent of the single parents. According to estimates there were 300,000 single parent families in Serbia in 2007.9 The number of single parents is largely, but not exclusively, dependent on the number of divorces. For example, in BaH, there were 1,826 cases of divorce in 2007, and in Montenegro 453 cases.10 Not all of those marriages were with children and amongst those with children, not all with dependent children and in a number of divorced marriages there was more than one child. What these gures roughly point out is the annual increase of possible cases of single parenthood, which accumulate from one calendar year to another. However, it is important to note that the numbers of divorces is not steadily growing, as might have been expected. This is not a consequence of higher marital stability, but of the fact that the general population and the married population in particular are intensively aging in those societies, and the older a population gets the less it is inclined to divorce. Besides, the population in the region tends to marry later and have children later, which in demographic terms decreases the chances of divorce. In addition, a social environment in transition, with its strong

trends of re-patriarchalisation, re-traditionalisation and re-familiarisation, is not in favour of divorce, especially within the context of a survival economy, where a large number of couples rather accommodate to the situation instead of divorcing. Statistical offices in all three countries are collecting data on who gets custody over the children after divorce. In BaH in 2007, mothers got custody over 441 out of 650 children, which corresponds to 67.8 percent, whereas fathers got custody over 209 children, which equals 32.2 percent. There is a trend towards higher involvement of fathers than before. In Montenegro in 2007, custody over children was given to mothers in 85.3 percent, and only in 10.0 percent of the cases to fathers. In Serbia in 2006, out of 3,530 children, 81.1 percent continued to live with their mothers and 18.9 percent with the fathers. On the basis of these gures, one could estimate that in the three countries of the region the proportion of households with single parents is 10-15 percent (with and without the extended family), and that the proportion of single mothers ranges from 70-85 percent, and of single fathers from 15-30 percent, depending on the social and cultural setting. The country reports have disclosed quite different attitudes of employees in the three countries concerning the data collection. In statistical offices in the Federation of BaH and in Montenegro, employees were not only very well informed, but also interested in the question of how the present statistics can be improved and obstacles removed. In the Statistical Office of Serbia in comparison, there was a very low level of interest in the issue, and experts were stating that they do not have data and that no official request had yet been made for this kind of data.11 This difference is not coincidental. It reects the attitude of gender mechanisms and related ministries in different countries towards the problem of single parents. While this research has been welcomed in the BaH Statistical Office and in the Statistical Offices of FBaH and RS, in Serbia employees in the Statistical Office were reluctant to fully cooperate.12 This research has shown that a systematic collection of data on single parents and recording of the relevant changes is missing in all three countries. Generally speaking, statistics about single parents could be gathered in several ways: 1. through a population census, which discloses the composition of households and their distribution over the general population;

2. through special surveys, such as the HBS survey; 3. through databases which could be kept within the institutions, such as ministries, and which could give evidence of cases of single parenthood.

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All those methods have advantages and shortcomings. Also, they are all faced with problems of accuracy (since the situation of single parenthood is due to family cycles changing fast in individual cases), and of privacy. Still, it seems that the creation of a database is the necessary tool for policy making. The creation of such a database requires legal regulations related to the gathering of data, privacy and ownership of a database. Since the issue of single parenthood is multidimensional, different ministries might have to be involved (education, family, social affairs, etc.), as well as different institutions (for instance courts). This database could be used for additional statistical analysis, as well as for concrete policy interventions. The only way to adjust measures to the diversied needs of single parents is to create and regularly update such a database through the network of Centres for Social Work (CSWs).

to consciousness rising, both with regard to single parents and regarding the general public. Both Gender Centres recognise a high level of strain single parents are exposed to, and the need for psychosocial, legal and educational support, besides material support. It is also important that in gender mechanisms in BaH, it is well understood that the needs of children and single parents are not identical, and that policy measures should be designed with respect to this difference.14 In Serbia, in the National Strategy for the Improvement of the Position of Women and Advancement of Gender Equality (2008-2015), single mothers are specically recognised as a vulnerable category of women. However, the state mechanisms for gender equality (gender machinery) is not undertaking any specic measures, nor does it have specic projects to deal with the problem. In the interviews it was repeatedly stated that the main problem is a lack of statistical data. It was also stated that one of the major problems is the inadequate implementation of otherwise good laws. While the gender machinery on the state level does not show a high level of interest in the issue regardless of the fact that single mothers are dened as a vulnerable category in the National Strategy, the Secretary for Gender Equality of the Vojvodina Province has a proactive strategy towards single mothers. Concrete activities are mainly related to measures for employment and self-employment.15 The Gender Equality Office in the Government of Montenegro has recognised the issue of single parents and included it in its Plan of Action for Gender Equality (PAPRR 2008-2012). In regional comparison, the Office made the most detailed plan for concrete measures targeting single parents, in fact single mothers. The measures include: creation of an INFO Centre for the collection of data related to single mothers in Montenegro; creation of the rst shelter for unmarried single mothers and their children; training of administrators to increase knowledge of and sensibility for the issue; a set of measures to support education of teenage single mothers, as well as continuous education after completion of schooling; organising campaigns related to the issue; and nally, creation of a Fund for Alimony, which will enable nancial intervention to support single parents. The Gender Office will support the rst already opened shelter for single mothers and their children.16 Ministries and National Development Strategies In the Development Strategies of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (FBaH), there is nothing that relates to single parents and single mothers. In the Republic of Srpska (RS), within the new Ministry for Family, Youth and Sport, single parenthood is recognised as an important issue, closely connected to both population policy and social policy. However, in the interview it was stated that there is still very low recognition of the relevance of family problems. This could be seen as a logical consequence of the dominant political discourse in BaH, which is focused more on

Institutional Environment
Gender Mechanisms and National Strategies for Gender Equality According to the interview conducted in the Agency for Gender Equality a major gender mechanism in BaH single parents are recognised as a vulnerable group/ category, yet due to limited capacities and resources, not much has been done to support them. Single parents are not included as a specic category in the Gender Action Plan, except in a few activities where single mothers were mentioned (i.e., activities related to civilian war victims). However, the Gender Action Plan will be mainstreamed with activities specically designed for vulnerable groups, including single parents. It is understood that the issue requires a multidisciplinary approach and may not be reduced to an economic dimension. Therefore, the Agency advocates that different institutions should apply different, but coordinated measures.13 In interviews with the representatives of the Gender Centre of FBaH and the Gender Centre of the RS, it became evident that both institutions have a high sensibility for the issues, but limited capacities at the moment to undertake some more complex activities. It was also evident that those institutions understand the full complexity of single parenthood, and are not inclined to reduce it to simply a poverty issue. On the contrary, it was emphasised that single parenthood implied problems of quality of life of both children and of single parents, of cooperation of parents after divorce, problems of alimony, lack of employment, conict between work and parenting, prejudices of the environment, inadequate organisation of day-care centres and so forth. Also, in some cases, laws are discriminatory towards unmarried mothers and children born out of wedlock in comparison to children born in marriage (i.e., in the case of death of a father children from married parents have material support until the end of schooling, while in the case of single parents, there is no material support). According to the interviews, there is high awareness of the necessity to undertake actions related

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ethnic issues than on everyday-life hardships of the general population. The Ministry has a Strategy for the Development of Family in the Republic of Srpska.17 In Montenegro, in the Strategy for Poverty Reduction and Social Inclusion (2007-2011), single parents are not mentioned. In the National Action Plan for Children (2004-2010) single mothers are mentioned in one instance, where it is stated that single mothers could be entitled to be housed in foster families, if they have children younger than three years old.18 The problem of single parents in Serbia on a governmental level is addressed in the National Poverty Reduction Strategy. The government of Serbia has established an Office for the Implementation of PRSP,19 and there is an office under the responsibility of the Vice-Prime Minister which coordinates the implementation of PRSP. This office is an umbrella entity, which interacts with many different institutions and directly inuences legal changes. It is aware of the problems of single parents to a much larger extent than it has been the case anywhere else so far, but it is mainly focussing on the issue of alimony. Much effort was made to resolve this issue and suggestions of legal changes articulated accordingly. However, the office has recently been emphasising social inclusion as a much more complex approach to vulnerable groups, which also includes single parents.20 Centres for Social Work In all three countries, the institutions which are mostly dealing with the concrete problems of single parents are the Centres for Social Work. Although the network of the centres is well developed (each municipality has a centre), their presence is a necessary though insufficient precondition for success of their engagement. Representatives of the centres complained in the interviews about work conditions (number of employees too small, limited resources, etc.), the lack of an adequate legal regulation, the absence of clear procedures to deal with the specic problems, and the lack of a database which would facilitate adequate monitoring and intervention. In reality, single parents often cannot get the help they are entitled to according to the law in all three countries, and employees in the centres mostly feel helpless about it.21 The employees of the Centres for Social Work emphasised the problem of alimony, and the fact that single parents mostly women simply do not succeed in getting material support from the other parent. Due to insufficient legal support and without effective law enforcement, they feel mainly helpless. For example, according to the employees in the Centre in Sarajevo, a parent who avoids their legal obligation to pay alimony could, according to the law, be put into jail for up to three years. However, this almost never happens. Furthermore, they pointed out that even after divorce, parents usually continue to have conicts regardless of what is in the best interest of

the child. Considering the multitude of problems, social workers believe that there is an urgent need for education, counselling and training of single parents, as well as for parents in general.22 These are the common problems faced by CSWs in all three countries. In Bosnia and Herzegovina, due to the complex administrative organisation of the state, however, the differences in the treatment of single parents are highly pronounced depending on municipality or canton. It is not only about the single parents, but here, there are many issues of social protection which are very differently dened [in different municipalities or cantons, M.B.]. So, now we have a situation that a person in one street receives 40 KM, and the person in the next street receives 100 KM, depending on what municipality, canton or entity s/he belongs to. (BaH, social worker) Such differences clearly contribute to a growing sense of social injustice and the erosion of social trust into the institutions in BaH, leaving single parents isolated in their small worlds of everyday-life struggles for survival. Our research has shown that employees of the Centres in the absence of a clear regulation and procedures to help single parents differ signicantly amongst themselves in how they see the problem and how they actually approach single parents. Statements of single parents have revealed that many of the social workers are not empathetic enough. However, there are also opposite cases: The one who gets the child according to our regulation, but does not get alimony, because we have irresponsible people and irresponsible parents, becomes a victim. Nobody asks him/her: can s/he, does s/he have the means? And: how will s/he do it, what will s/he do? (Social worker, BaH) An alimony fund for single parents and their children who are in need of nancial support, does not exist in any of the countries. In BaH, for example, the law supports the creation of such a fund, but in reality it still does not exist. In Serbia, the situation is even worse, since there is an open rejection of the idea of an alimony fund. The official explanation is that the state cannot take over the parents responsibility and go through the lengthy and complicated legal procedures to get refunding from the parent who escapes the payment. Instead, single parents usually mothers are not simply encouraged to start legal procedures, but in Serbia, as was strongly pronounced in the interviews with the professionals in the Ministry, mothers have even a legal responsibility to go to court and sue fathers for alimony.23 In other words, single mothers need to sue single fathers and go through absurd, long and often humiliating procedures, in order not to be held legally responsible alone, while the state feels

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powerless to prosecute irresponsible fathers who do not pay alimony. This paradox clearly shows how a patriarchal ideology dominates state institutions. It also shows how the cynical neoliberal ideas about the responsibility of citizens become effective, regardless of their real power and means. From the point of view of state bureaucrats in Serbia, single mothers should do the impossible, which even the state with its apparatus and means is incapable of doing.

important role in dening everyday-life strategies and the overall quality of life. In some cases, children have different fathers, a situation which creates additional difficulties. In spite of all the differences between them, single parents altogether share a similar life situation. The caring function which dominates their lives clearly puts limits to their life possibilities. Moreover, gender differences come only second after their caring responsibilities as male or female single parents. Living Conditions Single parents are quite often faced with economic hardship. They are often sole providers, or unemployed, not owning a house or apartment, not receiving alimony or benets they are entitled to. They often solve the problem of poverty by ignoring their own needs, even in case of health issues. I am struggling. Here I have a toothache for two weeks, but I swear to my life, I am reluctant to give 15 KM for pulling it out I am keeping the money for the child to have it when (he needs it) in school. I swear to Allah, it hurts me, but if I give 15 KM, what will I give to him? I have to give him some money for the doughnut to eat at school and (for giving) something to the others I cannot have my tooth pulled out, not to mention other things. (FBaH, single mother of three) Most often, single parents escape the risks of poverty by moving back to their parents home. In extended families they can combine different sources of income, share caring responsibilities and household chores and also nd necessary emotional support. The most difficult one is the situation of single parents who work and live alone with children, and who are tied in a role conict. Regardless of whether they are women or men, single parents living conditions are shaped by parental responsibilities and living arrangements. How do I live? It is a hard question. A person should not ask too much from life. I am like that, I do not ask too much from life, but I would not wish this kind of life to anyone, at least not to a friend. It is really hard, really hard There is a house, work, child, school you know that. You have to wash and cook and much more. And I have to do it all by myself, only by myself. (FBaH, single father of one) Institutional Support When asked what they think about the support they get from the state, almost all respondents replied that there is no support.

Single Parents from the Individual Perspective

How Does One Become a Single Parent? Although some main sources/causes of single parenthood can be identied (widowhood, divorce, birth out of wedlock, long-term migration), there are also other situations which can lead to single parenthood, such as, e.g., the mental illness of a mother, or imprisonment or bigamy of a father. In addition, irresponsible behaviour of one of the partners, long-term unemployment (in the case of men), indelity, separation (voluntary and involuntary for the other partner), alcoholism, and quite often violent behaviour, can be sources of separation and, consequently, of single parenthood. One of the major reasons, although not the only one, was indelity of my former husband. He left the children and me, and completely neglected his duties as a father and a husband. He did not come home regularly, or give money for support. Sometimes he would come home at 6 oclock in the morning just to sleep for a few hours and then leave again. (Montenegro, single mother of two) When I met him, I did not know that he was married, because I met him as a good, nice and honest single man. We fell in love, which was really normal, since he was so good. When he said he had a family it was too late since I was already pregnant. (Montenegro, single mother of one) I had a very beautiful marriage and I became a widow seven years ago. My husband was killed in a car accident. Our children were 10, 7 and 2 years of age at that time. The youngest son does not remember his father. (Montenegro, single mother of three) In addition to those mentioned here, there are also other relevant, huge differences between single parents: in age, health status (dis-/ability), education, employment, social background, ethnicity (whether they belong to a vulnerable group such as Roma, for example), urban/rural location, family situation, social capital, earning capacities, and so forth. Living arrangements and the number of children also play an

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The state does not have an idea of what it looks like to bring up a child. (Serbia, single mother of one) Most of the interviewed parents stated that they have never received any help or support from the state. With a few exceptions, they mostly feel ignored by state institutions, including Centres for Social Work. In fact, only those single parents who are in an extremely difficult material position get some help eventually, whereas the great majority does not qualify for help. Sometimes, parents learn about their rights only accidentally, when they encounter some good willing professional at the Centre for Social Work or the Employment Agency, who helps them get some of the necessary information. Even when they or their child/ren are clearly entitled to some social benets, single parents often face long, confusing, humiliating procedures to realise their own or their child/rens rights. For that family pension I fought for two years. My wife was employed as a teacher. After her death, in her school they told me that we have the right to a pension. Then I went to the Agency for Social Insurance and they asked for more documents. I also had to pay some taxes, because my wifes employer had not paid them for my wife. When I collected all the documents and paid everything I waited another six months. Whenever I would go there, they would say next week, until I found a connection. Then they called me immediately. (Serbia, single father of one) From different interviews it became apparent that single parents are facing highly corrupted institutional settings, in which they need to pay extra money or nd a connection to realise some of their legal rights. Also, the procedures are so complicated and benets so small that single parents who are already facing time-poverty simply cannot cope. If they are employed, they cannot simply leave their work to deal with administrative procedures. It is also disturbing that when confronted with sudden needs (due to the death of a partner, sickness of a parent or a child) they cannot easily get institutional help, or it is delayed beyond reason. Single parents are also more sensitive than coupled parents to inadequate organisational setups of kindergartens and schools. Kindergartens mostly work only until 4.30 p.m., even though the daily working time has largely changed in all three countries, and parents usually work until 5 or 6 p.m. The same problem exists with school working hours, and children tend to spend time alone at home until their parents return from work. This creates not only additional stress for employed single parents, but it demands an urgent solution. Women professionals who are single parents and who were top earners in the sample found solution in employing hired help. However, the majority of single parents cannot afford that kind of help. The inadequate organisation of kindergartens and schools also puts children at higher risk, especially in urban areas.

Relationship with the Other Parent One of the main problems that single parents pointed out is their communication with the other parent. Interviews have shown that divorced fathers are limiting their engagements with children in every respect, and that most of them are unreliable. They often avoid paying alimony and spending time with their children. They rarely show any initiative to keep contact with their children, and it is usually mothers who insist on this contact. This often prolongs the humiliation and suffering of single mothers. It also puts them in a very delicate position towards the children. The most difficult thing for me is that I cannot rely on the father of my son. He is an alcoholic. For example, once I asked him to come to help me take care of our son at a concert in Kolarac [concert hall in Belgrade, M.B.]. But he came totally drunk, so I had to take care of him, a child and 200 students. (Serbia, single mother of two) Now I can say that our relationship is friendly, after two, three years. That relationship was not functioning, but now when the children and I left our house, where we lived during the marriage, and moved to the apartment of my father, the relationship has improved. But, it is still his own decision when he will take the children. The relationship is friendly, but I take care of the children alone, he is not involved in their schooling or anything else. (Montenegro, single mother of two) Support Networks Single parents carefully build support networks to cope with the burden of responsibility. Private networks are a key for the quality of life of single parents and their children. However, there is a huge difference between circumstances which shape support networks of single parents. The respective concrete conguration of family and kinship creates both the scope and the quality of those networks. The most frequently mentioned support is the one provided by mothers. However, single parents rely also on their friends, colleagues and neighbours. In cases where single parents have been living in one neighbourhood without moving for a long time, they had a wide network of old friends, with friendships being maintained since childhood. More over, with the increase of single parenting in urban settings, it has become easier to nd people in similar situations. I have many friends, and many of those who are in a similar situation. I have friends from childhood, from work; we have been working together for a long time. We exchange experiences and information. (Serbia, single mother of one)

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However, if a single parent moved to another setting, or is a refugee, the problem of lacking friends and support networks is more pronounced. In such cases neighbours might play a more important role. The interviews revealed that there are large differences in the levels of support single parents get. Those differences do not follow certain social patterns but they depend on circumstances and personalities. What becomes apparent by comparing all interviews is that institutional support is to a much lesser extent present in the lives of single parents than is the support coming from private networks. With the absence of systematic institutional support, single parents employ individual strategies for dealing with their problems. There are huge differences between single parents also in terms of intergenerational transfer. Extended families play an important protective role, and nancial support is still mainly provided by the generation of grandparents to the generation of their single parenting children and grandchildren. Regarding the quality of life, intergenerational transfers are extremely relevant. This can also be stated with respect to nonmaterial transfers. Single parents repeatedly said that they employed methods learned from their parents, in cases where they had a happy childhood. In cases of violence in the family of origin, however, interviewed divorced single parents reported violence to be the major cause of their own divorce. Here, single parenthood came as a consequence of breaking with the intergenerational transfer of violence. Differences Between Genders Centres for Social Work deal both with single mothers (majority) and single fathers (minority). The very term single parent is good; since both single mothers and fathers have the same problems. This problem does not choose a gender. (Montenegro, social worker) When asked about differences between the two observations and comments made by some of the employees, it has become clear that the real differences regarding problems and coping strategies are small. If differences exist they are usually connected to the overall patriarchal setting and gendered expectations. When a man is a single parent it is often his mother and a kinship network taking care of the child/ren. Some interesting comments were made by a social worker in the Republic of Srpska referring to men who take care of child/ren on their own: Men do not insist so much on a victim role; they accept it and bear with it. And women behave as if they liked to have some psychological gain: Here I

am the victim, I have difficulties. They behave almost as if they needed some special recognition for their sacrice. And that is their choice, in fact. And men accept it and they do not manipulate with it. Women are more inclined to manipulation. (RS, social worker) This is an interesting, though not unusual view. In fact, the more patriarchal the setting, the more social workers most often women themselves are inclined to give special credit to single fathers for the same things single mothers do as the normal part of their gender role. As motherhood builds the core of female gender identity in a patriarchal society, women do not really have a choice. They are expected to be good mothers and to sacrice, and so they build their identity and psychological gain on that sacrice. However, seen from a gender theory perspective, the power structures which shape the gender-based behaviour of both female and male single parents come to light, whilst the issue of who is better or worse becomes obsolete. Although single mothers and fathers face similar problems and deal with them in a similar way, it is the social setting which usually treats them differently. In the highly urbanised setting of Belgrade, where single motherhood is almost becoming a new norm, the level of stigmatisation of single mothers is low. In more patriarchal and less metropolitan, rural settings and small towns, however, differences will be made not only between women and men, but also between women depending on the reasons which have led to their single parenthood situation. If you are a widow in Montenegro, you are deeply respected, but if you are a single unmarried mother, you are labelled, although that is changing as well. (Montenegro, social worker) The interviews have shown that both single mothers and single fathers share the same feelings related to care. They feel the same fears, insecurities and wishes to share the burden of responsibility. They even share feelings of guilt for not having enough time, or money, or energy, for their children. Sometimes the burden of fathers seems to be even heavier, since they are also confronted with the prejudice that mothers cannot be replaced. I try to make him happy, but a mothers love a father cannot give. At least this is what I think. (FBaH, single father) Both the expectations of single mothers and fathers towards the children are the same, and their lives are centred on parenthood. The major problems they both face are the following: inadequate institutional support (working hours of kindergartens and schools and working hours of parents do not match sufficiently); lack of nancial resources; lack of time; a stressful way of life with high demands for discipline,

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organisation and coordination; loneliness/lack of partnership. However, men who after divorce become a single parent are already a selected group of men. The majority of fathers after divorce or separation expect mothers to take over completely. The major difference between single mothers and single fathers is that fathers are a small minority. A very small percentage of fathers ask for custody over the children, most often they agree that children live with their mothers. According to the experiences of the Centre for Social Work, fathers often already have another family (cohabitation), even before the previous marriage is divorced. Sometimes they already have another child in that new marriage, or expect one, so they prefer that children from the previous marriage stay with their mother. (RS, social worker) Single fathers can usually expect a higher level of support from their surroundings, exactly because it is not perceived as a natural situation. They might even be seen as heroes, while women are often seen either as victims or deviant/something is wrong with them. While men become single parents mainly due to widowhood, women become single parents due to many more reasons, including violence, which is almost exclusively suffered by women. Labour Market and Employment As a vulnerable group, which often faces the risk of poverty, which is exposed to high demands through childcare responsibilities, single parents experience market conditions in a similar way as other vulnerable groups. They often feel frustrated with heightened competition. I am infuriated with this thing take it or leave it [meaning job offers, M.B.]. People should be able to work; they should not be pressured. From the perspective of my rm, you are not allowed to be sick, because they need fresh blood. If you are sick you need to full the norm anyhow, to do what you are asked to do. You are not allowed to be sick, to say no, I cannot. Regardless of the fact that I am 45 or somebody is 60, we need to satisfy the norm in the same way as somebody who is 20. And that is discrimination. (FBaH, single father of one) I have used only two months of parental leave, because I did not dare to use the whole year, since I was afraid that I would be red in the private rm where I was employed. (FBaH, single mother of one) When I applied for some jobs I was rejected because I am a single mother with two children. They need someone without that obligation. (Montenegro, single mother of two)

Time Poverty and Stress Besides material hardships and the risks of poverty, single parents are also exposed to time poverty. In fact, both poverty phenomena are closely connected. Single parents experience strong pressures related to time and budget on a daily basis, and labour market competitiveness only increases that pressure. Because they are perceived as unreliable workers due to their caring responsibilities they are confronted with the additional risks of becoming unemployed. Time poverty also puts limits to the gaining and maintaining of social capital. Professional women are particularly affected by time poverty, since they need to invest considerable time in their professional development; on the other hand, they might be better equipped with the nancial resources and skills to compensate time poverty. Parents with higher (social and economic) capital are much more capable of solving daily problems than parents with lower capital: they can put children in better schools with better teachers; they can rely on someone to jump in to take care of the child/ren when necessary; they can devote more time to resources for their own activities; they can nd work more easily and they earn more. Depending on their profession and social position, single parents dispose over different amounts and levels of social capital. However, since most of the problems related to the upbringing of children are related to daily routines, single parents with lower education often have a wider network of support (family, neighbours) than the more educated ones, who invest more time in work and less in socialising. In addition, single parents are rarely represented in civil society organisations due to a lack of time for engagement. Also, as a consequence of this there are only a few NGOs dealing with their issues so they do not have ways and mechanisms to act as a constituency that would put pressure on the state for the improvement of their position.24 One of the most striking aspects of time poverty, however, is the chronic feeling of tiredness. Most of the interviewed parents openly stated that they feel tired most of the time. I am tired, yes. Now, while I am not employed I can say that I have time to sleep. Before, when I was employed I never went to bed before midnight often at 1 a.m. and I would get up at 5.30 a.m. (Montenegro, single mother of two) I am always tired and I do not know how to relax. Sometimes I cannot even sleep because I am so tired. (Serbia, single mother of two)

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I have been chronically tired for years. For sleep, I do not have time. When I work a night shift, I do not sleep, and when I come home from night shift, I cannot sleep again, because I need to x everything. (Montenegro, single mother of one) Single parents mostly respond to the problem of time poverty by using two common methods. The rst one is the complete reduction of everything unnecessary and especially everything related to their own needs and social contacts. I do not have time for myself, I locked myself up. I rarely go out, maybe once a month. (Montenegro, single mother of two) The other method, widely shared by employed single parents, is a very careful planning of time use, with a strict schedule. My life is dynamic, although not very simple. But it is over-programmed, somehow too programmed, not spontaneous enough. (Serbia, single mother of two) The lack of spontaneity could be seen as a kind of poverty of life-quality. The much bigger problem, however, which many single parents complained about, is the problem of unexpected events, like the sickness of a child or if they get sick themselves. In such situations, except for those who live in extended families, single parents simply cannot cope with the problem. I feel especially bad in extraordinary situations, for example when children are sick, when I feel helpless, especially when both of them get sick at the same time. (Serbia, single mother of two) The problem is most severe when single parents themselves get sick, because the whole structure of their carefully planned everyday order might simply collapse. I feel the worst when I am sick, that I have to call my mother to be with us and help us even though she is old and sick herself, with high blood pressure and heart problems. (Montenegro, single mother of three) Most of the interviewed said that they are under constant stress. Coordination of different activities and lack of time is what creates stress, as well as the pressure that everything needs to happen according to schedule, especially during the week. Whenever an unplanned event comes up it creates stress. Single parents who live within the structure of an extended family have less pressure, though at the price of stronger interference of grandparents with their lives and that of their children. Coping strate-

gies also include negotiation practices single parents apply at their workplaces in order to nd exible solutions concerning working hours. More educated single parents tend to nd more creative solutions, for example mothers communes. In Belgrade, a small group of female professionals all single mothers from the same neighbourhood spontaneously organised a support group which helped them take care of their children (eight, all together), but also to create a friendly support structure to allow more exibility in their everyday life. Interestingly, these women just followed their childrens choices, which rst made friends on the playground, and then the mothers joined in. Loneliness The main personal problem single parents are facing is loneliness in terms of partnership. According to the interviews, the great majority of single parents are really single, without stable partnerships. Lack of time and responsibility towards their children prevent them from building new relationships. Last but not least, the fear for their childrens safety can be a factor for hesitating to engage in deeper connections, and especially to agree on living arrangements with a new partner. As one mother of two teenage girls from Montenegro puts it: I am afraid of another thing. This is a strange time, and I always think that if their father is not devoted to them, why would someone else be who is not their father? There are so many bad things I am afraid of, especially related to girls, who are going to become young women tomorrow. How should I know whether someone is normal or not? I have read and heard of different things, that there is this incest problem and that a step-father could want to attack, and I am afraid of that. (Montenegro, single mother of two) Love relationships of single mothers in more traditional communities are also very much restricted due to the strong social control over women. My love life is non-existent. I already explained that this is a small community, and if I would have a relationship I would need to hide it because of the children, and I think it would be impossible. Major obstacles are children and the social environment. (Montenegro, single mother of two) Although most of the interviewees highly appreciated their peace and freedom to create their own family life and relationship with the children (especially those who had bad marriage experiences), they often mentioned the problem of loneliness. I miss a warm word from a partner I have a child, I am not alone, but some things you cannot talk about with your child, but only with your wife. That

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emptiness I feel a lot, a lot [] I need someone to rely on at least a bit, to encourage me. Sometimes a man falls down, gets drowned by all those frustrations, then I need someone just to push me a little so that I can go forward. (FBaH, single father of one) Single parents usually do not have time and energy, nor trust to get involved in new relationships. Some of the women interviewed said that they have occasional relationships, but that they do not want to get really involved since they want to keep their independence. One of the emerging patterns seems to be the relationships between single mothers and married men, since that pattern is in fact a status quo pattern, allowing both partners to continue with their normal life. In many cases, single parenthood is connected to suffering related to the death of a beloved partner, or to a divorce process, which is usually full of disappointments and tensions. Institutional settings and a patriarchal environment often expect women to accept all kinds of conditions to enable the contact of fathers with children, which also creates a situation of direct and indirect control over women even after divorce. Life Satisfaction and Happiness The main source of happiness and satisfaction for single parents is their children. All talk about the satisfaction they draw from communication with their children, and also about the support they themselves get from their children. However, quite a few also emphasise the benets of freedom, especially after having an unsuccessful or problematic relationship. I am happy, my husband is not torturing me anymore, and there is no more violence. (FBiH, single mother of four) I would not change my life for the life of many married women. I would not give my freedom for anything in this world. I love that the most and I would not be able to bear that someone stands above me and tells me what is good and what is not. This way, I am my own master. (Montenegro, single mother of one) Children have a very high value in the cultures of the Balkan societies, and parents are expected to centre their lives on children, especially mothers. Single parents are even more concentrated on their children than parents who live in partnerships, and they draw major life satisfaction and happiness from parenting. However, it can be noticed that the pattern is changing from a sacricial model to a more balanced approach, even under unfavourable circumstances of sole responsibility for children. Educated single mothers are especially prone to search for ways to satisfy their different needs, including studying for higher degrees or physical exercise and

socialising. The interviews have shown that after the crises all single parents inevitably go through, once they start dealing with the new situation, they nd ways to establish routines and organise their lives, to take control over the upbringing of their children; they eventually get a high level satisfaction from parenthood. Usually, the relationship with their children is very close and friendly, and they report getting fullment and satisfaction from their own parental competence.

Conclusion
Since this research has been conducted on two levels, institutional and individual, conclusions also relate to those two levels and the connection between them. Regarding the institutional level, the major conclusion is that in all three countries, the problem of single parenthood is slipping away from any systematic government activity or policy. The situation varies to a certain degree from country to country. Serbian institutions show more of an ideological patriarchy and the least effort to think about single parenthood as anything beyond a nancial burden for the state budget. Serbian officials refute the idea that it is necessary in present conditions to create an alimony fund, and emphasise, quite cynically, the responsibility of single parents mostly mothers who are confronted with inefficient and unfair legal institutions to obtain nancial support for their children from another parent. The example of the Serbian state officials attitude towards single parenthood is also in extreme contradiction with the official state concern for population renewal, since Serbia is facing serious long-term problems of biological reproduction. Centres for Social Work as institutions most in charge to offer solutions for single parents in critical situations, are limited both in scope and quality of their services. They have legal, nancial, and human resources limitations and they lack databases, which would enable the monitoring of individual cases. Their approach to single parents is not standardised enough, and they often do not have clear procedures and protocols. Generally, they are re-active and not pro-active in relation to single parents, thus creating a vacuum, where single parents do not even get information about what kind of support they or their children are entitled to. Centres for Social Work in most of the cases are not offering them adequate counselling, and the attitude and behaviour of employees are burdened with patriarchal prejudices and expectations of what should be the normal womens sacrice for children. On an individual level, single parents, who usually are sole providers, are confronted not only with tight nancial and inadequate living conditions, but they are also facing a lack of institutional support. Not being able to rely on institutions, they develop private strategies, for example by living in extended families, which give them support, but at the same time limit their freedom and privacy. Besides vulnerability to

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material poverty, single parents are strongly exposed to time poverty, stress and loneliness. If employed, they have to cope with an intense role conict, which is sharpened by transition phenomena. However, single parents succeed in balancing their lives by enjoying high psychological rewards from parenthood. Gender differences between single mothers and single fathers proved to be, except for the causes, only secondary in comparison to differences related to a highly individualised living situation. The determining social factor in the experience of single parenthood, clearly, is not gender, but the caring responsibility and caring work involved in each parenthood situation.

ENDNOTES

Short Biography
Marina Blagojevic is a sociologist, gender scholar and gender expert. She holds the highest scientic research position, the Scientic Counsellor, at the Institute for Criminological and Sociological Research, Belgrade and also acts as Director of the Altera MB Research Centre on Gender and Ethnicity, Budapest. As an international gender expert, she has worked on gender policies for the EU Commission, UNDP, UNIFEM, IFAD and USAiD in many different post-communist countries. Blagojevic was one of the leaders of the womens movement in Serbia from the beginning of the 1990s, and co-founder of different womens and other NGOs. She has conducted research on a wide scope of different issues, including women in professions, parenthood, everyday life, migration, ethnic relations and reconciliation, gender and science, womens movement and misogyny. Her most recent book is Knowledge Production at the Semiperiphery: A Gender Perspective. Her current research projects are related to single parenthood in the Western Balkans, rural women in Serbia and to the masculinities in the Balkans.

I would like to express my gratitude to ERSTE Stiftung, which showed interest in this topic and funded the research project. I am grateful to Filip Radunovic for his kind support during the project cycle. Also, many thanks to the project assistants for their commitment and high quality work: Isma Stanic, MA (FBaH), Jelena Milinovic, MA (RS), Olivera Pavicevic, Ph.D. (Serbia), Ana Popovicki, MA (Serbia) and Ljubomirka Asovic (Montenegro). Blagojevic, 1989a; 1989b; 1993. Blagojevic, 1995; 1997.

Country report for Serbia. It would be very important to compare these gures with some other vulnerable categories.

10 Country reports. 11 Country reports. 12 Country reports. 13 Country reports for FBaH and RS. 14 Country reports for FBaH and RS. 15 Country report for Serbia. 16 Country report for Montenegro. 17 Country report for RS. 18 Country report for Montenegro. 19 Poverty Reduction Strategy Plan. 20 Country report for Serbia. 21 Country reports. 22 Country reports. 23 Country report for Serbia. 24 However, the accountability and authenticity of

2 3

4 Blagojevic, 2004b, 2006, 2008. 5

The initial idea was to have an integral report for Bosnia and Herzegovina, but it has been shown through the process that it was more convenient to make two reports, since many of the institutions are separated on the ground. Still, both of the seperate reports have included references to Bosnia and Herzegovina, wherever possible. http://www.fzs.ba/Anketa/HBS07_Poverty_ eng.pdf. Konvertibilna Maraka (convertible mark) is the currency in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Country reports for FBaH and RS.

NGOs dealing with the interests and needs of single parents should be explored.

S LOVA K I A

Towards Gender Equality in Slovakia? Women in Civic and Political Life Zora Btorov Jarmila Filadelov Oga Gyrfov1

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A B ST RA C T

In the rst part of the study, the authors analyse trends in womens civic and political participation. They start by outlining how women and men perceive the impact of Transition on their lives. They explain womens lukewarm attitudes towards gender issues both during socialism and at the threshold of the new era. Although people have become more aware of gender inequalities, politicians have remained reluctant to embrace this agenda. As the authors show, the main actor promoting gender equality is womens organisations. However, they face serious challenges and should re-think their strategy. The authors continue by describing trends in womens representation in politics and analysing the reasons for their persistent marginalisation. The second part of the study discusses gender dimensions of three pivotal political events in 2009 and 2010: the presidential elections, the elections to the European Parliament, and the parliamentary elections.

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Twenty Years of Freedom In Hindsight

The Velvet Revolution through the Eyes of Women and Men In November 2009, Slovakia was commemorating its twentieth anniversary of the Velvet Revolution that brought the end of Communism in Czechoslovakia. A majority of citizens both women and men felt that they had a good reason to celebrate: according to a sociological survey conducted shortly before the anniversary (Empirical Data, 2009c), they perceived the Velvet Revolution as one of the most positive events of Slovakias modern history (56 percent of women and 59 percent of men) and thought that all in all, the building of democracy in their country was a success (59 percent of women and 60 percent of men). Since the Annus Mirabilis of 1989, people in Slovakia had to cope with several tough challenges the dissolution of Czechoslovakia in 1993 that most of them did not support, but were not able to prevent; the semi-authoritarian regime of Vladimr Meiars government between 1994 and 1998 that was defeated in the 1998 parliamentary elections thanks to a massive public mobilisation; neoliberal economic reforms introduced by the government of Mikul Dzurinda between 2002 and 2006 with painful social impacts and later improvement of living standards; integration of the country into the NATO and EU in 2004; instalment of the ruling coalition headed by Robert Fico in 2006, followed by the renewal of state paternalism, nationalist populism and ethnic tensions; economic crisis since 2008, the impacts of which were aggravated by widespread corruption, party cronyism, and nepotism; and most recently, after the June 2010 elections, the transfer of power to the centre-right coalition headed by Iveta Radiov, the rst female Prime Minister in Slovakias history. These dramatic developments have marked also the perception of everyday life by ordinary citizens. When asked in October 2009 (Empirical Data, 2009c) to compare their current situation with that of similar people before the Velvet Revolution, only forty-eight percent of women and men found their living standard better than that of their counterparts twenty years ago. At the same time, seventy-six percent of women and eighty percent of men praised more freedom to work, study or travel abroad; seventy percent of women and seventy-one percent of men appreciated better access to information; sixty-two percent of women and sixty-four percent of men saw more freedom of expression; sixty percent of women and sixty-four percent of men found more chances to freely participate in public life. Despite the appreciation of political freedoms, only thirty-eight percent of women and forty percent of men believed that they had a greater inuence on political decision-making. Only twentynine percent of women and thirty-three percent of men thought that they had a better chance to earn a decent social status by means of honest work. Only twenty-ve percent of women and twenty-eight percent of men were convinced that the equality

of citizens before the law has improved in comparison with the era before the fall of communism. As these ndings show, womens perception is slightly more critical than that of men. Women at the Threshold of Political Change Twenty years ago, during the Velvet Revolution, the squares of Slovakias towns were crowded with women and men of all ages. But the leaders of the Public Against Violence, who addressed people from the illuminated stages and TV screens and negotiated with the Communist leadership for a peaceful transition of power, were mostly men. And nobody found that strange; there were no public voices that would criticise this asymmetry. In accordance with a traditional conviction that prevailed in Slovakia by the end of the socialist era, the participation of men in politics was seen as normal, while womens role despite their inclusion into the labour market, despite their equal level of education and despite the official rhetoric about womens emancipation was seen in supporting mens career in the public sphere and taking care of family and household. This model was omnipresent in Slovakia. It prevailed not only in the families of communist functionaries,2 but also among their political opponents3 both among the few secular dissidents, the signatories of Charter 77, and among the more numerous Catholic dissidents.4 The position of women was somewhat stronger within the circles of the so-called positive deviants,5 who operated in the grey zone (iklov, 1991) and challenged the Communist regime from within its official institutions. Among independent intellectuals, as well as among environmentalists, there were strong female personalities who acted on their own yet they were far less numerous than men. Thus, it is understandable that the political marginalisation of women could not disappear with the mere advent of the Velvet Revolution. There were virtually no women in Slovakia who would voice in those decisive days the demand for a revolutionary redistribution of power aimed at strengthening their position. One of the reasons for this lack of interest lies in the nature of the so-called socialist emancipation of women.6 In contrast to their counterparts in the Western democracies, women in socialist countries did not have to struggle for their access to the labour market and education or for the availability of kindergartens or day-care facilities. They were granted those rights by the socialist state that needed their labour force for building new industries and accomplishing modernisation of the predominantly agrarian Slovak society. This enforced inclusion of women into the public sphere was a painful experience, especially for women in the countryside, where traditional family values prevailed.

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The communist coup dtat in 1948 was followed by the brutal destruction of political freedom. In Czechoslovakia, one of the most tragic stories was the death penalty for Milada Horkov, a Second World War resistance ghter and parliamentary representative for the Czechoslovak National Socialist Party, who was accused of leading a subversive group that planned to overthrow the communist regime. The pluralist and colourful network of womens associations was replaced by one hierarchical organisation subordinated to the Communist Party. Dogmatic female functionaries heading this union were all but attractive life models for other women not only because of their blind discipline and obedience, but also because of their detachment from real problems of women whom they formally represented. In the atmosphere of fear and hypocrisy, many women struggled to preserve at least some personal freedom within the privacy of their homes, which became a space for internal emigration. Together with their husbands, they tried to satisfy the material, educational, health and other needs of family members, which was not a trivial task in a political regime discriminating against its internal enemies and in a socialist shortage economy, in which corruption and cronyism were often the only ways to obtain desired goods and services (Mon, 1999). This is the reason why even the women active in the political opposition did not emphasise particular womens issues, but rather human rights in general. Like men, they felt oppressed by the socialist state, which they regarded as their common enemy. This attitude was so deeply ingrained that womens demands and issues were not included in Charter 77 and other civic declarations. It is almost unbelievable that none of the 596 documents of Charter 77 dealt with the position of women. According to Jiina iklov, the prominent Czech dissident, this fact cannot be explained by the low participation of women in dissent: the ratio of female spokespersons in Charter 77 reached one third and the ratio of women participating in publishing and distributing samizdat literature was even higher. The fundamental reason was the attitude of Czechoslovak women, who placed a higher priority on the interests of the whole, i.e., the democratisation of the society, than on their own group interests, which they found less urgent (iklov, 2008).7 Thus, it comes as no surprise that the program document, A Chance for Slovakia, which Public Against Violence prepared for the rst free parliamentary elections in 1990, was rather brief and general when it spoke about the position of women in society (anca pre Slovensko, 1990). On the one hand, it emphasised the need to create better conditions for mothers a natural reaction to the previous glorication of womens contribution to building a socialist economy at the expense of their role in

the family.8 On the other hand, it included an explicitly formulated paragraph about the chance for women who want to reach self-fullment in work and society. However, in real politics, from among 354 candidates on the party ticket of Public Against Violence, only thirty-seven were women and only three of them were placed in top positions. Two of the prominent female candidates, who were elected into the rst free Slovak Parliament and Federal Assembly respectively, decided to resign their mandates in order to continue their professional careers in new democratic conditions. This gesture would hardly be acceptable by any female candidate today, in an era of intensive struggle for electable positions in each and every political party. But it illustrates that shortly after the fall of communism, even for the most prominent women, gender equality did not mean sharing political power with men, but rather a chance for full professional self-realisation. Anatomy of the Reticence about Feminism During the following two decades, people in Slovakia have gradually become aware of serious problems that women face both in the public and private sphere (Btorov, 1996 and 2008b). A vast majority of women, but also a majority of men have acknowledged that women are at a disadvantage, particularly on the labour market. Yet, womens issues do not occupy a strong position in the hierarchy of urgent social problems. Since the early 1990s, people have assigned such priority mainly to unemployment, living standards and social security, followed by corruption and cronyism, healthcare, crime and ethnic problems (Btorov Gyrfov, 2010). This is why womens issues have remained also on the margin of the political agenda. Reluctant attitudes towards womens issues among politicians, as well as among women themselves can be partially derived from the negative or controversial experience with socialist emancipation. Another important factor was the lack of communication of women caused by the Iron Curtain. On the one hand, Czechoslovak women knew almost nothing about the development of Western womens movements in the 1970s and 1980s. On the other hand, Western feminists were not interested in the situation of Czechoslovak women during the difficult era of normalisation9 in the 1970s and 1980s (iklov, 2008). Because of this isolation, very few women in Czechoslovakia had a clear idea about the womens movement in the West. Even in the mid-1990s, Marie ermkov spoke about a feminist illiteracy in the Czech society (ermkov, 1996). However, the current negative perception of feminism is also a relic of socialist indoctrination. As Krassimira Daskalova points out, socialists rejected bourgeois feminists, who focused on achieving gender equality within the existing social system. They claimed that womens solidarity across class lines was impossible. According to

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their vision, the womens question could only be resolved after the triumph of the socialist revolution (Daskalova, 2005). Obviously, when searching for the roots of the aversion to feminism, we have to dig even deeper into history. By the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth century, feminism was resolutely rejected as one of the ideological threats to the Slovak national interest, which was supreme for the Slovak political and intellectual elite (Mannov, 2006). Before the First World War, the ideas of modern feminism were voiced more loudly. The official politics of the rst Czechoslovak Republic headed by President Tom G. Masaryk supported womens liberation. In 1919, women were granted the right to vote. Big political parties founded womens political sections and paid attention to womens problems in their programs. In the interwar period (1918-1938), womens organisations of various proles were mushrooming in Slovakia. However, the following period of the wartime Slovak State (1939-1945) brought a turnaround in the interpretation of womens role in society. In accordance with anti-liberal, conservative Catholic ideology, they had to belong exclusively to the private sphere and return to the family. Pluralist associational life of women was suppressed (alingov, 2004). After the Second World War, before womens organisations from the interwar period could be revitalised, the Communist regime liquidated the whole network and forced women into one monopoly organisation. Especially in the rst decade after 1989, the memories of enforced collectivism and of the communist female functionaries were haunting Slovak women and discouraging them from feminist movements and larger collective activities. Ambitious women preferred the individual strategy of self-realisation typical of professional women (Bunkov, 1995). This attitude has persisted also in the 2000s. The Gender Agenda A Luxury Forever? During the rst decade of transition, ignorant and disparaging attitudes towards feminism were widespread. Many women and even more men perceived feminists as militant, angry, divisive, anti-male, motivated by an inferiority complex, etc. In this interpretation, a typical feminist lacked the attributes of the ideal woman particularly the submissiveness that was expected from a representative of the weaker sex. According to a 1995 survey, only one third of women and one fourth of men attributed positive or neutral connotations to feminism. In the following years, the attitudes slightly improved, yet a majority of people retained their negative and ignorant views

(Btorov et al., 1996 and 2002). Feminism was interpreted as a threat to normal relationships between men and women and an impingement on traditional values of love, marriage, and family (Daskalova, 2005). At the beginning of the 1990s, politicians in Slovakia paid little attention to womens issues. But before long, the rst women intellectuals emerged, who felt that their own interests were being addressed by feminism. This change of attitude was accelerated by the intensive East-West communication that emerged after the barbed wire was removed from the border. Bratislava became a destination of Western journalists, political analysts and social scientists, who wanted to know about the impact of the economic and political changes on gender relations. Slovak women intellectuals realised that they should search for the answers to questions they had not asked before. They did not like the idea that their insight and experience as insiders would be replaced by the application of some external explanatory schemes imported from a different cultural context. The rst modern feminist organisations in Slovakia arose precisely out of this intellectual need, curiosity, and ambition.10 For them, feminism came with an offer of openness, plurality, reection on gender relations, i.e., something completely different than the mandatory and uniform socialist emancipation (Cvikov Jurov, 2009). Grass-roots feminist organisations dealing with the practical mundane problems of women followed only afterwards. The emergence of a narrow group of women, who openly claimed their feminist orientation, did not provoke much enthusiasm on the part of top intellectuals neither men nor women. Some critics of feminism argued that the problems of the post-communist era were of a universal nature and that it was not desirable to stress the gender dimension. In those difficult years, the country was struggling with increasing authoritarian tendencies and nationalism. Democratically-minded intellectuals believed that Slovakia was facing too many other problems to be able to deal with something like feminism as Jana Jurov, one of the protagonists of feminism, noted with bitter irony ve years after the Velvet Revolution (Jurov, 1995). They were convinced that it was necessary to seek a common platform instead of wasting energy on particular problems. Feminism and a womens agenda as such was for them the kind of luxury that a edgling and fragile democracy could ill afford; they believed that its time would come once the main issues had been resolved. However, neither the defeat of authoritarianism in the 1998 elections, nor the subsequent two tenures of Dzurindas pro-reform administrations, nor even Slovakias successful endeavour to join the European Union, have brought about a substantial change in the reserved attitude of the countrys political elite and its public administration towards womens issues. Most of the measures taken by politicians to

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protect and strengthen womens rights were reactions to pressure from the domestic non-governmental organisations or from abroad. During this period, the voices of the conservative politicians strengthened. They explicitly rejected inuences or inspirations from the European Union and warned of dangerous social engineering that in their eyes threatened to undermine Slovakias traditional Christian values (Mesenikov, 2005 and Btorov, 2005). As a result, attempts to eliminate gender inequalities have remained at the outer margins of pro-reform neoliberal government policy (Filadelov Btorov, 2007). The situation did not improve after 2006, when the Fico government replaced Dzurindas administration. While the strongest Smer-Social Democracy Party (SmerSD) formally criticised neoliberal policies, neither its rhetoric nor its measures proved seriously interested in addressing gender inequalities. True, one can hardly deny that Slovakias accession to the EU has catalysed the passage of legislative changes, particularly in the eld of labour law. Under the pressure from the EU, Slovakia also adopted strategic documents dealing with gender equality and has acknowledged the gender dimension in strategic documents in other areas. This pressure was most intense between 2000 and 2004. Unfortunately, it subsided after the country became an EU member state too early for political leaders in Slovakia to embrace a new approach to the gender agenda. Thus, a typical feature of contemporary Slovakia is the signicant gap between formally approved documents and their implementation in practice. Womens Organisations in Action The rebirth of democracy in Slovakia has brought an unprecedented revival of womens associational life.11 During the rst half of the 1990s, the Slovak Union of Women was transformed into many local associations, most of them in the countryside. Besides that, new womens organisations emerged that focused mainly on social and charity activities. Yet this period also gave birth to a handful of feminist organisations that saw their mission as protecting womens human rights, improving their social, political, and economic status, and challenging traditional gender stereotypes. The Aspekt Womens Association, established in 1993 by Jana Jurov and Jana Cvikov, played a pioneering role. Before long, several more feminist organisations were founded. The second half of the 1990s was characterised by the proliferation of womens organisations, growth in their self-awareness, and the increasing coordination of their activities. In the 2000s, particularly in the second half, the emergence of new womens organisations slowed down.

During almost two decades, womens organisations in Slovakia have been focusing on a rich spectrum of goals, like promoting gender-sensitive education; addressing violence against women; protecting womens reproductive rights; increasing womens participation in political decision-making; lobbying for the acknowledgement of the gender equality agenda and the creation of institutional mechanisms to support it; strengthening womens status in the labour market; and helping endangered and disadvantaged categories of women. They have contributed to a lifting of the taboos surrounding certain neglected or suppressed problems despite the lack of interest among officials. Publications of the Aspekt association were joined by survey reports, studies and books of several research institutions, as well as by seminars, workshops, press conferences and other events. The media started to pay more attention to womens problems. These activities of womens non-governmental organisations (NGOs) have not remained unnoticed by the Slovak public: they are perceived as the social actor, who promotes the equal status of women most energetically in contrast with the government, parliament, but also trade unions, the education system, ombudsman for human rights, and courts of justice (Btorov, 2008b). True, thanks to the intensied public discourse on gender equality especially in the 2000s, the visibility of womens problems has signicantly increased. Twenty years after the Velvet Revolution, a majority of women, but also men in Slovakia realise that women have a weaker position in the society. Among womens most urgent issues is gender inequality in the labour market. People admit also the double burden of women and realise the problems they face related to family care and household duties. They acknowledge the problem of violence against women, the under-representation of women in politics, problems of elderly women and other issues. However, this increased visibility has not been sufficiently translated into the critical feminist attitude towards the existing gender order. Most stereotypical ideas about the role of women and men in society have survived. Although people admit that the unequal division of labour within the family is the most powerful barrier to womens advancement in the public sphere, the gender patterns in the private sphere have hardly changed. Although they criticise the insufficient participation of women in politics, they do not nd their role in this sphere so important. Although they recognise womens demands for more equality at work and in politics, they see womens primary role in the family. These paradoxes show that the basic barrier of gender equality is of socio-cultural nature. It lies in deeply-rooted patriarchal stereotypes and structures. Challenges Faced By Womens Organisations In order to increase gender equality, Slovakia will need persistent collaborative effort of womens organisations and other parts of society above all of political

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representation at various levels, as well as of educational and research institutions, media, employers and trade unions. This endeavour can be successful only provided that it will be based on the co-operation of women and men. Vis--vis this demanding challenge, the question arises whether womens organisations are strong enough to cope with it. Unfortunately, the answer cannot be unconditionally positive. The most visible reason for scepticism lies in the changed nancial situation, in which womens organisations, together with other NGOs in Slovakia, operate. After the countrys accession to the EU, the NGOs experienced a substantial decline in support by their traditional donors, which has not been sufficiently compensated by the support from EU structural funds. The strategy of EU-funding to award fewer grants for larger long-term projects has suited big and established organisations, while small community foundations or younger organisations did not stand much chance. These new conditions made womens organisations modify their modus operandi: their fundraising strategies responded to priorities set by donors instead of reecting their own priorities, ideas and initiatives. As one of the frustrated feminist activists commented, womens organisations have been transformed into grant-administration agencies, while losing their activist dimension (Analza, 2007). Moreover, the donor dependency of NGOs leads to rivalry between womens groups. Due to the insufficient control of quality, the EU grants have been awarded also to unknown organisations without serious experience and credible track-records, which led not only to the wasting of public money but also to the devaluation of the topic of gender equality. Since the 2006 elections, the competition of womens NGOs for the support from European funds has been deformed by the political cronyism and nepotism of government officials. Under these conditions, many womens organisations, even the best ones, are struggling for nancial and institutional survival. Besides the bleak nancial outlook of womens organisations, especially of those that are not close to the current ruling coalition, another phenomenon worthy of attention is the gap between the NGOs and other signicant social actors, particularly the political parties, the government and crucial state institutions. Barbara Einhorn, a leading expert on gender and civil society, calls this difficulty of getting civil society initiatives translated into legislation and policy the civil society gap that results in part from lacking communication, but in part reects a power imbalance between NGOs and state institutions (Einhorn, 2005, p. 21). The author sees this civil society gap as an element of a broader phenomenon that she calls civil society trap. She argues that instead of building a movement for social change, civic groups are engaged in stopping the gap left by state retrenchment and the ensuing loss of public welfare provisions.

(Quoted by Graff, 2009) Womens rights activists are reduced to the role of mere service providers. They suffer of the sense of defeat and burn-out. Agnieszka Graff, a Polish writer and feminist, shares this view: civil society organisations in the region and this applies also to Slovakia have marginalised themselves by refusing to take part in active politics.12 Instead, efforts were chiey poured into serving society. In her view, feminism is reduced from a world-changing vision and grassroots political movement to a series of professionally run institutions engaging in projects, which are forced to adapt to outside agendas and pressures because of their dependence on funding. Within civil society itself, there is less and less discussion of how to make the system more just and equitable because organisations are busy writing grant applications. These critical observations are valid also for womens organisations in Slovakia. Firstly, most of them have emphasised their non-partisan (although not valuefree) character. Secondly, their main domain has become the services, which have often compensated for the insufficient services provided by the state. Thirdly, as we mentioned earlier, some initiatives of womens organisations were successful. In 2001, feminist organisations initiated the rst nationwide feminist media campaign called One Woman in Five, which targeted violence against women and called for zero tolerance. In 2002, they successfully lobbied for legislative changes to improve protection for the victims of domestic violence. The campaign ProChoice Slovakia Initiative launched in 2001 successfully protested attempts to outlaw abortions. In 2004, womens organisations took part in lobbying for the adoption of the Antidiscrimination Act and four years later, they contributed to its amendment. However, some other initiatives were not successful. For example, feminist organisations were not able to overcome the resistance of the Ministry of Education to include gender-sensitive education and sexual education into school curricula. They did not succeed in lobbying for the legislation on the registered partnership of gays and lesbians and for the amendment of the electoral law that would strengthen the representation of women in politics. In this context, Graffs arguments are particularly worth of consideration. According to her: the lack of success in transforming civil society initiatives into legislation is caused not just by political resistance to feminist demands. Rather, it is systemic: once civil society had vacated the sphere of politics, social actors found themselves in a very weak negotiating position. Isolated NGOs (or even coalitions of NGOs) without large membership and grassroots support

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have very little means of exerting political pressure It is not more NGOs to deal with more problems that are needed, but a shift in the framework itself: new voices in the public sphere, and grassroots political movements that will encourage participation. (Graff, 2009) We believe that womens organisations in Slovakia have a similar reason for rethinking their strategy. Progressing At A Snails Pace: Political Representation of Women Equal representation of women and men is a precondition and an expression of a well-functioning democracy. However, the opportunities for political participation of women and men in Slovakia are equal only de jure, not de facto. In this respect, Slovakia still belongs to the incomplete democracies (Haavio-Manilla, 1985, quoted by Fuszara, 2000, p. 271). Advocates of higher representation of women see various reasons for this demand. Some of them use essentialist arguments about specic female and male qualities. Others state that women have a different way of thinking and some unique predispositions: better orientation in everyday life and better decision-making skills; they are more subtle and empathetic with others; more sensitive to social issues and poverty; more competent to solve womens issues; they are more cautious about radical changes. Some claim that greater participation of women would lead to less conict, more consensus-seeking and more rationality and efficiency in political negotiations. Some nd women less power-oriented or less corrupted, with a better sense of justice.13 However, others warn of unhealthy idealisation of women presenting their moral superiority and rightly emphasise that the argument for fair representation is strong in itself (Jacques, 2009, p. 93-94).14 We can only agree with the realistic opinion that politics with equal representation of women will not be automatically better, but it will be more diverse. Women acquire different life experiences. Therefore, equal representation of women and men in politics respects a broader spectrum of the needs of male and female citizens (Jachanov Doleelov et al., 2009, p. 54). Before the fall of communism in Czechoslovakia, women regularly obtained, thanks to a quota system, almost thirty percent of the parliamentary seats. However, their participation in shaping policies was merely formal, as it took place in an undemocratic framework. After the quota system was abolished as one of the remnants and symbols of the totalitarian regime, the share of female members of the Slovak parliament in

the rst free elections in 1990 dropped to twelve percent. Twenty years later, in 2010, only 15.3 percent women were elected to the parliament and after the inauguration of substitutes for the members of the parliament (MPs) who left for the government, the share of female representatives remained virtually the same (16 percent). The overall share of women running for parliament has slightly increased from seventeen percent in the 1998 elections to twenty-three percent in the 2010 elections.15 Thus, women still control signicantly fewer mandates than one third, which is considered the critical mass needed for inuencing decision-making processes. The representation of Slovak women in top executive posts is even lower than in the legislative assembly. During the last two decades, the ratio of female cabinet members has never exceeded fteen percent and sometimes even equalled zero. With just two women in the government established after the 2010 elections, meaning thirteen percent of the cabinet members, Slovakia lags well behind the EU average of twenty-six percent. Political participation of women at the regional level of self-government is also far from satisfactory. Until now, all eight regional governors have always been men. Among the candidates, only nine percent were women. The representation of women in regional parliaments reached fteen percent in 2009 (among the candidates, 20 percent were women), in comparison to thirteen percent in the rst regional elections in 2001. As for the municipal elections, Slovakia has witnessed a gradual, albeit very slow growth of womens representation. In the last elections in 2010, women won twenty-two percent of mayor posts, compared to fteen percent in 1994. Lack of Strategies To Promote A Higher Number of Women in Politics Parliamentary elections in Slovakia use a proportional electoral system with open candidate lists. Theoretically in combination with other conditions it could mean a better chance for women to be elected (Impact, 2009). Political parties have exclusive authority to decide about the rank list of candidates. As for voters, they can change the ranking order of the list by casting preferential ballots for four particular candidates. According to the Venice Commission of the Council of Europe, electoral quotas can be considered an appropriate and legitimate measure to increase womens representation in parliament. Although an impressive number of countries have introduced them in recent years, this is not the case with Slovakia. In the rst half of the 2000s, three bills proposing quotas were turned down despite the fact that in 2001, the cabinet adopted the Strategy of Equal Opportunities for Women and Men, in which it pledged to support amending the Law on Political Parties and the Election Law in order to guarantee the representation of women in politics and political parties, for instance

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via introducing quotas and other short-term temporary measures. Nine years later, such changes have not materialised even though all three amendments were proposed by politicians belonging to the ruling coalition and supported by womens NGOs. Since 2004, no new initiative to introduce mandatory gender quotas for the national parliament emerged among politicians and womens NGOs. As experience from some countries shows, one such strategy is the adoption of voluntary gender quotas by political parties. Until the 2010 parliamentary elections, none of the larger parties had used this method. Perhaps even more critical is the fact that there have been virtually no publicly visible signs of developing other strategies aimed at increasing the number of women in politics, such as training women politicians; information campaigns; initiatives to combat gender stereotypes about politics as a male domain; formation of womens political fractions; womens networking,16 programs promoting politicians work and family balance, etc. (Bosniov et al., 2009, p. 22). Paradoxes of Public Opinion and Socio-cultural Barriers Judging only according to public opinion polls, politicians reluctance to strengthen the position of women in politics seems incomprehensible. It ignores the fact that during the 2000s, both women and men have become more critical of the insufficient representation of women.17 In 2006, as many as eighty-one percent of women and sixty-two percent of men agreed that womens say in politics should be equal to that of men. Sixty-seven percent of women and fty-three percent of men found womens representation in parliament insufficient and seventy-three percent of women and fty-nine percent of men disapproved of the under-representation of women in the government. These views were even more widespread among people with higher education (Gyrfov Btorov Filadelov, 2008). At the same time, this public support has been rather supercial. Although people increasingly acknowledge that women should have a stronger say, they do not regard womens low participation in political decision-making as the key obstacle to addressing crucial problems of the society. Even more strikingly, they do not perceive it as the key obstacle to solving urgent problems of women themselves. According to a 2007 survey, only seven percent of female and male respondents spontaneously mentioned womens low participation in political decision-making as one of the most urgent problems of women that should be tackled. By contrast, eighty-seven percent of female respondents and eighty-ve percent of male respondents named various problems of women on the labour market, followed by problems related to family care and household duties (39 percent and 40 percent, respectively).18

The underestimation of womens active participation in politics indicates that women in Slovakia have not overcome the syndrome of learned helplessness that characterised political culture during the era of socialism. If the general syndrome has been the willingness of the citizens to leave the representation of their interests in the hands of experts, its specic feminine variant has been the readiness of women to delegate their powers and competencies to men (Btorov, 1996). This state of womens mind is one of the reasons why the marginal position of the agenda of womens political representation has been perpetuated. Obviously, the roots of womens political marginalisation reach deeper, to the traditional socio-cultural underpinnings of Slovak society. According to prevailing gender expectations, the man should be the principal breadwinner and the woman the homemaker. In everyday life it means that most of the work related to household chores and looking after family members remains on the shoulders of the woman. This unbalanced division of labour was practiced during the socialist era despite the inclusion of women into the labour market. The burden of paid work was simply added to the burden of womens unpaid domestic work. This asymmetry is still persisting. In 2006, employed women spent on average sixteen more hours per week on unpaid domestic work than men. On the other hand, men spent four more hours on paid work per week than women. So altogether the average employed woman in Slovakia worked twelve hours more per week than the average man (Filadelov, 2008). For many women, the entry into politics is hindered primarily by their family obligations. Womens participation in politics usually requires the consent and support of their spouses and often of other family members as well. Women who desire to enter politics are excused from family chores under the condition that the family must not bear the brunt. Women with small children or dependent family members rarely make such a decision.19 The family vs. public office conict is easier to handle in local politics. Complications arise when a woman who does not live in the capital decides to accept public office at the national level, which usually entails repeated oneweek separations from her family (Filadelov Puli Radiov, 2000). The social control supporting traditional family norms is particularly strong in the countryside; women simply have to do all work at home by themselves if they do not want to look worse than their mothers and mothers-in-law in the eyes of the others. On the other hand, modern urban women, who aspire to a political career and their partners as well would be probably more open to use also paid services for coping with all their household and family obligations. Another socio-cultural barrier is that politics in Slovakia is seen as a male domain. Only few people expect an ideal woman to also be homo politicus. In a 2006 survey, forty-eight percent of the respondents imagined that an ideal woman should be interested in public affairs, and only ten percent found this attribute very important.

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Despite a more frequent presence of Slovak and foreign female politicians in Slovak media, these normative expectations have remained almost unmoved since the mid1990s. On the other hand, the image of an ideal man has a more pronounced dimension of active political participation (Btorov, 2008a). Obviously, when searching for the reasons of womens lower participation in politics, we cannot underestimate the almost universally widespread critical perception of politics. Both women and men see it not as a service for the public good, but rather as a dirty, tough and risky struggle for power, inuence and money, in which the stronger, less scrupulous individuals have a bigger chance. Opinions prevail that politicians are driven by self-interest, and not by the sincere will to help their co-citizens. Since the early 1990s, this negative stereotype of politics and politicians has not improved. Many women and men blame political parties, whose credibility in their eyes is very low. And last but not least, many women are aware also of the gender dimension of this political struggle: almost half of them (47 percent) believe that the low representation of women in top politics is the result of the systematic effort of men to keep power and decisionmaking in their own hands. All these stereotypes and beliefs discourage women from running for political posts (Filadelov Btorov Gyrfov, 2002). That does not mean, however, that the chance for increasing participation of women is completely frozen and the spell of politics as a male domain cannot be broken. Recent developments in Slovakia show some signs of promising changes.

consisted also in the balanced gender composition of the presidential candidates. Three of the seven candidates in the rst round were women in sharp contrast to the elections of 2004, in which no woman participated, and the elections of 1999, in which the sole female candidate did not make it to the run-off. This time however, the voters could choose from a male and a female candidate the incumbent president, Ivan Gaparovi, close to the ruling coalition headed by Robert Fico, and Iveta Radiov, a joint candidate of the centre-right opposition parties. Like the two previous presidents of the Slovak Republic since its creation in 1993, Gaparovi (b. 1941) had been a member of the Communist Party prior to 1989. In the early 1990s, he became a staunch supporter of the authoritarian Prime Minister Meiar. As Speaker of the Parliament between 1994 and 1998, he was co-responsible for the undemocratic direction of the country. As president, he earned much popularity thanks to his down-to-earth and easy-going style and his rhetoric of national and social populism. Radiov (b. 1956) had a different life story. As a young sociologist during the normalisation period, she did not follow the customary career of official social scientists and did not enter the Communist Party. Before November 1989, she protested against the imprisonment of anti-communist dissidents. After the Velvet Revolution, she served briey as the spokesperson of the Public Against Violence movement. Since the early 1990s, she took part in the revitalisation of civil society. As a public intellectual and civic activist, she was engaged in the struggle against Vladimr Meiar. In 2005, she became the rst female Professor of Sociology in Slovakia. Her party career started in 2005, when she was invited to become Minister of Labour, Social Affairs and the Family in the government of Mikul Dzurinda. Soon, she became one of the most popular political gures. In 2006, she was elected to parliament and became the vice-chairwoman of SDK-DS (Slovak Democratic and Christian Coalition Democratic Party), now an opposition party. Thus, it came as no big surprise that the leadership of her party asked her to run for the presidency. She accepted the challenge, although she was aware of her low chances. In her own words, her colleagues saw her candidacy as a necessary evil: she was far more acceptable to the public than any of her male colleagues (Transcript, 2009b). Ways of Playing the Gender- and Other Cards For her candidacy, Radiov got the endorsement of the Party of Hungarian Coalition (SMK), for which she had to pay a big price: she was accused by Slovak nationalists of preferring the interests of the Hungarian minority at the expense of ethnic Slovaks.

The 2009 2010 Gender Check

In the period of 2009 2010, four elections took place in Slovakia: the presidential elections in March and April 2009, elections to the European Parliament in June 2009, regional elections in November 2009 and parliamentary elections in June 2010.20 All of them presented an opportunity not only for citizens to choose their new political representatives, but also for political parties and politicians to move closer to the ideal of gender equality. In the following analysis, we will pay attention to the presidential, European and parliamentary elections, which were particularly relevant from the gender perspective. Check No. 1: Presidential Elections A Unique Milestone The 2009 presidential race was exceptional not only from a political perspective, but also from a gender standpoint. For the rst time in Slovakias ten-yearlong history of direct presidential elections, the second round brought into competition a candidate who has never been a member of the Communist Party and belonged to independent intellectuals operating in the grey zone before 1989. Its uniqueness

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To gain the official support of the conservative Christian Democrats appeared to be much more difficult. Radiov was not known as a feminist or pro-choice activist, yet she had the image of a modern liberal woman. She emphasised the ability of women to make a responsible choice and the obligation of society to create conditions for promoting planned parenthood. Although she condemned abortion and her attitude on this issue was similar to that of Gaparovi, radical pro-life activists chose her as a target of their attacks. In her campaign, Radiov minimised the explicit use of the gender card. At the early stage of her nomination, questions hung in the air as to whether Slovak society was prepared for a female president. Radiov herself repeatedly made sceptical remarks about her own chances as a woman. Later on, she stopped emphasising her gender. In her campaign, she did not criticise traditional patriarchal culture and did not initiate discussion on gender injustice. She voiced her criticism only when reacting to direct questions. Despite this, the gender aspects of her candidacy were present implicitly. Although Radiov did not speak much about womens lower chances of advancing in their professional and political careers, she did represent a model of a successful woman, who was able to break the glass ceiling. Although she did not emphasise the tolerance for non-traditional forms of family, she was seen publicly rst as a strong partner in a two-career marriage with a popular humourist, and later, when a widow, as a partner in informal cohabitation with a well-known Paralympic athlete. It was the strong, implicit radiance of Radiovs liberal values, besides the support of the three parliamentary and two extra-parliamentary opposition parties, that also won her endorsements from female entrepreneurs, social- and charity NGOs, culture personalities, environmentalists, human rights activists, feminists, and gays and lesbians. In the campaign, the incumbent president presented himself as the protector of the Slovak nation against ethnic Hungarians, as the safeguard of political stability during a difficult time of economic crisis, and as the supporter of a strong welfare state. He did not hesitate to attack his challenger, using the vocabulary of nationalism, social demagoguery and patriarchal conservatism. On the other hand, Radiov positioned herself as a different type of politician, calling for a new political culture and using a non-aggressive style of campaigning. Although she never suggested that her consensus-seeking approach could present a specic advantage for her as a female president, and never dened her political style as typically feminine, her performance in presidential debates left some of her supporters with the impression that she was too weak for the tough job of head of the state.

The Electorate Speaks Out In the rst round of the presidential elections, Radiov lost to Gaparovi by a margin of 38.1 percent to 46.7 percent and in the second round by a margin of 44.5 percent to 55.5 percent of votes. Most of her supporters perceived her nal outcome as a good result, considering that she was able to attract substantially more voters than the opposition parties in the 2006 parliamentary elections. However, what do these general numbers say if seen from a gender perspective? Did gender solidarity play a role? The ndings of a post-election survey (Empirical Data, 2009a) suggest a positive answer (Table 1). Women reacted to Radiovs candidacy in two ways: with a slightly higher voter turnout in both rounds of elections, as well as with a stronger support of her.21 Thus, the victory of Gaparovi over Radiov among women was much less pronounced than among men. Womens support of Radiov played a signicant role in combination with other socio-demographic factors. Had the elections been held only among women of younger or middle generation or only among women with university education, Radiov would have been elected for president. On the other hand, men of all age and education categories preferred the incumbent president.

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WOMEN Turnout ALL 18 24 25 34 AGE 35 44 45 54 55 64 65 + Elementary EDUCATION Vocational Secondary University Smer-SD POLITICAL PARTIES SNS S-HZDS SDK-DS SMK KDH 52 29 48 58 64 57 54 45 49 57 64 69 73 63 79 82 73 Gaparovi 27 12 19 21 32 41 39 30 24 29 21 58 60 50 8 4 40 Radiov 22 16 25 36 25 15 14 13 22 24 38 10 13 6 71 74 27 Turnout 50 23 44 58 52 66 61 39 52 53 56 64 62 91 73 66 50

MEN Gaparovi 32 15 27 36 32 40 49 26 37 29 33 60 62 73 4 7 38 Radiov 15 7 14 20 16 23 11 12 12 20 19 4 0 9 62 55 10

Among female voters of all opposition parties (SDK-DS, SMK and KDH) the support for Radiov was more frequent than among male voters. On the other hand, most female adherents of the ruling parties voted for Gaparovi, thus preferring political loyalty over female solidarity. Yet, among the SNS and Smer-SD supporters, there were more women than men who voted for Radiov. Presidential Elections as a Litmus Test By preferring Gaparovi, a former Communist, who helped former Prime Minister Meiar divert Slovakia from a democratic path in the 1990s, some of his voters based their choice on an approval of three legacies those of nationalism, socialist state paternalism, and authoritarianism. Others underestimated or ignored these legacies and voted for him in accordance with their patriarchal convictions, even though it meant acting against their partys recommendation. Voters of Radiov saw in her a politician, who would bring to politics more decency, more empathy for the socially weak, more tolerance towards minorities, preparedness for co-operation and consensus-seeking, but at the same time more openmindedness, independent thinking and expertise. In contrast to Gaparovi, she was seen as an embodiment of modern Slovakia. They valued her moral awlessness and integrity in her previous political life. Perhaps the most interesting was the emphasis that the voters of Radiov put on her contribution to the promotion of equal opportunities despite the fact that she did not make this issue a central part of her campaign. This paradox can be explained by the fact that she presented a striking exception in Slovakia, where people rarely regard a woman active in politics as their life model (Btorov, 2008a). Radiov earned respect as a woman, who was able to break the glass ceiling in the academic world and in politics. Her supporters probably assumed that she would be able to ght not only for her own success, but also promote equal opportunities for others. Even though their numbers did not suffice for electing her to the office, they sent a strong signal about the preparedness of a substantial part of the population to embrace a woman as the head of the state. The parliamentary elections one year later proved this assumption. In hindsight, the 2009 presidential elections served as a dress rehearsal for the parliamentary elections and tested the acceptability of Radiov among the public.22 Check No. 2: Elections to the European Parliament Following shortly after the presidential elections, the June 2010 European elections presented another opportunity for testing the gender factor in Slovak

TABLE 1: Voting behaviour of women and men in the second round of presidential elections (percent of eligible female and male voters by age, education and party affiliation) Note: Row percentages. The remainder of the 100-percent gure comprises the answer I dont know. Source: Institute for Public Affairs, May 2009.

Obviously, party affiliation was of crucial signicance. In both rounds of the elections, the supporters of all parties of the ruling coalition the Smer-SD, SNS (Slovak National Party) and S-HZDS (Peoples Party Movement for a Democratic Slovakia) voted for Gaparovi. Voting behaviour of the parliamentary opposition was less unied. While a strong majority of the SDK-DS and SMK supporters voted for Radiov, the Christian Democrats (KDH) voted across the aisle and overwhelmingly supported Gaparovi, which was in accordance with their patriarchal beliefs, but in conict with the official position of their party leadership.

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politics. With regard to womens representation, the elections to the European Parliament (EP) in Slovakia have been far more successful than the national, local and regional elections. From this perspective, Slovakia belongs to the mainstream in all member states, except for Belgium and Spain, womens representation in the EP is higher than in the national parliaments. In 2004, female candidates clinched ve out of fourteen EP seats earmarked for Slovak deputies (36 percent). In the 2009 elections, they won ve out of thirteen seats (38.5 percent). After both elections, there was a higher share of women in the Slovak delegation than was the average representation of women in the EP (30 percent in 2004 and 36 percent in 2009).23 Women on the 2009 Party Electoral Lists In all relevant political parties in Slovakia, the selection of candidates for top positions was centralised on the national level. Parties that were present in the EP during the previous electoral term (2004 2009) decided to nominate their current members of the EP (MEPs) again and use their experience and established contacts. Gender was declared an important criterion (Bilk Lisoov, 2009, p. 315). However, when we compare the party strategies of nominating men and women for the 2004 and 2009 EP elections, we see some telling differences. In 2004, women were leading the candidate lists of three of ve parties, which were elected to the EP Smer-SD (Monika Flakov-Beov), KDH (Anna Zborsk) and SMK (Edit Bauer). Also, the two other parties had women among the elected MEPs SDK-DS (Zita Pletinsk) andS-HZDS (Irena Belohorsk). This strategy was in sharp contrast to the approach used by the same political parties for creating the tickets for other types of elections, particularly for the parliamentary ones. Of the six political parties that won parliamentary seats in the 2006 elections, only three nominated at least one woman to the top three positions on their tickets, but none of them to the rst position (Filadelov Btorov, 2007). We can formulate two complementary explanations for this difference. Firstly, the higher representation of female candidates for the EP may be due to the importance attributed to the European Unions gender equality agenda. Secondly (and more importantly), political parties as well as voters attribute only second-rate importance to the EP elections (Kriv, 2009). In other words, they nd the European mandate weaker than the national mandate. This attitude of Slovak voters was reected in a very low turnout that hit the bottom in the EU (19.6 percent). According to a comprehensive assessment of the performance of Slovak MEPs during their rst electoral term, female representatives reached better ratings than their male colleagues (Sulk, 2009). Four women out of fourteen MEPs Pletinsk, Zborsk, Belohorsk and Bauer ranked on the positions number 1, 2, 3 and 5,

respectively. The fth female MEP, Flakov-Beov occupied the last position (14) in the performance ranking, but enjoyed the highest visibility among the Slovak public. However, only one of those female politicians, Bauer, was rewarded by her party for her good performance with the leading position on the 2009 party ticket. Other women were given a lower position than in 2004. Pletinsk and Belohorsk ran from positions with zero chance to be elected; Zborsk ran from the third position (with a low, though not hopeless chance), and Flakov-Beov ran from the third position (with a near-certain chance to be elected). In comparison with the rst EP elections, the 2009 contest was more visible and political parties invested more energy and resources into the electoral campaign because they found the elections more relevant than ve years ago. Typically, this shift in parties approach towards the EP elections resulted in changing the nomination of candidates to the disadvantage of women. Women Among the MEPs Due to the electoral system party-list proportional representation with single constituency and single-round voting setting the order on the candidate list by aparty has acrucial impact. However, this system allows also preferential voting for two candidates on the list. Seven out of ten voters used this opportunity and sent three candidates to the EP, who otherwise would not have been elected. In three political parties, women received the highest number of preferential votes. Preferential ballots conrmed the leading position of Bauer within SMK, pushed Zborsk from the third to the rst position in KDH and Flakov-Beov from the third to the rst position in Smer-SD.24

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POLITICAL PARTY

FINAL RANKING (original ranking) 1 (3) 2 (1)

NAME Monika FlakovBeov* Boris Zala Vladimr Maka Monika Smolkov* Katarna Nevealov* Eduard Kukan Peter astn Edit Bauer* Alajos Mszros Anna Zborsk* Miroslav Mikolik Sergej Kozlk Jaroslav Paka

PREFERENTIAL VOTES (in absolute numbers) 107 097 102 940 42 885 15 830 4 378 80 244 41 847 39 721 20 652 43 356 29 764 41 990 12 981

percent cast preferential ballots only for a male candidate and thirty percent also for a female candidate. Among sixty-six percent of female voters who cast preferential ballots, twenty-two percent supported only a male candidate and forty-four percent also a female candidate. According to these data, women cast preferential ballots more frequently in favour of female candidates, while men preferred male candidates (Empirical Data, 2009b). However, this rule applied only to those parties, which placed women on an electable position on the party ticket. These were the SMK, Smer-SD and KDH parties.25 Based on these ndings, we can argue that the nal increase of the share of female MEPs for Slovakia from thirty-six percent in 2004 to thirty-eight percent in 2009 was reached mainly due to the preferential voting of women that corrected the original order of candidates set by the political parties. Obviously, voters cast preferential ballots within the framework of respective political parties. Therefore, we can speak about gender solidarity or gender preference on the basis of party proximity. Check No. 3: Parliamentary Elections Gender Composition of Party Tickets On the threshold of 2010, six months before the parliamentary elections, there was almost no public discourse about the need to strengthen the representation of women in the future parliament. Unlike in the rst half of the 2000s, womens organisations imposed virtually no pressure on political parties to give women a better chance.26 All political parties, which made it to the new parliament, had one feature in common: a low representation of women among their movers and shakers. The strongest Smer-SD party of Prime Minister Fico had no woman in its ten-member, top decision-making body. The share of women in the leaderships of the other ve parties the SDK-DS, the Freedom and Solidarity Party (SaS), the KDH, the Most-Hd (Bridge-Hd Party) and the Slovak National Party (SNS) oscillated between eleven percent and twenty-two percent. None of those few women in the decision-making bodies was known as an advocate of a stronger womens voice in politics. Thus, it was not surprising that none of those parties announced the intention to use informal quotas for the creation of the party ticket. Among those six parties, the SDK-DS presented the most promising case. For the upcoming elections, it formed four program teams, of which two were headed by women by the former presidential candidate Iveta Radiov and by the former

Smer-SD

3 (2) 4 (4) 5 (5) 1 (1)

SDK-DS 2 (2) 1 (1) SMK 2 (2) 1 (3) KDH 2 (4) S-HZDS SNS 1 (1) 1 (2)

TABLE 2: Female and male members of the European Parliament after the 2009 elections (original and nal ranking and preferential votes) Note: *Elected female MEPs. Source: Statistical Office of the Slovak Republic, 2009; Kriv, 2009.

Gender Gaps in Voting Behaviour In the 1960s and 1970s, a typical feature of political behaviour of women and men in advanced democratic countries was the so-called activism gap indicated by a lower turnout of women. However, during the following decades, women have caught up and their turnout today is approximately the same as that of men. As for Slovakia, since the early 1990s, there has been virtually no difference in the participation of women and men in national elections of various levels (i.e., parliamentary, regional, and local elections). The 2009 presidential elections were the only exception. According to two post-election polls, the turnout of women and men in the 2009 EP elections was the same (Empirical Data, 2009b; www.piredeu.eu). However, remarkable gender differences emerged in the preferential voting. Among male voters, seventy-one percent used the chance of preferential voting, while forty-one

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Minister of Justice Lucia itansk. Clearly, the party did not wish to be perceived as a typical old boys club and wanted to convey the message that it treasured its outstanding female professionals. By the end of January, reacting to an accusation of alleged corruption within the SDK-DS, party leader Dzurinda resigned from the function of the election leader. In the primaries one month later, he was substituted by Radiov. After the nal tickets of all political parties were published in March, it became clear that the share of women running for elections among the candidates of all parties was below one fourth (22.7 percent) and among the candidates of six parties, which were later elected to the parliament, even below one fth (17.8 percent). Moreover, none of those six parties reached at least one-third representation of women among the rst ten candidates. Yet there were striking differences. SDK-DS assigned positions one and three to two women Radiov and itansk. Also, the KDH placed two women among the top ten, but in weaker positions (5 and 6). Three parties the SNS, SaS and Smer-SD included only one female among the top ten candidates. The most backward case was the new Most-Hd party, which put only men in the top ten positions. The Response of the Voters Similarly to the 2006 parliamentary elections and the 2009 elections to the European Parliament, there were no signicant differences in the turnout of women and men. As the post-election survey further indicated, there were no gender gaps in the extent to which women and men used the chance of casting four preferential ballots (Empirical Data, 2010). According to the poll data, gender solidarity did not have a signicant impact on the preferential voting of female and male voters. In this respect, they contradict the ndings from the 2006 parliamentary elections27 and from the 2009 EP elections. All in all, only 15.9 percent of the preferential votes were cast in favour of female candidates the number even lower than the 17.8 percent share of female candidates among all candidates of future parliamentary parties. Such a low proportion of preferential ballots for women documented a rather weak motivation of citizens to strengthen the representation of women in parliament. On the other hand, there were signicant differences in the behaviour of the voters of particular parties. Preferential voting was used in favour of female candidates especially by the SDK-DS supporters, who gave female candidates 45.8 percent of their preferential ballots. Whereas there were only two women in the rst ten positions on the party ticket, the situation was different after the elections: four among the rst ten elected politicians with the highest number of preferential votes were women,

ranking rst, third, fourth, and tenth. By contrast, the voters of the largest Smer-SD assigned to female candidates only 5.6 percent of their preferential votes; after the elections, the position of women within this party remained virtually unchanged. The nal gender composition of the newly elected MPs was rather disappointing: only 15.3 percent of women entered the parliament, which was even less than in 2006 (16.0 percent). Individual parties differed in the share of women among new MPs, which reached from 21.4 percent in SDK-DS to zero percent in Most-Hd. The Secret of the SDK-DS Success The most interesting and perhaps also surprising was the nding that the shift in favour of female politicians within the SKD-DS was not caused primarily by female voters, but by male voters as well. We believe that the evenly-spread support reects the primary importance of the presence of strong female personalities on the party ticket. In other words, the party offered to voters such candidates who had earned public recognition for their prior political or civic activities, and was awarded by a good reaction not only from women, but also from men. Among those personalities, the election leader Radiov harvested by far the highest number of preferential votes within the SDK-DS.28 Based on these data, we can state that Radiov and her female colleagues contributed to the best election results of the SDK-DS among the opposition parties the SaS, KDH and Most-Hd. These four parties formed a centre-right government and carried out a complete alternation of power in the country. Radiov has become the rst female Prime Minister in Slovakias history. Thus, the country joined four other European states Germany, Finland, Croatia and Iceland which have female heads of state. It should be emphasised that the success of Radiov and other women within the SDK-DS was not based on the adoption of voluntary gender quotas. It resulted from the partys long-term strategy of including prominent female professionals and motivating them to pursue a political career. Obviously, the chance of women to succeed in the tough intra-party competition was amplied also by the missteps of their male colleagues, who failed to earn or to keep the trust of the public. The rocket political career of Iveta Radiov has been the best example of the synergic effect of such circumstances. It is worth mentioning that the members of the SDK-DS leadership have never followed the strategy of openly supporting gender equality and even after reaching visible success in promoting women, they were reluctant to present it as an accomplishment of their party. Being aware of the widespread stereotype of politics

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as a predominantly masculine enterprise, they probably feared that open presentation of the important role of women could afflict the partys chances among a part of its traditional voters. This unwritten law has been respected not only by men, but also by female politicians.

Conclusion
After Radiov became Prime Minister, some commentators argued that the presence of a woman in the prime ministers seat would automatically result in the empowerment of women and promotion of gender equality. Others cautioned that such expectations could materialise only if Radiov showed political will to move this agenda forward and make it one of the priorities of her government. Obviously, to master such a demanding challenge would mean to accomplish a U-turn from the marginalisation of gender agenda by all previous governments. Womens NGOs decided to seize the momentum. Together with environmental and human rights NGOs, they addressed the Prime Minister and other representatives of the new government with a programmatic document encouraging them (inter alia) to introduce gender mainstreaming and gender budgeting; to promote gender-sensitive education; to promote the principle of zero tolerance of violence against women and children; to carry out institutional changes advancing gender equality and strengthening the participation of women in decision-making. In its manifesto, the government expressed its commitment to protect human rights in general and to carry out measures aimed at eliminating gender discrimination. Shortly after her nomination, Radiov announced as one of her priorities the improvement of the quality of democracy in the country, including the amendment of the electoral legislation. However, in the public discussion that followed, neither she, nor other representatives of the new coalition parties declared their intention to use the new legislation for strengthening the participation of women in politics. None of the politicians requested the introduction of temporary measures in favour of womens higher representation, not even the successful female personalities representing the executive and legislative power. In the same vein, nobody in the political establishment found inspiring the gender parity bill signed into law in January 2011 a groundbreaking outcome of the successful lobbying of Polish women.29 The silence of Slovak female and male politicians speaks volumes. At the same time the question arises, as to how much attention to gender issues can be expected from politicians in the current situation, when they are struggling to consolidate public nances, to combat corruption and party nepotism, to reduce unemployment, and to ease ethnic tensions in the country. The realistic answer cannot

be very optimistic. As in the 1990s and 2000s, we will probably witness a tendency of politicians towards the marginalisation of gender agenda. Under such circumstances, womens non-governmental organisations will probably remain the main advocates of gender equality; the progress will be closely interconnected with their ability to mobilise broader public support and to inuence politicians and state officials at various levels. As the eight months following the parliamentary elections have proved, we can expect many hurdles on this road. Yet, the 2009 2010 gender check showed that there is denitely a chance to gradually advance gender equality in Slovakia.

Short Biographies
Zora Btorov, Ph.D., is asociologist and resident scholar at the Institute for Public Affairs in Bratislava, Slovakia. Her major elds of study are public opinion, political culture and gender issues. She is editor and co-author of numerous studies and books, including She and He in Slovakia. Gender Issues in Public Opinion (1996); Democracy and Discontent in Slovakia: A Public Opinion Prole of a Country in Transition (1998), The 1998 Parliamentary Elections and Democratic Rebirth in Slovakia (1999); Fragile Strength: Twenty Interviews about the Life Stories of Women (2001); She and He in Slovakia. Gender and Age in the Period of Transition (2010); and Where Are We? Mental Maps of Slovakia (2010). Jarmila Filadelov, Ph.D., is a sociologist and resident scholar at the Institute for Public Affairs in Bratislava. Her research topics are demographic developments, family and social policies, gender issues and social exclusion. She is author and co-author of numerous publications including Women in Politics the Effect of Transition of a Public Policy? (2000); Families in Slovakia (2004); Violence against Women as an Issue of Public Policy (2005); Demographic Developments and Family (2005); Changes in Family Policies (2006); Women, Men and Age in Labour Market Statistics (2007); She and He in Slovakia. Gender and Age in the Period of Transition (2008); Gender Impacts of the Crisis (2010). Oga Gyrfov, Ph.D., is program director at the Institute for Public Affairs and lectures at the Comenius University in Bratislava. She has written extensively on consolidation of democracy and voting behaviour. She co-authored and co-edited numerous publications including A Country in Motion. Report on Political Views and Values of People in Slovakia (2001); Democracy and Populism in Central Europe: The Visegrad Elections and their Aftermath (2007), Slovakia Votes. European and Presidential Elections 2009 (2009); Visegrad Elections 2010: Domestic Impact and European Consequences (2011). She was national coordinator for comparative electoral studies EES in 2004 and 2009 and CSES in 2010.

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ENDNOTES

Jarmila Filadelov contributed to the rst part of the study. Oga Gyrfov analysed gender aspects of the elections to the European Parliament. Those functionaries were mostly men. There were only four percent of women in the Central Committee of the Communist party of Czechoslovakia in the 1960s and no woman in the Czechoslovak government between 1970 and 1989 (Wagnerov, 2009, p. 17, and Jachanov Doleelov et al., 2009, p. 55). Mary Hrabik Samal, who conducted interviews with women active in Czechoslovak dissent, argues that their participation consisted mainly of copying and distributing samizdat literature and of supporting their partners and husbands (Hrabik Samal, 1996). the dissident philosopher Miroslav Kus, and the interview with Marta arnogursk, wife of the Catholic dissident Jn arnogursk, in Btorov, 2001.

10 See the interviews with Jana Jurov and

Jana Cvikov in Btorov, 2001.

11 For more details, see Btorov, Filadelov,

Maroiov, 2004.
12 Kateina Jacques, a prominent Czech politician

post-election surveys: in May 2009, after the presidential elections; in July 2009, after the EP elections (Empirical Data, 2009a and 2009b) and in June and July 2010, after the parliamentary elections (Empirical Data, 2010).
21 Also in the 1995 presidential elections in Po-

the SDK-DS voters in the national elections.

26 In the following months of electoral campaign,

of the Green Party, expressed a similar critical view: Non-prot organisations claim to strive to be apolitical and non-partisan. In promoting women in politics though, impartiality is problematic because politics is ideologyrooted. (Jacques, 2009).
13 Similar views were expressed by the female

the issues of gender equality did not become part of the media discourse and were virtually ignored by all political parties (Btorov Gyrfov, 2011).
27 As the post-election poll from July 2006 re-

land, women supported a female presidential candidate more frequently than did men. See Fuszara, 2000, p. 274.
22 According to our survey taken in February

members of the Hungarian parliament (Fodor, 1994, p. 186), as well as by the supporters of agreater participation of women in politics in Poland (Fuszara, 2000, p. 276 277).
14 As Hana Havelkov cautions, expectations of

4 See the interview with Jolana Kus, wife of

For more on the concept of positive deviants, see Btorov, 1989. For more on the changes of the Czechoslovak model of socialistic emancipation, see Wagnerov, 2009. Elzbieta Matynia describes a similar experience, commenting on the attitudes of Polish women, who played an active role in the clandestine operations of the pro-democratic movements of the 1970s and 1980s (Matynia, 2009). In those days, few women were aware of the threat that the pendulum could move to the opposite extreme to the glorication of womens maternal role at the expense of their chance to combine paid work and childcare. The era of normalisation followed the military intervention of the Warsaw Pact armies in August 1968 that ended the reform period in Czechoslovakia.

the specic female contribution can turn to the disadvantage of women in politics because they put higher demands on them than on men; hence, female politicians are evaluated more critically (quoted by Jachanov Doleelov et al., 2009, p. 57).
15 The share of women on the candidate lists is

2010, she was perceived as the most credible politician among the voters of her own party and the second most credible politician among the supporters of SaS and Most-Hd (Btorov Gyrfov, 2010). These ndings indicated that a substantial portion of the people who intended to vote against the then ruling coalition were ready to accept Radiov as the head of the future cabinet.
23 Since 1979, the share of women in the EP has

vealed, preferential voting of women and men in the 2006 parliamentary elections was inuenced also by gender solidarity: female voters tended to cast preferential ballots in favour of female candidates, while men preferred male candidates (Btorov, 2009a).
28 To name two other telling examples, Magda

much lower than their share in the membership of the respective political parties (Filadelov Puli Radiov, 2000).
16 The only exception was the Slovak Christian

substantially increased: from sixteen percent between 1979 and 1984 to thirty-six percent between 2009 and 2010. The differences among individual countries are huge from Malta with no women in the EP to Nordic countries like Finland (62 percent of female MEPs), Sweden (56 percent) and Estonia (50 percent).
24 The remaining two newly elected female

Vryov, former Ambassador to Austria and Poland and former Deputy State Secretary, moved from the original twenty-third to the fourth position and Jana Dubovcov, a lawyer known for her moral integrity and civic courage moved from the eighteenth to the tenth position.
29 The political pressure in favour of some legisla-

and Democratic Union (SDK-DS) that formed the Association of Women of SDK-DS.
17 A similar trend took place in the Czech society.

See Jachanov Doleelov et al., 2009.

18 For the whole list of womens problems, see

Btorov, 2008b.
19 See the interview with Helena Wolekov, the

representatives, Monika Smolkov and Katarna Nevealov of Smer-SD, were almost unknown. The most probable motives for nominating them were to present the modern face of the Smer-SD party before other members of the Party of European Socialists and at the same time, to keep strong men for the domestic politics.
25 The case of the female voters of the SDK-DS

rst Minister of Labour and Social Affairs, in Btorov, 2001, as well as the transcript of the interview with the presidential candidate Iveta Radiov (2009).
20 In order to shed more light on them, the

Institute for Public Affairs carried out three

was different. Hypothetically, we could speak of the demobilisation effect caused by the placement of the most hard-working MEP Pletinsk on an unelectable position. This effect manifested itself in a slightly lower support of SDK-DS among women than among men (Empirical Data, 2009b; www.piredeu.eu) a phenomenon that has not been typical of

tive measures to increase the representation of women started in June 2009, when the Polish Womens Congress initiated alargescale campaign for introducing obligatory parity on electoral lists. Until the end of that year, 150 thousand signatures were collected in support of a citizens draft on gender parity on electoral lists. The draft was presented in the Polish Sejm as acitizens initiative (Grochal, 2009; Czerwiska, 2009) and a special Sejm commission was established for preparing the parity bill before the 2011 parliamentary elections. According to the new legislation, at least thirty-ve percent of all candidates on the lists of all parties running for seats in the lower house must be women or men.

UKRAINE

Mothering the Nation. Demographic Politics, Gender and Parenting in Ukraine Tatiana Zhurzhenko

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A B ST RA C T

This chapter addresses demographic discourses and politics in post-Soviet Ukraine, particularly during 2005-2009, from the gender perspective. It offers a brief overview of the current demographic situation in Ukraine, focusing on the problem of low fertility, public anxiety with depopulation and the new incentives introduced in 2005 to stimulate birth rates. The author discusses different approaches to pro-natalist policies among the political elites and the expert community and explores the connections between nationalism, the revival of familialist values and the discourse on the demographic crisis in Ukraine before and after the Orange Revolution. The analysis of demographic policies in Ukraine suggests that reproduction has become a class phenomenon: while families with many children are monitored and supported as particularly endangered by poverty, middle-class parenting is promoted as a socially desirable model. In conclusion, the chapter discusses the effects of current demographic politics on womens social status, their reproductive rights, and the gender-specic division of labour in Ukrainian families.

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During the last two decades, public concern about low fertility and negative population growth can be observed across the European continent.1 After 1989, a decline of birth rates took place in most Eastern and Central European countries as a reaction to market reforms and growing social insecurity, on the one hand, and to the new career opportunities and alternatives offered by consumer capitalism, on the other. With the fall of the communist regimes in this region, reproduction has become a political battleeld, an area for constructing a new national order and exercising new democratic rules. Susan Gal and Gail Kligman2 pointed to four political aims connected to the issue of reproduction in this part of Europe: political actors (1) recast the relationship between a state and its residents; (2) redene the category of nation and the social groups included in and excluded from it; (3) reconstitute the political legitimacy of the state; (4) constitute women as a particular type of political actor. For example, in Poland after 1989, the anti-abortion debate became an important arena for redening the moral norms of a democratic state in opposition to a communist one. In postSoviet Russia, pro-natalists have gained hegemony in public discourse on women and family, while the population decline is commonly seen by politicians as a threat to the countrys territorial integrity, national security and the ability of the state to control its borders. In the countries of former Yugoslavia, conicts between ethnic and religious groups competing for the same territory invested the issue of a demographic balance with high political importance.3 But even in those post-communist countries that have succeeded to enter the EU, ethnic minorities with higher birth rates (such as the Roma in Hungary and Slovakia) are often perceived as a threat to national integrity. Demographic discourses in post-socialist societies contribute to the reconstruction and self-representation of the national community as they concern issues such as territorial sovereignty, relations with the neighbours, family, national culture, as well as the ethnic composition of a society. In the post-socialist countries, demographic problems have been instrumentalised by various political forces. In Ukraine and in Russia, the Communists and the new left populists used the discourse of a dying nation for criticising market reforms of Boris Yeltsin and Leonid Kuchma.4 Similarly, in Bulgaria, the alarming demographic data at the beginning of the 1990s was used to frame public criticism against the mounting hardships of Bulgarias transition to capitalism.5 Not only the left, which looks back to the socialist welfare state with nostalgia, but also market liberals tend to explain low fertility by the poor economic condition. On the contrary, nationalists usually see low fertility as a result of abandoning traditional values and a sign of national decline. But even moderate political forces, which identify with European liberal values, tend to conceive the nation as a family and consider a proactive role of the state in reproduction issues as necessary. The discourse about the traditionally strong family and the concern with the empty cradle (often associated with womens egoism) contribute to the reconguration of national identity; from this perspective, nation as a collective body is reproduced through the physical process of procreation.

At the same time, in the countries of Eastern and Central Europe, reproduction has become a class issue. Poverty as a new social issue limits the pro-natalist ambitions of the post-socialist states: families with many children are commonly seen as problematic and even deviant, as a burden to the welfare system. It is the new middleclass that produces and consumes new discourses on responsible parenting. Middleclass families are internalising the new social norms on the desirable number of children, on the appropriate age of women for childbearing, on the combination of professional and family goals and on the necessary material conditions for raising healthy children and providing for their future. Parenting is performed through consumption practices, from fashion and entertainment to education and healthcare services. By supporting (or discouraging) certain types of family, state demographic politics contributes to the processes of class differentiation in post-socialist societies. Last but not least, the dominant discourse about demographic crisis as well as the state politics of regulating fertility affect womens social status and their position on the labour market; they encourage certain gender roles and forms of parenthood. While pro-natalist policies (and material benets as their instrument) can improve womens economic status, they usually do not make it easier for women to combine family duties with professional career and they therefore support the traditional division of gender roles in family and society. Even more important, pro-natalist measures can constrain womens reproductive rights by limiting their access to contraception and abortion. In Eastern Europe, at least two examples of pro-natalist politics were heavily based on denying womens control over their bodies: in the Soviet Union under Stalin and in Ceausescus Romania. However, banning abortion (and limiting access to contraception) with the aim of increasing births was also practised in liberal countries.6 In Poland, where the restoration of moral and religious values in the post-communist society was the main impetus of the anti-abortion initiatives, demographic considerations also played a role.7 In contemporary Russia, the issue of low fertility and the still high number of abortions are often discussed in connection, as abortions are seen as a potential resource of increasing births. This chapter addresses demographic discourses and politics in post-Soviet Ukraine, particularly during the period from 2005 to 2009, from a gender perspective. I begin with a brief overview of the demographic situation in Ukraine, focusing on the problem of low fertility, public anxiety with depopulation and the recent measures the Ukrainian government has undertaken to cope with the countrys demographic challenge. As a next step, I will analyse contemporary demographic discourses and politics in Ukraine from three different but interrelated perspectives: 1) nation-building and the reconguration of national identity; 2) class differentiation and the emergence of a middle-class parenting culture; 3) the effect of demographic politics on gender roles and womens social status and reproductive rights. This chapter is based on media materials, official speeches and demographic research, as well as on expert interviews made in Kyiv and Kharkiv in 2009.

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Depopulation, the Problem of Low Fertility and Demographic Anxiety in Ukraine

Public concerns about low fertility are not something new for Ukraine. Since the mid-1960s, it became obvious that fertility decline in the European part of the USSR was not just a temporary response to the difficulties of the post-war era, but a stable tendency. With the end of Stalinism, demography regained its academic status and Soviet scholars started to discuss the reasons for fertility decline.8 Some pro-natalist political interventions led to a short-term improvement of fertility rates in the second half of the 1980s. However, in the next decade, the economic recession and the neoliberal reform of the socialist welfare system, which caused economic insecurity and mass impoverishment, led to a dramatic deterioration of social and demographic indicators. Indeed, with its total fertility rate (TFR) of 1.26,9 which is far below replacement level,10 Ukraine belongs to the group of European countries with very low fertility. Since 1993, the Ukrainian population is shrinking: it dropped from 52.5 million in 1993 to 46.6 million in 2007, i.e., by more than ten percent. According to the demographic forecast, it will fall to 29 million until 2050, losing more than one third. The population of Ukraine is aging, a tendency that threatens to strain the pension- and healthcare systems in the near future. Even more worrying are high mortality rates, particularly male mortality. For example, at the age of thirty, men die four times more often than women. Experts attribute abnormal male mortality rst of all to the high consumption of alcohol, unhealthy lifestyle and hazardous labour conditions, such as in the coal mine industry. Epidemic indicators of TB and AIDS are among the worst in Europe. Life expectancy in Ukraine for men is only 62.5 years, compared to 74.2 for women. So the life expectancy gap between men and women in the case of Ukraine is particularly large (the second worst indicator in the region after Russia).11 Among other alarming indicators are relatively high maternal and infant mortality.12 Finally, emigration and labour migration of Ukrainians, rst of all to Russia and to the European countries in the last decade have contributed to the process of depopulation. No wonder that alarmist discourses dominate demographic publications and public debates in Ukraine; the fear of depopulation contributes to the persisting worries about state sovereignty and territorial integrity of the post-Soviet Ukrainian nation. In Ukrainian public and political discourses, the demographic crisis is associated with the shortage of labour resources and brain drain, with problems of the pension system due to the aging of the population, and even with the issue of national security. Labour migration of Ukrainians abroad, which affects rst of all young educated people and women in their reproductive age, is another subject of public concern. The import of labour force as a possible solution is usually viewed with scepticism, because it might raise problems with social integration and even lead to ethnic conicts.

From the mid-1990s, the dramatic worsening of the demographic and social indicators became obvious to the Ukrainian political elite. Several official documents, approved in the rst decade of state independence demonstrated a growing concern of the Ukrainian government with the decline of birth rates, high level of maternal and infant mortality and deterioration of public health, such as: The Long Term Program for the Improvement of the Position of Women, Family, the Protection of Motherhood and Childhood (1992), The National Program on Family Planning (1995), The Children of Ukraine Program (1996), The Concept of State Family Policy (1999). They presented a mixture of various ideologies and discourses: the Soviet protectionism regarding motherhood and childhood; the post-Soviet liberalisation of state-family relations; nationalism and neo-familialism; and nally, new Western discourses on family planning, womens rights and gender equality.13 However, the capacity of the post-Soviet state to deal with social and demographic issues was rather limited. Ambitious official programs contained rather expensive measures that required centralised administrative regulation and could hardly be implemented under the conditions of market reforms. Due to the economic crisis, even minimal family support payments were often delayed for months; social rights of women and children guaranteed by the Ukrainian legislation were often violated.14 From the early 2000s, the economic recovery and growing public concern with the demographic crisis brought the political elite to re-consider the possibilities of state welfare for encouraging childbirth. A similar turn could be observed in the politics of the neighbouring states, such as Russia and Belarus. In June 2003, special hearings On the demographic crisis in Ukraine, its causes and consequence took place in the Ukrainian parliament. Underlining the alarming developments of the last decade, rst of all the rapid fertility decline and the raise of mortality, which hamper the economic development and threaten national security,15 the parliament recommended to prepare a programmatic document: The National Concept of Demographic Development of Ukraine. The fact that a similar official document had been approved by the Russian government already in September 2001 might have served as an additional impetus. The Ukrainian Concept was supposed to take into account the experience of the advanced European countries and aimed at decreasing mortality, raising fertility, the protection, rehabilitation and re-creation of the Ukrainian gene pool, and at preventing migration which worsens the demographic situation in Ukraine.16 The Concept of Demographic Development of Ukraine for the period from 2005 to 2015 was developed by the Institute of Demography and Social Research of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences and approved by the Cabinet of Ministers (at that time headed by Viktor Yanukovych) in October 2004, at the peak of the presidential election campaign. After the Orange Revolution, the new political leadership ostentatiously gave priority to social issues and developed the concept into the Strategy of

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Demographic Development of Ukraine for the Period from 2006 to 2015. In May 2006, the updated document was presented to the Ukrainian parliament. The strategy explains the demographic crisis in Ukraine rst of all by the fertility decline to a critical level and stresses the necessity of an effective pro-natalist policy. As one of the rst tasks, it proposes to re-install family values in Ukrainian society and to promote the two-child-family as a model. At the same time, pro-natalist goals seem rather declarative as no path-breaking measures to achieve them are suggested. The strategy declares as its main aim not ghting depopulation, but improving the quality characteristics of the population and the harmonisation of the populations reproduction.17 It focuses on improving population health and on ghting high mortality. At the same time, a special chapter is devoted to the issue of migration. It says that migration can become an important resource of stabilising demographic dynamics through the repatriation of ethnic Ukrainians, return of labour migrants from abroad and their re-integration in Ukrainian economy. The strategy reects the obvious contradiction between the pro-natalist goals declared by the Ukrainian politicians and the rather sober approach of professional demographers, sceptical about pro-natalism. According to Ella Libanova, Director of the Institute of Demography and one of the authors of the Demographic Strategy, fertility decline and population aging are all-European tendencies, and the tools of a state to inuence reproductive behaviour are rather limited.18 These tendencies reect womens rising educational level and their professional career orientations, but also the new opportunities of self-realisation and consumption, which emerge as alternatives to childbearing.19 A similar position is shared by another Ukrainian demographer, Iryna Pribytkova, who is also sceptical about the capacity of state policy to raise fertility signicantly and change womens attitudes to childbearing.20 Therefore, if politicians are often tempted to call on Ukrainian families to produce more children, Ukrainian demographers do not insist on an absolute population size and propose instead to focus on improving health indicators. They point to the fact that it is not so much low fertility (which Ukraine shares with some other European countries),21 but high male mortality, low life expectancy, high infant mortality and poor health indicators, which exemplify the backwardness of the country. In terms of practical measures, in 2005, the Orange government signicantly raised many of the family benets and childcare allowances. The biggest sensation was certainly the radical increase of the one-time benet paid upon child birth. From April 2005, the one-time benet upon the birth of the rst child was raised up to 8,500 UAH, a sum that is 11.7 times higher than in 2004. From January 2008, this sum was raised again to 12,240 UAH, while upon the birth of the second child a mother gets 25,000 UAH and upon the birth of the third (and every next) child, 50,000 UAH. A relative increase in the total number of births since 2006 has been interpreted by

president Yushchenko and his supporters as an evidence for the success of the new policy and of peoples growing optimism. At the opening of the local maternal hospital in Kryvyi Rih in March 2009, Yushchenko celebrated the new tendency of increasing fertility, explaining it as a success of state pro-natalist measures by stating: Never before in Ukraine was fertility stimulated at such a high level.22 While politicians view the new system of benets as stimulating fertility, experts consider them rather an instrument of social protection for the most vulnerable social groups and are sceptical about their sustainable effect on fertility. The authors of the research paper Marriage, Family and Childbearing Attitudes in Ukraine (published in 2008 by the Institute of Demography) explain the growing number of births since 2006 by the social and economic stabilisation in the country and the postcrisis compensation of postponed births as well as by the more numerous cohort of the young women who now reach reproductive age.23 Comparing the reform of 2005 with the pro-natalist measures introduced by the Soviet government in 1982, Ukrainian demographers argue that such policy can only have a short-term effect, as they cannot compensate the low family income and change attitudes towards child bearing.24 Admitting that the new benets upon child birth are supposed to stimulate fertility, the authors are sceptical about the possibility of a signicant fertility increase, at least as long as the average family income remains low and the housing problem is not solved. In short, it was for the rst time in post-Soviet Ukraine that substantial economic incentives were introduced to increase fertility, a measure that certainly benets young families and supports young mothers economically, albeit for a short time. However, it was not supplemented by a correspondent tax policy, by programs of social housing and childcare. Therefore, its effect on fertility remains disputed.

Demography and Nationalism

In the Soviet era, demographic anxiety was related rst of all to the politicians and experts concerns about the adequate supply of labour for socialist economy and providing sufficient personnel for the army. Since Soviet ideology rejected discrimination on the basis of ethnic or national identity, demographic discourses before 1991 muted overtly nationalist rhetoric.25 By contrast, post-Soviet discourses on population dynamics and reproduction operate with the concept of nation as an organic unity and as a collective body that reproduces itself through the physical process of procreation. This collective body processes certain cultural characteristics that must be preserved to provide its identity; other ethnic groups or migrants can endanger the cultural coherence and dominant position of the core nation.

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According to Yuval-Davis,26 the people as power discourse determines the demographic policy of all nation-states and is typical for state-forming nations. In this type of discourse, the future of a nation and sometimes its survival depend on steady population growth; depopulation is usually seen in terms of disease and catastrophy. In the Ukrainian context, depopulation and low fertility represent yet another threat for the young Ukrainian state, while positive demographic dynamics would prove the success of nation-building. While the Ukrainian Communists blame the liberal reformers and the West for depopulation, nationalists believe that it was Russian (later Soviet) imperial policy, which deliberately undermined the natural reproduction of the Ukrainian ethnos by means of assimilation, forced migration and mass terror. Despite the fact that the last census demonstrated a growing share of ethnic Ukrainians in the population, nationalists worry about the future of the Ukrainian ethnos and often connect the demographic crisis with cultural degradation and national identity crisis.27 The notion of linguacide derived from genocide refers to the still low status of the Ukrainian language and culture. Chernobyl and the Great Hunger (Holodomor) as two negative symbols of Soviet modernisation, even if not explicitly mentioned, have an impact on the demographic discourses in Ukraine. Thus, recent discussion on the total number of Holodomor victims in Ukraine, which involved historians as well as demographers, place the issue of depopulation in the historical and (geo-)political context. On the other hand, debates on the long-term consequences of the Chernobyl disaster shape the public perception of issues such as the high risk of prenatal pathologies, infant mortality and poor reproductive health of both men and women. Both Chernobyl and Holodomor play a prominent role in constructing the image of the Ukrainian nation as a victim. Post-Soviet demographic anxiety is linked to neo-familialism. While during the Soviet era, the family was interpreted from the functionalist point of view as a cell of society, under the new conditions it turned into a symbol of national revival, of the continuity of generations and of the economic and cultural ourishing of the new Ukraine. This neo-familialist tendency in Ukrainian society contributed to the reinvention of the nation and helped establish a distance from the communist past. Mythologised images of the traditionally strong family, the Ukrainian habit to have many children, the traditionally high status of women in Ukrainian society became very popular in the rhetoric of state officials, academics and womens leaders. This desirable traditional family is often presented in public and academic discurse as something between the idealised Ukrainian family of the pre-Soviet past and the American middle-class family of the 1950s.28 A common assumption is that stable marriage and high birth rates are typical for the Ukrainian ethnos. The discourse on strengthening the family can be found in the election programs of political parties, in speeches of pro-presidential and oppositional leaders and in parliamentary debates.

The dominant discourse of the Orange Revolution paradoxically combined the hopes for political modernisation and Europeanisation with nationalism and neofamilialism. Viktor Yushchenko promised the Ukrainian voters a strong social policy, including ve million new jobs, raising pensions and social benets, the reduction of taxes, support of families and defending childrens rights. At the same time, his approach to social politics corresponded with his vision of a nation as a family and an organic community. References to family values and iconic images of his own family were actively used in the election campaign. Yushchenkos own fertility (two adult and three young children) represented his potential as a man and a politician. His American wife, devoted to the family and to charity work, exemplied in the eyes of many Ukrainians the traditional, Western gender norm in opposition to the communist ideal of the working mother. Yushchenkos family set an example to follow: it demonstrated that modern Ukrainians with higher education, professional and even political ambitions can have three children. His family, which often took part in important cultural and commemorative events, represented a truly Ukrainian family using the Ukrainian language both in public and private and often appearing in ethnic clothes. Yushchenkos vision of demographic politics corresponded with his rather traditionalist vision of family- and gender issues. For example, in May 2006, in one of his regular radio speeches (that time devoted to Mothers Day and the International Day of Family), Yushchenko directly addressed the demographic situation as one of the most important issues for the Ukrainian nation. Characteristically, he started his speech with references to the traditionally high value of the family in Ukrainian culture and the highly respected status of the mother. In his interpretation, demographic policy was practically reduced to state support of women as mothers, of children and families. Yushchenko stressed that the mission of the Ukrainian authorities is to preserve the nation, and to do everything that every year more and more healthy babies are born in Ukraine, that all children have strong and happy families.29 Praising rst steps of the state in this direction, he suggested that every Ukrainian family should now dare to have two or three children. Although Yushchenko mentioned the importance of combining womens maternal role with professional life and the need for a modern preschool education system, he did not actually go beyond the traditional understanding of the family and the role of the mother. He did not address issues of gender inequality or family violence and in the end of his speech referred to the notorious motto We should become 52 million!30 In another radio speech at the occasion of the Day of Childrens Rights in June 2006, Yushchenko stressed the need to increase the amount of childcare allowances for parents with children under the age of three arguing again in a rather traditional way: In the rst years of childrens lives, mothers should always be around. The state should create all necessary conditions for this. 31

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Reproduction as a Class Issue

In the liberalised post-socialist states, reproduction has become a class issue. The unspoken consensus of politicians, experts and public opinion is that children should be born into those families who can take full responsibility for their material provision, education, health, and their preparation for adult life. The norm of middleclass parenthood assumes that a couple should wait until it can afford a child in order to be able to offer it proper material and living conditions. Normative arguments around middle-class parenthood work through media, advertising, and other forms of cultural production, turning child rearing into a consumption project. Requirements of modern parenthood may include, for example, a separate childs room or a private nanny, extra English lessons, or expensive toys such as a Play Station. The culture of responsibility associated with middle-class parenthood poses particular expectations on Ukrainian parents: for example, private medical services or a private school are often considered necessary; or extra diet for a child because of imagined and real dangers of environmental pollution. This makes parenthood extremely time-consuming and nancially demanding; it also puts additional burden on women, who are supposed to organise and coordinate everyday care, education and leisure activities of their children. Middle-class parenthood is not just a cultural phenomenon; it is also explicitly or implicitly encouraged by state institutions and policies. The Strategy of Demographic Development openly declares one of its main aims as the formation of a middle-class family model, which is characterised by material well-being, by investments in family, and by childbearing as a stimulus and object of such investments.32 This approach is reected, for example, in the state housing credit program for young families, which aims to help them nance a separate living space. The program offers its clients partial refunds of bank interests and is funded through the state budget. In 2005, after corruption allegations, a new, more transparent regulation (based on a score system) was introduced. Due to the small budget of the program, only a very limited number of families can prot from it. Since 2006, the program has suffered from debts and insufficient funding. But, more importantly, the program is available only for those young people who already have a permanent and well-paid job. The main criteria are income level and the ability to repay credits. In fact, the program is oriented to well-educated and career-oriented young people under the age of thirty-ve. The new regulation gives priority to young academics and promising sportsmen, while more children hardly improve the score. Only a minority of young families t these requirements, which assume professional success and material well-being. The ideology of middle-class parenting is reected in the ambiguous attitudes that state institutions and society have towards families with many children. Demographers argue that the culture of high fertility has practically disappeared in

Ukraine. At the same time, families with many children should be rewarded by the state as they can slow depopulation to some extent.33 However, the main reason why such families get special attention is not demographic but rather social and economic. Household surveys demonstrate that there is a direct correlation between the number of children in a family and its level of well-being. The majority of families with three or more children live in poverty, and many of these families could not survive without state support, however limited it is. In the late Soviet era, as a part of the pro-natalist agenda, families with many children were entitled to numerous privileges and benets, most signicantly concerning housing. Although high fertility was already stigmatised in urban Soviet society as not modern and irrational behaviour, the state encouraged childbearing by supporting families with many children. Mothers of ve or more children were rewarded with special medals; mothers of ten or more were honoured as the Mother-Heroines and entitled to higher pensions. At a rst glance, politicians in post-Soviet Ukraine continue this kind of policy. In 1999, President Kuchmas decree introduced the Measures for Improving the Situation of Families with Many Children. As part of this program, they pay only fty percent for school lunches and childcare and should have privileged access to higher education. In addition, regional authorities can introduce other forms of social support (and they often have done so, especially before elections). In 2001, the honorary title of Mother-Heroine was re-established. Viktor Yushchenko initiated a special charity program aimed at social and material support of families with many children and introduced a special one-time benet for Mother-Heroines. However, in contrast to Soviet policy, which was motivated by pro-natalist goals, in the Ukrainian approach, social protection dominates over encouraging birth. In practice, families with many children can enjoy material support only if they belong to the low-income strata. But only few families t the low-income criteria as they have to be under the (very low) official minimum wage. In 2008, only 150,000 families (nine percent) were registered as low-income, which does not correspond with the official statistics of poverty.34 The new amendments from the end of 2008 make it even more difficult for a family to meet this criterion: it cannot claim social support if one of its members does not work (or does not study) for longer than three months, if a family has a plot of land bigger than 0.6 hectares, owns another apartment, or has other sources of support. Almost forty percent of low-income families, which get social support in Ukraine, are families with many children. Experts warn that such families can be particularly hit by the economic crisis that began in 2008, because regional authorities have also introduced saving measures. Public servants responsible for social support of families with many children often share common stereotypes about them as marginal and even deviant. In their eyes, such families behave irresponsibly as they count on state support and are not

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able to control childbearing. Such non-rational, non-modern reproductive behaviour does not correspond with the model of middle-class responsible parenthood. Local authorities focus their attention on the control and monitoring of such families, checking their eligibility for social support and their use of child allowances. The honorary title of the Mother-Heroine can be awarded today only if a woman has raised her children at least until the age of eight and if, for example, none of the children was ever criminally punished. This means, she has to be not just a biological, but also socially responsible mother. For their part, the associations of families with many children present them as more responsible than one-child families. They praise the values of mutual support and altruism that dominate in their families and stress their contribution to improving the demographic situation. Thus, families with many children nd themselves at the centre of various political dilemmas: between liberal ideology and familialism, between the states pro-natalist desires and public fears of poverty proliferation, and between traditionalist values supporting the extended family model and the modern ethos of responsible parenthood.

regrettable Soviet heritage,37 a barbaric habit to be overcome through education and the use of modern contraception. Indeed, the number of abortions in Ukraine dropped almost by half in recent years (from 34.1 per 1,000 females of fertile age in 2000 to 17.3 in 2007)38 and eighty percent compared to 1991. However, the number still remains high compared to European indicators. Family planning workers stress that in Ukraine, there is no systematic opposition to public sexual education programs and propaganda of modern contraception. With the exception of Western Ukraine, where some local initiatives have recently appeared, there is no pro-life movement in Ukraine. Opinion polls show little public interest in this issue and they demonstrate that only a tiny minority of Ukrainians (even among religious persons) would support the idea of strengthening abortion regulations.39 What is probably more important is the fact that there is no consolidated conservative political force in the country interested in raising this issue. Ukraines regulations on abortion from 2006 are rather liberal, as they allow abortions to be carried out at up to twelve weeks gestation without restrictions. Between the twelfth and the twenty-second week, women are eligible to request an abortion for health reasons and specic social reasons (such as pregnancy resulting from rape). Earlier regulations on abortion (1993) allowed abortions for health and social reasons until the twenty-eighth week and listed among social reasons three or more children in the family, divorce, death or illness of the husband during pregnancy, imprisonment of the husband, and so on. In fact, unemployment or a severe nancial situation sometimes was also considered a sufficient reason. In 2006, the Cabinet of Ministers signicantly reduced the list of social reasons for abortion, a fact that went practically unnoticed by the Ukrainian public. Since abortion in the second trimester remains an exception anyway, these restrictions can hardly be related to pro-natalist intentions. To summarise, even the radical opponents of abortions in Ukraine believe that the problem can be solved neither by banning measures nor by measures that would help raise fertility. Thus, concerns with demographic problems in Ukraine have not been translated into restrictive policies on abortion and access to contraception. The next question concerns the way demographic policies in Ukraine (already practised or just planned) might affect womens economic status and their situation on the labour market. Womens relatively low economic status and their persisting discrimination remain a serious problem, despite their high educational potential and active participation in the labour force. The gender wage gap in Ukraine is about seventy percent, and women constitute sixty-eight percent of the registered unemployed. Despite the new Law of Ukraine, On Providing Equal Rights and Opportunities for Women and Men (2005), an effective mechanism preventing gender discrimination on the labour market has not been created yet. Women with small children, especially those low-qualied and without a work record, have little chance to get a job, and young married women, that is, prospective mothers, are particularly discriminated

Demographic Politics, Womens Reproductive Rights and Gender Family Roles

Women as bearers of children are the rst to be affected by state efforts to regulate the demographic dynamics. This particularly concerns measures to raise fertility. Leslie King argues that pro-natalist programs are specically relevant to women in at least three ways. First, pro-natalist policies may include measures to limit access to contraceptives as part of an overall plan to increase births. Second, policies can affect womens economic status through birth allowances, single-parent benets, or state-run childcare facilities that make it easier for women to participate in the labour force. Finally, pro-natalist policies can inuence gender roles by promoting particular family forms, such as families where the mother remains at home with the children.35 A glance into Ukraines newest demographic policies through this angle helps understand its gender dimension. Today, Ukraine is one of the few European countries where abortion has not become a political issue. The high number of abortions is discussed in moral terms in Ukraine, but unlike in Russia, abortion is rarely connected to the problem of depopulation.36 The abortion issue concerns the demographic situation only in one respect: the popularity of abortion is seen by the experts as the main reason for womens reproductive health problems, which contribute to low fertility. Mass use of abortion is seen as a

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against in the labour market. The Labour Code guarantees women with small children the right to a part-time job, but employers are often not interested in providing such an opportunity, especially in the private sector. Although increased childcare allowances (and particularly signicant benets upon child birth) might improve the economic situation of women as legally acknowledged beneciaries of state support (which is particularly relevant for single mothers), they can hardly improve womens status on the labour market in the long term. Moreover, the Ukrainian system of family and maternal benets hardly encourages women to return to the labour market after childcare leave. It does not encourage a combination of maternal duties with professional obligations either, as it does not offer special compensation for kindergarten fees or private childcare as in other countries. A policy aimed at providing mass availability and high-quality childcare would be much more important from a gender-equality point of view (and at the same time would stimulate fertility). Some Western countries such as Germany also concerned with low fertility recently made signicant investments in the childcare system. In Ukraine, the Ministry for Family, Youth, and Sport admits the current shortage of places in the daycare centres. Many kindergartens were closed during the 1990s, when the request was low and funding was insufficient, and their premises were privatised and used for commercial purposes. Today, property developers often do not keep up with the regulations that oblige them to provide childcare facilities in new residential areas. The lack of available and good childcare, especially for children with special needs and health problems, impedes not only womens careers but also the increase of fertility. Finally, the last question is: How do demographic policies in Ukraine, particularly measures aimed at increasing fertility, affect gender roles in the family and in society? Are demographic politics in Ukraine gender-sensitive? Krause points out the moralising effects of alarmist demographic discourses: without naming them explicitly, women are made responsible for low fertility.40 Ukraine is no exception in this respect. Moreover, the Ukrainian public discourse is highly gendered: if women are held responsible for low fertility, high mortality appears rst of all as mens problem; due to the high consumption of alcohol, unhealthy lifestyle, and hazardous labour conditions, mortality among men, particularly at middle age, is much higher than among women. Both demographers and journalists tend to focus on womens childbearing attitudes as if men did not participate in reproductive decisions. They see womens emancipation as a main factor of low fertility without taking into account the changes in post-Soviet masculinity and mens social roles. At the same time, the problem of mens high mortality is usually discussed without taking into account womens and family problems. In many ways, this approach continues the old Soviet discourse on the crisis of masculinity,41 which presented men as endangered species and passive victims. The problem with Ukrainian men as presented in the media is twofold: on the one hand, men are spoiled by women from childhood on and remain infantile boys,

unable to take responsibility for a family, looking for pleasure (alcohol, smoking), and enjoying risk; on the other hand, men suffer from permanent stress related to the high competitiveness and insecurity of the modern market economy, and from the all too heavy burden of being the breadwinner.42 However, both demographic problems low fertility and high male mortality should be approached jointly, as they require both radical changes in the dominant model of masculinity and an improvement in womens social position. Ukrainian demographers have already suggested consideration of new forms of demographic policy, based not only on family values, but also on principles of gender equality. In particular, Scandinavian countries achieved one of the highest levels of fertility in Europe by creating opportunities for women to combine their maternal role with professional life and by actively involving men in childcare. For example, in Norway, men have a statutory right to be granted a fathers quota from parental leave and actively use it. An enlightened and gender-conscious pro-natalism based on the active promotion of new gender roles can also be more effective in the long run. At the same time, promoting new models of masculinity oriented to such values as family, health, and a safe way of life will contribute to reduce mortality rate. A shift to such an approach can be found in Ukraine, both in state policy and in civil society. Along with womens NGOs, new mens groups and initiatives emerge that deal with the issues of parenthood, childrens rights and education, and family violence. Successful are also the so-called schools of fatherhood or schools for responsible parenting, which promote new gender roles (supported by the Equal Opportunities United Nations Development Program in Ukraine). Several NGOs have launched an initiative on establishing a Fathers Day in Ukraine (similar to Mothers Day) in order to bring attention to the issue of fatherhood. Problems like avoiding paying alimony, the fathers right to regular contacts with his child after divorce, among others, which have been silenced until now, have become the subject of public discussion. The Ministry for Family, Youth, and Sport also propagates new gender roles in the family. Ukrainian law now allows fathers to make use of childcare leave until the age of three years, and makes them eligible for all family and childcare benets. Moreover, amendments on the statutory right for fathers to ten days of paid leave upon the birth of a child and for paid care leave in case of a childs illness are under consideration. However, because of womens lower wages, the question of who takes a childcare leave in most cases is decided automatically. Ukrainian men and Ukrainian families in general can only prot from these new opportunities if womens status on the labour market is improved.

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Conclusion
With the post-communist transition in Ukraine, as in other countries of the region, reproduction has become a focus of political struggle for (re-)constructing liberal democracy and shaping national identity. While political liberalisation, market- and consumer capitalism promised women new opportunities and freedoms, the revival of familialist values, nationalism and growing public concern about low fertility endorses childbearing and mothering with a special political and symbolic value. The dramatic fertility decline and depopulation in Ukraine in the last two decades forced the political elites to consider pro-natalism and introduce substantial material incentives for child birth. These politics also demonstrate that reproduction in post-socialist societies has become a class issue, as the concern about a proliferation of poverty limits pronatalist state ambitions and the model of middle-class parenthood is seen as the most desirable. Demographic politics in Ukraine are liberal with regard to the reproductive rights of women, but neither encourages them to combine family and professional career nor do they improve their economic status. The problems of low fertility and (mens) high mortality can only be solved by a gender-conscious demographic politics, encouraging new models of masculinity and new gender roles in the family.

ENDNOTES

Douglass, Barren States. The Population Implosion in Europe. Gal and Kligman, The Politics of Gender after Socialism: A Comparative-Historical Essay, p. 21-22. Bookman, Demographic Engineering and the Struggle for Power, p. 25-51. Demographic Crisis to Dying Nation: The Politics of Language and Reproduction in Russia, in Helena Goscilo and Andrea Lanoux (eds.), Gender and Nation in Russia, University of North Illinois Press 2006, p. 151-173.

adoption of the WHO denition of live birth in 2007 might worsen statistics, as Ukrainian hospitals lack equipment and trained personal for the proper care of premature infants. According to WHO standards, a fetus with birth weight of at least 500g (and not 1000g as before) can be classied as a live birth.
13 Zhurzhenko, Strong Women, Weak State:

4 For Russia, see: Michele Rivkin-Fish, From

Family Politics and Nation Building in PostSoviet Ukraine, p. 23-43, here 34-39.
14 Ibid., p. 39-41. 15 Rekomendatsii parlamentskykh slukhan

Short Biography
Tatiana Zhurzhenko is associate professor at V. Karazin Kharkiv National University (Ukraine) und currently an Elise Richter Research Fellow in the Department of Political Science at the University of Vienna. Her research focuses on transformation processes in post-Soviet societies, especially in Ukraine: nation-building and memory politics, feminism(s) and nationalism(s), gender- and family politics, new borders and regional identities. Zhurzhenkos last book is Gendered Markets of Ukraine: Political Economy of Nation Building, Vilnius: EHU-Press, 2008 (in Russian).

Stoikova, A Quest for Belonging: The Bulgarian Demographic Crisis, Emigration and the Postsocialist Generations, p. 115-136, here p. 118. Cf. France in the 1920-30s: Leslie King, France Needs Children: Pronatalism, Nationalism and Womens Equity, p. 33-52. Zielinska, Between Ideology, Politics, and Common Sense: The Discourse of Reproductive Rights in Poland, p. 23-57. Rivkin-Fish, Anthropology, Demography, and the Search for a Critical Analysis of Fertility: Insights from Russia, p. 289-301. The lowest TFR in Ukraine (1.09) was in 1999. a population exactly replaces itself from one generation to the next. A replacement level total fertility rate is usually calculated at 2.1 children per woman.

Demographichna kryza v Ukraini: ii prychyny ta naslidky (Recommendations of the Parliamentary Hearings Democratic Crisis in Ukraine: its causes and consequences), http://zakon.nau.ua/doc/?uid=1071.610.0.
16 Ibid. 17 Strategiia Demograchnoho Rozvytku Ukrainy

na 2006-2015 roky (Strategy of Demographic Development for the period from 2006 to 2015), in Demograia ta sotsialna ekonomika, nr 1, 2006, p. 3-22, here p. 4. Short version published on the website of the Cabinet of Ministers: http://zakon.rada.gov.ua/cgi-bin/ laws/main.cgi?nreg=879-2006-%EF.
18 Borotba za kozhnu dytynu (Fighting for

10 Replacement level fertility is a level at which

every child), interview with Ella Libanova, http://dialogs.org.ua/dialog.php?id=23&op_ id=611#611.

19 Libanova, Doslidzhennia sotsialno-

11 Demographic statistics are taken from the

following publications: Olha Romaniuk, Potentsial Ukrainy ta yoho realizatsia (The potential of Ukraine and its realisation), Kyiv: International Center of Perspective Studies 2008; Dity, zhinky ta simia v Ukraini (Children, Women and Family in Ukraine), Kyiv: State Committee of Statistics of Ukraine 2008.
12 Although there was some decrease of infant

demograchnykh problem v Ukraini z metoiu rozrobky naukovo obgruntovanykh kompleksnykh demograchnykh prognoziv (Studies of social and demographic issues in Ukraine and development of the scientic demographic forecasts), p. 100.
20 Demogracheskaia situatsiia v Ukraine

stabilizirovalas (Demographic situation in Ukraine is stabilised), 6 March 2008, http://newsukraine.com.ua/news/101642/.

21 Cf. the public perceptions of the low fertility

mortality in Ukraine in the recent years, the

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problem in the Czech Republic: Rebecca Nash, The Economy of Birthrates in the Czech Republic, in Barren States, Douglass (ed.), p. 93-114.
22 Yushchenko, Narodzhuvanist v Ukraini

31 Cf. www.president.gov.ua/news/3400.html. 32 Strategiia Demograchnoho Rozvytku Ukrainy,

p. 6.
33 Libanova, Brak, simia ta ditorodni Orientatsii,

stymuliuetsia jak nikoly (Fertility in Ukraine is stimulated as never before), http://ua.for-ua. com/ukraine/2009/03/05/150712.html.
23 Libanova, Brak, simja ta ditorodni orientatsii

p. 20-21.
34 Poda, Maloobespechennykh v Ukraine pochti

net (There are almost no low-income families in Ukraine), Kommentarii, 13 February 2009.
35 King, France Needs Children, p. 33 36 Hodovanets, Nenarodzheni (Unborn). 37 Abortions were legalised in the USSR in 1955. 38 Dity, zhinky ta simia v Ukraini, p. 185. 39 See the sociological survey published in

v Ukraini (Marriage, family and childbearing attitudes in Ukraine), p. 25-30.

24 Ibid., p. 33-34. 25 Rivkin-Fish, From Demographic Crisis to

Dying Nation, p. 152.

26 Yuval-Davis, Gender and Nation. 27 Zhurzhenko, Strong Women, Weak State, p.

31-34.
28 Ibid., p. 25. 29 Cf. the official web-site of the President of

Natsionalna bezpeka i oborona (National Security and Defense), p. 21-24.

40 Krause, Toys and Perfumes: Imploding Italys

Population Paradox and Motherly Myths, in Barren States, Douglass (ed.), p. 159-182.
41 Zdravomyslova and Temkina, Krizis

Ukraine: www.president.gov.ua/news/3206. html.

30 In summer 2005, about 500 billboards in Kyiv

displayed the slogan: Lets make love! We should become 52 million! It remained unclear who commissioned this social advertising, but the action had signicant public resonance.

maskulinnosti v pozdnesovetskom diskurse (The crisis of masculinity in late Soviet discourse), p. 432-451.
42 See, for example: Vymiraiushchii vid

(Endangered Species), Korrespondent no. 3, 31 January 2009.

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