The majority of the texts are intimately related with economic and social dominances associated with class, with minimal attention paid to gender inequities. There is little to say directly about the system of gender dominance that existed during the communist era. Some of the writers were not associated with current campaigns for women’s emancipation. Some of the early critiques of bourgeois society laid the groundwork for communist feminism, which had a considerable impact on the communist political programs and societies that evolved in the twentieth century. During the communist period, for example, Marx and Engels offered to perform critiques of bourgeois families and women’s exploitation. There was no suspicion that the real point aimed to scrap the status of women as mere instruments of production. However, insights are provided about how-powder associations, and family institutions influence the situation of women. With the looming oppression, women came together and rose to the ranks of defeating their patriarchal oppressors. Women linked along with their arms and formed a team while setting aside their racial, ethnicity and class differences. The formed team of great sisters demanded equal rights, economic opportunities, and reproduction reforms. The women were denied access to political positions, health insurance and economic platforms (Daniel, 2). The communisms witnessed in China, Cuba and d Soviet Union placed much emphasis on sexual agenda purposely for social transformation ( Buckley, 121). Democracy, therefore, gave women the power to speak for their rights, and after the years of struggle, Western women came to rise. The democratic governments at the time had no choice other than caving into the grassroots activism that emerged from communist organizing and the solidarity of women.
The communist states
At the very time in Europe, the males from communist society seized and established totalitarian regimes. The patriarchs who received a new empowerment demanded the labor women in building the bright communist future; they, therefore, shifted to the programme that emancipated women from the higher ranks. Programmes and policies were therefore devised that ensured social, legal and economic equality between men and women. The Eastern European women were left with nothing other than embracing the new opportunities in education and occupation that were made available to them. Similarly, the legislative protections and the entitlements within the state assisted them in finding the balance between their professional and personal lives. The Eastern European women failed to appreciate these rights since they did not fight for them but fell into their laps from the sky.
Despite the proliferation of the women organizations, there has been a continued rejection of the feminine in the Eastern Europe and the former USSR, thus encouraged women to return to the domestic sphere.
The rise of women has been blamed to the family unit disintegration, and therefore the traditional role of women in reproduction was only glorified in the traditional past.
While talking about feminism, our thinking is couched in the broad general background such as the equality between women and men, doing away with the discrimination at the workplace, and ending violence practiced on women. Through the exploration of the historical legacy on socialism and cold war tensions, we come to a better understanding of feminism in Eastern Europe and why the reasons why it took roots in Eastern Europe despite various attempts of different organizations.
Divisions between
Several women meetings were marked with the division that was witnessed between the Eastern Bloc and the United States. The divisions were witnessed first in the colored women conferences taking place in Mexico. The meeting in Mexico, 1975 was the most significant meeting in the history to handle the women issues with its member states. It was during the first meeting that demonstrated how the state affairs and political maneuvers dominated over the women’s problems. The conference held in Mexico was interesting since it was an illustration of the division between the western interpretation of feminism and the feminism that favored the Eastern Europe (Yang, 3). For instance, the United States focused on the legal hindrances to equality, discrimination at the workplace, education level, and participation of women in politics. The women were coming from the Eastern bloc pressured for a peace agenda citing reasons that specific had already achieved legal equality with men and so the conference to present them with a chance of discussing the similar world issues that were debated by men in United Nations. The Eastern Europe was also advancing in essential idea of women being inherently less violent compared to men. The United Nations security, therefore, reinforced women representations as a group that is particularly vulnerable to violence as they are always peaceful. A few years after the Copenhagen Conference, similar divisions were witnessed were witnessed with several NGOs being convinced of the damage that international women movement had incurred. The United States gave focus on the inequalities between men and women, ad escape of discussions that were based on economics.
Social problem in women politics
The period after 1989 transition from state socialism to capitalism and democracy has resulted in the formation of both the winners and the losers. There lacks no reason for doubting that women are among the loser groups. Despite the economic differences in political and economic development, there were dramatic decreases in the birth rates in Eastern Europe while at the very time, there was an increase in female unemployment (Pushkareva, 97). Feminisation of poverty has been contributed to both by the fact that there is a sharp decrease in the number of opportunities available in the nurseries for children and increasing gender segregation in the labor market. While considering these findings, there is need to ask of the state of communism, and the social provisions offered better conditions for the feminine gender and the mothers working in different places. Gender equality was an important aspect of many communist societies and countries. The Eastern bloc provided free medicare and childcare (Sabine, 2). However, there is a major gap in the understanding of the implementation in Soviet Union states regarding the self determination and social security for the feminine gender in the socialist rule.
The current findings reveal disparities and contradictions. While some countries dealt with childcare issues and employment of women, females in other countries were not subjected to the same. The benefits and the disadvantages of raising children in a communist society were not experienced by all the women and so never affected all the same women in the same way. It is crucial noting that several official statements concerning the women rights and security under the states of socialism failed to correspond with reality. There existed critical comments on shortages in the social policies and were not discussed.
The Legacy of Formal Equity
Under the socialist systems in the Eastern Europe, women received equality formally in different sectors such as incorporation in the labor market, education access, and even inclusion in governmental organizations. If discrimination could be defined in a narrowed manner such as treating both genders differently, then women were not subjected to any form of discrimination under communism (Julie, 372). The women were incorporated into the work environment with the equal obligation of contributing towards the country. Women were treated not as equal citizens to the state but rather as a working mother.
The socialist system treated women differently from men because the feminine needed to balance the full-time working nature and their expected role as mothers.
Legislations were drafted to protect all the women with pregnancy and children from working in dangerous and taxing jobs. The legislation on compensation provided benefits and granted exceptions to working mothers such as leave to care for the sick family members (Julie, 372).
Discrimination in political sphere
The fundamental themes of criticisms show that women were denied access to political positions (Daniel, 4). With a broader definition of discrimination as unequal access to resources and power, discrimination was indeed common. The payment rate for men was considerably higher as compared to women since they worked and held higher job positions to receive favorable payment. The women were attracted to the less prestigious job position with lower pay. As an obligation, the positions that were held by women were absorbed in work of lower status and tended to hold clerical positions quite often (Julie 373). Although some women were in good professions such as lawyers, doctors, and accountants were poorly paid.
The nature of segregation that was experienced by women can at least be explained by the decision makers and the traditional behavior of men.
The men’s attitude persisted even in the political systems. The existing social practices presented long-term consequences on the image of women as workers thus reducing their chances of being selected for the political positions. Till 1989, Eastern Europe had social policies that worked similar to Soviet Union’s model; however, the policies got influenced by specific traditions of the communist parties. The conditions to which the women were subjected to in communist states were slightly different compared to the socialist states where both men and women were subjected to equal rights in political, social, and economic backgrounds (Sabine, 5). For example, the law of equal rights in 1944 provided the foundation for restructuring gender relations with the government. The government was obligated to create feministic debates that resulted in no further discourses experienced by the gender.
The politics of women were caught in between their role of reproduction and requirements of economic growth (Illic, 2).
With relationships to the changes in the economic patterns, the problem was experienced in various political regimes that were not limited to states of Eastern bloc. Differing with the other political systems, the regimes that were socialist reconciled the differing requirements of demographic and economic policies in the attempts of creating a new human nature (Sabine, 8). While concerned with the biopolitical goals, increasing birth-rate and asocial; exclusion vital. A particular effort was required from women in the combination of raising birth rates and in excluding the antisocial elements in the society. The socialism attempt of creating the human nature was required women’s effort. The roles of women such as childbirth and rearing were declared complimentary to exclusion policies as drafted by the Eastern European governments.
The political regimes attempted to recreate humankind through coming up with population policies including how to stimulate birth among women.
It is important noting that some of the measures implemented failed to grant respect for human dignity and in some cases resulted in a breach of physical integrity.
Lack of Equality in the economic sphere
An absence of equality on economic grounds affected several groups of women in different ways. Both elderly and single mothers, rural, disabled and women from the ethnic groups were subjected to working conditions with poor earning (Ruthchild, 37). The women with poor income fared best by earning additional income through the black market and bribes. The possibility of earning additional income was varying from country to country.
In the same way, men entered the private sectors where the societies were communal that were based on the family rather than the performance. Both men and women from the communist countries faced the same problematic regime. Several women blamed communism and themselves and their misfortunes.
The decline of socialists’ regimes increased the expectations of women to realize their rights. With the collapse of such regimes, both men and women gained their political and social rights. A few rights that contributed to significant developments that led women to participate in the political platforms. The changes that foresaw women participate in politics made them lose the benefits that they earned in the past.
Works Cited
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Kristen Ghodsee’s .Revisiting the United Nations decade for women: Brief reflections
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Pushkareva, Natalia (1997). Women in Russian History: From the Tenth to the
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