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Living Gender After Communism PDF

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Russian and East European Studies Gender Studies Janet Elise Johnson is Assistant Professor How has the collapse of of Political Science at Brooklyn College, “Considerations of the sites and communism across Europe City University of New York. Her research, spaces in and through which and Eurasia changed gender? based on fi eldwork in Russia and other Contributors are In addition to the huge costs that fell postcommunist societies, covers gender postcommunism has emerged heavily on women, Living Gender after politics, especially women’s organizations Anna Brzozowska as a gendered geography of Communism suggests that moving and violence against women. Her Karen Dawisha transactions, institutions, Living away from communism in Europe and publications have appeared in the NWSA and relationships are the Eurasia has provided an opportunity for Journal and edited volumes such as Post- Nanette Funk subject of [Living Gender gender to multiply, from varieties of neo- Soviet Women Encountering Transition traditionalism to feminisms, from overt (2004), Ruling Russia (2005), and Russian Ewa Grigar after Communism]. . . . This negotiation of femininity to denials of Civil Society (2005). volume highlights not just the Gender gender. This development has enabled Azra Hromadzic constraints women face, but some women in the region to tailor Jean C. Robinson is Professor of Political Janet Elise Johnson also moves to exert agency gendered identities for their own political, Science and Gender Studies at Indiana within these constraints, and economic, or social purposes. Beginning University. Her research focuses on Anne-Marie Kramer after with an understanding of gender as both comparative gender policies, and she has in so doing makes a valuable a society-wide institution that regulates done fi eld research in Poland, China, Tania Rands Lyon contribution to analyzing people’s lives and a cultural “toolkit” France, and Germany. She is co-editor women’s conditions both in from which individuals and groups may of Women and Social Policy: From Local Jean C. Robinson postcommunism and beyond.” Communism sometimes be able to choose ways that to Global (2001) and has published in Iulia Shevchenko can subvert or transvalue the sex/gender numerous edited volumes and journals, —from the foreword by system, the contributors to this volume including NWSA Journal, China Quarterly, Svitlana Taraban Karen Dawisha provide detailed case studies from Belarus, and Signs. Bosnia, the Czech Republic, Poland, Shannon Woodcock Romania, Russia, and Ukraine. This collaboration between young scholars—most from the region—and experts in the fi elds of gender and postcommunist studies combines intimate knowledge of the area with sophisticated Edited by gender analysis to inform the discussion Janet Elise Johnson of the impact of regime change on gender and women’s lives. Through multiple and Jean C. Robinson disciplines and methods and by examining just how much gender has shifted in the ISBN-13: 978-0-253-34812-8 region, Living Gender after Communism ISBN-10: 0-253-34812-9 reveals that the static defi nitions of gender Jacket illustration: Zuzanna Janin, Sweet Girl, sculpture made of copper wire and cotton candy, so often used are only imperfect attempts 1997. Courtesy of the artist. to represent a changing reality. http://iupress.indiana.edu INDIANA 1-800-842-6796 Johnson and Robinson Living Gender after Communism Living Gender after Communism Living Gender after Communism Edited by Janet Elise Johnson and Jean C. Robinson Indiana University Press Bloomington and Indianapolis Indiana University Press 601 North Morton Street Bloomington, IN 47404-3797 USA http://iupress.indiana.edu Telephone orders 800-842-6796 Fax orders 812-855-7931 Orders by e -mail Contents foreword by karen dawisha / vii acknowledgments / xi Living Gender Janet Elise Johnson and Jean C. Robinson / 1 I. NEGOTIATING GENDER 1. Housewife Fantasies, Family Realities in the New Russia Tania Rands Lyon / 25 2. Contesting Violence, Contesting Gender: Crisis Centers Encountering Local Governments in Barnaul, Russia Janet Elise Johnson / 40 II. DENYING GENDER 3. The Abortion Debate in Poland: Opinion Polls, Ideological Politics, Citizenship, and the Erasure of Gender as a Category of Analysis Anne-Marie Kramer / 63 4. The Gendered Body as Raw Material for Women Artists of Central Eastern Europe after Communism Ewa Grigar / 80 III. TRADITIONALIZING GENDER 5. Birthday Girls, Russian Dolls, and Others: Internet Bride as the Emerging Global Identity of Post-Soviet Women Svitlana Taraban / 105 6. Does the Gender of MPs Matter in Postcommunist Politics? The Case of the Russian Duma, 1995–2001 Iulia Shevchenko / 128 IV. NEGOTIATING GENDER WITHIN NATIONALISMS 7. Romanian Women’s Discourses of Sexual Violence: Othered Ethnicities, Gendering Spaces Shannon Woodcock / 149 8. Challenging the Discourse of Bosnian War Rapes Azra Hromadzic / 169 9. Deficient Belarus? Insidious Gender Binaries and Hyper-feminized Nationality Anna Brzozowska / 185 Fifteen Years of the East-West Women’s Dialogue Nanette Funk / 203 works cited / 227 list of contributors / 251 index / 255 foreword: studying gender and postcommunism More than a dozen years have passed since the collapse of communism and its attendant dislocations, crises, and opportunities. A whole generation of young people has come of political age without ever having experienced communism for themselves. For them, it is only a set of stories told by their parents and grandparents, yet it provides the context and the starting point from which their own lives will proceed. Studying these countries as postcommunist despite their obvious and increasing dissimilarities is thus important: the real- ities of present-day existence may differ greatly between postcommunist states, but without an appreciation of the commonalities of structure and history that were features of their shared past, it is very difficult to appreciate the extent of the differences between them or the reasons for these growing gaps. So too when approaching the issue of the status of women and gender after communism. The postcommunist transition has impacted men and women differently. Across Central and Eastern Europe, there have been more benefits for men than for women from the transition: men are richer, more men head new companies, more men own privatized firms, and, as Iulia Shevchenko addresses in this volume, many more men hold political power. Women have suffered more from the loss of social services, women dominate professions that remain in the resource-starved state sector, and women and women’s issues have not been a central part of the postcommunist political landscape. And yet, the impact of gender ideologies for many remain hidden. Anne-Marie Kramer shows that even when issues impacting women and gen- der become salient—such as abortion in Poland—the relevance for women’s lives is neutralized. As Ewa Grigar argues for women artists in the region, an explicit critique of gender or use of feminism remains radical. The transition has encouraged the gendering of nations and bodies in ways that are not positive for women. For example, the age-old gendering of recumbent nations in the Balkans as female to be protected by the resurgent and mobilized male states put feminists, such as Slavenka Drakulic´ , in the position of being accused of ‘‘raping Croatia’’ (or Bosnia, or Serbia) when they refused to give up their trans-Balkan campaign for women’s rights in the face of impending war. In this climate, the rapes of individual Balkan women—and women’s varied resistance to these rapes—are, as Azra Hromadzic argues in this volume, hidden under metaphors about the nation, ignoring the woman. vii Foreword Anna Brzozowska shows that the gendering of the nation easily reinforces the identification of the feminine with weakness and passivity, with consequences for the autonomy of the state as well as for female citizens. Hromadzic makes the case for recognizing women’s agency, even in situa- tions where the only outcomes are violent. The notion of agency and the enhanced space to negotiate gender in postcommunism have not necessarily made life ‘‘better’’ or easier for women, but postcommunism has meant spaces for women to manipulate their environment. Tania Rands Lyon shows the ways in which Russian women and men move back and forth between artic- ulating traditional gender views and living more nontraditional lives. In Ro- mania, Shannon Woodcock shows that women may manipulate ethnocen- trism to ‘‘safely’’ raise the issue of such interpersonal violence in public by blaming the Other, such as the Roma, but leaving invisible the domestic violence many women face in private. In charting the new recognition of domestic violence, Janet Elise Johnson unveils the ways in which the assertion of agency and activism can begin to transform discourse as well as policy and people’s lives. Some of this activism of course is in response to the ways in which the opening of the communist world enabled the West’s hyper-sexualization of women’s bodies in advertising to become part of the postcommunist public space, as billboards and commercials replaced propaganda posters. Images in the market were not the only sign of this hyper-sexualization; as Svitlana Taraban describes, the Internet also became an avenue for virtual and actual gendering, as Western male and Eastern female found each other in hyper- space and stimulated the exodus of brides and prostitutes. The increase in trafficking in women and the new availability of Internet brides are matched by the rise of neotraditionalist conceptions of gender for both men and women and of an emphasis on women’s bodies as their only valuable commodity. Many of the chapters included here address the fallout from the resurgence of rigid gender roles. Considerations of the sites and spaces in and through which postcommu- nism has emerged as a gendered geography of transactions, institutions, and relationships are the subject of this book. These essays came out of a con- ference on ‘‘Placing Gender in Postcommunism’’ held in October of 2002 at the Havighurst Center for Russian and Post-Soviet Studies at Miami Univer- sity. The goal of the center is to foster interdisciplinary study and research on the challenges facing the countries of this area by students and scholars from around the world. The conference was one of the center’s annual series of international and interdisciplinary conferences for young scholars. In this volume are contributions from the disciplines of political science, art history, sociology, anthropology, and history, and from scholars from Rus- sia, the United States, Great Britain, Poland, Ukraine, Belarus, Bosnia, and Australia. It is a tribute to the editors, Janet Johnson and Jean C. Robinson, as well as to the discussants and the contributors themselves, that the articles are viii Foreword so well integrated and so provocative. Younger scholars, including those from the region, bring a fresh voice to the discussion of gender in postcommunism. In particular, their fieldwork is outstanding, and many of their case studies are little known in Western literature. In this sense, the volume makes a contribu- tion to the recent work done in the study of gender and postcommunism, particularly the excellent volumes by Susan Gal and Gail Kligman on gender and postcommunism (The Politics of Gender after Socialism [Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2000] and Reproducing Gender: Politics, Publics, and Everyday Life after Socialism [Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2000]). They also follow recent journal issues on the topic, Feminist Review 76, no. 1 (2004), and Signs 29, no. 3 (2004). The Soviet system was one that both preached a solution to the ‘‘women’s question’’ and promised equality in the workplace. Despite the obvious failure to deliver on these and many other issues, Soviet-style regimes did at least place these items on the social agenda. In postcommunist countries, the social agenda is dictated less by ideology than by the market. The language and practice of capitalism make everyone ‘‘equal’’ before the market but also equally vulnerable. In this new climate, it is up to women to maneuver them- selves so as to take advantage of capitalism’s opportunities, while at the same time recognizing that power and opportunity structures are being constructed that disadvantage them. The chapters by Johnson and Lyon show that some Russian women have successfully organized against gendered violence while others draw upon more egalitarian gender roles in their intimate relations (even if they espouse traditional views about women’s and men’s place in their rhetoric). Thus, this volume highlights not just the constraints women face, but some moves to exert agency within these constraints, and in so doing makes a valuable contribution to analyzing women’s conditions both in post- communism and beyond. Karen Dawisha Director, Havighurst Center for Russian and Post-Soviet Studies, Miami University ix

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