The Politics of Gender after Socialism PDF
Preview The Politics of Gender after Socialism
THE POLITICS OF GENDER AFfER SOCIALISM ~ I I l • • ~ . • t ! r r t • '\ t i THE POLITICS OF GENDER AFI'ER SOCIALISM . A ESS AY CO ~iP A R .'\ T I VE - HI S ·ro RI CAL I ~ .' I I Susan Gal and Gail Kligman r ' .I I I LIBRARY OF THE , • ' p • C E U CENTRAL EUROPE A• UNl\' ERSJTY " 4 • • . BtmA PEST A'•· • f":',··· . ,, .. ' PRIN Cl! TO~lJ NIVJlaSITY Pl.l!SS Pill NC ET ON, N EW J E RSE\' .. 1 ... ,.' ..: ~ ,. ~r ~ .~ ·~ Copyright© 2000 by Princeton University Press Published by Princeton University Press, 4I William Street, Princeton, New Jersey 08S40 In the United Kingdom: Princeton University Press, Chichester, West Sussex All Rights Reserved Library of Qnaress C.talo9in9-in·PJ1blieation D11ta Gal, Susan, 1949- I Thc politics of gender after socialism : a coniparativc-historical essay Susan Gal and Gail Kligman p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-691-04893-2 (cloth : alk. paper) ISBN 0-69I-04894-0 (pbk. : alk. paper) I. Sex role-Europe, Eastern. 2. Post-communism-Europe, Eastern. 3. Europe, Eastern-Social conditions-1989- 1. Kligman, Gail. II. Title. HQ107S.S.E852 G35 2000 305.3'0947-dc21 00-021231 CIP This book has been composed in Galliard The papc:r used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992 (R I 997) (Perm11nence ofP 11per) www.pup. princeton .cdu Printed in the United States of America 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 l IO 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 l (Pbk.) For Anna and Hannah .... I .. t:.:· Con"nts _____________ ___ . A,•,,o•le"8*e11t1 IX 1. Alter Socialisn1 3 2. Reproduction as Politics 15 3. Dilen1n1as of Public and 37 Pri,~.itc 63 .f. Forn1s of St3tes, Forn1s of "Fan1ilv" s. 91 Arenas of Political Action 6. Gender and Change 109 119 Notes 141 Bibliop11pby 163 It1tlex I "\ > ' ·- ( . •• ' was born of the comparative research project that we Tu1s VOLUME codirected, Reproducing Gender: Politics, Publics, 11nd Everyd11y Lift 11[ ter Soci11lism, published by Princeton University Press. We wish to thank again aJl those who participated in that collaborative effort. We are in debted as well to the two readers for Princeton University Press who urged us to expand and publish as a separate shorter book what had been our lengthy introductory essay to the project's coedited volume. A grant from the MacArthur Foundation's Program on Peace and Interna tional Cooperation gave us much appreciated resources to pursue our research and writing. We arc also grateful to our universities for addi tional support as well as funds fron1 UCLA's Academic Senate and the Lichtstcrn Fund of the Dcpartn1ent of Anthropology, University of Chi· cago. l'hc Collegiun1 Budapest provided an elegant and congenial envi ronment in which to \\ork; Albert and Lori Kligman 's generosity and 1 hospitality provided us with another. The administrative staffs of the Department of Sociology at UClA and the Department of Anthropology at the University of Chicago ex tended indispensable support. Thanks arc also due to Mary Murrell, our editor at Princeton University Press, for her enthusia.srn and encourage ment, and to Cindy Crurnrine and Paula Durbin-Westby for fine cdito· rial work. We arc grateful to Eva Fodor for her research assistance and concep tual contributions. For their ongoing intellectual stimulation and good will we thank Andre\v Abbott, Leora Auslander, Susan Crane, Norma Field, Christy Glass, Sam Hamburg, Robert Levy, Sasha Milicevic, Ruth Milkman, Carole Pateman, Leslie Salzinger, Dawn Waring, and Viviana Zcli1,cr. l..ast but not least, we thank each other for being steadfast col leagues and friends. THE POLITICS OF GENDER AFTER SOCIALISM ,.. - t . . .... l • ·"'·: ..)... ;.•.. :. ···.. ... . . ..,. . • • • After Socialism THE UNEXPECTED collapse of communism a decade ago changed the world. For the men and women of the former socialist states, Western freedoms and consumer goods seemed closer than ever before, but so did daunting financial uncertainty. For them, as for all of us, the familiar Cold War dualisms that divided Europe into West and East formally dis· appeared; the countries of East Central Europe and the former Soviet Union became members of a reconfigured global economy. As East Central Europe looked with hope to the West, Western politicians, bu reaucrats, scholars, experts, and volunteers of all sorts headed cast to help establish democratic practices in East Central Europe. In the years that followed , increasing class and ethnic differentiation, a rise in unem· ployment, and a decline in stare subsidies \Vere among the costs consid ered necessary to transform moribund socialist economics into thriving markets. These costs ho\vcver, have been experienced differently by women and men. It is our goal in this essay to explore how discourses and practices of gender play a major role in shaping the post-1989 reconstitution of states and social relations in East Central Europe. Since the end of state socialism, most studies have focused directly on the economic processes of markctization and privatization or on the political processes of de· mocratization, constitutionalism, and the emergence of civil society. We propose, instead, to consider thc..Rroc~es of the ~~iaJist transfo.c:.. • mations from a gendered perspective. We contend that democratization comes more clearly into view if one asks how men and women arc differ ently imagined as citizens, or how "politics" itself is being redefined as a distinctively masculine endeavor. Similarly, by examining how women and men arc differently located in the emerging economics, one fore grounds the usually unremarked yet pervasive and often feminized phc· nomcnon of small-scaJc, service-sector markctization. Attending to gen· dcr is analytically productive, leading not only to an understanding of relations between men and women, but to a deeper analysis of how so- cial and institutional transformations occur. To this end we raise two crucial qucstions:,..How arc gender relations and ideas about genCfcr shaping political and economic change in the region? And what{Qrms of ~1_ gender inequality arc being shaped as a rcsuJt? By making central wha't CHAPTBll l has been marginalized, this essay seeks to outline an alternative analyti cal agenda for research. 1 Recognizing that these processes arc intertwined with events happen ing sin1ultaneously in Western Europe, the United States, and else where, we do not consider East Central Europe in isolation, but within a broader political geography. In discussing postsocialism, we wiJl note parallels, interactions, and contrasts with other regions in policies and social trends, as well as in discourses. Of particular interest is the way that the public arguments about gender in one part of the globe influence those occurring in another; the way politicians can score points by aligning with or contrasting themselves to images and policies in other regions. The historical context of postsocialism is equally im portant in our analysis. As other scholars have noted, the sometimes subtle and hidden continuities \vith socialism are as powerful as the dra matic ruptures. Social actors all over the region have been reaching into the presocialist past, claiming historical rnodcls, inspiration, and justification of current political policies and gender arrangements. _Nos talgia for earlier historical periods-different ones for different constitu encies- is a pervasive aspect of making the postsocialist future. By at tending throughout to historical comparisons as \veil as cross-regional interactions and contrasts, this "'ork engages both the literature on East Central Europe, and also the broader feminist literature that has pe-r- sistcntly asked: Ho'v arc states and political-economic processes gen- dered? How do states and markers regulate gender relations? _. Gender is defined here as the socialJy and culturally produced ideas about male-female diffcre11cc, power, and in.equaliry that structure the reproduction of these differences in the institutionalized practices of society. What it means to be a "man" or a "woman," to be "masculine" or "feminine," varies historically. Such cultural c.atcgorics arc formed through everyday interactions that arc framed within larger discourses and within specific institutions. We argue that there arc reciprocal ef fects here: No t only do state policies constrain gender rctatiom,-b.ut ideas about the differences between men and women shape the- wayS-in which states arc imagined, constituted, and legitimated. Thus, s~tcs themselves can be in1agined as 1nale, even though both men and women arc involved in their t>pcration; social categories such as .. worker" can be identified with a single gender as \VclJ, even if both men and women work. Such socially constructed ideas linking tcn1inin ity and masculinity t<J other s<>eial categories arc often embedded in state p<>licics. Ideas about gender difference also contribute to the • fOrms of ~arket expansion. Jn shaping institutional change, idea\s ' . about gender difference interact with other central cultural c~;.-J . • structiont such as the nation, the family, the public good. At the same ' , . , s APTBJl SOCIALISM time, the ideologies and policies that states promote, as well as the constraints and incentives of economics, circumscribe the range of pos sible relations between men and women. We therefore focus here; QIL how gender relations both form and arc formed by different ltind_s...Qf _ _ ~ states, cii.ff~rent kinds of economics, and different tyP.~S OLP.oJit!cal action. 2 - While tJ1e category of gender is central to social life, gender arrange ments arc diverse. One of the in1portant lessons of empirical studies about the socialist past is that if there ever was a single gender regime of state socialisn1, it11as long been replaced by many different ways of un derstanding the relations bel'\vccn men and women. Scholars agree, nev ertheless, on some of the b:oad feature_§ of socialist gender orders. There \Vas an attempt to erase gender difference (along with ethnic and class differences), to create socially uomizcd persons directly dependent on a paternalist state. Yet, \von1en in socialism \vere also sometimes cons~ta- \. tuted as a corporate category, bccon1ing a special object of state policy, \\•ith rninistries or state offices dedicated to \vhat were defined as their \ concerns. Women's full -ti1ne participation in the labor force was dic tated by the- state, on \vh1ch "'omen '"ere 1nore directly dependent than they were on 1naividual men. In short, the ideological and social struc a tural arrangements of state socialisn1 produced maikedlyoiffCrent rel~ tton bcl'\veentfie state, men, and \vorncn an commonly found, for in sunce: in classic JiberaJ parliamentary systems Or In var10US kinds Of Wc:lfare states. Gender as an organ1z1ng principle, male dominance, and gcnacred inequality can be found in all these systems, but with pro foundly different configurations. Socialist gender arrangements then1selves varied significa11tly over time and space. lndced,~ciar~s~ regimes were ?ften characterized by ffieywa:ncea contradictory goals in thelf polac1es lo\Var women: '"ork ers as well as mothers, token leaders as welJ as obedient cadres. While officially supporting equality bct\veen men and women, the_ c.cgimcs countenanced a.nd even produced heated mass media debates about is such as women's ideal and proper roles, the deleterious effects of sue~ divorce, rhc effects of labor-force seg.rcgation-such as the fcn1inization ofscltoc.1hc:aching and agriculture- and the fundan1ental in1portance of .. natural difference." '['hc:se debates revealed the paradoxes and contra dictions in official discc>urscs, as \veil as l\U)rc general tcnsion!'l in both policy goals 11nd the systern of polirical·ccc>non1ic contn>l. Su~h diverse relations between ufticial ~iscourscs a11d the cvcryday book. p.uc11ces of men and women arc a central focus of this People in the region reacted as much to the representations of themselves in offi cial c<1mm11nicatit1ns_a .s tc> the often unforeseen and unintended conse quences of state pohc1cs abc1ut reproduction, sexuality, and family life.
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