Post-Communism Gender Roles in Eastern Europe

Gender roles are complex in any society, but after the fall of the communist state many Eastern European men and woman felt as though the roles they had played for years were suddenly changing. Under communism, women were told that it was important for them to be equal members of society. Everyone was needed to work, and that included the women. There were well-defined roles for both men and women, but theses roles differed from the expectations placed upon both parties after communism.

One dramatic change affecting women in post-communist Eastern Europe was how they began to be portrayed in the media. During communism sexuality was downplayed, and women were presented as pure and chaste. In fact, there was a downplaying of sexuality in general -- for both men and women -- due to the fact that excessive pleasures and [...] freedoms were looked upon as traits of the "decadent West" (Nickolic-Ristanovic, 2002). After communism, however, there was an explosion of both beauty/fashion magazines and [...]. Both men and women were bombarded by this new look at what women "should" be. In Hungary, for example, there was an almost immediate explosion of films (such as The Dames and Fast and Loose) made to shock the post-communist movie watcher with sexually explicit themes. Along with this new, once forbidden [...], there was a market for prostitution and [...] trafficking as well. Since the end of the Cold war, the number of women working as prostitutes in Eastern Europe increased dramatically, and the number of women trafficked to other countries followed.

Changes in gender roles that were less noticeable than increased [...] also occurred after communism. Whereas before men and women were both working outside the home, in the post-communist market women were encouraged to take a more traditional role. This wound up placing more stress on the man to be the breadwinner of the family, even when it was difficult for him to find a job. If the man couldn't find a job but the woman could, suddenly men realized they were not playing their new gender role "correctly." Conversely, some men began to gain wealth in The New market, which dramatically changed their relationships as well. A survey conducted with women in Hungary, Serbia, Macedonia, and Bulgaria showed that 53% of these women said their relationships had gotten worse post-communism. Moreover, 78% admitted to also knowing other families where their relationships got worse (Nickolic-Ristanovic, 2002).

References

• Berry, Ellen E. Post-Communism and the Body Politic. New York: New York University Press, 1995.
• Corrin, Chris. Gender and Identity in Central and Eastern Europe. London: Frank Cass Publishers, 1999.
• Nikolic-Ristanovic, Vesna. Social Change, Gender, and Violence: Post-Communist and War Affected Societies. AA Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2002.
• Saleel, Renata. The Spoils of Freedom: Psychoanalysis and Feminism After the Fall of Socialism. London: Routledge, 1994