POST-COMMUNISM

FROM WITHIN

Social Justice, Mobilization,

and Hegemony

edited by

jan kubik and amy linch

postcommunism from within

Postcommunism
from Within
social justice, mobilization,
and hegemony
Edited by Jan Kubik and Amy Linch

A joint publication of the Social Science Research Council

and New York University Press

new york university press

New York and London
www.nyupress.org

2013 by Social Science Research Council

All rights reserved

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

[to come]

New York University Press books are printed on acid-free paper, and their
binding materials are chosen for strength and durability. We strive to use
environmentally responsible suppliers and materials to the greatest extent
possible in publishing our books.

Manufactured in the United States of America

c10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
p10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

References to Internet websites (URLs) were accurate at the time of writing.

Neither the author nor New York University Press is responsible for URLs
that may have expired or changed since the manuscript was prepared.

Contents

List of Tables vii

List of Figures ix
Prefacexi
Seteney Shami
Acknowledgmentsxiii

Introduction: Postcommunism in a New Key:

Bottom Up and Inside Out 1
Amy Linch

pa rt one : gener a l a pproaches to postcommunism

1

From Transitology to Contextual Holism: A Theoretical

Trajectory of Postcommunist Studies 27
Jan Kubik

Social Justice, Social Science, and the Complexities

of Postsocialism 95
Thomas C. Wolfe and John Pickles

pa rt t wo : gender
3

Social Justice, Hegemony, and Womens Mobilizations 139

Joanna Regulska and Magdalena Grabowska

Grounds for Hope?: Voices of Feminism and

Womens Activism in Romania 191
Laura Lovin

Transformation to Democracy: The Struggles

of Georgian Women 211
Medea Badashvili

pa rt thr ee : pov ert y

6

Poverty and Popular Mobilization in Postcommunist

Capitalist Regimes 229
Ivan Szelenyi and Katarzyna Wilk

Scandalous Ethnicity and Victimized Ethnonationalism:

Pejorative Representations of Roma in the Romanian
Mainstream Media After January 2007 265
Alina Vamanu and Iulian Vamanu

pa rt f our : cor rup tion

8

A Critique of the Global Corruption Paradigm 297

Alena V. Ledeneva

Informal Payments to Doctors: Corruption or Social Protest? 333

Rasma Karklins

10 Informal Relations in Public Procurement: The Case of

East Central and South Eastern Europe 346

se Berit Grdeland

Afterword: Mobilizing Justice Across Hegemonies in Place:

Critical Postcommunist Vernaculars 385
Michael D. Kennedy

About the Contributors 409

Index 417

viContents

chapter four

Grounds for Hope? Voices of Feminism

and Womens Activism in Romania
Laura Lovin

Let me begin with a cartoon of contemporary Romania with respect to

gender relations. A high proportion of the populationover 40 % lives
in rural areas, where traditional patriarchal relations survive, and domestic violence is common. At the same time, Romania has one of the most
active and successful sex industries in the region. In glossy womens magazines, on the other hand, post-feminism reigns supreme. EU policy on
gender equality has been faithfully replicated in legislation and Government policy initiatives....I am simplifying, of course, but I dont think
the more complex reality is too much less contradictory than this cartoon.
Norman Fairclough, 2005
Why isnt feminism successful in Romania?a strong, outspoken, claiming question...
Petrua Teampu, 2007

At a conference entitled Gender and Language held in Athens in 2005, cultural theorist Norman Fairclough offered this simplified, but from his perspective, accurate picture of contemporary Romania with regard to gender
relations: rural, traditionalist, patriarchal, and violent, yet consumerist,
postfeminist, and conforming with EU directives. Romanias spatio-temporality of unaccomplished modernity, surprisingly synchronized legislation,

191

and manifestations of consumerist postfeminism are cartoonlike in their

contradictions. This contemporary Romania, and the implied criteria for
what counts as contemporary are my concern here. Too often, despite the
critiques of paradigms of linear development, progress, and modernity, contemporary implies economic development and the achievement of a sociopolitical order organized around Western European values and liberal capitalism. The term perpetuates the notion that there is a correct path toward a
common telos and obscures the reality of multiple coeval trajectories. My goal
is to bypass the pessimistic announcement of feminisms failure in Romania
as stated by the second epigraph, refuse its gloomy closure, and articulate an
analytical framework that does more justice to what I consider numerous,
diverse, more or less visible, and more or less effective political engagement
with sexist, racist, and homophobic practices. My study thus aims to provide a wide-ranging survey of womens mobilizations in Romania, following Regulska and Grabowska in foregrounding fragmentation, diversity, and
hybridity as the defining characteristics of womens mobilization in Eastern
Europe.

The Language of Disappointment

A close look at accounts of womens and feminist movements in Romania
during the past two decades shows that they are mostly narrated in a language of disappointment. In 2001 Denise Roman noted, 12 years after 1989,
although the overall gendered civic and political condition of Romania is prefeminist, the dawn of a Romanian modern feminist movement is gradually
emerging (2001, 5354). Mihaela Miroiu and Liliana Popescu call attention
to the fact that most women-oriented NGOs in Romania tend to undertake
charity projects offering support to women and their families. So far as womens emancipation goes, the authors stress that womens mobilization around
such causes can only be seen as factors of a womens movement, rather than
as a movement in itself (1999, 21).
It is largely acknowledged by feminist analysts that the retreat of the state
from the provision of caretaking services has seriously impacted women. Paradoxically, however, some feminist commentators look down on the initiatives
of womens organizations to provide such services. Efforts to address the gap
in services is evident, for example, in the work of The Ortie Girls Society
(Societatea fetelor din Ortie), which developed a canteen and after-school

192Gender

programs for children; The Single Mothers Association1 (Asociaia femeilor

care i cresc singure copiii) in Ploieti, which provides counseling, support,
and legal advice around divorce for women with children; and the Womens
Association (Asociaia femeilor) in Sibiu, which provides counseling and
shelter for survivors of domestic violence. Yet Romanian academic feminists
often regard such practices as inadequate interventions that do little to challenge the existing gender regime. Because the scope of service provision projects is confined to the space of the family, some feminists claim:
Few visible attempts have been made by women to fight the traditional stereotypes: one or two small womens rights organizations, overwhelmed by
the needs of their target group and poorly funded, can scarcely be considered
a powerful voice....As long as women dont stand up for themselves gender
issues will remain within the realm of studies and surveys....Change cannot come from above, and it cannot be expected. Indeed, it is not enough for
the European Union to impose its equal opportunity standards as requirement for accession; instead, these standards have to emerge from women
themselves. (Dumitric 2000) 2

However, it is important to stress that even a short list of service-oriented

womens NGOs and projects challenges the alleged division between serviceoriented and so called truly emancipatory political initiatives. The women
working for and benefiting from service projects are addressing the concrete
problems they face. Their responses are the result of critical and constructive
engagement with their material situations. In this respect they might well be
considered emancipatory.
Teampus assessment of Romanian feminism as lacking a clear-cut common agenda of things to fight for, things that actually touch upon womens
experiences (2007, 71) represents another dimension of an elite critique of
womens activism. In short, as the success, status, or feminism of the sociopolitical mobilizations around womens and gender issues are passionately
debated, these efforts are frequently interpreted as lacking focus, impetus,
authenticity, and orientation toward emancipatory ends. But why should they
be otherwise? What does emancipatory mean? Emancipation for whom? Are
clear-cut common agendas even possible? Is change better achieved through
top-down or bottom-up enterprises?
Regulska and Grabowskas analysis departs from vertical conceptualizations of power, linear causality, and mass-protest paradigms. It brings to the

Grounds for Hope? 193

fore more horizontal models of power and illuminates multisited, fragmentary, scattered, multidirectional, and possibly contradictory forms of political engagement. While emphasizing the significance of local genealogies,
Regulska and Grabowska draw attention to mobilizing practices ranging
from Internet petitioning and campaigning to web art, from music, theater,
and street demonstrations to labor activism, education, and the production
and circulation of gender-centered publications as well as institutional womens activism. They identify a variety of factors that inform the specific ways
women mobilize in Central and Eastern European postcommunist contexts.
Among these factors are strong anticommunist sentiment, eagerness to create liberal and neoliberal spaces, NGOization of the civil society, global, and
transnational opportunities and disadvantages, new and old patriarchal practices, emergent postcommunist nationalisms, reorganization of labor markets, and the increased influence of the church on sociopolitical processes.
They interact and facilitate, in Regulska and Grabowskas terms, the emergence of locally produced counter hegemonies or spaces of hegemony/
counter-hegemony production intersect[ing] with womens multiple goals
and agendas.3
In Romania, collective action for womens and gender issues is evident
in the activity of womens NGOs, womens organizations within political parties, campaigns to stop violence against women, and participation in
women-related international projects, as well as womens festivals and LGBT
festivals. Women and gender concerns are developed and pursued through
womens and gender studies programs in university curricula, the publishing of feminist journals, and cultural activities to promote female artists and
engage themes related to gender and sexuality. The launching of gender
studies collections, literature for and by women, and the presence of womens
professional organizations also advance the conceptualization of womens
and gender issues and galvanize public energy toward addressing them. Most
of the time, such projects create and awaken tensions and fresh normative
impulses, and they introduce new vocabularies that facilitate the assertion
and affirmation of activist subjectivities.

The Language of Gender Equality and Equal Opportunities

The Black Book of Equal Opportunities, compiled by feminist researchers from
AnA, The Society for Feminist Analysis (AnA, Societatea pentru analize

194Gender

feministe), rightfully points to the unclear terminology and induced conceptual ambiguity employed in expressing gender-related issues. The
researchers identify eight ambiguous phrases, featuring in different assortments and frequencies the terms: women and men, sexes, gender,
equal(ity), chances, and opportunities.4 They highlight tendencies
toward generalization and erasure of the diversity between and within certain groups, as well as toward a deployment of these vocabularies as slogans
(Grunberg et al. 2006). But before dealing with the consequences of such
generalizing, homogenizing, and depoliticizing gestures, I want to first call
attention to notion of equal(ity).
The language of gender equality in the Romanian context stems from
multiple sources. It is ultimately an amalgam of the [s]ameness of equality
imposed by communism and its communist collectivism and the liberal version of equality for all [as] a space of gender equality, gender mainstreaming,
and equal opportunities as promoted by EU liberal discourses (Regulska and
Grabowska 2008, 5). Teampu argues that during communism the goal of the
equality discourses was to homogenize the entire population into a coherent whole subjected to the will of the [Communist] Party, by not recognizing gender and ethnic differences (Teampu 2007, 71). Under state-socialism
the emancipation of women was essential to both the modernizing and the
revolutionary communist projects (Bucur 1994; Hulland 2001; Mudure 2004;
Roman 2001; Teampu 2007). Some feminist commentators argue that gender emancipation as operational under the communist regime was in fact an
illusion and a trap for women (Teampu 2007, 72). Roman underscores the
communist legacy of the double, triple, or quadruple burden for women; public job, household, bearing children, and coping with backward technology
at home (Roman 2001, 55). Maria Bucur (1994) and Annette Hulland (2001)
bring to our attention the 1966 outlawing of abortion and unavailability of
other forms of birth control in Romania as factors adding to the hardship of
womens lives under communism.
While the gravity of the conditions brought about by the communist dictatorship and the repressive character of the regime cannot be overstated, it
is important to consider the positive impact of post-1944 reforms on womens
rights and opportunities. Womens political enfranchisement under communism along with their equal access to education, expansion of professional
opportunities, and civil equality with men represented a significant improvement in womens status. Furthermore, social assistance programs for mothers

Grounds for Hope? 195

including pre- and postnatal health care, free child care, government subventions for each child, and maternity leave (Bucur 1994, 225); a media environment free of consumerist deployment of exploitative images of women; and
gender quotas for political participation (Hulland 2001) were distinguishing
aspects of womens experience under communism that inform current meanings, practices, and visions.
Analyses that connect the gender reforms of the communist regime with
womens lives and political participation before and after 1989 have already
been undertaken. Nevertheless, to the degree that these analyses adhere to
simple models of causation in pursuit of parsimonious explanation, multiple
expressions of agency are elided and womens subjectivities are characterized
in terms of passivity, false consciousness, and victimhood. For example, simple and deceiving causal relations between womens level of education and
their capacity for engaging projects of sociopolitical transformation are suggested by Bucur:
Women did not win these rights through a conscious fight and organized
movement but were given them before most Romanian women could read
and writebefore they would even understand the meaning of voting
rights. As a result of these developments and of other changes since 1989,
most women in Romania have remained reluctant to change their genderdefined roles. (1994, 225)

Elsewhere, Mihaela Miroiu speaks about the civic minimalism of people from
Romania evident in their distrust for institutions and the law, lack of awareness
with regard to the language of contractualist democracies such as rights and
liberties, and their preference to live invisibly (1999). Together with Popescu,
Miroiu argues that in the case of women, civic minimalism generates a vicious
circle of lack of social involvement and strengthens a behavioral trait showed
by many sociological studies: women are more conservative than men (Miroiu
and Popescu 1999, 1011). Such analytic models foreclose consideration of certain types of womens mobilization in their conceptualization: the right female
political subject is always elsewhere, the operative model of power allows
only womens oblivious complicity with patriarchy. The complicity with power
and institutional and economic privilege of academics, meanwhile, remains
unexamined, as do the differences in womens lives, priorities, visions, desires,
vocabularies, allegiances, protests, time availability, and material resources.
Scholars have discussed the influence of the EU equal opportunities legislative

196Gender

framework on Romanian legislation and the impact of EU and American

funders priorities on the development of local agendas in conjunction with the
role of conceptual frameworks of Western feminism. Eniko Maghyari-Vincze
fairly critiques the superficiality of the public debates on equal opportunities
between women and men. She argues that the discourse of equal opportunities
is developed on a rather abstract level, resulting in a split between normative
assertions and the everyday lived reality of gender inequality (2006, 119).
Nonetheless, as a result of EU accession negotiations, a number of institutions aimed at facilitating womens equal citizenship were put in place at
the governmental,5 parliamentary,6 interministerial,7 ministerial,8 and central administrative level9a phenomenon sometimes labeled institutional
mushrooming. These institutions have significant shortcomings as implementing agents of an equal-opportunity agenda. Feminist critics have noted
among their liabilities lack of policy expertise with regard to equal opportunities, insufficient funding, and counterproductive centralization (Bocioc et
al. 2004; Ghebrea et al. 2005; and Grunberg et al. 2006). The agencies established at these multiple levels of administration are intended to implement
equal-opportunities principles in national legislation, monitor and evaluate
various actors compliance with gender equality legislation, implement informative programs on gender equality legislative provisions, and improve the
mechanisms for eliminating gender discrimination. It is difficult to assess the
efficacy of these institutions definitively. The websites of these governmental
organizations do feature information about legislation, as well as studies and
projects related to gender equality and equal opportunities between women
and men. Additionally, they produce relatively numerous publications on
these topics, conduct training events to develop gender expertise among their
personnel, and promote collaboration with womens NGOs.10

From Liberal to Neoliberal: The Pursuit of Synchronicity

with the West
Regulska and Grabowska fairly attribute the eagerness [among postcommunist elites] to incorporate liberal and neoliberal ideals to the historical desire
to be part of the West and identification with Western Europe and Western
culture in general.11 Signs of such eagerness can be recognized in the space of
contemporary Romania, too. In one respect, it manifests in feminist knowledge production in efforts to establish genealogical links between the late

Grounds for Hope? 197

nineteenth- and early twentieth-century feminist movement and postcommunist forms of feminist mobilization, or to promote comparison between the two
phenomena. What for Denise Roman is merely a tiny liberal feminist movement evidencing a structural lack of feminist gendered discursive social and
political space (Roman 2001, 53), for other feminist writers constitutes a wellarticulated sociopolitical movement (Mihilescu 2002; Miroiu 2005). Stefania
Mihilescu emphasizes the ample social action, pre-eminently democratic,
part and parcel of the efforts of all those political, cultural and religious orientation and trends seeking to eliminate the barriers hindering the countries
development and its synchronization with western civilizations (Mihilescu
2002, 5). The author calls attention to feminisms embeddedness within a European identity and regards Romanian feminism as a confirmation of the countrys belonging with Europe: We may say that Romanian feminism proved
from its very inception to be the bearer of a genuine European spirit. There is
no contradiction between feminism and Europeanism, but, on the contrary,
there is an in-depth convergence between them, as natural and noble in scope
(Mihilescu 2002, 15). For Mihaela Mudure feminism provides an alternative
narrative for nation building that has the potential to overcome chauvinistic, xenophobic, even anti-Semitic discourses of the time (2004, 5). Mudure
also draws attention to the problems of an exclusively liberal emplotment of
feminism. Neglecting the leftist component disengages Romanian feminism
from its roots, obscuring the relationship between feminism and the socialdemocratic movement, as well as the activism of female communist militants12
and the presence of an intellectual feminism13 in Romania. The liberal narrative renders communist Romania a time/space devoid of any genuine political
agency because of the imposition of communist dictatorship (2004, 6).
The relations between various political actors from Romania and the
West are diverse and seemingly contradictory. The West maintains an
important role in the negotiation of local political agendas, but its roles are
shifting and multiple: it is variously a desired terminus of Romanias transition, the current neoimperialistic hegemon, a site of optimally functioning
democracies, and a (more powerful) partner in transnational collaboration
and coalitions. For example, in 1994 Maria Bucur stressed the importance of
appropriating Western models for achieving gender equality, arguing that by
interacting with Western feminism through professional networks and texts,
Romanian women [would] be able not only to understand the political and
cultural legacy of the West, but also appropriate and adapt it to their own

198Gender

setting, just as generations before appropriated liberalism, constitutionalism,

and democracy (Bucur 1994, 229). Dialogue is an incontestable aspect of the
relationship between Romanian feminism and the West, but so are the power
differentials playing out in these interactions and visions, agendas, vocabularies, and actions. As such, Romanian feminisms are undoubtedly limited
to and by their Western referent, as the efficacy of the former is assessed in
accordance with standards set by the latter.
In her analysis of Romanian feminists appropriation of Western models
of eliminating gender-based discrimination, Laura Grunberg critically points
out the limited productivity of such an approach:
In Romania, there was a combination of all [waves of American feminism].
We have condensed stages, not fully internalized each period, being in a
hurry to catch up to the Western feminisms and experience of waves of
feminisms and do in a couple of years what has been done over decades in
the West, often taking for granted the western models/ theories and not contextualizing, adapting them to the Romanian/regional specificities. (2004, 3)

Attempts to render the Romanian experience in terms of the three discrete

waves commonly understood as characterizing Western feminism are bound
to fail. As an historiographic production, the wave model is continually complicated by imputing new voices, data, actions, alliances, tensions, and events.
The West often figures in the Romanian feminist imaginary as a well-synchronized and uniform spatiality, unencumbered by the poverty, state violence, and sexist, homophobic, and racist attitudes that continue to plague
Romania. Nevertheless, the dialogue with Western feminists is valuable. Isabela Mihalache, for example, argues that concepts and debates with respect
to diversity usually associated with second- and third-wave feminism in the
West can help Romanian feminism confront the generally ignored problems
of women from minority groups. Roma womens issues in particular would
be better tackled from the perspective of multiple discrimination (2006, 116)
articulated in this later feminist scholarship.

Womens NGOs: A Clear-Cut Common Agenda,

or Problem-Oriented Coalitions
The roles played by womens NGOs in the ongoing restructuring of gender
relations in contemporary Romania have been amply discussed by Romanian

Grounds for Hope? 199

feminists. There are about fifty to sixty womens NGOs with diverse agendas
and priorities. Some feminist critics implicitly complain about this diversity
as they point out the lack of a common platform, limited will for collaboration, rejection of an overtly feminist allegiance, and at times complicity with
patriarchal arrangements. In her essay Women and Diversity, Laura Grunberg ingeniously shows that gender is not necessarily the ascendant factor in
shaping identities and interests:
An unmarried woman and a divorced women with three children are not the
same....A 40 year old woman from a Moldavian village shares more of a
problem with the men from her village than with Monica Tatoiu,...sometimes ones gender identity is more important, other times ones ethnicity
or ones belonging to an age. Sometimes our interests as women coincide
in a greater degree with those of certain men than with those of women.
Women, diversity, but is there...unity? Unity in Diversity. Does this
thing exist in Romania? (2006, 1078)14

Unity is in itself a rather ambitious goal, and it is all the more so when it
requires the preservation and expression of diversity. Collective action is perhaps more fruitfully envisioned as an open-ended process of negotiation and
dialogue. A case in point is Enik Maghyari Vinczes intervention against
the discriminatory admission practices at the Institute for Protestant Theology from Cluj. Vinczes initiative unleashed predictably nationalistic and antifeminist responses, but in her opinion the dialogical space that she opened is
an important achievement. Her challenge revealed the support of many people within the Protestant Church for womens equality and provided them
with the opportunity to publicly express their commitment to womens rights
(Maghyari-Vincze 2006, 11223). Furthermore, a survey of annual reports
and websites indicates that womens NGOs are rather likely to associate, create coalitions, and develop collaborative projects with diverse societal actors.
The Pro Women Foundation (Fundaia ProFemei) from Iasi, for example,
reports an extensive network of partners and collaborators. Among the organizations with which it has cosponsored initiatives are NGOs with gender
expertise or feminist commitments, NGOs active in other fields, local authorities from a number of communities in the Moldovan region, as well as central administrative organizations, educational institutions, the Moldavia and
Bucovina Metropolitan Church, and television and radio stations.15 The Pro
Women Foundation is also part of a network bringing together trade unions

200Gender

and nongovernmental organizations. It participates in a regional partnership

for development and, last but not least, holds membership in four European
networks addressing womens issues: the Regional Initiatives for Womens Promotion, Network of East-West Women, TRIALOG, and KARAT.16 To take
just one more example, Artemis, the Counseling Center Against Sexual Abuse
and Violence (Artemis, Centrul pentru consiliere mpotriva abuzului sexual i
violenei) from Cluj has built effective partnerships with the city police, the
Direction for Childrens Rights Protection, the Direction for Labor, Social
Protection, and Employment, the County Inspectorate for Education, and a
number of local schools. The center has further collaborated with Babes Bolyai
University, the DESIRE Foundation, women lawyers from the Cluj Barr, wellrecognized womens organizations from Timisoara, The Association for the
Promotion of Women from Romania (APFR), and Bucharest, Partnership for
Equality Center (CPE), as well as NGOs from both Eastern Europe, Incest
Trauma Center in Belgrade, and Western Europe, Wildwasser and Strohhalm
in Germany and the Austrian Womens Shelters Network. The same sources
show that these organizations are not exclusively reliant on Western support.
Rather, they have built up partnerships with local private entrepreneurs. These
lists demonstrate a coalition model of action that places a specific problem at
the center of analysis and identifies the nexus of agents, practices, and institutions involved in the problems reproduction. This knowledge in turn becomes
the basis for organizing ways of addressing the problem.
Interestingly these collaborations shed light on another important line of
criticism of womens mobilization and its relationship to the West. Regulska
and Grabowskas analysis of the Central and Eastern European region indicates that the phenomenon of NGOization might have demobilized social
movements and marked the triumph of Washington or Geneva based agendas17 over local concerns (2008, 15). Yet, their analysis shows that the conditions that contributed to this demobilization were also potential opportunities for particular agents of the civil society from the region.
The relationships built by some NGOs with their Western institutional
supporters have allowed them to transcend the national scale of policy making. By voicing their issues at the transnational level they have been able
to create leverage that eventually ends up in local reforms. The combined
lobbying campaigns of ACCEPT Romania18 and its partners brought the
criminalization of homosexuality to the fore of public debate and achieved
its decriminalization in January 2002. Interestingly, the agenda-constraining

Grounds for Hope? 201

effect of Western donors and funders is also evident in the same organization.
A quick scan of the organizations projects demonstrates disproportionate
foreign support for STD- and HIV/AIDS-related work, reflecting Western
discursive framings of homosexuality.
Finally, many organizations from Romania have participated in subregional, regional, and international networks. Notable among them are the
International Womens Media Foundation, International Roma Womens
Network, the Coalition of NGOs Working in the Area of Violence Against
Women, 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence, the European Network Against Trafficking in Women for Sexual Exploitation, the Regional
Initiatives for Womens Promotion, Network of East-West Women, and
KARAT, the Regional coalition for gender equality in the CEE/CIS countries. Local initiatives toward building networks, such as Gender Romanias
project of regional networking of feminist academics in the CEE,19 have
firmly expressed goals of sharing ideas, strategies, and resources to address
the problems women are confronting and to promote a gender-sensitive
approach to policy making, politics, and knowledge production.

Street Theory and Alternative Forms of Mobilization

Focusing exclusively on NGOs risks obscuring alternative approaches to
mobilization by women. At the same time, a rigid distinction between NGOs
and uninstitutionalized activism would also be a mistake, given significant
convergence between the goals, methods, activities, means of expression,
and audiences of the different forms of organization. The 2006 Association
for the Promotion of Women from Romania (Asociaia pentru promovarea femeilor din Romnia) from Timioaras annual campaign against gender violence, for example, has characteristics normally attributed to NGOs,
but it also illustrates what Regulska and Grabowska call street theory. The
2006 event brought together several traditional forms of activism, including
a debate involving diverse actors from NGOs, local administration, and the
private sector; a hybrid art exhibit and a public rally. The Silent Witness,
exhibition entailed crafting lifelike silhouettes to represent victims who died
as a result of domestic violence that were then carried in peaceful processions
through various Romanian cities (APFR 2008).
The organizers of the 2005 Ladyfest-Timioara, the 2006 LadyActBucharest, and the 2007 Ladyfest-Bucharest 20 produced similar hybrid spaces

202Gender

of mobilization, emphasizing the advantages of fluid coalitions and dialogic

strategies. The range of themes developed by these festivals indicates their
openness to diverse points of view. The formal topics of discussion included
The Right to Be Different, or the Double Courage to Be a Woman and a
Gay Person in a Misogynist-Homophobic Society,21 The Antifeminism of
the Mass Media,22 All Together for Interculturality,23 and The Woman
Who Writes of the Women Whore Written About.24 Additionally participants shared their perspectives on antiracist strategies; vegan baking; queer
identities/(bi)sexuality; maternity and its social political implications; gender
and Internet spaces; video activism; women and science/technology; nonhierarchical, feminist, nonviolent communication and group organizing; prostitution; human trafficking; and violence against women.25 The themes were
developed through workshops, exhibitions, debates, film screenings, arts and
crafts workshops, marches, activist fairs, and live concerts. This mixed strategy engages a large and diverse public in a unique space of encounter, sharing,
and mutual identification of commonalities (Kovacs 2005).26
Regulska and Grabowska see these sites as potent new forms of mass
mobilization by women in Central and Eastern Europe because of their
capacity to circumvent what is often perceived as ideological feminism. In
response to criticism of the 2007 Ladyfest as a weak event responsible for
chopping off the legs of Romanian Feminism, Bori Kovacs, one of the organizers, replied:
I dont know what your expectations were. Is it the class movement of the
past decades and centuries? Why is it crucial for feminism to manifest itself
through imposing, robust, and forceful ways, even intimidating ways in
order to be noticed, taken into consideration, or allowed to express itself
and attempt to persuade?...This preference for hierarchically organized,
structurally monolithic mobilizations what, with all the voices in unison
has been the norm from the first communist international on. But it is not
the only modality of change, despite the legitimization received from you
or other groups of people. (Kovacs 2007) 27

These festivals provide an alternative, nonhierarchical, flexible space of engagement with womens and gender issues. Ladyfest initiated a resignification of
what counts as political action by foregrounding the creative input of female
musicians28 and visual artists.29 Moreover, many activists at these festivals are
critical of the values associated with neoliberalism and the free global market
Grounds for Hope? 203

economy. Their interest in delocalization, migration, and womens work

(Ladyfest 2007) is a timely response to new power arrangements produced by
the increased mobility of people and capital. They speak to scenarios difficult
to imagine a decade ago, such as the mobilization of four hundred Chinese
women laborers from the beginning of 2007 in Bacu, Romania. The women
went on strike, demanding better pay and living conditions30 for their work in
the production unit of the Swiss textile concern Wear.
The question, then, is not whether there is feminism and mobilization
by women in Romania, or whether feminism is successful, subservient to
the West, or powerful enough. Beyond the concern for unity, autonomy,
and emancipatory capacity, the question of womens mobilization should
attend to the kind of counterhegemonic spaces that women and their communities construct in order to deal with their situations. As my analysis
demonstrates, these spaces are created through small-scale protests as
well as through overarching information-sharing networks and narrow,
task-oriented coalitions. They emerge as projects tending to the concrete
needs of women and their children, as well as through analytical projects,
debates, workshops, seminars, teachings, and roundtables exposing sexism, homophobia, and racism. They are developed within the framework of
Ladyfest and Lady Act events, as well as by organizations such as AnA, the
Society for Feminist Analyses, 31 and the Center for Partnership and Equality. 32 They are equally created through activities targeting the professional
development of women, legislative reforms, festivals, art shows, and alternative music concerts. The complex reality of postcommunist Romanian
activism around womens and gender issues cannot be captured through
cartoonish portraits, mass mobilization paradigms of activism, Western
referents for assessing development, tropes of modernity and progress, and
reductionist causal analysis. Rather it requires an analytical space that sheds
light on initiatives that are more limited in their scope and emerge from less
obvious locations, such as web blogs and music and art venues. Emphasis on temporary alliances that bring together regional and cross-regional
partners around topical issues and transient projects that respond to practical needs will allow more nuanced and optimistic evaluation of the current
state of feminism in Romania.

204Gender

Notes
1.

Valentina Vuxanovici, M simt valoroas numai cnd reuesc s ajut pe cineva.

Interviu cu Mariana Duran, preedintele Asociaiei mamelor care i cresc
singure copiii, October 23, 2003. http://www.121.ro/content/article_print.
php3?article_id=1767&page_nr=1.

2.

Commenting on the status of current gender policies, Miroiu critically draws attention to their emphasis on protecting women rather than emancipating women.
Regarding the relation between the feminist movement from Romania and the
influence exercised by the EU, she coins the term room-service feminism as a
strategy of emancipation from above, consisting of the imposition of gender sensitive legislation in CEE through the authority of international political actors, in
particular European ones, before internal public recognition of such needs. As
pressuring external agents, Miroiu identifies the EU, the International Monetary
Fund, the World Bank, and even NATO (concerning women in the military force)
(Miroiu 2005, 9).

3.
4.

See Regulska and Grabowskas contribution to this volume, Chapter 3.

Equal opportunities for women and men, equal chances between women and
men, equal opportunities and treatment between women and men, gender equality,
equal opportunities between women and men, equal chances, the principle of equal
chances between sexes (Grunberg et al. 2006; emphasis mine).

5.

The Direction for Equal Opportunities.

6.

The Sub-Committee on Equal Opportunities.

7.

Inter-ministerial Advisory Commission for Equal Opportunities (CODES).

8.

Ministry for European Integration, Ministry for Education and Research, Ministry for Labor, Social Solidarity and Family.

9.

The National Council for Combating Discrimination; the Department for Children, Women and Social Protection; the National Action Plans after the Beijing Conference; the National Institute for Statistics; the National Authority for
Consumers Protection; the National Authority for Persons with Disabilities; the
National Council for Adults Professional Training; and the National Agency for
Labor.

10. For a more complete picture of the outcomes of such collaborations, visit the web
pages of the National Council for Combating Discrimination at http://www.cncd.
org.ro/; and of the Ministry of Labor, Family and Social Security at http://www.
mmuncii.ro/ro/website/ro/.
11. See Regulska and Grabowskas contribution to this volume, Chapter 3.

Grounds for Hope? 205

12. Mihaela Mudure points to Elena Filipescu-Filipovici, Ecaterina Arbore, and Constanta Crciun (2004, 5).
13. Mihaela Mudure mentions the writer and film critic Ecaterina Oproiu.
14. Monica Tatoiu is a successful businesswoman from Romania. Shes a visible media
figure taking up feminist causes.
15. The website of the Pro Women Foundation is available at http://www.prowomen.
ro/english/partnership.htm.
16. Funders, partners, collaborators, networks. http://www.prowomen.ro/english/
partnership.htm.
17. Laura Grunberg is critical of these dynamics in what she calls an abstract movement
and the institutionalization of a womens movement that are not feminists imposed
hurriedly from abroad. It was implemented in more than sixty womens NGOs existing now in Romania (7), but did not generate solidarity among women as women
vis--vis the negative impact of these years of transition on their public and private
lives. The NGOization of the womens movement in Romania has been produced in
a climate of declining public awareness of gender issues. It has been produced without popular will. It was born of an accumulation of discontent by the target group
(women), who theoretically had to give meaning to the movement itself. It was not a
consequence of large-scale democratic discussions between feministswhether female
or male; men who were feminists were nonexistent at the time and remain scarce today.
We dont have a womens movement justified and built on the experiences and problems of women in this country. In our country an institutionalized womens movement
(NGOization) oriented in the first place toward intervention strategies and secondarily toward emancipatory ones appeared suddenly enough. An abstract movement,
disconnected from the gender realities of contemporary Romania, unsympathetic in
reality to the majority of women, most of them different from the typical NGO person
(that is poor, subjected to violence, single, older, rural, Roma, and so on).
18. ACCEPT is the most effective and visible NGO that defends and promotes the
rights of LGBTs in Romania.
19. Gender Romania has organized international academic workshops on the following topics: Sharing Experiences, Projects, and Hopes (2003), Gender and the
(Post) East/ West Divide (2004), and Whos Afraid of Feminism? Teaching and
Researching Gender (2005). http://www.feminism.ro/activities.htm.
20. The web pages and blogs that the organizers of these festivals keep online are
themselves forms of womens activism. They pull together texts, media clippings,
art pieces, and fora. For a complete picture of these activities, see http://ladyfest-ro.
pimienta.org/weblog/.

206Gender

21. Discussion session organized and facilitated by Florentina Ionescu. The LadyAct
blog is at http://ladyact2006.blog.
22. Discussion organized and facilitated by Oana Balu (LadyAct blog http://ladyact2006.blog).
23. Discussion organized and facilitated by Crina Morteanu (LadyAct Blog http://
ladyact2006.blog).
24. Discussion session organized and facilitated by Andreea Florentina Popa (LadyAct
blog http://ladyact2006.blog).
25. For the complete program of the Ladyfest Romania 2007, visit http://ladyfest-ro.
pimienta.org/weblog/?p=419#en.
26. The organizers of Ladyfest 2005 describe their event as a space designed for
women and their creative, or interactive pieces, and a space to come together and
teach one another and discuss, to debate if needed be, and to exchange information
about one another, to get informed regarding the feminist scene in Romania, to get
acquainted with what other women do and what lies as a foundation of their determination to want to engage in grassroots movements and sporadic, but dedicated,
fieldwork. See Regulska and Grabowskas contribution to this volume, Chapter 3.
27. {TK}
28. LadyAct 2006 featured DJ Rou, DJ DropDread, and the visual artist Mono.
29. Ladyfest 2007 involved the H.arta collective, a group of three women artists, Maria
Cristea, Anca Gyemant, and Rodica Tache, dedicated to projects foregrounding
dialogue and critical attitude. For more details on H.artas projects, visit http://
www.spatiul-public.ro/eng/h.arta/harta.html.
30. The workers protest failed. The management of Wear refused to increase salaries
and the Chinese women had to leave Romania.
31. AnAs projects are excellent examples of critical engagements with the operations of
power along gender, sexuality, race/ ethnicity, or disability lines: Practices of Multiple
Discrimination in Romania (2007); Gender Stereotypes in Mass Media from Romania (2006); Women and Disabilities: Towards Gender Sensitive Policies in Romania
(2006); the Black Book of Equal Opportunities Between Women and Men in Romania (2006); and Integration vs. Segregation: For a Gender Sensitive Activism (2004).
32. The following are examples of projects that provide strong analyses of the gender
relations from particular social contexts and also that propose ways of addressing
the urgent situations girls and women are confronting: The Gender Dimensions of
Pension Reform in Romania; Girls and Boys: All Different, All Equal; Education
for Gender Equality; and Education of Young Girls from Orphanages in Order to
Decrease Their Vulnerability to Trafficking.

Grounds for Hope? 207

References
Bocioc, Florentina, Dimitriu Doina, Teiu Doina, and Cristina Vileanu.
2004. Gender Mainstreaming. Metode and Instrumente. Ghid practice pentru abordarea integratoare a egalitii de gen. Bucharest: Centrul parteneriat
pentru egalitate.
Bucur, Maria. 1994. An American Feminist in Romania. Social Politics 1 (2):
22330.
Clej, Petru. 2007. Chinese in Romanian Job Protest. BBC News, January 25.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/6286617.stm.
Drghici, Daniela. 2000. Femeile sunt pe agenda lumii i fac reforma pe
planeta Pamnt. AnAlize-Revista de Studii Feministe 9: 2022.
Dumitric, Despina. 2000. Romanian Women Dont Wear the Trousers.
Central Europe Review 2 (39). http://www.ce-review.org/00/39/dumitrica39.html.
Fairclough, Norman. 2008. Transition, Patriarchy and Room-Service Feminism in Romania: A Critical Discourse Analysis Perspective. Paper
presented at the Gender and Language Conference, Athens 2005. http://
www.ling.lancs.ac.uk/staff/norman/roomservice.doc.
Ghebrea, Georgeta, Marina Tataram, and Ioana Cretoiu. 2005. Implementing
Equality Acquis. Bucharest: Nemira Publishing House.
Grunberg, Laura. 2006. Femei i diversitate.In Cartea neagr a egalitii
de anse ntre femei i brbai, edited by Laura Grunberg, Ioana Borza,
and Teodora Vcrescu, 1079. Bucharest: AnA Societatea pentru analize
feministe.
. 2008. (Com)promises in Institutionalizing Gender Studies: Expert
in Gender (in Romania)What For? Ad Astra. Young Romanian Scientists Journal 1 (3). www.ad-astra.ro.
Grunberg, Laura, Ioana Borza, and Teodora Vcrescu. 2006. Cartea neagr
a egalitii de anse ntre femei i brbai. Bucharest: AnA Societatea pentru
analize feministe.
Hulland, Annette. 2001. Western Standards for Post-communist Women?
eumap.org (December). http://www.eumap.org/journal/features/2001/
dec/westernst.
Kovacs, Bori. 2005. Ladyfest Timioara: Post-script to an Event. http://
romania.indymedis.org/en/2005/.

208Gender

. 2007. Ctre Alex Vrzaru de la Academia Caavencu, care nu s-a

bucurat de exclusivitatea de a scrie despre a doua ediie a Ladyfest Romania din Octombrie 2007. http://ladyfest-ro.pimienta.org/weblog/?p=499.
LadyAct 2006 blog. http://ladyact2006.blogspot.com.
Magyari-Vincze, Enik. 2006. Bilele negre ale egalitii de anse ntre femei
i brbai. In Cartea neagr a egalitii de anse ntre femei i brbai, edited
by Laura Grunberg, Ioana Borza, and Teodora Vcrescu, 11923. Bucharest: AnA Societatea pentru analize feministe.
Mihilescu, Stefania. 2002. Feminism i Europenism AnAlize-Revista de
Studii Feministe 12: 416.
Mihalache, Isabela. 2006. Femeile Rome si egalitatea de anse. In Cartea
neagr a egalitii de anse ntre femei i brbai, edited by Laura Grunberg,
Ioana Borza, and Teodora Vcrescu, 11618. Bucharest: AnA Societatea
pentru analize feministe.
Miroiu, Mihaela. 2005. The Costless State Feminism in Romania. Paper
presented at the Department for Russian and East-European Studies, Indiana University, Bloomington, March. http://www.indiana.
edu/~reeiweb/events/2005/Miroiu%20text%20.pdf.
Miroiu, Mihaela, and Liliana Popescu. 1999. Condiia femeilor din Romania ntre tradiie si modernizare. In Gen i politic. Femeile din Romania
n viaa public, edited by Liliana Popescu, 327. Bucharest: UNDP and
AnA.
Mudure, Mihaela. 2004. A Zeugmatic Space: East/ Central European Feminisms. In Gender and the (Post) East/ West European Divide, edited by
Mihaela Frunz and Teodora Vcrescu, 110. Cluj-Napoca, Romania:
Limes.
Roman, Denise. 2001. Gendering Eastern Europe: Pre-Feminism, Prejudice, and East-West Dialogues in Post-Communist Romania. Womens
Studies International Forum 24 (1): 5666.
Teampu, Petrua. 2007. It Wont Go Away: Surviving a Feminist Consciousness in Post-socialist Romania. Intersections: Womens and Gender
Studies in Review across Disciplines 5: 7075.
Vuxanovici, Valentina. 2003. M simt valoroas numai cnd reuesc s ajut
pe cineva. Interviu cu Mariana Duran, preedintele Asociaiei mamelor
care i cresc singure copiii. October 23. http://www.121.ro/content/article_print.php3?article_id=1767&page_nr=1.

Grounds for Hope? 209

Relevant Websites
Ana-Societatea pentru Analize Feministe: http://www.anasaf.ro/ro/index
.html
Asociatia femeilor rome: http://www.romawomenandkids.org/
Asociatia pentru promovarea femeilor din Romania: http://www.apfr.ro/en/
home
Center for Partnership and Equality: http://www.cpe.ro/english/
Pro-women Foundation: http://www.prowomen.ro/english/partnership.htm
Gender Romania: http://www.feminism.ro/activities.htm
Ladyfest Romania 2007: http://ladyfest-ro.pimienta.org/weblog/?p=419#en
Ladyfest Timiosra 2005: http://ladyfest-ro.pimienta.org/index.php?id=pages/
resurse.txt 2005

210Gender