1st Edition

The Routledge Handbook of Gender in Central-Eastern Europe and Eurasia

Edited By Katalin Fábián, Janet Elise Johnson, Mara Lazda Copyright 2021
    586 Pages 1 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    586 Pages 1 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    This Handbook is the key reference for contemporary historical and political approaches to gender in Central-Eastern Europe and Eurasia. Leading scholars examine the region’s highly diverse politics, histories, cultures, ethnicities, and religions, and how these structures intersect with gender alongside class, sexuality, coloniality, and racism. Comprising 51 chapters, the Handbook is divided into six thematic parts:

    Part I Conceptual debates and methodological differences

    Part II Feminist and women’s movements cooperating and colliding

    Part III Constructions of gender in different ideologies

    Part IV Lived experiences of individuals in different regimes

    Part V The ambiguous postcommunist transitions

    Part VI Postcommunist policy issues

    With a focus on defining debates, the collection considers how the shared experiences, especially communism, affect political forces’ organization of gender through a broad variety of topics including feminisms, ideology, violence, independence, regime transition, and public policy.

    It is a foundational collection that will become invaluable to scholars and students across a range of disciplines including Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and Central-Eastern European and Eurasian Studies.

    Part 1: Conceptual Debates and Methodological Differences

    Introduction

    Janet Elise Johnson, Katalin Fábián, and Mara Lazda

    The Development of the Field

    Chapter 1: Between Regional and Transnational Contexts

    Maria Bucur

    Chapter 2: Fluidity or Clean Breaks?

    Joanna Regulska and Zofia Włodarczyk

    Chapter 3: Neoliberal Intervention: Analyzing the Drakulić–Funk–Ghodsee Debates

    Eva Maria Hinterhuber and Gesine Fuchs

    Methodologies

    Chapter 4: Legacies of the Cold War and the Future of Gender in Feminist Histories of Socialism

    Anna Krylova

    Chapter 5: The Case and Comparative Methods

    Lisa McIntosh Sundstrom

    Chapter 6: Quantitative and Experimental Methods

    Olga A. Avdeyeva and Nellie Bohac

    Epistemologies

    Chapter 7: Postcoloniality in Central-Eastern Europe and Eurasia

    Tatsiana Shchurko and Jennifer Suchland

    Chapter 8: Post-Soviet Masculinities: Sex, Power, and the Vanishing Subject

    Eliot Borenstein

    Part 2 Feminist and Women’s Movements Cooperating and Colliding

    Introduction

    Katalin Fábián, Mara Lazda, and Janet Elise Johnson

    Women’s Organizing under Empires

    Chapter 9: Challenging Tradition and Crossing Borders: Women’s Activism and Literary Modernism in the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy

    Agatha Schwartz

    Chapter 10: The First All-Russian Women’s Congress: "The Women’s Parliament"

    Rochelle Goldberg Ruthchild

    Socialist (Feminist) Interpretations

    Chapter 11: The Russian Revolution and Women’s Liberation: Rethinking the Legacy of the Socialist Emancipation Project

    Elena Gapova

    Dissident Women and Feminisms

    Chapter 12: Czechoslovak Feminisms during the Interwar Period

    Iveta Jusová and Karla Huebner

    Chapter 13: Women in Poland's Solidarity

    Shana Penn

    Postcommunist NGO Feminisms and Beyond

    Chapter 14: From Soviet Feminism to the European Union: Transnational Women's Movements between East and West

    Magdalena Grabowska

    Chapter 15: Transnational Feminism and Women’s NGOs: The Case of the Network of East–West Women

    Nanette Funk

    Chapter 16: Contentions of Funding Gender Equality in Central-Eastern Europe

    Jill Irvine

    Chapter 17: Pussy Riot and FEMEN’s Global Trajectories in Law, Society, and Culture

    Jessica Zychowicz and Nataliya Tchermalykh

    Part 3 Constructions of Gender in Different Ideologies

    Introduction

    Mara Lazda, Janet Elise Johnson, and Katalin Fábián

    Nationalism

    Chapter 18: Nationalism and Sexuality in Central-Eastern Europe

    Anita Kurimay

    Chapter 19: Gender, Militarism, and the Modern Nation in Soviet and Russian cultures

    Karen Petrone

    Fascism

    Chapter 20: Far-Right Expectations of Women in Central-Eastern Europe

    Andrea Pető

    Socialisms and Communisms

    Chapter 21: Paradoxes of Gender in Soviet Communist Party Women's Sections (the Zhenotdel), 1918-1930

    Elizabeth A. Wood

    Chapter 22: Women’s Education, Entry to Paid Work, and Forced Unveiling in Soviet Central Asia

    Yulia Gradskova

    Chapter 23: "Gypsies"/Roma and the Politics of Reproduction in Post-Stalinist Central-Eastern Europe

    Eszter Varsa

    Chapter 24: Legalizing Queerness in Central-Eastern Europe

    Judit Takács

    Democracy

    Chapter 25: Gender and the Democratic Paradox in Latvia

    Daina S. Eglitis, Marita Zitmane, and Laura Ardava-Āboliņa

    Chapter 26: Anti-Gender Mobilization and Right-Wing Populism

    Agnieszka Graff

    Part 4 Lived Experience of the Individual in Different Regimes

    Introduction

    Mara Lazda, Katalin Fábián, and Janet Elise Johnson

    Empires and Monarchies

    Chapter 27: Late Imperial Russia and Its Gendered Order in the Countryside

    Christine D. Worobec

    Chapter 28: Gendered Moral Panics in the Late Habsburg Monarchy: Prostitution, Sex Trafficking, and Venereal Disease

    Nancy M. Wingfield

    Independence

    Chapter 29: The Promise of Gender Equality in Interwar Central-Eastern Europe

    Melissa Feinberg

    Nazism, Stalinism, and War

    Chapter 30: Sexuality in the Holocaust

    Anna Hájková

    Chapter 31: Deportation and Gulag as Gendered Processes

    Dovilė Budrytė

    Socialisms and Communisms

    Chapter 32: Yugoslav Gender Experiments and Soviet Influences

    Ivan Simić

    Chapter 33: Struggles to Reconcile Women's Wage Labor and Kitchen Labor in the German Democratic Republic

    Alice Weinreb

    Part 5 The Ambiguous Postcommunist Transitions

    Introduction

    Janet Elise Johnson, Mara Lazda, and Katalin Fábián

    Democratic and Economic Changes

    Chapter 34: Gender and the Ambiguities of Economic Transition in Romania

    Jill Massino

    Chapter 35: Democratization, Authoritarianism, and Gender in Russia

    Andrea Chandler

    Europeanization

    Chapter 36: Europeanization and the Challenge of Gender Equality

    Andrea Spehar

    Chapter 37: The Europeanization and Politicization of LGBT Rights in Serbia

    Koen Slootmaeckers

    Migrations

    Chapter 38: Russian-Speaking LGBTQ Communities in the West

    Alexandra Novitskaya

    Chapter 39: Postsocialist Migration and Intimacy

    Alexia Bloch

    Armed Conflict/Resolution

    Chapter 40: The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and the Development of Legal Frameworks on Violence against Women in Conflict

    Belinda Cooper

    Chapter 41: Gender, Conflict, and Social Change in Armenia and Azerbaijan

    Sinéad Walsh

    Part 6 Postcommunist Policy Issues

    Introduction

    Katalin Fábián, Janet Elise Johnson, and Mara Lazda

    Political Leadership

    Chapter 42: Women’s Representation in Politics

    Sharon Wolchik and Cristina Chiva

    Gender-based Violence

    Chapter 43: Hybrid Regimes and Gender Violence Prevention Campaigns in Ukraine

    Alexandra Hrycak

    Chapter 44: Bride Kidnapping and Polygynous Marriages: Gendered Debates in Central Asia

    Cynthia Werner

    Chapter 45: Trafficked Women and Men to and from Russia

    Lauren A. McCarthy

    Reproductive Rights

    Chapter 46: Assisted Reproduction: Poland in a Comparative Perspective

    Elżbieta Korolczuk

    Chapter 47: Abortion and Reproductive Health in Eurasia: Continuity and Change

    Cynthia Buckley

    Social Policy and Health

    Chapter 48: Single Mothers, Family Change, and Normalized Gender Crisis in Russia

    Jennifer Utrata

    Chapter 49 Social Welfare and Family Policies in Central-Eastern European Countries

    Dorota Szelewa

    Chapter 50: Women’s Representation in Sports

    Honorata Jakubowska

    Chapter 51: Gender, Sexuality, and Disability in Postsocialist Central-Eastern Europe

    Teodor Mladenov

     

    Biography

    Katalin Fábián is Professor of Government and Law at Lafayette College, Easton, Pennsylvaniam, USA. She edited Globalization: Perspectives from Central and Eastern Europe (2007) and served as the editor of the journal Canadian-American Slavic Studies that focused on the changing international relations of Central and Eastern Europe. Her book Contemporary Women’s Movements in Hungary: Globalization, Democracy, and Gender Equality (2009) analyzes the political significance of women’s activism in Hungary. She contributed chapters to and edited Domestic Violence in Postcommunist States: Local Activism, National Policies, and Global Forces (2010). With Ioana Vlad, she edited Democratization through Social Activism: Gender and Environmental Issues in Post-Communist Societies (2015). With Elżbieta Korolczuk, she edited and wrote chapters that appeared in Rebellious Parents: Parents’ Movements in Central-Eastern Europe and Russia (2017).

    Janet Elise Johnson is Professor of Political Science at Brooklyn College, City University of New York, Bronx, USA. Her books include The Gender of Informal Politics (2018), Gender Violence in Russia (2009), and Living Gender after Communism (with Jean C. Robinson, 2007). In the last few years, she has published articles in Slavic Review, Human Rights Review, Journal of Social Policy Studies, Politics & Gender, Perspectives on Politics, Journal of Social Policy, and Aspasia: The International Yearbook of Central, Eastern, and Southeastern European Women's and Gender History as well as online in The New Yorker, The Washington Post’s Monkey Cage, and The Boston Review. From 2008–2019, she was one of the coordinators of the monthly workshop on Gender and Transformation: Women in Europe, at New York University.

    Mara Lazda is Associate Professor of History at Bronx Community College, City University of Brooklyn, New York, USA. Her regional focus is on Latvia, with broader research interests on the intersections between gender, nationalism, and transnationalism in historical and contemporary contexts. Her articles have appeared in the Journal of Baltic Studies, the International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society, and Nationalities Papers. She has served as the President of the Association of Baltic Studies (2014–2016), a coordinator of the Gender and Transformation: Women in Europe workshop at New York University, and an editor for Aspasia: The International Yearbook of Central, Eastern, and Southeastern European Women's and Gender History.

    "The Routledge Handbook of Gender in Central-Eastern Europe and Eurasia is an invaluable resource for understanding the sometimes-heated debates which have animated global conversations about postsocialist, postcolonial, and post-Cold War studies over the last three decades. Fabian, Johnson, and Lazda have expertly curated an excellent selection of interdisciplinary chapters from a wide variety of preeminent scholars whose work collectively challenges the epistemic hegemony of Western feminist perspectives. The essays included provide fascinating intersectional analyses of how gender interacts with race, class, ethnicity, nationalism, and other factors to organize polities, economies, and societies. This Handbook is a must read for all scholars and policy makers interested in gender issues in the region." 

    Kristen R. Ghodsee, Professor, Russian and East European Studies, University of Pennsylvania

    "This timely and thorough reference collection is an essential guide to gender studies scholarship on postcommunist Europe and Eurasia. The editors gathered the highest caliber experts in the field to explicate the debates on gender in this diverse region, and to examine key topics, from methodology, to ideology, to intriguing empirical research on women’s organizing, everyday life, and gender-related policy before, during and after communist party rule. This engaging and comprehensive volume will be indispensable for anyone undertaking research on gender in the region, whether a novice or an advanced scholar long steeped in the subject. Rather than applying an "add women and stir" approach, the contributors examine the political, economic, social, cultural and legal systems that create and enforce gender norms, revealing the ineluctable centrality of gender to our understanding of politics."

    Valerie Sperling, Professor of Political Science, Clark University, USA, author of Sex, Politics and Putin.

    "What an extraordinary volume! At the time when the rights of women and the non-heteronormative people are under assault by the increasingly belligerent right-wing forces, a stellar cast of top researchers gives us a comprehensive overview of what needs to be known about gender in Central-Eastern Europe and Eurasia. Dozens of erudite chapters cover a lot of ground, ranging from useful reviews of theories, approaches and methods to illuminating historical studies and insightful dissections of cultural constructs and power constellations underpinning gender relations in these societies and elsewhere."

    Jan Kubik, Professor, Department of Political Science, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, USA

    "The handbook’s chapters can be used as a reliable source of information on specific research topics by a broad audience ranging from scholars to policymakers. Through its content and structure as well as the intersections between and among its 51 chapters, this volume is one of the best resources in the field of gender in Central-Eastern Europe and Eurasia."

    Simona Mitroiu, Institute of Interdisciplinary Research, “Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University of Iași, Romania