The striking fact that abortion was among the first issues raised, after 1989, by almost all of the newly formed governments of East Central Europe points to the significance of gender and reproduction in the postsocialist transformations. The fourteen studies in this volume result from a comparative, collaborative research project on the complex relationship between ideas and practices of gender, and political economic change. The book presents detailed evidence about women's and men's new circumstances in eight of the former communist countries, exploring the intersection of politics and the life cycle, the differential effects of economic restructuring, and women's public and political participation. Individual contributions on the former German Democratic Republic, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Serbia, Romania, and Bulgaria provide rich empirical data and interpretive insights on postsocialist transformation analyzed from a gendered perspective. Drawing on multiple methods and disciplines, these original papers advance scholarship in several fields, including anthropology, sociology, women's studies, law, comparative political science, and regional studies. The analyses make clear that practices of gender, and ideas about the differences between men and women, have been crucial in shaping the broad social changes that have followed the collapse of communism.

In addition to the editors, the contributors are Eleonora Zieliaska, Eva Maleck-Lewy, Myra Marx Ferree, Sharon Wolchik, Irene Dolling, Daphne Hahn, Sylka Scholz, Mira Marody, Anna Giza-Poleszczuk, Katalin Kovacs, Monika Varadi, Julia Szalai, Adriana Baban, MaIgorzata Fuszara, Laura Grunberg, Zorica Mrsevia, Krassimira Daskalova, Joanna Goven, and Jasmina Lukia."

In 1949, Romania's fledgling communist regime unleashed a radical and brutal campaign to collectivize agriculture in this largely agrarian country, following the Soviet model. "Peasants under Siege" provides the first comprehensive look at the far-reaching social engineering process that ensued. Gail Kligman and Katherine Verdery examine how collectivization assaulted the very foundations of rural life, transforming village communities that were organized around kinship and status hierarchies into segments of large bureaucratic organizations, forged by the language of "class warfare" yet saturated with vindictive personal struggles.

Collectivization not only overturned property relations, the authors argue, but was crucial in creating the Party-state that emerged, its mechanisms of rule, and the "new persons" that were its subjects. The book explores how ill-prepared cadres, themselves unconvinced of collectivization's promises, implemented technologies and pedagogies imported from the Soviet Union through actions that contributed to the excessive use of force, which Party leaders were often unable to control. In addition, the authors show how local responses to the Party's initiatives compelled the regime to modify its plans and negotiate outcomes.

Drawing on archival documents, oral histories, and ethnographic data, "Peasants under Siege" sheds new light on collectivization in the Soviet era and on the complex tensions underlying and constraining political authority.

""The Politics of Gender after Socialism" is a majestic work. Susan Gal and Gail Kligman offer a theoretically ambitious and empirically well grounded analysis of the transition from socialism to capitalism. They cover the most diverse aspects of social existence, from struggles about abortion and reproductive rights to the separation of public-private spheres, to the remaking of the political and economic system. In each of these fields they demonstrate the gendered nature of social transformation. They show persuasively the balance of continuity and change both in gender relations and in the social character of socialist and postsocialist formation. This book is far more than a study of gender issues after the fall of socialism; it is a major contribution to the theory of transition to a market economy and democracy."--Ivan Szelenyi, Yale University

"Finally a book that makes sense of contemporary gender politics in East Central Europe. Written with great clarity, but no sacrifice of depth or complexity, Gal and Kligman give us the theoretical and historical tools for understanding social and political developments since the fall of communism. Most impressively they provide concrete illustrations for their point that concepts such as 'masculine, ' 'feminine, ' 'the welfare state, ' 'public, ' and 'private, ' are variable and need to be read in their historical contexts."--Joan Wallach Scott, Institute for Advanced Study

"This is a very important and engaging study on East-Central European societies and their transformations through the lens of gender. It is a wonderful source of information on different aspects of gender relations in Eastern Europe and a major theoreticalcontribution to at least three distinct fields of study: feminist theory, studies on social change, and research on Eastern Europe."--Eva Fodor, Dartmouth College

"Gal and Kligman's synthesis of the gender issues and tensions in the transformation of east-central Europe is a tour-de-force. They show how deeply and differently gender was imbedded in the economic and political structures of these countries, and also how the transformation itself has had a strongly gendered character. By looking at the transformation process as a whole through a gender lens, the authors gain a critical handle on the misleading dichotomization of public and private that has characterized so much discussion of the area. Rather than painting women as the passive victims of marketization or the unambiguous beneficiaries of democratization, they tease out the conflicting tendencies toward empowerment and marginalization that are lurking in the changes in families, economies and politics throughout the region. This is a crucial contribution to studies of gender, the transformation and the state in general."--Myra Marx Ferree, University of Wisconsin, Madison

""The Politics of Gender after Socialism" is a stunning analysis of how the gender relations of the former socialist states are being transformed in the transition to privatization and market economies. . . . Gal and Kligman have made a vital contribution not only to the literature on the transition in East Central Europe but also to the study of gender, economy and politics. . . . Breathtaking in scope and beautifully written, "The Politics of Gender after Socialism" is a compelling look at the ways in which women and men, states and markets, negotiatethe politics of gender in a changing social world."--Nancy Weiss Hanrahan

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1988.

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1988.

The political hypocrisy and personal horrors of one of the most repressive anti-abortion regimes in history came to the world's attention soon after the fall of Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu. Photographs of orphans with vacant eyes, sad faces, and wasted bodies circled the globe, as did alarming maternal mortality statistics and heartbreaking details of a devastating infant AIDS epidemic. Gail Kligman's ethnography - of the state and of the politics of reproduction - is an in-depth examination of this extreme case of political intervention into the most intimate aspects of everyday life. Ceausescu's reproductive policies, among which the banning of abortion was central, affected the physical and emotional well-being not only of individual men, women, children, and families but also of society as a whole. Sexuality, intimacy, and fertility control were fraught with fear, which permeated daily life and took a heavy moral toll as lying and dissimulation transformed both individuals and the state. This study is based on moving interviews with women and physicians as well as on documentary and archival material. In addition to discussing the social implications and human costs of

'I have lived, alone, in a cell, 157,852,800 seconds of solitude and fear. Cause for screaming! They sentence me to live yet another 220,838,400 seconds! To live them or to die from them' - from "The Silent Escape". Victim of Stalinist-era terror, Lena Constante was arrested on trumped-up charges of 'espionage' and sentenced to twelve years in Romanian prisons. "The Silent Escape" is the extraordinary account of the first eight years of her incarceration - years of solitary confinement during which she was tortured, starved, and daily humiliated. The only woman to have endured isolation so long in Romanian jails, Constante is also one of the few women political prisoners to have written about her ordeal. Unlike other more political prison diaries, this book draws us into the practical and emotional experiences of everyday prison life. Candidly, eloquently, Constante describes the physical and psychological abuses that were the common lot of communist-state political prisoners. She also recounts the particular humiliations she suffered as a woman, including that of male guards watching her in the bathroom. Constante survived by escaping into her mind - and finally by discovering the 'language of the walls', which enabled her to communicate with other female inmates. A powerful story of totalitarianism and human endurance, this work makes an important contribution to the literature of 'prison notebooks'.