Introduction: Women and Post-Communism

The role of women is absolutely crucial, both economically and symbolically, in the transformation under way. Post-communist women’s heritage includes having received extensive benefits from state socialism and an inheritance of a Marxist intellectual discourse. The benefits were of mixed value, however, and were threaded through authoritarian structures that denied the worth of the individual. The most important source of misunderstandings between East and West, however, arises from words existing in both cultures, but with very different meanings. A misconception exploded by many of the authors is that 1989 was the transition year for women in state socialism, when restrictions on abortion were first proposed, women first removed from employment, and an anti-feminist discourse introduced. A philosophical, ethical, normative, cultural transformation as much as an economic and political one is taking place. Socioeconomic circumstances both past and present are discussed by the authors in each country.