Volume 20, Number 2
“WHO WOULD CREATE A CZECH FEMINISM?” CHALLENGING ASSUMPTIONS IN
THE PROCESS OF CREATING RELEVANT FEMINISMS IN THE CZECH REPUBLIC
Karen Kapusta-Pofahl, University of Minnesota
© 2002 Karen Kapusta-Pofahl All Rights Reserved
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As I spoke to those around me about feminism
and women’s issues during my time in the Czech
Republic, I felt as if I was being pulled between
two very different realities. On one occasion I
remember a Czech coworker telling me that there
was no feminism in the Czech Republic while at
the same time handing me a pamphlet about a
Czech feminist organization. Likewise, when
female students in my English classes
vehemently rejected the word “feminism,” they
stated that although they did not know what
feminism was, exactly, they did not like the
sound of it. Yet when I asked them if there were
any issues of women’s inequality that they faced
in the workplace, they often spent several
minutes commiserating with each other over the
lack of equal pay or the difficulty that older
women who had stayed at home for several years
with their children faced when seeking
employment. These disorienting feelings
increased when I volunteered at a Czech
women’s organization and discovered that, rather
than being populated with young, privileged
foreigners (the assumption being that they would
be the only ones interested in such work), the
program was staffed exclusively by Czech
women from a wide range of ages and opinions
on the subject of feminism. In this paper I offer
an initial gesture toward charting the landscape
of gender and feminist organizing. First, I outline
some major themes in the English-language
scholarly literature on women, gender and
feminism in the Czech Republic. Next, I provide
a glimpse into how members of a Czech
women’s organization are navigating through
these larger discourses. I argue that analysis of
actual organizations is vital to a nuanced
understanding of the shape of discourse on
feminism and gender in the Czech Republic and
to creation of theories on gender and the “post”
in post-socialist societies.
The bulk of information on Czech
women and feminism available to non-Czech
speakers is contained in two widely cited
anthologies: Gender Politics and PostCommunism
(1993) and Ana’s Land: Sisterhood
in Eastern Europe (1997). The themes presented
in these texts can also be found in a scattering of
journal articles as well as the small Englishlanguage
anthology published in Prague entitled
Bodies of Bread and Butter: Reconfiguring
Women’s Lives in the Post-Communist Czech
Republic (1993), from which several articles are
reprinted in the anthologies mentioned above.
The material on gender and feminism in the
Czech Republic presented in these sources falls
into two broad categories: discussions of the
impact of socialist policies of women’s
“emancipation” through labor-force participation
and the resulting “double-burden” of work and
family responsibilities and stories of
misunderstanding and conflict with western
feminists that are often accompanied by the
argument that Czech women are alienated from
feminism as a foreign ideology that is irrelevant
and divisive.i
Many authors write of Czech women’s
seeming lack of interest in organizing to promote
women’s equality in the workforce and political
life (Hradilková 1993, Kiczková and Farkašová
1993, Šiklová 1997b, Šiklová 1993, Šiklová
1997a, Šiklová 1998a, Šiklová 1998b,
Havelková 1993, Vrabková 1997, CastleKanerová
1992, Busheikin 1993, Hauserová
1993). They argue that Czech women’s negative
experiences with socialist rhetoric of
emancipation through workforce participation
have made Czech women skeptical of feminist
aims of equal pay for equal work because they
view these policies as contributing to additional
responsibilities rather than to freedom. Forced
employment and family responsibilities created a
double burden of paid employment and unpaid
household duties for Czech women. Šiklová
states, “Women worked longer than men,
because they had to run the household, educate
Volume 20, Number 2
the children, and cultivate the permitted bit of
garden” (Šiklová 1998:31). Even for women
who chose extended maternity leave while
raising small children, the inefficiencies of the
socialist planned economy and general
bureaucracy made motherhood, in the words of
feminist writer Eva Hauserová, a morass of
“bronchitis, laryngitis, otitis and acute hysteria”
(Hauserová 1993). Hauserová describes a typical
day taking care of her infant son in this way:
A new baby. Walking around the housing
estate pushing the baby carriage. Mud. Lots
of mud everywhere; the sidewalks are not
finished, the lawns are not laid out, and it’s
necessary to wheel the baby carriage along
the edge of a busy road, among the roaring
lorries that rush quickly by and spray mud
everywhere…. Never mind, we’ll wash
everything at home…oh. The water doesn’t
flow. This is not unusual. The underground
pipes often crack, since they lay directly on
top of sharp stones, without insulation. No
water. It’s necessary to wash diapers, to
wash the baby, to cook…but no water.
Everything is sticky and dirty and
everything stinks…. Hysteria (Hauserová
1993:41).
Given the daily difficulties of
unemployed women such as Hauserová, it is
easy to imagine that employed women indeed
felt their burden to be doubled. As all of this
occurred under the guise of “women’s
emancipation,” authors argue that it is
understandable that many Czech women are not
convinced by what they perceive to be western
feminist claims that the focus of feminist action
should be equal employment.
Following from arguments of the
dangers of “emancipation,” several authors argue
that Czech women see feminism as an irrelevant
ideology and use examples of early negative
interactions with western feminists to
substantiate their arguments or explain Czech
women’s seeming lack of interest in gender or
feminism (Šiklová 1997a, Šiklová 1997b,
Šiklová 1993, Šiklová 1998a, Šiklová 1998b,
Hradilková 1993, Havelková 1993, Vrabková
1997, Beck 2000, Goldfarb 1997). Czech
sociologist Jiřina Šiklová, perhaps the most
prolific of these authors, writes of a conference
in the Czech Republic in 1990 with
“representatives of feminist and women’s activist
groups” from western countries at which,
One of the women lecturers kept saying
‘human rights are women’s rights’, and she
advised us to teach other women articles of
women’s rights, maybe by having them
sing the chorus ‘human rights are my
property’ while working in the rice fields.
We pointed out to her that we had neither
rice fields nor cotton plantations…that only
4 per cent of the population worked in
agriculture…. The lecturer then changed
her remarks, but only marginally. (Šiklová
1998b:153)
Šiklová further remarks upon the
similarity between the slogan “human rights are
my property” and socialist-era slogans and
argues that Czech women want no part of
something that they identify with empty rhetoric
(Šiklová 1998). Šiklová states elsewhere that
Czech women see feminism as a leftist ideology
that is overly concerned with issues such as
equal employment and women’s representation
in politics—issues that she argues are alternately
irrelevant because “rights that western women
are still fighting or are taken for granted here”
(1998a:33), or as frivolous “problems that have
their source in luxury...that we have neither the
time, nor the right conditions to think about”
(1993:10). Several authors thus conclude that
given the contentious terrain of western ideology
and Czech anti-feminist sentiment there is no
feminism in the Czech Republic at the present
time and they are often very skeptical that it will
arise in the future.
Very few articles address the presence
of women’s organizations or groups, and these
do not discuss the existence of organizations or
groups of Czech women who identify as feminist
or engage with feminist theory (Hauser 1995,
Šiklová 1997b).ii
A brief but important exception
is Jiřina Šmejkalová-Strickland’s provocative
and refreshing piece entitled “Revival? Gender
Studies in the ‘Other’ Europa” (1995).
Šmejkalová-Strickland begins by discussing the
constricted environment within which so-called
“East/West” debates occur. She writes of what
had by 1995 become a trope of western research
in the Czech Republic:
A Western academic gets a grant for
research on Eastern Europe. She uses her
grant money to travel to the area and we
spend hours and hours with her answering
questions…. The she flies herself back and
no one sees her anymore. Several months
later, if we are lucky, we receive a
photocopy of an article published in one of
the feminist journals…. And there we read
a report on “our” world, full of misspelled
Volume 20, Number 2
names, misunderstood points, unconfirmed
information, and rarely any insight
(1995:10001).
Šmejkalová-Strickland goes on to
further problematize western feminist
understandings of issues of feminism in Eastern
Europe by pointing out the constraints placed on
Czech scholars attempting to participate in
international intellectual arenas:
We find ourselves hunting for invitations to
international conferences that usually cover
travel expenses or even pocket money in
so-to-speak hard currency. Due to the
already established exclusionary circles of
mutually supportive relations, the same
persons regularly appear at various
meetings, whether these be on women’s
health education or the representation of
femininity in medieval poetry. They read
badly translated papers on “Eastern
women’s oppression,” ignoring the fact that
foreign language competence is the first
step toward any intercultural
communication. Consequently, there are
still many humiliating experiences of facing
the ones who know more and have more.
Or who present themselves as knowing and
having such (1995:1001).
Šmejkalová-Strickland uses the
remainder of the article to discuss the theoretical
perspectives gained during her experiences while
teaching a course on gender at Charles
University in Prague and organizing a workshop
on gender studies at the Second World Helsinki
Citizens’ Assembly. She writes of her goal to
“challenge the locally constructed, banal horror
images of feminism in students’ minds, to move
them beyond the question, ‘Feminism: yes or
no?’” (1995:1002) and of discussions with
fellow workshop participants about the dangers
of accepting and perpetuating homogeneous
notions of “East, West, Central Europe and
postcommunist woman” (1995:1003, emphasis in
original). In conclusion, Šmejkalová-Strickland
argues for a more nuanced understanding of
gender and feminism than that which has
dominated the intellectual and popular exchanges
on the subject: “Instead of any concluding moral,
let me contribute one more question. What is to
be the position of thinking and teaching gender
in the hectic processes of transition in our part of
Europe? My answer would be to revive
articulation of gender identities as a sophisticated
project, whether it be in political debates, social
work, cultural activities, or scholarship”
(1995:1006). This call for complexity is a muchneeded
and little-heard directive within the
English-language scholarship on gender and
feminism in the Czech Republic, and begs the
question of why U.S. scholars have not pursued
the topic more vigorously in the previous twelve
years.iii
While this literature serves well as an
introduction to the study of the impact of certain
socialist policies on Czech gender discourse and
provides examples of points of contention
regarding the use and meanings of the term
feminism in the Czech population, it does not
adequately theorize the existence of
organizations founded and operated by Czech
women. Given the positioning of many of these
groups as resources for policy-makers and
journalists trying to make sense of discourses on
gender from a myriad of sources including
European Union gender mainstreaming
legislation, academic feminist theories, and
feminist and queer youth movements, the lack of
analysis and discussion of the meanings being
generated and negotiated by these organizations
constitutes a significant lacuna.
When I spoke with members of an
established Czech women’s organization
(hereafter referred to as Woman’s Action
Organization, or WAO), I found that although
many WAO members work with Western
feminists and their particular ideas on a regular
basis, they by no means simply “sing the song of
those whose bread [they] eat” (Šiklová
1997a:262). Their definitions of the concept of
feminism vary as widely as their opinions on
Western feminism, which range from outright
dismissal to conditional acceptance, and often
hinge on the circumstances of the encounter.iv
Marie, a woman in her late 40s who often serves
as a liaison between foreign activists and
members of Czech activist communities,
describes her experience with Western feminists
in this way:
There were a few women at the beginning
of the ’90s who came here for just one
week or three days and they just wanted to
teach us exactly what we should do (for
example, to hold big demonstrations on
main Prague squares where women would
shout into microphones about how they
were raped, or night marches where women
would reclaim the streets). This was
completely unthinkable then, and it seems
pretty crazy even today, so these women
couldn’t really understand what was
happening here. They used to come here
Volume 20, Number 2
immediately after 1989, while later (in the
mid-90s), I’ve cooperated with women who
have spent several years or months
here...who were really open-minded.
Westerners who went to Prague for a brief
period and who, while there, attempted to dictate
to or generalize about Czechs were not well
regarded. Karolína, an influential member of
WAO, says:
My experience is that when they come and
question [us] they don’t bother to read
something beforehand, so their questions
are really stupid…. They usually come like
this, but [Westerners] do it with everything
and everybody, not just the feminists. It’s
just their style, like the social
anthropologists. I know it from Cambridge,
in England. It is the same way there as well.
In general, organization members
emphasize the inspirational value of Western
feminism and the value of the written work and
information from Western feminist organizations
and scholars, while also emphasizing their
autonomy from Western feminism’s culturally
based ideas. Erika, a younger staff member, says,
I think the value [of Western feminism] is
in [its] inspiration. The development of
Czech feminism was totally different from
the Western countries, but it was, for sure,
inspired by [them]. Czech feminists started
with the main Western issues, but then they
started to build their own feminism.
Although most members are like Erika
in that they believe that Western feminist ideas
have merits, they also believe that Czech women
must have the freedom to determine the
usefulness of Western feminism for themselves.
Stories of “East/West” conflict over the
meanings of feminism have in many ways
become symbolic of the inability of feminism to
serve the needs of women in East Central Europe
(see Šiklová 1998ab, Drakulic 1993, and
Smejkalová-Strickland 1995 for a critique of
this). It is important, however, not to lose sight
of the contentious debates on feminism taking
place within the “West” and around the world.
Reflecting on these conflicts, Gal and Kligman
write, “Indeed, if we look farther than Europe
and the United States we see that feminisms all
over the world run the gamut from essentialist to
rights-based, from ecologically sensitive to
development focused. Thus, the controversies
among women in East Central Europe, and
between them and feminists based in Western
Europe and the United States, are hardly
exceptional” (2000:102). This diversity of
opinion is also expressed in WAO members’
thoughts on their definitions of feminism.
WAO members have broad definitions
of the concept of feminism. Some emphasize
individual determinations of feminist priorities,
with stress on the fight against unequal treatment
of women, while others view feminism as a way
of life and mindset that can be useful in
understanding the world. These categories are
not mutually exclusive. For example, for Marie,
feminism is both the fight against discrimination
and a way to analyze that discrimination. She
says, “[Feminism] is a struggle for freedom, not
only for women, but also for men, and it is
especially about analyzing and releasing
traditional pressures, prejudices, gender roles –
simply everything that I find so restricting and so
disgusting.” Věra, a coworker, also characterizes
feminism as a mindset:
I am a feminist throughout my whole life
attitude. Feminism means, for me, basically
everything connected to women’s rights or
women’s situation, and also with different
women’s and men’s views of the world – I
want to stress this, because it’s not only a
question of women’s rights but also of
different attitudes to one’s whole life, a
different way to perceive life.
Emphasizing self-definition, Irena says,
“Feminism is, for me, to define my needs and
my goals and the means with which to achieve
them. Also, I think that women should organize
together to achieve their goals. To struggle
together with men, but in separate
organizations.” Erika also stresses individual
self-definitions: “I think [the definition of
feminism is] each person’s question. What I
consider feminism may not be feminism for you.
For example, you may have other priorities in
your feminist thinking.” Karolína says,
“[Feminism is] a kind of view of the world
through women’s eyes, because I believe that
everything that has been done in the world, like
science or history, is [from] the male point of
view, and feminism is doing the other [point of
view] and shows that the male one is not the
generic one.” Roman sees feminism as “a
challenge for a new space of gender freedom and
a different way to form thinking – a redefinition
of gender being.” Jasmína views feminism as:
A network, a tool for changing the world,
for communicating ideas. For me, it’s more
like a critical thinking method of how to
Volume 20, Number 2
approach the asymmetry that has been here
in history and to discuss it. It’s definitely
nothing to do with feeling like a victim. It’s
definitely not got anything to do with
wailing out, “Oh, God I’m oppressed!” It’s
the opposite of it. It’s a positive tool for
improving everyone’s lives.
While these explanations of feminism
are by no means precise theoretical concepts,
these definitions construct feminism as a
conceptual category for understanding,
analyzing, and addressing gender inequality.
WAO members, who are working within an
international feminist framework and are
required by virtue of their very existence to
communicate feminism to policy makers and
people who walk in off of the street, are in a
position to posit a working definition of
feminism. Their lack of a single organizational
definition is perhaps a testament to the newness
of the Czech feminist debate, or alternately it
could be interpreted as an attempt to avoid
anything resembling socialist slogans. That
multiple definitions exist at all, however,
suggests a rich culture of debate that is not
reflected in the available literature.
A further point of contention both in the
literature and in participants’ lives is the debate
surrounding whether to use the term gender
instead of feminism when explaining the aims
and content of organizational activities (Šiklová
1998a; Hradilková 1993). Some reasons are the
relationship of the term feminism to western
feminism, stereotypes people hold about the
word feminism, and the term feminism’s
apparent exclusion of men. Participants’
thoughts on use of the word gender vary greatly.
In both arguments for and against using gender,
participants point to its lack of Czech-language
equivalent and therefore people’s inability to
understand it, as well as its academic nature.
Participants who prefer the term like that it
signals gender inclusivity and that its
incomprehensibility sparks discussions among
people. Those who would prefer not to use it
bemoan the task of needing to explain the term
every time they speak about it with a member of
the media. Like several other participants,
Monika does not like the word “gender.” She
says,
We have a big problem with the term
gender. [It is used] in the English form,
which is problematic. It looks ridiculous
when we translate it into the Czech form….
Gender Studies at Charles University uses
the term rod, which is the Czech word to
describe differences in language. We don’t
have a perfect translation, that’s the
problem…. [Nevertheless] Gender seems to
be entering the Czech language. We’re
beginning to see it used in different
grammatical forms, which means it’s
entering the language.
Markéta likes to use the term gender in
her academic work, but thinks that “for the
media and public debate it is a problem because
nobody understands it. If you look in
dictionaries, you just don’t find it—even in
Czech-English dictionaries, you just don’t find it
anywhere—so what can journalists do with it?
You just have to explain it over and over again.”
Radka says, “I really think that no one
knows the word gender unless you are in
academic circles where everybody knows, but in
general people don’t know what it means. They
don’t know how to spell it, they don’t know how
to write it, they don’t know what it’s about.” One
participant is concerned with the ways the term
gender is used within WAO itself:
[One WAO member] has proclaimed many
times that she is not a feminist. She is only
interested in gender studies. I see many
different things in this attitude. It is a signal
for society that feminism is bad and that
there is a “neutral view”—scientific,
positivist…it’s horrible for me. It’s an 18th
century belief that there is a “natural”
attitude. I think this is false. But I think that
“gender” or “women’s issues” are
important for society. The problem is that,
in Czech society, there are many gender
problems. Society needs an intellectual
instrument to describe this problem and
gender is one of these instruments. It is
necessary to use, but the question is how.
Other participants feel that gender is an
important term because it signals inclusivity and
openness to men. Věra says that, although she
has not always liked the term “gender,”
“nowadays I am quite happy with it because
using the term gender indicates a wider range of
activities, it doesn’t exclude men.” Lucie agrees,
“Gender is a relatively new word that is possible
to use without prejudice. Also, it means that it is
connected with the interpretation of men’s
situation as well…. How can you speak about
the right without the left? You can’t speak about
women without comparisons with men. That’s
why gender is more important.” Marie also
thinks that gender is a useful term to use
Volume 20, Number 2
because, “although it is useful to speak of
women’s issues specifically, it is also important
to speak of men’s issues as well. I think they are
two sides of one coin, so it is necessary to speak
about gender issues.” Erika says, “[Gender] is
not a feminist term…. It’s a sociological term
that doesn’t concern only women but also men.”
Perhaps even more than the word the word
feminism, the term gender evokes controversy
among participants.
In much of the literature written by and
about Czech women, a connection to the other
former Eastern Bloc countries is assumed. Their
shared experiences of state socialism are posited
as a common ground that unites them as postsocialist.
Often, WAO members affirmed these
bonds as well and pointed to commonalities
among people’s experiences in the region.
Nevertheless, WAO members hold differing and
often opposing views on the possibility of Czech
or post-socialist feminisms. Erika says, “I think
there is a Czech-style everything! Czech-style
government, Czech-style feminism.... But now I
think that Czech feminism is maybe more united
than Western feminisms because there aren’t
many feminists here and even if they have
different opinions, they are able to unite.” In an
ironic and telling statement, however, Karolína
dismisses the possibility of a locally created
Czech feminism. She says incredulously, “I
don’t believe it, because who would create it?” I
found this statement to be particularly
reminiscent of my earlier disorienting encounters
with women who simultaneously acknowledged
and denied the relevance of feminism in their
lives.
Like the notion of a specifically Czech
feminism, WAO members disagree about
whether there is a post-socialist feminism. The
reasons they give for both “yes” and “no”
answers have to do with socio-historical
backgrounds of countries and regions. For
example, Radka says that there is a post-socialist
feminism because, although she believes that
“every country has something specific,” she
thinks that “in general...the problems we are
facing are really joined, or common, to all the
post-communist countries of Central Europe.”
By contrast, Erika points out, “The development
was different in every post-communist country.
For example, it went quite easily in the Czech
Republic, but when you look at Poland there is a
tragedy, you know, the Christian state, and
feminism there is very important but it doesn’t
have many chances, because they have abortion
laws and stuff like that.” When discussing the
existence or nonexistence of specifically Czech
or regional post-socialist feminisms, the position
of the Czech Republic as not quite “East,” not
quite “West,” is reflected in WAO members’
varied opinions. Their opinions also reflect the
broader questions of whether there is something
linking the inhabitants of post-socialist Europe to
one another, or whether the links of the past are
being subsumed under national identities and
priorities.
In The Politics of Gender After
Socialism, Susan Gal and Gail Kligman suggest
that conflict between east Central European
women and Western feminists is “not only about
east Central Europe, but is contributing new
understandings of ‘feminism’ itself, and its
possibilities as an international social movement
in a post-Cold War world” (2000:100). Indeed,
these new understandings are brought to light
through the ways in which WAO members shape
definitions of feminism to suit their sociooccupational
contexts and through their selective
appropriation of Western feminist theories and
practices. I have attempted to demonstrate here
that rather than holding a blanket aversion to
feminism, as is often claimed, organization
members are in fact engaged in active
characterizations and transformations of
feminism in ways that better suit the framework
of their lives and work and, at the same time,
reflect important gendered negotiations of
transition on a larger scale. Through the process
of defining feminism for themselves, WAO
members are asserting their independence from
and equality to Western feminists as well as their
desire to be involved in multivocal and
multilocal feminist discourses.
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Notes
i
A couple of articles gesture to Czech history
as a source of Czech feminism. David-Fox
1993 analyses Czech feminist activity during
the National Revival period of the 1890s-
1918 and Skilling 1991 positions
Czechoslovak First Republic president
Tomaš Masaryk as a “radical feminist.”
ii
Exceptions are Šiklová 1993, in which she
mentions the Prague Gender Studies Centre
as a place for Czech women to learn about
feminism briefly at the end of the article and
an article about the Czech feminist literary
and cultural journal One Eye Open
(Vesinová-Kalivodová 1998).
iii
For example, there is only one article that
addresses gender in the Czech context in Gal
and Kligman’s otherwise thorough and
provocative volume entitled Reproducing
Gender: Politics, Publics, and Everyday Life
after Socialism (2000). The aforementioned
article is entitled “Reproductive Policies in
the Czech and Slovak Republics.”
iv
This paper is based on information
collected during two visits, one work-related
and one research-specific, to the Czech
Republic (September 1998-July 1999 and
January-March 2001). I interviewed ten
WAO members, 9 women and 1 man, from
ages 18 to 70. Informants included paid and
volunteer staff; some had been at WAO since
its inception, other for only the past few
months. All names are pseudonyms.