L.Grunberg
More unemployed women than men, lack of women role-models in the reform of education
textbooks, men taking parental leave – a new legislation of these years, a department
for women’s rights in the Ministry of Labour and Social Protection – stronger a
few years ago but more professional now, more than 50 women’s non-governmental
organizations, for women, that have shown up to solve practical gender needs more than
strategic ones; controversial law draft on equal opportunities for men and women, women
and children victims of domestic violence, a Gender Studies MA degree, feminization of
poverty, more and more alternative families, abortion – still the main contraceptive
method, feminist books and articles, changes in gender formal and informal socialization
processes, fewer and fewer women in politics, short life expectancy for women and
especially for men, many sexist articles in newspapers, new normative models of
femininity/masculinity induced by pornographic magazines, advertisements or beauty
contests, pensioners - more women with specific problems and with very little (I would
even say none) governmental and non-governmental support than men, etc.
This is a gendered reality that has to be taken into account, has to be reviewed –
quantitatively and qualitatively and has to be evaluated to understand it. Understanding
this gendered reality means understanding how and in what way the bleak and endless
transition affects differently Romanian men and women. Understanding means from a feminist
perspective trying to change.
Gender and transition in Romania. I do not think there is a more difficult topic for an
activist feminism in search of identity and for an academic feminism, still too
theoretical and lacking concrete data and information support on everyday life of women
and men in this country.
Still I do not think there is a more up-to--date topic than this one for activist
feminists (declared or undeclared) and theoreticians of gendered Romanian realities after
December 1989. After all, the justification we have, all of us involved in the feminist
movement in Romania to exist as feminists – giving up other personal projects,
neglecting other problems or on the contrary putting our personal projects in tune with
Romanian feminism – is understanding the gender dimension of transition, to make
people aware that there is such a non-neglectable dimension, to analyze it, to get
organized to find solutions for a more bearable and if possible better gendered life of
women and men in Romania today.
Difficult and up-to-date at the same time, the topic for this issue of the journal
cannot be exhausted in a few pages. Selection has been made according to different
criteria. We proposed a few studies on the gender dimension of some institutions as the
economy, mass media or the civil society, as there are areas where there is more
information, data and recent studies. We have also included studies on less discussed
topics (a study on mental health) or commentaries on extremely topical issues in this
electoral year in which we hope for a bigger percentage of women in Romanian political
life. Besides the studies, there are our (un)usual columns. The one called "Without
comment….for comments" is this time under the form of illustrations – all
visually speaking about the gender dimension of Romanian transition. We will definitely
have to get back to this topic. To give details, to offer conclusive up-to-date
information (we are interested in the launch of the gender barometer under the umbrella of
The Open Society Foundation. It is one of our dreams; we have told it to others and we are
happy it is becoming a reality), to tackle aspects connected to Romanian gender
macropolitics, but also gender micropolitics – both important and ignored until now.
We would like to thank the Embassy of the United States for the support for this issue
and we are hoping in a future support in our task of continuing gender analyses of public
and private life in Romania, assumed feminist analyses – fully subjective,
contextual, in dialogue – in a dialogue in which both countries give and take, with a
special interest in women’s specific experiences, analyses made not for the sake of
research but with the aim of "emancipation".
Of course, to emancipate women (and why not men!) without offering solutions to their
problems will not help them much. They will be perhaps only unhappy, more conscientious of
their marginalisation, of the perverse effects of gender stereotypes, norms and
ideologies. That is why for what is said in the journal solutions should be found. The
stage of analyzing the problems has to be complemented by implementations of social and
economic gender aware policies. That is why we will continue to write – more and more
consistently and more involved in the gendered Romanian realities – in the hope that
this will contribute to an end of transition sensitive (even hipersensitive) to gender
issues.
Romania's European integration? Women's political participation
Liliana Popescu
The fundamental idea of the article is that explicit, political assuming of women of
the main social role they have been actually playing in the underdeveloped society in the
last ten years is necessary more than ever in Romania.
Afer reviewing the unacceptable situation of political underrepresentation of women in
Romania, the author pleads for making equal the access and success opportunities for women
with those of men involved in politics. The sense of the argument is that women's
underrepresentation in the political decision domain raises a barrier in front of
fulfilling the interests and specific needs of the big social group of women. A balanced
representation of the two genders in the field of political representation would bring
different ideas, values and behaviours in the political debate foreground - which would
represent in a more adequate way the interests of society as a whole. A separate chapter
of the study analyses the political, socio-economic and ideological factors that
contribute to the low rate of women's political participation, the last part being devoted
to legislative and institutional aspects regarding equal opportunities of Romanian women
and defending their rights. The author's conclusion is that Romanian women need adequate
social recognition and political militantism. In order to reach a representation as close
as possible to parity they have to find adequate forms to organize their interests and to
affirm them politically.
