NGO-IZATION OF FEMINISM IN ROMANIA. THE FAILURE OF A SUCCESS (1)
Laura GRUNBERG
Since 1993 until now I have been servicing in one of the thousands of non-governmental organizations in Romania. Everything started as a game, from the pleasure of dialog, out of disorientation and because of some kilometers of feminist literature that a very good friend, Mihaela Miroiu, stumbled over at one of her trips to the West.
With a passion for the domain she had discovered –feminism- Mihaela gave me some books. She knew I had graduated from a department I was not made for (mathematics) and that I would have wanted to do another one, which had been closed because of totalitarian hysteria (sociology). Mihaela had a degree in feminist philosophy, having my father as an adviser. She used to come by the house in the afternoons and argue with style on issues such as: whether women had or not an epistemic privilege, whether ecofeminist theories and in general radical feminist epistemologies are valid, can men be empathic to other beings, to plants, to nature in general.
It’s hard to say how we got to become official from here; we made our chat official under the name of "The Society for Feminist Analyses AnA". Then followed 20 signatures (some of the names on that list say nothing to me today); we hurriedly adopted an NGO status which was informally passed around Bucharest, received audiences and functioning certificates from the Ministry of Culture (for NGO members this requirement has been a mystery of Romanian democracy). Then followed flyers and "the implementation" of different programs "focussed" on key-words imposed by financing bodies from abroad. At the beginning our programs fitted the section on "Women’s Rights" or "Women – a marginalized group" (most of the times next to the Roma population). Then the word "gender" started appearing on the priority list. Then the miraculous phrase became "community development", followed by "permanent development". Not long ago "social capital" appeared, a term which Fukuyama personally supported in the auditorium of the Academy of Economic Studies, so that it became obvious that a women’s program for women, with women must be set up or at least formulated so that it can be assessed from the perspective of its impact on the development of social capital in Romania. Very new is the language in the new Council of Europe program – ACCES – supporting civil society in the countries expecting adherence to the European Union. Financial assistance is given from now on in two areas out of which one, "the area of community acquis implementation", is in my view the core of this new wooden language of building eastern democracies with western bricks.
Others have written, not only from eastern countries about the East-West partnership which is essentially based on domination relationships, of imposing priorities, ways and assessment criteria for the local democracy. I would not like to let you understand that I have exclusively local solutions for the problems of transitions. We shouldn’t invent what others have been living and doing for a long time. I know very well that in those impositions from abroad there are obvious advantages –the Romanians’ individualism, as C.R. Motru (2) described, is a subjective reaction, an egocentric, not an institutionalized individualism, which we would badly need right now. But I need to say that the imposed rhythm did not correspond with the Romanians’ ‘gregarious’ and not ‘solitary’ rhythm described as well by C.R. Motru. I feel the need to say that the too often paradigmatic change (where one could live in order to survive and to build something concrete for and together with the citizen who is like you confused by transition) made that at least at the level of the civil society many things started but nothing finished. I need to say that the eclectic, strange, impossible to translate language imposed to the activists in the "democracy learning incubator", as NGO’s are named in some documents, the language in which we had to convince we know democracy was a handicap. Even though some of our stories were successful, their implementation "deformed" us neither concerning the expectations of the civilizing international community nor concerning on the internal necessities. The rotation was too high for our capacity –the program "implementators" – but also for the target groups to assimilate and routinize the behaviours and the practices experimented in different programs.
Basically I would like to say that the non-governmental movement in Romania has not had the time to become an institutional routine. If for other institutions coming out of totalitarianism, routine was a handicap, for us routine – unknown – would have been a sign of success. The Romanian NGO persons were placed in a speed contest for which they did not have enough breath, corresponding sports shoes, coaches or psychological trainers. The Romanian NGO persons did not really manage to finish a race, to rejoice of the small victories, although local ones, as the rules would be immediately changed. The Romanian NGO persons were not helped in all those years to "settle down" (to find a space, to cover the higher and higher expenses). From this arose the oversaturation of seminars, round tables, conferences, training courses whose objectives were only locally or punctually discussed.
Financially dependent and "manipulated", without a good environment where to be stimulated to support themselves (although they create jobs, they pay taxes to a state that does not do much for them), the Romanian NGO persons adapted to the normative model imposed from abroad, but have not succeeded in imposing themselves inside the country as a powerful social partner.
As concerning the NGO persons in the women’s movement, in 1989 they entered an even more ideologically mined territory, full of stereotypes and unfavorable cultural clichés, stuffed by terms, concepts, strategies, imported experiences, many of them without any significance in the space of "Miorita" or a space dominated by the clones of Manole and his sacrificial Ana’s.
Inside a regional research program coordinated by Susan Gal and Gail Kligman I made a case study on Romanian women’s movement years ago (3). I was noticing then the lack of clarity of objectives, collectivist and centralizing tendencies, marginalizing the women’s movement inside the Romanian civil movement; tensions between the activist and the academic sides or between generations; regional discrepancies.
Some of these tendencies have not confirmed. The centralism imposed at a certain moment has not been fruitful. The great forums, leagues, coalitions, profile ministries have not proved valid (with only one exception to my knowledge: the Policy Coalition on Reproductive Health. As regards the Department for Equal Opportunities from the Ministry of Labor and Social Protection, whose evolution deserves more space, it is not a catalyst for the women’s movement today(4)). On the contrary, some organizations that not until long ago had claims of national coverage for the problems of all women all over Romania have recently redefined and especially resized their programs and activities.
On the other hand, other characteristics that I had noticed then –for example the isolation and the self-isolation of the women’s movement within the civic society –have accentuated. Now more than then the discourse on women is a marginal one within the civil society. Of course such assertions should be supported by the results of research. At the time of the study, in 1996-1997 I observed for example the evolution of the problems and selection to the national forums of NGO’s. It is easy to notice the small number of women's NGO' s invited, the small number of sections or points on the agenda that covered gender problems.
I would like to suggest that the marginalization (and the self-marginalization) of the women’s movement is continuing. I admit I’m counting on my instinct and on my personal experience of "worker in the service sector" in the civil society in the last few years. Women’s organizations continue to discuss among themselves – isolating the discourse and narrowing the area of solutions. There are only seldom cooperation on interfering areas between us and other organizations (although between our programs and those of the ecologist, youth and child care organizations the links are obvious; although between us and the representatives of women’s organizations of different parties there should be a constant dialog).
As argument for my assertion I would like to notice another very interesting fact, which should deserve further investigation. The fact that lately women/women’s problems have reentered public discourse, but have done so in ways that don’t favor emancipation policies that we wish for. Women have entered especially in their posture as victims (of violence, of poverty), of helpless persons (single women, older women, disabled women), of marginal groups who need support. Governmental and non-governmental institutions, mass media juggle especially with those images, to the detriment of the positive ones - of women actors and involved, responsible and competent social partners. The fact that people talk more and more about women beaten up by their husbands, about women who live under the poverty limit or about women with neurosis or AIDS does not prepare the field for a feminist emancipating ideology that Mihaela Miroiu is promising to us.
With the argument of living experience I would like to add (for my assertion about the marginalization of women’s problems) the results of a brief content analysis made by "Voluntar" in the period September 1999-January 2000 (5). The analysis underlines the scarcity of initiatives with a gender significance in the NGO programs and foundations other than those for Women’s rights. In the monitored period, in the 20"Voluntar" bulletins from among the 100 items of news I did not come across any activity or program of any organization (other than women’s) which had an explicit gender component (e.g.: in the abstract the words ‘women’, ‘gender’ don’t appear; girls, women, older women, mothers as target groups are not mentioned; relevant and explicitly mentioned objectives for gender issues are not included, etc.). Starting from the assumption that the programs presented in this bulletin are backed by some of the best organized NGO’s, who have access to and trust the modern techniques of communication, we could launch the hypothesis that women’s issues are marginal in the discourse of non-governmental organizations in Romania.
Concerning the activities of women’s NGO’s, in the same period we have identified only 16 items of news/information connected to women’s programs (out of them some are repeated in several issues of the bulletin. So actually the effective number of initiatives is even smaller). We are talking mostly of conferences and seminars, some of them being on less relevant topics to the gender priorities in Romania (as for example a seminar on "the culture of peace and nonviolence"). Other activities, as for example, collecting signatures for the right to freedom of women in Afghanistan, have some artificiality too; they are not fully in agreement with the Romanian realities. Other items of news have been published in the above mentioned period on: establishing a Feminet information network, activities for women refugees, for subordinated women, the ones in mass media or the Roma women; a creativity contest for women in rural area. A march against poverty and organizing a Christmas bazaar were announced.
I found a piece of news in the last monitored number interesting. In January 2000, after 10 years of existence –with good and bad things- of the women’s movement, an organization announced establishing a women’s club, which "would like to be the beginning of a women’s movement to the benefit of women". Besides the things on feminist literature where they talk intensely about research with and for women, we find in this notice many thinking patterns that characterize this moment. We can ‘read’ the eternal denial of Romanians towards everything they were and did, their permanent and wasting urge of starting, rebuilding all over again. We can also understand an appeal to segregation (women without men, without feminists, without elitisms, without theories) and to a populist pragmatism ("to their benefit", that is theoretically a discourse to solve practical gender needs and not strategic needs – of emancipation or as the western women would say of ‘empowerment’. But who is ‘them’?)
The women’s movement in Romania is a movement of women who "are not feminists, but…" – a generalized syndrome in the region. On the whole, the NGO women activists keep the prejudice"feminist=nonfeminine, antifeminine, against the family" and they prefer to consciously or not deny the label of feminists. Those who are feminists – by readings, experiences, decision – hesitate to use the term, in the financing applications as well as in confrontational approach, considered by many not useful in Romania.(6)
If we take a look at the sigles of women’s organizations we will see which is the dominating image: young girls with their hair blown by the wind, flowers, pigeons with a woman’s sign in the beaks, hearts inside of which a mother holds her baby, women in a circle. The image is archaic, traditional, maternalist – profoundly nonfeminist (rather "feminine-archaic") in any variant of practiced femininsm – be it liberal, radical or cultural. The names of women’s NGO’s are also a proof of "gender/feminism neutrality". They are in general impersonal –leagues, federations, societies (which does not serve a budding feminist ideology, which needs a personal touch, an alternative language) or are of a traditional/mythological nature – Ciocarlia, Ariadna, Ana, Maria. There are some exceptions –"SEF" (Equal Opportunities for Women – Iasi) and "Partners for change", both names with sexist language connotations ("partners" excludes somehow the feminine, and SEF is a term with no feminist resonance – by its allusions to vertical hierarchies) or the organization "Amazoanele Carpatilor" – name with a nationalist radical connotation. There is only one organization which names itself feminist – The Society for Feminist Analyses AnA. Another one, labeled elitist is "The Center of Studies for Gender Identities".
Institutionalization of this "women’s movement that are not feminists, but…" was imposed hurriedly from abroad. It was implemented in over 60 women’s NGO’s existing now in Romania (7), but did not generate the solidarity of women as women vis-a-vis different aspects which affect them evidently negatively in their public and private life in these years of transition. NGO-ization of the women’s movement in Romania has been produced on the background of a reduced degree of public awareness to gender issues. It has been produced without being the result of "popular will". It was born on the background of an accumulation of discontent of the target group (women), who theoretically had to give meaning to the movement itself. It appeared without being the result of some large democratic discussions between feminists –women and men- (non-existent at that time, very few today). We don’t have a women’s movement justified and built on the experiences and problems of women in this country. In our country an institutionalized women’s movement (NGO-ization) oriented in the first place towards intervention strategies and less towards emancipation ones appeared suddenly enough. An abstract movement, disconnected from the gender realities of nowadays Romania, unsympathetic in reality to the other women, the majority, most of them different from the typical NGOpersons (that is poor, submitted to violence, single, older, rural, Roma, etc.).
Immediately after 1989, there followed a period of exaltation, emotions, making up for the past for women and the women’s movement in general (in a state of embryo, as it was then). As we had been politically and ideologically invaded inside our bodies, we were happy we could have as many abortions we wanted, and where we wanted them. As we had had enough (at least from a numerical point of view) women in positions of power, but all of them ugly, stupid and with a loop of hair, we refused the model of Elena or Suzana and we got involved in an organizational life unknown until then.
We got outside the sphere of power (what a mistake?!) trying ourselves in the non-governmental sector. We had enthusiasm, we had latent energies and lost time to make up for. I remember the period 1992-1995 as of a period in which, apart from the suspicions among us, from a latent generation conflict, there was a special organizational unrest.
I think we are right now in a period of full professionalization and of latent accumulations. The women’s movement initially rejected and then interiorized in different degrees the western discourse on women’s issues, women’s rights as human rights, equal opportunities and chances, feminism, etc. Romanian society assimilates also (with and without the help of the women’s movement) new cultural codes connected to other types of social partnership relations, suggested by western models. The activists start speaking a common language. Books, articles are being written, feminism is taught in schools (there is also a Master’s Degree in Gender Studies at the National School for Political and Administrative Studies). Competence on gender issues is being accumulated. But "going to school" also means a period of more reduced public visibility. All of us who are involved feel this especially in the context of some acute signals coming from the realities of transition: the invisibility of women in politics, the feminization of poverty, the growth of violence to women and children, etc.
The period of reactivity in which there are direct, synchronic, punctual, varied negative messages of transition which severely affect women has not been clarified at the level of the women’s movement (8). We are not yet re-active and thus we are not yet visible. We do not react consistently and quickly to legislative initiatives as the Law on Prostitution or the Law on Equal Opportunities. Although this would be in "our job description", we do not raise our voices in public. We do not react together towards individual cases of encroachment upon women’s labor rights or rights to life, etc. that are shown in the media. Although organized (but not organizationally routinized) we don’t show the solidarity that intellectuals showed in "the Patapievici case". We are not prompt. We do not act synchronically and perhaps that is why we don’t have the success to and the support of the women we say we represent. Perhaps, from this point of view, there is the need of a generation transfer. Being old in a job is maybe in this case a handicap. Maybe the chaos and the bleakness of transition exhaust us, the ones who started the NGO-ization of feminism in Romania, and we need a breath of fresh air, which has not yet appeared. With all my hesitations I believe, from my own experience, that there is the need of a generation transfer, so that the youth have a chance of getting involved as we have had in the last years.
When we learn to react rapidly (and we routinize these behaviors!) I can predict, or better said, I can dream of a period of creativity in which the years of experience would allow us to find and to impose solutions and strategies through which we should be included, and not excluded or marginalized. But in which we too, in our turn, would include more than exclude. Then the Romanian feminism’s NGO-ization will be a success.
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- 1. The phrase "NGO-ization of feminism" is taken from Sabine Lang, "The Ngoization of feminism", in Transitions, environments, translations. Feminism in International Politics, J. Scott, C. Kapplan, D. Keats (eds.), Routledge, 1997.
- 2. C.R. Motru, The Psychology of the Romanian People, Bucharest, Paideia, 1998.
- 3. "Romanian Women NGO’s", Laura Grunberg, in the volume The Politics of Gender after Socialism, coord. Gail Klingman and Susan Gal, Princeton, 2000 (to be published)
- 4. A case study on this department is being done within a program of monitoring gender discriminations of the Open Society Foundation, to which AnA Society is partner.
- 5. Voluntar is a bulletin edited by the Foundation for the Development of Civil Society, known and appreciated by the community of non-governmental organizations. Each issue contains news, events, notices, publications sent by the respective organizations. On average, each issue announces between 8-10 initiatives started by NGO’s.
- 6. See for example the chapter "The Dynamics of Civil Society. Gender Policies" by Elena Zamfir in the Report of Human Development, UNDP, 1999.
- 7. A complete database of non-governmental women’s organizations in Romania is updated regularly by the AnA Center. The NGO lists in some recent publications have this source, sometimes not mentioned.
- 8. But this lack of reactivity is not characteristic for the women’s movement only. See the degree of civic reactivity towards the recent scandal connected to the cyanide pollution of the Danube.