Women,Employment and Feminism in the Czech Republic

Following the collapse of state socialism in Eastern Europe, one feature of the newly emerging ‘post-communist’ societies which disturbed many feminists was the apparent antipathy to western feminist thinking which characterized men and women alike. In attempting to explain this situation, commentators in Eastern Europe have argued that in Eastern Europe, women’s experiences have been shaped by ‘state paternalism’, rather than specifically masculine exclusionary practices. Drawing upon material from a cross-national study, this paper examines the employment and domestic life experiences of women bankers and doctors in the Czech Republic. This evidence suggests that women in these occupations are fully conscious of, and resent, both masculine exlusionary practices within employment as well as inequalities in the domestic division of labour. These findings are supported by evidence from a national attitudinal survey which reveals that Czech women are more progressive in their attitudes to gender roles than Czech men. A number of parallels can be drawn between the contemporary experiences and attitudes of Czech women and those of British women of twenty years ago (i.e. before the impact of ‘second-wave’ feminism). This suggests that if and when feminism develops in Eastern Europe, it will engage with these direct masculine exclusionary practices, and not just ‘state paternalism’.