Gender, Globalization, and Postsocialism: The Czech Republic After Communism

by Jacqui True

Book Overview

How are changing gender relations shaping and being shaped by post-socialist marketization and liberalization? Do new forms of economic and cultural globalization open spaces for women's empowerment and feminist politics? The rapid social transformations experienced by the people of the Czech Republic in the wake of the collapse of communism in 1989 afford political scientist Jacqui True with an opportunity to answer these questions by examining political and gendered identities in flux. She argues that the privatization of a formerly state economy and the adoption of consumer-oriented market practices were shaped by ideas and attitudes about gender roles.

Though finely tuned to the particular, local traditions that have defined the boundaries of globalization for Czech men and women, Gender, Globalization, and Postsocialism also offers a provocative general thesis about the inextricable linkages between political and economic changes and gender identities.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0231127154
• ISBN13: 9780231127158
• Release Date: July 2003
• Publisher: Columbia University Press
• Length: 272 Pages
• Weight: 0.10 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 6.3" x 8.9"
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

More roles for women

True argues that the rapid and massive changes in Czech society after communism fell also included new roles for women. The change from a statist economy, mostly plugged into other countries in the Warsaw Pact, to a free market economy, exposed to global trends, was abrupt and severe.She suggests that women could now expand their gender roles by taking initiatives in a capitalist system. Changes in how families were viewed, and in the political system, and what this meant for women are also discussed.