Women and Social Citizenship in Czech Society: Continuity and Change

The critical attention feminists have paid to the concept of citizenship has significantly contributed to the con¬temporary political imagination of citizenship. In this book the authors from the Czech Republic follow up on the feminist debate on citizenship and examine the insti¬tutional contexts, ideologies and practices that have sha¬ped opportunities for and barriers to the full citizenship of women in various socio-economic, ethnic and national groups in the communist and post-communist contexts and specifically in Czech society since the end of the Se¬cond World War. This book challenges the static descriptions of the po¬sition of women and gender relations in the communist societies of Central and Eastern Europe. The authors po¬int out the differences in the discourse and institutions surrounding work and care and in actual work and care practices during the forty years of the communist regi¬me. The individual chapters in the book identify specific periods under the communist regime and after 1989 that were distinct in terms of how women’s labour market participation, work-life balance, care politics, the posi¬tion of lone parents, Roma families and foreigners were framed. Moreover, the continuity of discourse, practices, and institutions before and after 1989 is highlighted, de¬monstrating how difficult it is for cultural and institutional changes to take place even when an important systemic change has occurred in society.