ABSTRACT
This chapter surveys debates and synthetizing efforts among feminists, socialists, and socialist and left feminists in the late nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth century, followed by an analysis of state socialist women’s emancipation in the Soviet Union and East Central Europe. Global communism in the same period spread ideas of socialist women’s emancipation and connected women’s rights advocates from the Global South to women in Eastern Europe as well as in the West. State socialism’s attempt at a comprehensive experiment for gender equality had severe shortcomings and a deep-rooted resistance to feminism. The combination of these called for a feminist critique. The chapter presents such ideas by feminist authors East and West criticizing the women’s emancipation project of “real socialism.” In its conclusion, the chapter offers a glimpse into the current debates about class, gender, race, and intersectionality.
