ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the Eastern European approach to the 'woman question' before and after 1989, using the Hungarian case as an example, and compares it to Western feminist evaluations of the situation of Eastern European women. Hungary’s history shows that the actual political climate of the country had always had a profound impact on changing attitudes towards women’s roles and women’s liberation. While the conservative reservations regarding women’s role in politics were challenged by the ideas of the 1848 revolution, the political climate created by the suppression of the revolution did not favour the emancipation of women. Zsuzsa Ferge argues that the demands of the women’s movement have been included, although formulated differently, in socialist theory from the beginning. To be sure, Ferge’s critique of Western feminism is based on some rather problematic assumptions about feminism. Eniko Bollobas refers to the socialist approach to the woman question as ‘Totalitarian Lib’ and blames communism for everything, including dreadful architecture.
