ABSTRACT
This chapter explores how the gendered legacies of state socialism are entangled with the geopolitical reorientation of the region and the simultaneity of socio-economic, political, and cultural changes in the geographical space. It examines the gendered outcomes of the divergent forms through which the state-socialist construction of maternalist welfare regimes were dismantled. The chapter considers the neoliberal technologies of governance to be particularly important when discussing gender norms in the post-state-socialist space. The accommodation of neoliberal governance models had drastic consequences for gendered work, parenthood, care work, and leisure and is associated with specific normative expressions. Gender norms and gender relations have been a prime field for forming the postsocialist citizen. Changes in the role of the state as well as changes connected to the promotion of transnational gender-equality institutions have often provoked counter-reactions from gendered postsocialist societies and individuals.
