ABSTRACT

This chapter discusses a continuum of gender critique in Czech society based on existing scholarship. It focuses on Czech pre- and post-1989 cultural discourses of gender, on a long-term project on state-socialist science policies and scholarly censorship, and on systematic bibliographic research of Czech feminist scholarship since 1989. The chapter suggests that the feminist impulse begun in the nineteenth century continued in some form throughout the twentieth century. The views expressed are not exclusively subversive of the traditional gender order and they exist alongside traditionalist discourses; however, their presence bears witness to the continued existence of voices challenging and rethinking the gender status quo. Feminist ideas and calls for gender equality do not enjoy unchallenged popularity anywhere in the world. One would have expected that new agendas and conceptual frameworks concerning the equality of the sexes would be viewed with a range of opinions because politicians, experts, and lay people were used to having the idea of women's emancipation around.