• 26/12/2022
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Sociologist: Divorce and abortion became easier during totalitarianism. Sex began to be openly talked about<

It is often said that gender equality in Czechoslovakia was already contributed to by the period of the first republic, when women's suffrage was enacted earlier than in France or Italy. But your book Sexual Liberation, Socialist Style points out that far more progress was made in women's rights in the 1950s, which are otherwise notorious for contrived political processes. What legislative changes were successfully implemented at that time?

The change to the Family Code was key. Even during the first republic, left-wing members of the Czechoslovak parliament tried to straighten out the rights of men and women in marriage, but they did not succeed in doing so for 20 years. This was only possible with the code that entered into force in 1950, according to which men and women in marriage had equal rights in relation to property and children. Until then, women could not even decide on the property they brought into marriage, because after marriage everything belonged to men. Likewise, they could not decide for themselves, whether they would go to study or where and under what conditions they would work. Everything was at the discretion of their husbands, who also decided about the children, how they would be raised and if and where they would study.

The communist state changed all this in 1950. And thanks to the fact that he opened the possibility for women to study and work freely, they could suddenly come up with their own income, which allowed them to leave the marriage if they did not like it. In the following years, this was reflected in the fact that women filed for divorce more often than men. Even the code from 1950 simplified it in the end. Until then, every divorce had two steps and the whole process was so complicated that almost no one completed it. That is why there were a number of dysfunctional marriages, in which the partners often had children with someone else, but these children were not legitimate, so they did not have the same rights as married ones.

So there was no such thing as alimony, which a biological parent would have to pay to support their illegitimate offspring?

No, illegitimate children had no rights at all. Fathers could not confess to them even if they wanted to, because the law that was in force until 1950 did not allow them to do so. Illegitimate children could not inherit from their biological father or use his name.

Did socialism bring liberation also in the matter of artificial abortions?

Definitely, abortion was legalized in Czechoslovakia earlier than in the West. Since 1958, women have been able to have an abortion for reasons "worthy of special attention", which no longer included only medical ones. Previously, women were allowed to have an abortion only when one of the parents was suffering from a serious illness, or when it seemed that some serious medical complication might occur in the fetus. The law, which came into force in 1958, on the other hand, did not specify the reasons for which a woman can terminate a pregnancy, and they were regulated only by decrees issued in the following years.

For example, a situation where a woman was not married to the biological father of her fetus was considered a relevant reason. Women could thus have an abortion, for example, when they became pregnant through infidelity. Until 1986, we had abortion commissions, about which a lot of negative stories are still circulating today. It must have been very uncomfortable and difficult for women when they had to explain why they wanted to have an abortion in front of complete strangers. But not so much is said about the fact that the commissions approved 95 percent of applications.

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Overview

Is the idea that there were strict comrades sitting on the abortion commissions, which many women did not go through, a myth?

Yes, I even read from documents of the time that the state made sure that in some districts and regions the commissions were not too restrictive. Doctors knew that if women did not get an abortion legally, they would in many cases have it done illegally, which could have far-reaching health consequences for them. Understandably, the state did not want the woman to die during the abortion or for the procedure to impair her reproductive abilities and she could never have a child again. Gynecologists who participated in politics also tried to ensure that women could freely decide when they wanted to become mothers.

What legal regulations did the communists introduce in the area of ​​parental leave?

Sociologist: Divorce became easier under totalitarianism abortion. Sex began to be openly discussed

At that time, of course, there was no talk of parental leave, but of maternity leave, because it only concerned women. At first it only lasted a few weeks, but it gradually got longer and there were jump extensions in the late 1960s and then in the 1970s. It is interesting that, like the other mentioned measures, it was a product of expert knowledge. At the turn of the 1950s and 1960s, they mainly conducted a demographic research series called Married Women in Family and Employment, in which women were asked, among other things, under what circumstances they would like to have more children. Women mostly accepted the possibility of having more than one, but generally rejected more than two. As a reason, they mentioned that they are incredibly tight, because when they come home from work, they have a second shift waiting for them.

Although gender equality was introduced in the public sphere under the previous regime, no fair division of labor worked in our country when it came to taking care of the household, so all the washing, ironing and cooking remained on women. Men were simply not trained to help women at home. Even the demographer experts who proposed the extension of maternity leave laughed at the name "vacation" at the time, because they realized that it was not a vacation at all and that it was actually good work.

Kateřina Lišková

Photo: Dita Pepe

You mentioned that political decisions supporting women's rights were shaped by the opinions of experts. This is quite advanced even by current standards.

Yes, sexologists, for example, even contributed to the repeal of the law that punished homosexuality. But when we return to gender equality, it was significantly helped by gynecologists who supported the legalization of abortion, demographers who tried to change the perception of women's roles in society, and also economists. During the 1960s, they recalculated how to set up pro-population measures - how high child allowances should be, that it would be good to introduce loans for newlyweds or that the availability of housing must be increased, because otherwise people will not start families at all. Most of the proposed solutions were then implemented only during normalization. Husák's normalization policies in the area of ​​the family were actually invented by experts already in the 1960s.

But on the other hand, did the experts also manage to influence how the inhabitants of the former Czechoslovakia thought about the rights and roles of women? You indicated that, for example, when dividing tasks in the household, the old order was preserved.

Nevertheless, I think the experts gradually got it right. As soon as there is a shift in expert knowledge, it always takes some time for the change to reach ordinary people. In addition, they could only get information from books or the radio, because television in homes was not that widespread in the beginning. For example, since the 1950s, sexologists have been publishing marriage manuals that talk quite openly about sex and how important a part of marriage it is. The prudence with which we usually associate communism is thus another myth. In addition, the explicitness of the manuals written by experts from the Institute of Sexology gradually increased, and in 1970, for example, people could buy the book Young Marriage, in which over 30 sexual positions were shown, including recommendations for whom they were suitable.

In fact, you describe the role of the Institute of Sexology, which was established here in 1921, but only grew significantly after the Second World War, as crucial in your book...

Yes, in the 1950s Czechoslovak sexologists recommended only complete equality in marriage. According to them, marriage could only work between men and women who respect and love each other as equals. According to them, only in such a relationship could women enjoy sex. In the following decades, however, a change occurred, and in the already mentioned Young Marriage manual, sexologists, on the contrary, recommended a return to hierarchical partner roles. They have come to believe that a woman who is not guided by her man will not feel comfortable in her own skin, so she needs a dominant man.

If a person today, without knowing the historical context, were to look at sexology manuals from the 1970s, they would easily get the impression that women under socialism were only caretakers of children and households, which is not true. Women's employment increased with each passing year, and sexologists suddenly emphasized traditional gender roles again. However, the discourse on the importance of sex did not disappear and, on the contrary, became closer and closer to people. In the 1980s, it was quite common for women in divorce cases to say that the main thing they were missing from their marriage was good sex, and that this was the reason they wanted to divorce. Many times they actually achieved divorce for these reasons.

What led sexologists to abandon the discourse of equal gender roles in marriage and return to emphasizing traditional roles?

In my opinion, it started at the turn of the 1950s and 1960s with research into child development, which found that children, especially at a young age, need a mother above all. Psychologists have followed children in institutional settings and found that these children are developmentally behind compared to their peers who grow up in families. As a remedy, they first tried to come up with measures that would make the running of the institutions more efficient - for example, a greater number of aunties to look after the children, or a more varied environment that would provide the children with enough stimuli.

However, when psychologists met at a conference with pediatricians and social workers in 1961, they came to the conclusion that children who are not raised in families not only experience developmental delays, but also emotional deprivation, which as a result leads to problem behavior and often even criminal activity. So, experts became fearful of what would happen when women were removed from child-rearing, and therefore began to re-emphasize the role of the mother.

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You recently wrote the foreword to the Czech translation of the book Why do women have better sex under socialism. In it, the American ethnographer Kristen Ghodsee compares the sexual revolution in the Western and Eastern blocs. So how was the development in the West different?

Almost in everything. We did not have a revolution, but rather an evolution. In Czechoslovakia, all changes were initiated by expertise. Social movements were not tolerated here, so it was out of the question for women to take to the streets to demonstrate for their rights. In the West, on the other hand, feminists were behind the changes, who began to organize from below, and women there did not have the rights that were established in the 1950s for a long time.

In West Germany they didn't have them until the 1970s, so Czechoslovak emigrants who came there after August 1968 were unpleasantly surprised. Educated women who normally went to work here suddenly could not sign a contract without their husband's consent or open a bank account without his permission in West Germany. The right to abortion was never even legal in West Germany. That's why women in the West had to fight much more for their rights, and feminism there also ran into a negative public opinion, which was significantly shaped by the churches.

Do you think this different historical development has an effect on the fact that today people in post-communist countries often have a negative attitude towards gender issues such as pay inequality or sexual harassment and perceive them as nonsense from the West?

I think that so much time has passed since the fall of communism that other factors also influence the shape of the public debate about gender and feminism. Anti-gender campaigns also appear in France or Germany, but it is a fact that in Eastern Europe the opposition to gender issues is by far the greatest and not a single post-Soviet country has yet, for example, legalized the marriage of gays and lesbians. Developments in the 1990s can also play an important role. Back then, women didn't feel like they had to fight for something. They already had most of the rights from the time of communism, men still weren't used to helping them in the household anyway, so they were tired and didn't understand why they should want to work more, like women in the West.

In the 1990s, emigrants such as Josef Škvorecký or Ota Ulč, who lived in Canada or the United States, influenced the Czech debate on sexual harassment. They started writing articles in our newspapers about so-called sexual harassment and how the feminists in the West are already exaggerating it. Even the 1990s are long gone, so the shape of the Czech public debate on gender will probably have a decisive influence on the persistent resistance to change. At the same time, there is a negative mood here towards the West and the European Union, and politicians nurture the opinion in people that it will be best if we do everything our own way.

For example, Andrej Babiš recently told fans of his Facebook page that women should give birth at an earlier age because it is more beneficial for the country's population. So would it help if the Czech political representation were more progressive in gender issues?

In theory, it could help. At the same time, however, it is necessary to realize that Babiš, like other politicians, only represent the opinions of the population that elected them. It's such a vicious circle. I would bet that when Babiš wrote his post about the ideal age of mothers, many of his voters thought: "Well, yes. What about an old mother? Her child will be born with Down's syndrome and we will all have to take care of it!" I think that if we had more progressive politicians in the leadership of the state, it would have some effect on people. Those who would like to introduce a more gender-just order, or, God forbid, promoted feminism, but now unfortunately I don't see many in the highest positions.

It is also noteworthy that in the Czech Republic, for example, in debates about sexual harassment or unequal conditions on the labor market, the opinions of women who stand up for men appear. How do you explain that?

In my opinion, it could be women who, for example, encountered some form of sexual harassment or wage discrimination themselves, but then somehow overcame it themselves and in the end, for example, their position at work improved. They may then feel that if they went through something like that, then why are other women screaming about it now. This also applies to the promotion of women to the highest job positions. Due to the fact that we have very few women in the highest levels of companies in the Czech Republic, those who are there often have the impression that if they themselves had to work so hard for their position, other women should also go through the same difficult journey. They reject quotas because they are convinced that others will say that they only got there because of quotas. But until there are more women in leadership positions, the situation will not change, and from my point of view, change can only occur if we introduce quotas. Otherwise, we will have to wait two, maybe three generations for any change.

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