Introduction
“Women Experts and Feminism” is a biographical dictionary of women who addressed gender issues during the state-socialist period in Central, Eastern and Southeastern Europe. Through their research and activism, they developed ideas about gender equality, uncovered gendered and overlapping forms of discrimination, and advocated for improving the situation of women and other disadvantaged groups in society. They devoted themselves to topics such as women's work, economic equality, household, childcare, sexuality, abortion and contraception, and health in general. They formed networks and maintained dialogue with one another and with experts and activists beyond the state-socialist world. They communicated knowledge to broad audiences.
The Women Experts in this dictionary developed their ideas in an authoritarian context where activism was restricted. Some of them used the official state-socialist commitment to gender equality to pursue their agendas, some challenged its outcomes. Some addressed social issues such as poverty and racism, conscious of their adverse effects on women. Some of them worked with and in state institutions, some decided to engage in oppositional activism. Their individual stories and trajectories uncover a diversity of possible ways in which feminist ideas and practices could be developed in a context where feminism was officially rejected for ideological reasons.
Most of these experts would not have called themselves feminists. Their ideas, commitments and struggles nonetheless belong within the broader history of feminism in the region and beyond, particularly when viewed through the inclusive definition proposed by historian Francisca de Haan, who characterizes feminism as 'change'.
Most of those women experts have been forgotten as scholars, activists, and researchers, or are remembered for contributions unrelated to gender issues. With this dictionary, we aim to make their biographies visible to the wider public and popularize their ideas and achievements. We aim to contribute to a more inclusive history of feminism and women’s activism, one that recognises the multiple social inequalities shaping women’s lives, as well as its transnational dimensions. We invite the reader to reflect on common threads and ideas women experts promoted. Finally, we hope to encourage new research and popularization efforts to identify forgotten stories and biographies.
The entries were written by academics who conducted extensive research to uncover the biographies and ideas these women experts developed through their scholarship and activism, both within and beyond academia. We drew on archival materials, publications, and in some cases, oral histories. We launched this dictionary focusing on three Central Eastern European countries - Czechoslovakia (today Czechia and Slovakia), Hungary and Poland – and intend to expand the project geographically.
This dictionary grew out of a collaborative effort within the research project “Women experts and feminist knowledge production in East-Central Europe, 1945-1989 (FemEx)", bringing together the shared intellectual contributions of Mart Chmielewski, Anna Dobrowolska, Lucie Dušková, Annina Gagyiova, Natalia Jarska, Marie Láníková, Denisa Nešťáková, Karolina Siewak, Fanni Svégel and Eszter Varsa.
Annina Gagyiova & Natalia Jarska
Editors