Feminism in Czechia & Germany The nation is masculine

Views on feminism differ greatly between Czech and German society – more so than on almost any other subject. Right from the start, the two countries have taken very different paths towards achieving equal rights for women.

West of our border, the term feminist has largely positive connotations. In Germany, Alice Schwarzer, who organised the campaign to legalise abortion in the early seventies, fought the legalisation of prostitution and edited the magazine EMMA, is seen as a controversial but respected figure. Personalities like Simone de Beauvoir, Betty Friedan and Ruth Bader Ginsburg enjoy recognition far beyond the borders of their home countries. If you call Hillary Clinton, Beyoncé or Emma Watson a feminist, they smile and thank you for the compliment.

But in post-Communist Europe, feminism is a dirty word. It is alleged to be an extremist movement of frustrated witches who hate men and are bent on suppressing them. The feminist stereotype of a hairy-legged lesbian is so remote from reality that it is not worth wasting words on it, especially since there is no one form of feminism. Rather, it is understood to comprise a whole cluster of social theories, political movements and philosophical tendencies. Their aim is not to fight men but to overcome social inequalities and norms, particularly gender-related ones, that limit our individual freedom.

The nation’s women

One reason why the general public in Czechia hates feminism so much is that they do not know much about it. While even an average American has some idea of who or what the suffragettes were, history and social sciences are always taught in Czech schools as the stories of great men. There is no discussion of any historical development in the position of women in society or the women’s movement. If anything, the name Plamínková gets a mention. Yet the role of women in society is by no means just a historical footnote, not only because the issue directly affects at least half the Czech population, but also because inequality remains, for example regarding pay.

The feminist movement can be divided into three waves, each with a different point of departure and objectives. First-wave feminists, also known as suffragettes, fought primarily for women’s basic civil rights, such as the opportunity to study or the right to own property and vote. In a rigidly patriarchal society, their efforts had only limited impact until that society drowned itself in the sludge and blood of World War I. As men were dying in the trenches, women took their place on the factory floor. They entered the stage of this new era with unprecedented self-confidence in the realisation that they could take responsibility just like men. They cut their hair in a bob and danced to the wild rhythms of black music.

During this first wave, general conditions in the Bohemian lands changed. As in other small nations, the Czech women’s movement was closely linked with the process of forging a national identity. The drive for equality was more than simply a means to bring about ‘national rebirth’. The first Czech feminists fought mainly for women’s education, ultimately bringing up a new generation of nationally enlightened Czechs. That is why their demands and methods were far less radical. They did not throw themselves on the racecourse at a horse race like British suffragette Emily Davison, but worked in close cooperation with men - Vojtěch Náprstek and Tomáš G. Masaryk also propagated feminist ideas.

No second wave

The economic crisis and its effects in the form of totalitarian systems such as National Socialism drove women out of the jazz clubs and back into the home. After the war, the Western economy began to grow quickly, so the men had no trouble feeding their families on their own. The return of women to domestic and educational roles was not entirely smooth, however. In the fifties, women were better educated and more independent than their mothers and grandmothers had been. Second-wave feminism therefore focused on transforming the strictly patriarchal mindset on which inequality was based. Influential books were The Second Sex (1949) by Simone de Beauvoir and The Feminine Mystique (1963) by Betty Friedans.

Johanna Nejedlová ist Mitinitiatorin des Projekts Když to nechce, tak to nechce (Wenn sie nicht will, will sie nicht). | Foto: © Konsent At this time, women in Czechoslovakia were supposedly living more emancipated lives than women in West Germany – they were far more likely to be in employment, for example. The socialist woman was not supposed to be a prisoner of the household, but to help to build a better tomorrow by working as a crane operator or vet or in an agricultural cooperative while the children played in a nursery. Women in the Czechoslovak Republic had the right to have an abortion or to divorce much earlier on and there was a dense network of nurseries, schools and school canteens. However, these measures were dictated from above and by no means went hand in hand with a change of heart within society. When women got home from work, a second shift was waiting for them, doing housework and taking the main responsibility for child care. Women were not represented in senior positions.

Meanwhile, students in Western Europe were demonstrating for a better world and across the ocean, a battle was erupting for civil rights regardless of skin colour. The late sixties brought a fundamental loosening of sexual morals and a far-reaching change in relationships between the genders. But while women were demonstratively burning their bras in New York, Paris and West Berlin, Warsaw Pact tanks were rolling into the streets of Czech cities. In their wake, they brought normalisation and twenty years in which the whole of society was in a state of coma, while the same old men ruled the country, and pursuit of freedom of expression meant ending up in a State Security interrogation room, if not in gaol.

Young women take the lead

Dominant social attitudes can only be changed in open dialogue, however. Under the conditions prevailing in Czechoslovakia, the sexual revolution, consistent equal rights for women and even the acceptance of homosexuality were impossible. Even dissidents did not address such matters. Their fight focused on enforcing universal human rights. Only after November 1989 was there any discussion of gender equality and feminism, and even then only in limited circles.
Women’s organisations were set up. In the West, however, the ripples of third-wave feminism were already forming and its efforts extended to include other social and ecological issues.

It seems that the fourth wave in Czechia is developing in a similar way to that in the West. Based on online activism, it seeks to maintain a high profile in the public domain. A typical example of this was the march Ženy na hrad! (Prague Women’s March) on International Women’s Day in 2018. The average age of members of the feminist groups convening for this march was conspicuously low. The march saw itself as a criticism of President Miloš Zeman and Czech political representatives in general. “We believe that policymakers have seriously neglected social and ecological issues,“ explains Martina Veverková of the alliance Socialistické Solidarity (Socialist Solidarity). “That is the main issue we want our march to highlight.“

The young feminists by no means ignore more narrowly ‘feminist’ themes, however. In some ways, the #metoo campaign or the project Když to nechce, tak to nechce (If she doesn’t want it, she doesn’t want it) are also expressions of the fourth wave. “In Czechia, one woman in ten experiences rape,“ says co-initiator Johanna Nejedlová. “We also talk about rape to people who can stop it happening - men.“ In this way, the project takes up the project of pioneers who fought to achieve civil rights and (reasonably) equal access to the labour market. Now the time has come to address fair relationships in peoples‘ private lives and intimate relationships – while at the same time reflecting on wide-ranging economic and social interrelationships. Thus, efforts to achieve gender equality may be entering their last phase, with the potential to bring about real change to the foundations of the world.