Inequality Between Men and Women in Perspective

Inequality between men and women in perspective

What is the reason behind the (lack of) progress of women emancipation from 1970 to now in Bulgaria and Poland compared to The Netherlands?

VERA BOONMAN Student number: 6631851

Growth and Inequality Teacher: Sarah Carmichael Date: 28-10-2019 Word count: 2127 Introduction Exactly one hundred years ago, women in The Netherlands got the right to vote. It wasn’t the first country that granted women’s suffrage, but it certainly would not be the last either. In 1919 there was an international women’s movement that made it’s way around the world. Later, some would call it the first feminist wave. This was the first sign of women emancipation, and in the years to come more and more women would stand up against the patriarchy and fight for equal rights. After the Second World War there was another leap to women emancipation in new communist countries. Communist countries, build on the philosophy of Karl Marx, would see the men and women as equal – and also need both genders in the work force. Marx argued, together with Friedrich Engels, how economic and technological factors form the most important structure in society.1 Engels wrote about the inferior position of women and how this originated when the capitalist society determined that men have to provide for their family. Meanwhile, the work of women is something that doesn’t make money and therefore it isn’t appreciated. Engels argues how in marriage both parties should have equal rights and responsibilities vis-à-vis each other, only then ‘women would have all they could ask for’.2 As long as women are excluded from socially productive work and remain restricted to private domestic duties, the emancipation of women and their equality to men is impossible, Engels states in the last chapter of his book.3 This might have been an important factor after the Second World War in Soviet-states. In these countries female participation in the work force grew and was higher than in a capitalist country such as The Netherlands. Feminist researcher Simone de Beauvoir was pleased by the changes in women emancipation made by the former Soviet-states.4 However, other studies such as that of Alena Heitlinger weren’t as optimistic, pointing at the cultural inequality that did not change within these countries.5 To evaluate the influence communism has on women emancipation, this paper will analyze a former communist country such as Poland and Bulgaria in comparison with The Netherlands, a country that has been capitalist during every feminist wave. The research question is: What is the reason behind the (lack of) progress of women emancipation from 1970 to now in Bulgaria and Poland compared to The Netherlands? To examine this, there are a few topics this paper will look into: what is the background of women emancipation in these countries? What are the differences in institutional, formal rules and what can explain the data found on women emancipation? There are many indicators that could imply women emancipation is enhancing, such as equal representation of men and women in the work force, equal pay, equally

1 Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Manifesto of the Communist Party (London: Progress Publishers, 1848). 2 Friedrich Engels, Origin of the family, private property and the state (New York: International Publishers, 1884), 87. 3 Engels, Origin of the family, private property and the state, 199. 4 Simone de Beauvoir and Howard Madison Parshley, The second sex (New York: Jonathan Cape, 1953). 5 Alena Heitlinger, Women and State Socialism (London: Macmillan, 1979). represented in the parliament, equal share of men and women in higher positions such as medium and senior management, gender equality in years of education and work around the house equally distributed between husband and wife. However, this papers won’t take all these indicators into perspective. There isn’t always data for every aspect and every country, therefore, this paper will focus on a few simple points: women representation in the work force, their share in medium and senior management and women in parliament. Furthermore, it will take the Historical Gender Equality Index into account, although this index is only determined for The Netherlands and Poland. Finally, because there is limited space in this paper, it might only touch upon important subjects in women emancipation. There is definitely room for more research in this topic.

Feminist waves During the 60s and 70s a new feminist wave occurred internationally, although mostly in the western world. In The Netherlands the wave started with the foundation of Man-Vrouw-Maatschappij (Man- Women-Society) and Joke Smit wrote about the gender pay gap in 1967 and the lack of women in higher ranks in an organization.6 Dolle Mina pleaded against legal discrimination of women and wanted more women in the work force, childcare and abortion rights.7 Modern feminists were more likely to have access to higher education than their forbears, but they remained marginalized as women, Imelda Whelehan analyzes in her book about Historical Gender Equality Index feminism since the second wave. The The Netherlands Poland women’s movements during this 90 decade wanted to abolish injustice 80 against women because of their sex, 70 60 and constructed networks of 50 communication, conferences, 40 demonstrations and newsletters 30 8 20 about their cause. It shaped the 10 political agenda and data shows how 0 female participation in the labor 1900 1910 1920 1930 1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 force increased in The Netherlands Figure 1: Evaluates countries performances regarding the progress they made in closing the gender gap in fields of health, socio-economic resources, politics and from 38 percent in 1990 to 46 percent household. Source: Clio Infra, https://clio- infra.eu/Indicators/HistoricalGenderEqualityIndex.html. in 2018. The Historical Gender

6 Joke Kool-Smit, ‘Het onbehagen bij de vrouw’, De gids 9:10 (1967), 268. 7 Marianne Boere, ‘De tweede feministische golf’, Atria, March 10, 2016, https://atria.nl/nieuws- publicaties/feminisme/feminisme-20e-eeuw/de-tweede-feministische-golf/. 8 Imelda Whelehan, Modern Feminist Thought: From the Second Wave to ‘Post-Feminism’ (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1995), 11. Equality Index indicates an increased equality in The Netherlands, and while Poland was front runner until 1980, The Netherlands took over as soon as the Iron Curtain fell. There was a striking contrast between the feminist thought in the western world versus communist countries in the 60s and 70s. ‘While Western women’s movement grappled with the role of capitalism in women’s oppression and looked to socialist theory for new insights, the reverse has often been the case in post-communism’, Nanette Funk states.9 Post-communist women had completely different conditions, both material and cultural. This included societies that welcomed equality between men and women as a fact that would not change, but activities of women in communist countries during the 60s and 70s were also taking place in the context of an elaborated antifeminist ideology. It was a response of men to women’s full employment, but it was also a response by women, because of their triple burden – the fact that women had to take full responsibility over the children and house, but also work full time in the former Soviet-states and ideally be a social activist. After the transformation from communist to capitalist state, women returned to the ‘private sphere’, which transformed the countries from a ‘full-employment’ economic political system to a quasi-capitalist system. It was men ‘regaining control over what was “theirs”’, writes Funk. At the same time, the reinstitution of the power of the church and the symbol of woman as mother for nationalist conflicts are factors also played a role in the emancipation of women – or maybe even lack of emancipation Female labor force, 1990-2018 (% of total labor force) after 1990.10 Bulgaria The Netherlands Poland Figure 2 of this paper shows 60 how the female percentage in the labor force increased, while that of 50 Bulgaria and Poland nearly stayed 40 the same, or even slightly decreased. The percentage of 30 women in parliament (figure 3) is 20 even more striking. While Bulgaria and Poland have more women in 10 parliament in 1987, this number 0

rapidly decreased as soon as the

1990 1994 1996 1998 2000 2002 2004 2006 2008 2010 2012 2014 2016 2018 countries transformed from the 1992 Figure 2: Women in the work force in The Netherlands, Bulgaria and Poland. Source: communist countries they were. The World Bank, https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SL.TLF.TOTL.FE.ZS?view=map.

9 Nanette Funk and Magda Mueller (eds), Gender Politics and Post-Communism: Reflections from Eastern- Europe and former Soviet Union (New York: Routledge, 1993), 1. 10 Funk and Mueller, Gender Politics and Post-Communism, 2. Figure 4 shows the women in higher ranks of a company, another important part in women emancipation. Here the data shows how Poland and Bulgaria still outrank The Netherlands in 2018 by almost 15 percentage point.

Women in parliament, 1945-2003 (%)

Poland The Netherlands Bulgaria

1961 1991 1945 1947 1949 1951 1953 1955 1957 1959 1963 1965 1967 1969 1971 1973 1975 1977 1979 1981 1983 1985 1987 1989 1993 1995 1997 1999 2001 2003

Figure 3: Women in national parliament from 1945 to 2003. Source: ICPSR, Institute for Social Research, https://www.icpsr.umich.edu/icpsrweb/ICPSR/studies/24340#.

Female share of employment in senior and middle management (%)

Bulgaria The Netherlands Poland

2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018

Figure 4: Female share in higher ranks such as senior and middle management in companies. Source: The World Bank, https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SL.EMP.SMGT.FE.ZS. Formal rules of institutions Until 1956, Dutch law forced women to stop working as soon as they got married. The day after they signed the marriage contract, husbands would become the head of the household and had to provide for their wife and their children to come. Corry Tendeloo made an end to this law before the second feminist wave.11 By 2018 women are part of 46 percent of the total labor force in The Netherlands. After the second feminist wave the amount of women in parliament increased substantially, as seen in figure 3. The Netherlands is one of the leading countries in Europe with women in national politics. Despite national numbers, women cover only 25 percent in city councils, something that has not changed since 1990. Merely one in five city mayors is female and that number is even lower for councilors. Reason for these differences are fragmentation in Dutch politics, according to Monique Leyenaar, professor in Comparative Political Science. City councils have many political parties and less women are found in the higher ranks of these parties. In addition, local parties nominate few women as a candidate on their list.12 Furthermore, The Netherlands perform worse than Eastern-European countries on the share of women in senior and medium management, as figure 4 demonstrates, a fact that has not significantly changed since 2000. There has been a request for a gender quota for a long time in The Netherlands. Jet Bussemaker, minister of Education, Culture and Science at the time, wrote in 2015 a letter to the Dutch parliament, in which she explained her disappointment in the numbers of women on the board of companies. These numbers showed how boards of Dutch businesses are still the typical ‘old boys network’.13 Since 2013 The Netherlands has a guideline for companies: women and men both should occupy at least 30 percent of the seats in the board. If companies don’t comply, they should justify this in their annual reports.14 In Eastern Europe the path to women emancipation was different. According to many of the authors in the book edited by Nanette Funk 1989 isn’t the year in which these former communist countries suddenly became anti-feminist, with restrictions on abortion and a removal women from employment. Much of this began already in the 80s, with growing neo-conservatism in Bulgaria and changes in women’s employment in countries such as Poland.15 Figure 2 shows how female participation in the labor force in Poland and Bulgaria slightly decreases from 1990 to 2018. Under communist rules the public discourse was always officially ‘pro-woman’, with rules restricting women from specific jobs that would cause ‘physical harm’ to women. Theoretically, this is a ‘privileged position’, but in fact it

11 Alies Pegtel, ‘Handelingsonbekwaamheid van vrouwen’, Historisch Nieuwsblad 4 (2016). 12 Yolanda de Koster, ‘Opmars vrouwen in lokale politiek stokt al jaren’, Binnenlands Bestuur (2013). 13 Letter to parliament Jet Bussemaker, November 16, 2015, in Vrouwen aan de top, 8. https://www.rijksoverheid.nl/documenten/kamerstukken/2016/12/15/kamerbrief-over-vrouwen-naar-de-top 14 Amendment of member Kalma C.S., adopted on June 14, 2011. https://www.parlementairemonitor.nl/9353000/1/j9vvij5epmj1ey0/vi9wb0dwt2fe 15 Funk and Mueller, Gender Politics and Post-Communism, 4. barred women from ninety jobs in eighteen branches of industry, including some of the best paid jobs.16 Women in Poland had the typical Eastern European experience of high educational levels and, under communism, high employment but lower salaries and authority than men, and also carrying the ‘double burden’ of responsibility for the home. The fact that Poland became a communist country did not change the underlying social hierarchy in the families that was already in place.17 Bulgaria doesn’t have the problems that occur in Poland with church and religion. While the abolishment of the right to abortion was a mayor setback for women emancipation – because it was sometimes the only ‘anticonception’ available – this does not exist in Bulgaria. Maria Todorova illustrates how there is a clear trend toward neoconservatism. Here the ‘happy middle-class visions of well-paid men and well- coiffed women meeting at the porches of their suburban houses’ play a big role in the future for the former communist country.18 Furthermore, the same ‘formal equality’ remained valid in Bulgaria during communist rules, which in practice meant they had to function in three social roles: as a mother and wife, a good worker and a social activist.19

Conclusion This research paper analyzed the emancipation of women in the former communist countries Poland and Bulgaria in comparison with The Netherlands, a capitalist country during the feminist waves. The research question this paper tried to find an answer to was: What is the reason behind the (lack of) progress of women emancipation from 1970 to now in Bulgaria and Poland compared to The Netherlands? In this paper we examined how the path to equality between men and women in these countries differs from each other. While Bulgaria and Poland had a formal equality installed because of communist thought, the informal set of rules did not comprehend. In practice, women now had to carry a double- or even triple burden in society. Even before 1989, these countries moved towards a pattern of anti-feminism, neo-conservatism and less women employment. Simone de Beauvoir hailed the women emancipation in Soviet-states, but as soon as the formal set of rules were lifted after 1989, the ideas of Marx and Engels didn’t have as much impact as one would hope. The amount of women in parliament decreased immediately and there is a slight decrease in the Gender Equality Index of Poland after 1980, while The Netherlands only increases (figure 3 and 1). Capitalism doesn’t seem to be the

16 Ewa Hauser, Barbara Heyns and Jane Mansbridge, ‘Feminism in the Interstices of Politics and Culture: Poland in Transition’, in: Nanette Funk and Magda Mueller (ed.), Gender Politics and Post-Communism: Reflections from Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union (New York: Routledge, 1993), 259-260. 17 Hauser, Heyns and Mansbridge, ‘Poland in Transition’, 261. 18 Maria Todorova, ‘The Bulgarian Case: Women’s Issues or Feminist Issues’, in: Nanette Funk and Magda Mueller (ed.), Gender Politics and Post-Communism: Reflections from Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union (New York: Routledge, 1993), 36. 19 Dimitrina Petrova, ‘The Winding Road to Emancipation in Bulgaria’, in: Nanette Funk and Magda Mueller (ed.), Gender Politics and Post-Communism: Reflections from Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union (New York: Routledge, 1993), 23. cause for a lack of progress in women emancipation, just as much as communism isn’t the cause for progress in women emancipation. It is the informal set of rules behind the designed structure of institutions that will cause lasting equality between men and women in the work force and beyond. It seems to me that a formal set of rules is necessary as well, because this will create space in which informal thought about women emancipation can grow. When there is sufficient child care, equal pay between men and women and role models of women in politics, more women will be able to close the gender gap, in both Eastern Europe and The Netherlands, but these are speculations this paper cannot prove. Therefore, there is enough room for more women emancipation research and the influence of formal and informal rules.

Bibliography ▪ Amendment of member Kalma C.S., adopted on June 14, 2011. https://www.parlementairemonitor.nl/9353000/1/j9vvij5epmj1ey0/vi9wb0dwt2fe ▪ Beauvoir, Simone de and Howard Madison Parshley, The second sex (New York: Jonathan Cape, 1953). ▪ Boere, Marianne, ‘De tweede feministische golf’, Atria, March 10, 2016, https://atria.nl/nieuws-publicaties/feminisme/feminisme-20e-eeuw/de-tweede-feministische- golf/. ▪ Friedrich Engels, Origin of the family, private property and the state (New York: International Publishers, 1884). ▪ Funk, Nanette and Magda Mueller (eds.), Gender Politics and Post-Communism: Reflections from Eastern-Europe and former Soviet Union (New York: Routledge, 1993). ▪ Heitlinger, Alena, Women and State Socialism (London: Macmillan, 1979). ▪ Kool-Smit, Joke, ‘Het onbehagen bij de vrouw’, De gids 9:10 (1967). ▪ Koster, Yolanda de, ‘Opmars vrouwen in lokale politiek stokt al jaren’, Binnenlands Bestuur (2013). ▪ Letter to parliament Jet Bussemaker, November 16, 2015, in Vrouwen aan de top, 8. https://www.rijksoverheid.nl/documenten/kamerstukken/2016/12/15/kamerbrief-over- vrouwen-naar-de-top ▪ Marx, Karl and Friedrich Engels, Manifesto of the Communist Party (London: Progress Publishers, 1848). ▪ Pegtel, Alies, ‘Handelingsonbekwaamheid van vrouwen’, Historisch Nieuwsblad 4 (2016). ▪ Whelehan, Imelda, Modern Feminist Thought: From the Second Wave to ‘Post-Feminism’ (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1995).