engleski

The Myth of Retraditionalization: Changing Gender Identities in Post-transitional South Eastern Europe

Conventional wisdom has it that a retraditionalization of women’s roles and identities ensued after the breakup of socialist Yugoslavia in the countries that succeeded it. This is usually attributed to the end of the socialist gender regime, war conditions and hegemony of the nation-building discourse at the beginning of the transitional period. In the “mature phase” of the postsocialist transition, this was followed by new rhetorical and legislative pressures on women to retraditionalize, some of which can be linked to the concerted actions of an international conservative movement. However, the results of empirical sociological research contradict the widely held perception of the retraditionalization of gender roles in the countries under discussion. This presentation aims to contribute to an understanding of the changing gender identities in post-transitional South Eastern Europe on the basis of primary quantitative and qualitative data originating from the large-scale projects on household survival strategies (Swiss National Science Foundation funded SCOPES 152626) and gender modernization (Croatian Science Foundation funded GENMOD HRZZ-IP-2016-06-6010). The focus of the presentation is on the targeted research of household division of labour from the latter project, but other aspects of gender equality are also addressed. The theoretical background includes Walby’s (1990) theory of patriarchy and newer modernization theories, especially Inglehart and Welzel’s (2005) revised theory of modernization. The paper has been prepared as part of the activities on the Croatian Science Foundation funded project GENMOD HRZZ-IP-2016-06-6010.

gender, identity, retraditionalization, modernization, South Eastern Europe

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