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IF the existence of feminism depended only on the existence of gender injustice, and the need to address it, feminism would be a thriving enterprise in Central Europe. Women are bearing a heavy burden in the so-called transition to democracy. They are experiencing a disproportionate level of unemployment. Their rights to abortions are threatened. A rebirth of traditionalism uses them to symbolize the values of home, hearth, and religious revival. They have lost social services. Their number has drastically dropped in parliamentary institutions. They still struggle with the burdens of the second shift, they have experienced high rates of domestic violence, and, in the war zones of the former Yugoslavia, they have been subjected to systematic campaigns of rape as acts of war.1
In addition to this well known list of burdens, the very act of constituting the new democratic polities has involved gross injustices to women democratic heroes. This has been most striking in the case of Poland. There, the functioning of the Solidarity underground depended on the work of women. They were key figures in the underground press, led some of the regions of underground Solidarity and were in large part the underground network of transportation and communication that could not be repressed by the communist authorities. Yet, with verv few exceptions, they almost immediately dropped out or were forced out of public life when a more open society was achieved. They themselves have been silent about the contributions they have made.2
This, then, is not fertile grounds for feminism. If the most politically active and effective women do not take credit for their actions, it would seem that feminism does not have much chance to develop. Even one former woman oppositionist who has broken this general rule and made an effort to tell this story of political accomplishment, Joanna Szczesna, does not consider herself to be a feminist (Penn, 1994, p. 64), underscoring the oddity of the situation. In a world where women have accomplished a great deal and experience injustice, there is an open hostility to feminism.
Contrary to the official propaganda of the communists, there was significant gender injustice in the old system, and contrary to the hopes of democrats, liberals, and civil society advocates, the injustice has not only...