The Women's Movement

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The women’s movement had been characterized by women's wish to acquire equal legal status to men by obtaining civil and political rights recorded in the Constitution and legislation. In Romania, the first wave of the feminist movement had been held simultaneously with the women’s movement in West, and it had been a movement of the elite, educated women with access to international information. An important period of this movement was before the establishment of the Romanian Constitution in 1923. It was the most democratic Constitution and women started an intense activity of lobbying for their rights until 1947. Between 1947 and 1989 Romania was pushed under Soviet influence by the Red Curtain, and the feminist activity was eradicated. Although Communism proclaimed gender equality between men and women, this had been acted contradictorily in public sphere and private life. Freedom has been detracted by the Communist Party, and women’s private lives had been controlled by the Party by limiting their legal rights. After the Romanian Revolution in 1989, it was taken a modest initiative on the situation of gender equality and women’s rights in Romanian society. Since 1989 until the present, Romanian women’s roles and rights in society is becoming a priority in Romania. In addition, the promotion of equal opportunities for women and men is also a priority in the democracy, and under Western influence and European legislation. This essay will attempt to outline the difficulties representing the causes of the women’s movement and some of the effects of social, economic and political rights.

One of the main causes of the women’s movement was the loss of their legal rights in society, especially civil and economic rights during the tota...

... middle of paper ...

...n the System of Power’, Journal of Women’s history, Vol.5, No.3, p.117-128

Oprica, V. (2007), ‘Gender Equality and Conflicting Attitudes Towards Women in Post-Communist Romania’, Human Rights Review, 9(1), p29-40

Rueschemeyer, M. (1998) Women in the politics of postcommunist Eastern Europe. New York: M.E. Sharpe, Inc.

Stefoi, E. (2008) Women’s rights history – from suffrage to diplomatic career: address. Available at: http://ottawa.mae.ro/index.php?lang=en&id=66579 (Accessed: 27 February 2010)

The Ministry of Labour and Social Protection (1999) The Status of women in Romania during 1995-2000, National Report. Available at: http://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/followup/responses/Romania.pdf (Accessed: 27 February 2010)

Weiner E. (2009) ‘Dirigism and Déjà Vu Logic: The Gender Politics and Perils of EU Enlargement’, European Journal of Women's Studies, 16(3), p211-228

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