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WHO CONTROLS THE TV REMOTE IN EASTERN EUROPE .. or T H E M O R E T H IN G S C H A N G E F O R W O M EN , T H E M O R E T H E Y ST A Y T H E S A M E Meredith Sullivan is a first-time contributor to MIDDFE5T Magazine. She is a graduate student in the Master of Technical and Scientific Communication Program at Miami University. This article has been reprinted with permission, from Middfest Magazine, a Middletown, Ohio based publication covering Eastern European topics. By Meredith Sullivan and Sharon Crecelius As women in almost any part of the world would agree, the problems of juggling a job and family and commanding respect in a male-dominated society are not unique to Eastern Europe. Not unique, but very real, and identified by particular challenges that have been shaped by the combined influences of a peasant culture, the Church and communism. Peasant life under the old empires was a harsh and constant struggle for survival in a precarious agricultural economy. Peasant women faced an oppressive patriarchal system in both family and village. Men feared that any departure from this arrangement would threaten the existence of their society and culture. The nobility and state, whose power rested on peasant traditional ism, encouraged such fears. The Church sanctioned them through a strict moral code based on the view of woman as temptress. This view was rooted in ancient limes and reinforced in the second through fifth centuries by church leaders who interpreted original sin as a sexual act initiated by Eve. Under communism the lot of women actually began to improve. They were educated and welcomed into the work force. Today, paid maternity leave and medical allowances and free day care are provided for women. Women are permitted the same freedoms as men. More, actually. Not only are they free to work eight to ten hours a day, they are also free to take care of all the cooking, cleaning, gardening, shopping, and child-care tasks. The rights of men and women are essentially equal. Their workloads are not. The collapse of communism and the re-emergence of religious freedom heartens Eastern Europeans. Ironically, this poses some problems for women. Many in the Church want to re-emphasize family values, including keeping woman at home. Resentment of communism sometimes spills over to include women’s rights. There is a tendency to want to throw out the baby of equal opportunity for women with the dirty bathwater of communism. What exactly will the future hold? Will women be full partners in Eastern Europe’s journey toward a free market economy and an independent democracy that can make a vital contribution lo the creation of a new Europe, truly whole and free? Only time will tell. 22 ’НАШЕ ЖИТТЯ”, ЛЮТИМ 1994 Видання C оюзу Українок A мерики - перевидано в електронному форматі в 2012 році . A рхів C У A - Ню Йорк , Н . Й . C Ш A.
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