Working Difference

Fodor Eva Fodor

Description

Working Difference is one of the first comparative, historical studies of women's professional access to public institutions in a state socialist and a capitalist society. Eva Fodor examines women's inclusion in and exclusion from positions of authority in Austria and Hungary in the latter half of the twentieth century. Until the end of World War II women's lives in the two countries, which were once part of the same empire, followed similar paths, which only began to diverge after the communist takeover in Hungary in the late 1940s. Fodor takes advantage of Austria and Hungary's common history to carefully examine the effects of state socialism and the differing trajectories to social mobility and authority available to women in each country.Fodor brings qualitative and quantitative analyses to bear, combining statistical analyses of survey data, interviews with women managers in both countries, and archival materials including those from the previously classified archives of the Hungarian communist party and transcripts from sessions of the Austrian Parliament. She shows how women's access to power varied in degree and operated through different principles and mechanisms in accordance with the stratification systems of the respective countries. In Hungary women's mobility was curtailed by political means (often involving limited access to communist party membership), while in Austria women's professional advancement was affected by limited access to educational institutions and the labor market. Fodor discusses the legacies of Austria's and Hungary's "gender regimes" following the demise of state socialism and during the process of integration into the European Union.

Sujets

• Sociologie, société et politique
• Hungría
• Austria
• Cultural studies
• Hungary
• Hongrie
• Autriche

Informations

• Publié par: Duke University Press
• Date de parution: 20 janvier 2003
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780822384489
• Langue: English

Extrait

W O R K I N G D I F F E R E N C E

A book in the series

Comparative and International

Working-Class History

General editors:

Andrew Gordon, Harvard University

Daniel James, Duke University

Alexander Keyssar, Duke University

W O R K I N G D I F F E R E N C E

Women’s Working Lives in Hungary and Austria, 1945–1995

é va f o d o r

D U K E U N I V E R S I T Y P R E S S

Durham and London 2003

∫2003 Duke University Press All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper Typeset in Trump Mediaeval by Keystone Typesetting, Inc. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data appear on the last printed page of this book.

Szüleimnek

Contents

Acknowledgments

ix

1. Three Generations of Women in Central Europe

2. Gender Regimes East and West

17

1

3. From ‘‘K und K’’ to ‘‘Communism versus Capitalism’’: The Social Worlds of Austria and Hungary 39

4. Exclusion versus Limited Inclusion

5. Mechanisms of Exclusion

76

61

6. Conditions of Inclusion: Examining State Policies in Austria and Hungary, 1945–1995 104

7. Difference at Work: A Case Study of Hungary

8. Convergence in the Twenty-First Century?

136

151

Appendix A. Data Sets, Samples, and Definition of Variables

Appendix B. Chronology of Legislation Targeting or Affecting Women 167

Notes

173

References

Index

201

189

163

Acknowledgments

This book has long been in the making and has benefited from advice and encouragement from a number of people in various stages and arenas of my life. The project started out as a Ph.D. dissertation, inspired by the frustration I experienced when I arrived in Los Angeles from Budapest in 1990 and was confronted with my inability to describe gender relations in state socialist Hungary to my American friends. I had never heard the term ‘‘homemaker’’ before. They had never met anyone who took for granted three-year paid maternity leaves. My professors and friends and my readings and discussions in the De- partment of Sociology at the University of California at Los Angeles shaped my understanding of the world in profound ways. My most heart- felt thanks go to Ivan Szelenyi, chair of my dissertation committee, ad- visor, and mentor throughout my graduate school years atuclaand after- ward.Köszönöm, Tanár úr! Gail Kligman arrived atuclathe best possible moment, and her at advice, encouragement, home-cooked meals, as well as funny stories about her adventures in Romania and elsewhere were always much appre- ciated. I also would like to thank Ruth Milkman (my very first and most authentic role model for a feminist academic), as well as Carole Pateman and Donald J. Treiman, who served on my dissertation committee. But professors are only one part of the education process in graduate school. I could not have finished this project without support, academic and otherwise, from colleagues and friends. Most important, I want to thank my closest friends and confidants, Susan Markens and Julie Press,