„Megtettük-e azt, amit az eszményeink szerint meg kellett volna, hogy tegyünk?”
’Did we achieve what we could have done?’

The missed reflection of the democratic opposition on women’s emancipation under state socialism in Hungary

Summary/Abstract: Following the transition the question was raised by a number of researchers whether the soviet type emancipation policies of the state socialist countries had indeed resulted in women’s liberation and equality with men? (Corrin 1994, Einhorn 1993, Funk-Mueller 1993, Adamik 2000, Bollobás 2006, Fodor 2003, Schadt 2003, Takács 2015) This study raises the question whether the issue of women’s emancipation was part of the themes articulated by the democratic opposition under the Kádár regime or not. How did feminist voices emerge within the dissident circles, and how did samizdat publications deal with the question or silence it? Were activists in opposition different in this sense in Hungary from the activists of other ex-state socialist countries? Following a brief overview of the characteristic features of the democratic opposition in Hungary and the overview of the literature analysing women’s situation and gender relations both before and after the transition, some ex-activists’ memoires (manifested in recorded interviews) will be examined. How did they reconstruct gender relations and attitudes within opposition circles? Were these promoting or silencing initiatives concerning women’s issues?

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