As a result, it stirred only minor commotion when two returned emigrants (both of them with double citizenships) took places in the government that was appointed in 1998. Another important milestone was reached three years later, when some 80,000 Czech citizens living outside the country’s borders got the right to participate in elections. It’s a less important fact that just a minority of them actually used their formal rights to vote.
Feminism
Ask any modern, educated Czech woman whether she thinks it’s acceptable for a man in the same professional position to earn 15-20 percent more than her. Then ask if she shares the view that women don’t belong in the Parliament or in the management of big companies. Or if she believes that a young woman’s natural career is that of a mother and housewife. Most likely, she will answer “no” to all three questions. But if you then, logically, conclude, “So you are a feminist”, consider yourself lucky if she only smashes your face.
Why? To the great majority of Czech women, the word “feminism” is automatically associated with an ugly, militant, man-hating creature with unshaved legs, greasy hair and a nasty personality; in short, a hag who will never ever get a husband, which she doesn’t want anyway, because in this country it’s commonly known that all feminists are, in reality, lesbians.
One obvious reason for this somewhat eccentric attitude is to be found in the recent era of communism. To the Bolsheviks, women’s liberation and feminism — in its Marxist interpretation — were important political topics. True, the Czech communists didn’t go so far as their Russian comrades, who took great pride in putting women at building railroads or driving cranes and heavy machinery, but also their method of “liberating” women from the capitalist order was based on forcing them to work. As a result, in no other country on the planet, except in the former German “Democratic” Republic, did women represent a larger part of the working force than in communist Czechoslovakia.
This, however, definitely did not mean that women were treated as equals with men. On the contrary, the propaganda spoke loudly about equal opportunities for both genders, but women were in fact systematically discriminated against, both in terms of wages and career opportunities. When it came to higher education, the communists even revealed themselves as far more conservative than most capitalists: as late as in the 1980s, young men were almost automatically preferred in natural sciences, whereas their female counterparts ended up studying humanities.
The political dimension of the communists’ mock fight for “equal rights” made it even more inedible. To show how progressive the regime was, many political organs had quotas that fixed an obligatory number of female members. Of course, in most cases these women were only assigned to walk-on roles as political alibis, but thanks to female comrades such as the infamous Marie Kabrhelová, a red version of Margaret Thatcher who preached the Party’s equal-rights gospel with downright religious intensity, feminism’s credibility was ruined for generations.
So are Czech women today generally oppressed? Compared to some Western countries, there are still few women in top politics (among the 200 members of the Parliament’s House of Deputies elected in 2002, there were 34 women) and business managements. And those who have fought their way up must often endure extreme chauvinism (a newspaper cartoonist once portrayed the Social Democrats’ former vice chair Petra Buzková as a prostitute with the party chairman as her pimp). Moreover, Czech women are still paid less than men for doing the same job, even though the labour law strictly prohibits such discrimination.
Unfortunately, this goes for a lot of other developed countries too. In fact, when you compare this country with the rest of post-communist Central Europe, Czech women, measured by their level of education, which on average is higher than Czech men’s, their legal protection and their participation in decision-making bodies (more than half of the country’s judges are women), fare better than in any other state.
Generally, their situation doesn’t differ significantly from that in Austria, which, admittedly, isn’t exactly a feminist heaven on earth, but at least this comparison indicates that the need for urgent intervention is not as acute as several international activist groups in the beginning of the 1990s believed. Seen in a historic context, one can even, with some artistic liberty, claim that the first Czech state was established by a woman.
According to Staré Pověsti České (Old Czech Tales), a collection of historic myths published by the writer Alois Jirásek in 1894, the Premyslíd Dynasty of princes, who were later to become Czech kings, was founded when the strong-willed Princess Libuše ordered her guards to find her a man. The guards set off, and when they ran into a plain farmer who was ploughing his fields, they brought him back to the princess. Thus, Přemysl the hard-working ploughman became the fabled Libuše’s husband and head of the Czech principality.
But the story about Libuše and Přemysl can also be seen from another perspective. Thanks to her position as princess, there’s no doubt that Libuše was the boss, and poor Přemysl was only used as a convenient cover and sperm donor. In other words, it was an undercover matriarchy. A millennium and a half later, the Czech tradition of women letting their husbands officially act as tough macho men while, in reality, they are totally controlled by their bossy wives, is still alive and kicking. The famous comic Jan Werich once defined this balance of power very precisely: In my family, I decide all the important things, such as our relationship with Taiwan. My wife is only responsible for the rest...
Božena Němcová is another female monument in Czech history. Born in 1820 to poor parents, she lived a desperately unglamorous life caring for her children and hiding from her drunk and abusive husband. Nevertheless, when she finally managed to publish her novel Babička (Grandmother) shortly before she died, at 42, she became a national star overnight.
A somewhat cynical observer may find the novel utterly sentimental, and grandmother herself hopelessly bigoted. But the point is that not one single chauvinist stood up and brushed Němcová off for “just being a stupid woman”, and nobody complained that the novel’s grey-haired hero was as anti-masculine as it is possible to get. The probable explanation is that the novel, whether written by a man or woman, was first and foremost seen as a literary victory for the Czechs, who felt dwarfed by German cultural suppression.
Actually, this nationalistic aspect might have a wider importance for the relationship between Czech men and women. Jiřina Šiklová, professor of sociology and founder of gender studies at Charles University in Prague, points out that because of the Czechs’ long-lasting experience with foreign domination — be it by the Austrians, Germans or Russians — most Czech women don’t feel oppressed by men. On the contrary, they feel solidarity with them as compatriots.
Maybe professor Šiklová has a too positive attitude, but, on the other hand, she definitely knows what she is talking about. As a supporter of the Charter 77 movement, Šiklová and many other women resisted the communists with great courage and in total solidarity with their male fellow-dissidents.