Women and Public Life

Abstract

What rights have women lost since the collapse of state socialism? Has unemployment hit female labour worse than male in the process of economic reform? Has the abandonment of fixed quotas of representation in parliaments been detrimental to women’s political voice? How have women taken advantage of greater freedom to speak out and to form social organisations and political movements? What relevance in the 1990s does violence and war have to their activism? These are some of the central questions being debated in East and West.