Romanian Women

1
Romanian Womens Campaign for Change

• Georgeta Ghebrea

2
Democratisation Movements

• Opponents
• Civic activists
• Bureaucrats
• Columnists
• Femocrats
• Scholars
• Political leaders
• Social activists

3
Womens Most Important Contributions to
Democratisation Are

• Opposition to the communist regime
• Founding civic and social movements
• Founding political parties
• Raising the social awareness regarding the gender
  topics
• Local development
• Improving womens social status (health,
  education, standard of life, economic activity)

4
The Main Instruments for Achieving These Aims
Were

• Protest letters
• Dissemination using a diversity of channels
  ,training courses mass-media, internet, seminars,
  conferences, campaigns)
• Voluntary work for community
• Doing research and feminist studies
• Teaching
• Lobbying
• Street march and meetings
• Public administration

5
Womens Movement

• Weak, fragmented, almost absent from the public
  scene and under-funded
• 60 NGOs for women (the database of AnA centre)
• Quasi absence in the rural areas
• Only few organisations clearly define themselves
  in terms of promoting gender issues
• The others focus is delivering social services
  to deprived groups

6
Issues

• Violence against women, in the family and at work
  
• Social services for the benefit of women, and
  community service in general
• Gender studies
• Civic education

7
Co-operation

• Collaboration between the womens organisations
  is sporadic
• The European Unionlegislation and funding of
  gender policies
• European NGOsknow-how and courage
• The Government insufficient support for womens
  NGOs
• Women politiciansweak and formal relationships
• Local and regional NGOs alliance for charity
  actions
• Trade unions priority to the employees
  interests over the womens cause

8
Outcome

• As compared to the beginning of 90s, womens
  political participation improved in Romania.
• Law against domestic violence
• Gender studies at academic level
• Education in schools including gender perspective
• Several NGOs have developed solid training
  curricula on different womens issues

9
Conclusion

• General
• womens marginalisation
• the communist legacy
• lack of solidarity
• low political participation
• enlargement as an opportunity

10
Romanias specificity

• Women are present in the Romanian public life
  more as individual characters, less as an
  organised movement
• The womens organisations try to help women, not
  to emancipate them
• Most of womens organisation are oriented toward
  other deprived groups
• Elitism, academicism