Page 77 - Darko Štrajn, From Walter Benjamin to the End of Cinema: Identities, Illusion and Signification. Ljubljana: Educational Research Institute, 2017. Digital Library, Dissertationes, 29.
P. 77
the pleasure to forbid pleasure
need for the formation of new social binds within the changed political or-
der was answered by manifold elaborations of various convictions, projec-
tions and, most significantly, by regressions to some almost forgotten val-
ues in an effort for social agents to impose their ideological or even straight
political hegemony. Although the countries in Eastern Europe represent a
vast diversity, we may assume that they are all mostly occupied with a very
much controversial construction of society. Politics of gender and the cor-
responding ideologies, almost un-important or at least less critically ex-
posed in the time of opposition to the bureaucratic socialism, took a place
on the central stage.
With some exceptions (notably Romania), the socialist societies in the
last decades of their existence introduced many reforms in the domain of
sexual politics. The communist parties in a desperate search to modernise
their ideologies, along with an effort to patch up the economic systems, in-
troduced a range of reforms in the “soft sectors” of society, such as educa-
tion and culture and, last but not least, in the domain of rights of women.
Therefore, it is not surprising that especially in Central European countries
(mostly sharing common Catholic tradition) new governments introduced
(or were at least exposed to such pressures) explicit or implicit policies for
reducing women’s rights. This reduction of rights touches most explicitly
upon the right to have abortion on demand.
Conservatism and Traditionalism vs Freedom of Choice
Many efforts of political groups, and characteristically the Catholic Church,
to cancel or limit women’s rights have become a boring fact of daily life in
most former socialist countries. On the phenomenal level something very
similar to what has taken place in the USA in 1980s occurred. Questions of
abortion, along with the neoliberal concepts of economy, became a consti-
tutive element of a new variance of conservative ideology. Although the un-
derlying social circumstances are plausibly totally different, American slo-
gans and pointed phraseology entered the ideological discourse of various
traditionalist political groups. Among such slogans we can find the “right
to life”, coined by the Family Division within NCCB (National Conference
of Catholic Bishops) in USA in 1970. (All references to the American an-
ti-abortionism are to be found in Petchesky, 1986.) Later on, when the front
against abortion broadened, miscellaneous forms of the protestant funda-
mentalism, groups of the orthodox Jews, Mormons and black Muslims en-
tered in to its ranks. This strongly religiously marked social bases of the
75
need for the formation of new social binds within the changed political or-
der was answered by manifold elaborations of various convictions, projec-
tions and, most significantly, by regressions to some almost forgotten val-
ues in an effort for social agents to impose their ideological or even straight
political hegemony. Although the countries in Eastern Europe represent a
vast diversity, we may assume that they are all mostly occupied with a very
much controversial construction of society. Politics of gender and the cor-
responding ideologies, almost un-important or at least less critically ex-
posed in the time of opposition to the bureaucratic socialism, took a place
on the central stage.
With some exceptions (notably Romania), the socialist societies in the
last decades of their existence introduced many reforms in the domain of
sexual politics. The communist parties in a desperate search to modernise
their ideologies, along with an effort to patch up the economic systems, in-
troduced a range of reforms in the “soft sectors” of society, such as educa-
tion and culture and, last but not least, in the domain of rights of women.
Therefore, it is not surprising that especially in Central European countries
(mostly sharing common Catholic tradition) new governments introduced
(or were at least exposed to such pressures) explicit or implicit policies for
reducing women’s rights. This reduction of rights touches most explicitly
upon the right to have abortion on demand.
Conservatism and Traditionalism vs Freedom of Choice
Many efforts of political groups, and characteristically the Catholic Church,
to cancel or limit women’s rights have become a boring fact of daily life in
most former socialist countries. On the phenomenal level something very
similar to what has taken place in the USA in 1980s occurred. Questions of
abortion, along with the neoliberal concepts of economy, became a consti-
tutive element of a new variance of conservative ideology. Although the un-
derlying social circumstances are plausibly totally different, American slo-
gans and pointed phraseology entered the ideological discourse of various
traditionalist political groups. Among such slogans we can find the “right
to life”, coined by the Family Division within NCCB (National Conference
of Catholic Bishops) in USA in 1970. (All references to the American an-
ti-abortionism are to be found in Petchesky, 1986.) Later on, when the front
against abortion broadened, miscellaneous forms of the protestant funda-
mentalism, groups of the orthodox Jews, Mormons and black Muslims en-
tered in to its ranks. This strongly religiously marked social bases of the
75
