http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2006-02-03-muharska-en.html

Ralitsa Muharska

Silences and parodies in the East-West feminist dialogue

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The virtual absence of a feminist movement in eastern Europe is an important
factor for the absence of a specific discourse developed to meet the needs
of such a movement. Thus, eastern Europeans tend to talk and write about
their experience even when they talk about theory. A typical example: at an
international event where the discussion was supposed to address theoretical
problems of gender representation in eastern European cultures, 70 of the 90
minutes allotted to the topic were unexpectedly diverted into a heated
argument about the significance of the image of the woman on the tractor
during socialism. As the theory in question is mostly "Western", there is a
gap between theory and experience that often remains unfilled. The fact that
Western theory is not based on Western experience, but also deeply rooted in
it, also needs to be emphasized here. "Speaking feminist" in the national
political environment simply does not happen. Furthermore, "speaking
feminist" in the national academic community tends to cause problems with
acceptability, because of its difference; it is looked upon as politicized
and deviant discourse (as opposed to "neutral" and "objective"), and so must
overcome resistance. On the other hand, there is undoubtedly a need to
implant feminist theory in this context, and serious efforts are devoted to
meeting this need across the region.

The gaps in the theory of feminism, especially the social aspects of it

The cultural specificity of the dominant feminist discourses as an
access-limiting factor tends to result in parodic/ironic discursive
practices - this is also a consequence of the necessity to "experientialize"
the discourse that has already been theorized. Eastern European feminism,
instead of developing the natural way - from grass roots (the gradually
growing mass social movement) to theory, seems to have reversed the process:
by "translating" feminist theory, we hope to help our societies develop
gender awareness and everything that comes with it.

As I mentioned, because feminist theory has developed outside eastern
Europe, it rarely, or with questionable adequacy, problematizes the
specifically eastern European (female) experience, or, for that matter,
other "other" experiences. There is always the question, of course, whether
there is a specific experience. Ironically, there also arises the question:
if there actually is an experience, who is to say it is specific? Who has
the representational authority? Is it the people living through it? They
have no tools of their own to explain it and need to borrow these from the
West. The West has developed the language and the politically determined
discursive strategies, the system of talking about female experience, which
claims the universality of this experience: feminist theory. Western
feminists, however, can have only a vicarious and therefore limited
knowledge of the eastern European experience (with some exceptions). So,
while both sides are in a position of questionable adequacy where speaking
and representational authority is concerned, they are also in a position of
questionable legitimacy. Both positions are more-than-one-dimensional, and
this affords an impressive multitude of opportunities for displacement (or
misplacement) of voices, for ambiguities, ironies, and problematic
interpretations.

For example, when eastern European feminists speak "outward" - that is, to
the West (and whenever they speak out - outward - they speak [in]to the
West, the West is what they look up to, rely on, hope to be integrated
into), they assume a representative function. So in many cases they
speak/produce texts in a narrative mode, with the purpose to present,
inform, show, and fill information gaps. The problem of necessary
generalization is important here. Along with generalization come the
accompanying potentialities for distortion: "two-speak"; mockery
(intentional or not); the playing up - or down - of facts merely to please a
particular audience; the personal prejudices or limitations of the
speakers/authors; the possibility - and temptation - to present as fact what
may be simply opinion; the possibility that with the act of "speaking out",
an eastern European feminist is claiming more power, not only for eastern
European feminism, but for herself as well.
...

Borrowing feminism

In eastern Europe, societies tend to look upon feminism as something
borrowed, even where women's movements have a longer tradition and more
public prominence than in Bulgaria. The irony of borrowing is that we need
to borrow not only the discourses but the practices of the feminist
movement: consciousness raising, gender awareness, etc. Borrowing social
practice has proved historically problematic; on the other hand, it is and
has been taking place everywhere, and seems to be inherent in the very idea
of historical development. Another consequence of the absent feminist
movement in eastern Europe worth mentioning is the "individual feminist" -
the eastern European figure of dubious cultural as well as political status,
who can be seen as a parodic phenomenon herself, illustrating the oxymoronic
cultural blending of an activist without activities, representative without
representation, other without same(s), both desired and undesired, different
but similar.
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