Romanian Women’s Campaign for Change Georgeta Ghebrea

Democratisation Movements n Opponents n Civic activists n Bureaucrats n Columnists n Femocrats n Scholars n Political leaders n Social activists

Women’s Most Important Contributions to Democratisation Are: n Opposition to the communist regime n Founding civic and social movements n Founding political parties n Raising the social awareness regarding the gender topics n Local development n Improving women’s social status (health, education, standard of life, economic activity)

The Main Instruments for Achieving These Aims Were: n Protest letters n Dissemination using a diversity of channels,training courses mass-media, internet, seminars, conferences, campaigns) n Voluntary work for community n Doing research and feminist studies n Teaching n Lobbying n Street march and meetings n Public administration

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

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

Co-operation n Collaboration between the women’s organisations is sporadic n The European Union: legislation and funding of gender policies n European NGOs: know-how and courage n The Government: insufficient support for women’s NGOs n Women politicians: weak and formal relationships n Local and regional NGOs: alliance for charity actions n Trade unions: priority to the employees’ interests over the women’s cause

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

Conclusion n General: u women’s marginalisation u the communist legacy u lack of solidarity u low political participation u enlargement as an opportunity

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