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Publication Gendered Work, Skill, and Women's Labor Activism in Romanian Tobacco Factories from the 1920s to the 1960s(Cambridge University Press, 2023) Ghiț, AlexandraIn this article, I choose struggles over skill development as an entry point to uncovering features of women's labor activism in state-owned tobacco factories in Romania, from the 1920s to the early 1960s. I look at the processes that constructed women tobacco workers, especially those at the Tobacco Manufactory in the city of Cluj, as non-skilled workers, and examine the forms of labor activism in the tobacco industry that challenged those constructs. I describe how women's work at the Cluj Tobacco Manufactory, from the mid-1920s to the mid-1950s, was shaped by successive waves of production intensification and rationalization, demonstrating that these reorganizations affected female workers more than they affected their male coworkers. I point out that although they were considered non-skilled laborers, female tobacco workers exercised an amount of control over their work and were important contributors to their families’ maintenance. I show that spanning two different political regimes, matters of skill were at the core of labor activism. For female workers, in the interwar period, labor activism in male-dominated organizations and structures entailed skill-mediated political strategies that emphasized experience and shopfloor status besides skill. By the 1950s, labor activism encompassed engaging in confrontational politics over seasoned women workers’ lack of access to skill training programs. I show that both in the late 1920s and in the early 1950s, illiteracy and women's more limited access to formal schooling in general shaped new experiences of participation in labor politics.Publication Women’s Labour Struggles in Central and Eastern Europe and Beyond: Toward a Long-Term, Transregional, Integrative, and Critical Approach(Brill, 2023) Çağatay, Selin; Erdélyi, Mátyás; Ghiț, Alexandra; Gnydiuk, Olga; Helfert, Veronika; Masheva, Ivelina; Popova, Zhanna; Tešija, Jelena; Varsa, Eszter; Zimmermann, Susan; Department of Gender Studies; Department of History and Medieval StudiesThe introductory chapter provides a historiographic and thematic framing for the contributions and, we hope, for future research. The first section discusses the existing historiography of the region, highlighting the long history of writing on women’s labour activism in Central and Eastern Europe and its adjacent territories within and across the borders of different types of empires and nation-states, and across vastly diverse political regimes. The second section discusses key contributions of the chapters assembled in the volume to the study of women’s (and sometimes men’s) quests for the improvement of the lives and working conditions of women, pointing to their interconnections and highlighting their contributions to the development of long-term and transregional approaches to the history of women’s labour struggles. The third section expands on the rationale for studying women’s labour struggles from a long-term, transregional, integrative, and critical perspective, further discusses insights emerging from the volume and other scholarship, and highlights challenges as well as directions for ongoing and future research in the field of women’s labour activism.Publication The blue and white pin that matters(2017) Pető, AndreaPublication Populist Female Leaders should not be underestimated(2013) Pető, AndreaPublication Far Rights Movements and Gendered Mobilisation in Hungary(2012) Pető, AndreaPublication Teaching women‘s history in Eastern Europe - for rethinking(2003) Pető, AndreaPublication A háborús nemi erőszak és a nőgyógyász lobbi hatása a magyarországi születésszabályozási rendszerre(2021) Pető, Andrea; Svégel, FanniA tanulmány bemutatja, hogyan kapcsolódott össze a születésszabályozás és születéskorlátozás a tömeges nemi erőszakkal az első és a második világháborúban, továbbá hogyan erősítette fel a korábban is meglevő vitákat a nemi erőszak jelensége, illetve ennek milyen törvényi és a nők életdöntéseit befolyásoló gyakorlati következményei voltak. Az első világháború során elkövetett nemierőszak-esetek indították el a nyilvános szakpolitikai vitákat, amelyek nyomán fokozatosan egyre nagyobb teret engedtek a terhesség legális megszakításának. Az 1945-ös tömeges katonai erőszak pedig precedensértékű legalizációt hozott magával, ami után a magyar szabályozás a váltakozó szovjet családpolitikát követte. A cikk bemutatja, hogy a szülész–nőgyógyász lobbi hogyan vett részt a vitákban, illetve hogyan volt képes szakmai és anyagi érdekeit az éppen aktuális szakpolitikai döntések során is képviselni, például az 1952-es népesedéspolitikai kampány során. Az abortuszbizottságok és társadalmi szerepük meghatározónak bizonyultak legalább egy nőgeneráció számára. Az ötvenes évek elején megkezdődő erőteljes medikalizáció és adminisztrációs ellenőrzés a hetvenes évekre megváltoztatta a születésszabályozási rendszert: a terhességmegszakítások dominanciáját fokozatosan felváltotta a modern fogamzásgátló szerek széleskörű használata. Az újabb népesedéspolitikai kampány (1973) és a civil ellenállás, majd a rendszerváltást követő alkotmányos szabályozás körüli kiélezett viták mutatják a mára létrejött kényes egyensúly törékenységét és a kompromisszumos megoldás egyfajta lehetőségét.Publication ‘Unfettered Freedom’ Revisited: Hungarian Historical Journals between 1989 and 2018(2021) Pető, Andrea; Barna, IldikóIn his 1992 article, ‘Today, Freedom is Unfettered in Hungary,’ Columbia University history professor István Deák argued that after 1989 Hungarian historical research enjoyed ‘unfettered freedom. Deák gleefully listed the growing English literature on Hungarian history and hailed the ‘step-by step dismantling of the Marxist-Leninist edifice in historiography’ that he associated with the Institute of History at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (HAS) under the leadership of György Ránki (1930–88). In this article he argued that the dismantling of communist historiography had started well before 1989. Besides celebrating the establishment of the popular science-oriented historical journal, History (História) (founded in 1979) and new institutions such as the Európa Intézet – Europa Institute (founded in 1990) or the Central European University (CEU) (founded in 1991) as turning points in Hungarian historical research, Deák listed the emergence of the question of minorities and Transylvania; anti-Semitism and the Holocaust; as well as the 1956 revolution. It is very true that these topics were addressed by prominent members of the Hungarian democratic opposition who were publishing in samizdat publications: among them János M. Rainer, the director of the 1956 Institute after 1989, who wrote about 1956. This list of research topics implies that other topics than these listed before had been free to research and were not at all political. This logic interiorised and duplicated the logic of communist science policy and refused to acknowledge other ideological interventions, including his own, while also insisting on the ‘objectivity’ of science. Lastly, Deák concluded that ‘there exists a small possibility that the past may be rewritten again, in an ultra-conservative and xenophobic vein. This is, however, only a speculation.’ Twenty years later Ignác Romsics, the doyen of Hungarian historiography, re-stated Deák's claim, arguing that there are no more ideological barriers for historical research. However, in his 2011 article Romsics strictly separated professional historical research as such from ‘dilettantish or propaganda-oriented interpretations of the past, which leave aside professional criteria and feed susceptible readers – and there are always many – with fraudulent and self-deceiving myths’. He thereby hinted at a new threat to the historical profession posed by new and ideologically driven forces. The question of where these ‘dilettantish or propaganda-oriented’ historians are coming from has not been asked as it would pose a painful question about personal and institutional continuity. Those historians who have become the poster boys of the illiberal memory politics had not only been members of the communist party, they also received all necessary professional titles and degrees within the professional community of historians.Publication "Better stories" in higher education. Cunning strategies for gender studies: What can you do when nothing can be done? Can the hangman be an ally of gender studies?(2023) Pető, AndreaThis paper is based on two arguments: First, “grim storytelling” only gives access to part of the story and therefore needs to be supplemented with “better stories” — stories that generate an understanding of human potentiality, creativity, resilience, interconnectedness and shared “vulnerability”. Second, the tendency towards “grim storytelling” in critical social sciences constitutes a major limitation for the possibilities of imagining and enacting the very transformations that Europe most urgently needs in order to enhance the European project.Publication Memorialization of the Holocaust(2014) Pető, AndreaPublication Fear Eats the Soul: self-quarantining in an illiberal state(2020) Pető, AndreaFear Eats the Soul is one of the several remarkable films by Rainer Werner Fassbinder from 1974. The unlikely love story between a 60 year old German widow, who works as a cleaner, and Moroccan guest worker in his late 30s, shows how fear is manifested in words, in actions and also in the stomach ulcer of the guest worker. Fear is a governing force of all lives: fear saves us from drowning in a steep river and fear also prevents us telling an honest opinion about our colleague’s work. Fear, especially one type of it, the ‘existential fear’, has recently been used as an explanation for the resurgence of illiberalism and different forms of populism. One fears from impoverishment, job loss, premature death due to an infection in the underfinanced health care system, loneliness and the real list of subjects of fear can go on. But fear is a tricky emotion as Fassbinder knew it so well. It eats the soul as it becomes a part of the body, and not only drives one’s actions but also makes life lived with dignity impossible.Publication The Illiberal Memory Politics in Hungary(2022) Pető, AndreaPublication Roots of illiberal memory politics(2017) Pető, AndreaPublication Gendering De‐Democratization: Gender and Illiberalism in Post‐Communist Europe(2022) Bogaards, Matthijs; Pető, AndreaMany observers have written with concern about a growing “opposition to gender equality,” “anti‐gender campaigns,” and even a “war on gender.” Often, these trends take place in countries that are witnessing a decline in democratic quality, a process captured by such labels as “democratic erosion,” “democratic backsliding,” or “autocratization.” This thematic issue brings together literature on gender equality and de‐democratization with an emphasis on the role of illiberalism and a regional focus on post‐communist Europe.Publication Angriffe gegen die Institutionen der Wissenschaft und ihre Instrumentalisierung im illiberalen Regime. Eine Anregung zum Überdenken der gesellschaftlichen Rolle der Wissenschaft und ihre Perspektiven(transcript Verlag, 2021) Pető, Andrea; Strube, Sonja A.; Perintfalvi, Rita; Hemet, Raphaela; Metze, Miriam; Sahbaz, CicekSystematische Angriffe auf die Geschlechtergerechtigkeit verschärfen sich weltweit und sind in einigen EU-Staaten bereits Teil des Regierungshandelns. Als Infragestellung basaler Menschenrechte und zumeist rechtspopulistisch bzw. fundamentalistisch motiviert gefährden sie die Demokratie. Aus internationaler und interdisziplinärer Perspektive analysieren die Beiträger*innen des Bandes Anti-Genderismus als strategisches Mittel der Emotionalisierung, Mobilisierung und Vernetzung innerhalb des rechten Spektrums und einer im Entstehen begriffenen religiösen Rechten. Mit besonderem Fokus auf die Situation einiger ostmitteleuropäischer Staaten und unter Einbezug von Erfahrungen aus dem LGBTIQ*-Aktivismus erörtern sie, wie dieser Entwicklung konstruktiv-widerständig zu begegnen ist.Publication Roundtable discussion: Thinking together from within the times that worry us. After resistance: Lessons learned from banning gender studies in Hungary(2020) Cielemęcka, Olga; Rogowska-Stangret, Monika; Bhambra, Gurminder K.; Pető, Andrea; Loyer, Jessie; Ivancheva, Mariya; Halldórsdóttir, Nanna HlínThe inaugural section of “Praxiography: practices and institutions” of Matter: Journal of New Materialist Research features a roundtable discussion between five scholars who address matters pertaining to practices, legacies, and affects that comprise today’s academia. Preceded by editors’ introduction, Gurminder K. Bhambra, Andrea Pető, Jessie Loyer, Mariya Ivancheva, and Nanna Hlín Halldórsdóttir offer their reflections on ways of organising, living, and imagining various research and academic praxes by means of thinking with the concepts of resistance, collaboration, solidarity, care, and kinship and consider them from feminist, de-colonial, Indigenous, and other anti-oppressive perspectives.Publication Disputing "Gender" in Academia: Illiberalism and the Politics of Knowledge(2022) Ergas, Yasmine; Kochkorova, Jazgul; Pető, Andrea; Trujillo, NataliaThis article explores the attacks to which gender studies programs in Central and Eastern Europe have been subject and the responses such attacks have elicited in the context of analogous phenomena in other parts of the world. The undermining of gender studies in recent years has been aggravated by the effects of the Covid‐19 pandemic that has exacerbated financial crises of educational institutions while also—in some contexts—providing cover for restrictions on academic freedom. Our specific focus here, however, is on how illiberal policies have limited the scope of academic gender studies, sometimes calling into question their very existence. To identify the modalities through which illiberal governments may narrow gender studies programs, we draw on Pirro and Stanley’s analysis of illiberal policymakers’ toolkit based on “forging,” “breaking,” and “bending.” We consider these categories useful for our analysis but add a fourth: “de‐specification”—a purposeful submersion, or redefinition, of gender studies into other programs, such as family studies. Our purpose is not to present an exhaustive analysis but rather to delineate a framework for analyzing such attacks and the responses to which they have given rise, and then to indicate some questions for further research. As such, this article should be read as a work in progress that seeks to explicate the modalities of the attacks on gender studies in higher education to which contemporary illiberalism has given rise concomitantly with attacks on gender rights and emerging forms of resistance that bespeak the resilience of the gender academy.Publication L’instituzionalizzazione dell’insegnamento degli studi de genere in Ungheria(2008) Pető, AndreaPublication "Bitter experiences" reconsidered: Paradigm change in Holocaust memorialisation(Heinrich Böll Stiftung, 2019) Pető, AndreaThe Holocaust narrative elevated the moral command of “Never Again” into a measure of universal integrity. But now a major paradigm change is happening in Holocaust memorialisation that will have a major impact on European identity.