WHAT CAN WOMEN DO TO CHANGE THE TOTALITARIAN CULTURAL-CONTEXT

This article describes women's situation and how it has been changing in Central/Eastern Europe. An assessment of future options is presente d in the context of an alternative view on what really happened to Sov iet-type societies in 1989: The proposed interpretation is that it was not, as is widely believed, the beginning of a transition from totali tarianism to democracy, but something quite different - a liberation o f the dominant class. Whereas societies of Eastern Europe were not soc ialist in any historically legitimate sense, they incorporated a compl ex set of measures aimed at fulfilling the socialist promise to women. But these ambivalent measures did not have essential liberating poten tial. The article analyzes the ideological turn in women's issues of t he 1970s as part of the deepening legitimation crisis of the power eli te. It shows how this conservative antifeminist campaign prepared the framework of value reorientation which, after November, 1989, made it possible to raise male dominance in Eastern Europe to a new, higher st age. The role of women in the dissident subculture is discussed. In so me fundamental way, coming to power after 1990 contradicted the proud pathos of resistance to domination which was inherent in the very iden tity of women-dissidents. After November, 1989, women who were once mo st active in the dissident subculture silently withdrew from everyday politics. The future of the women's movement, the article claims, depe nds on the future of civil society, and on the advancement of grassroo ts activism in particular.