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IZOLDA TAKÁCS: THROUGH A GLASS DARKLY
By guoting certain parts of the interviews, I intend to demonstrate the exact
traditional as well as brand-new issues female scientists have or could have
faced during the era of state socialism.
The fact that state socialism brought profound changes and fundamentally
transformed the previous social structure is commonly known. Furthermore,
all this was joined with significant changes in worldview and reasoning. The
most expressive way to illustrate how impactful the characteristics in mental¬
ity introduced in this era were is to point to certain mental conditionings which
people could not shed even after the end of socialism.” The results of in-depth
interview research done by Maria Neményi show, for example, that the ma¬
jority of people socialised during the decades of state socialism could not
clearly separate the role of the state and the employer even in the 2000s. Thus,
they have attributed certain benefits, such as GYED [child care fee], company
nursery or kindergarten, etc. even after 2000 to the state.*** The same heritage
can also be observed with regards to their relationship toward the public sphere
and politics.
Inspecting the participation in politics in Hungary during the turn of the
millennium as well as the characteristics of domestic political activity, certain
researchers have found that paternalism, the need for a nanny state, still has
a heavy presence as a heritage of the Kadar-era of sorts. Moreover, the lack of
interest towards public matters, social atomisation and the lack of “civil cour¬
age” is also present to this day.*” All this ingrainedness could remain so ap¬
parent and persistent because the ideological and political set of requirements
and conditions existed from 1948 until 1989, and it only changed, during all
this time, insofar as the totalitarian model adopted a trait in the mid-60s which
we could call “weakening authoritarian”.*
RIGHTS, RESPONSIBILITIES, TOLERATIONS AND BANS IN THE SHADOW OF
STATE IDEOLOGY
The equal political and civil rights of men and women have been codified as
fundamental rights and embedded into the Constitution in our country after
World War II (Hungarian Constitution, Act XX of 1949), furthermore, the
right of women to education, free choice of career and occupation has also
297 Valuch, T.: Magyar hétköznapok. Fejezetek a mindennapi élet történetéből a második
világháborútól az ezredfordulóig, Budapest, Napvilág, 2013, 7.
298 Neményi, M.: Család és családpolitika, Szociológiai Szemle 2003, 1, 26.
299 Valuch, T.: ,Ne szólj szám...". A politikai részvétel és a politikai aktivitás néhány sajátossága
az ezredforduló Magyarországán, Metszetek. Társadalomtudományi Folyóirat, Vol. 2, No.
2-3, 2013, 153.
300 Valuch, T.: A magyar művelődés 1948 után, in Kósa, L. (ed.): Magyar müvelödestörtenet,
Budapest, Osiris, 1998, 461.
+ 106