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GENDER HISTORY RETROSPECTIVE IN HUNGARY AFTER 1949
during the whole socialist era, and keeping up a certain standard of living
required the gainful employment of both partners in most cases.*”
As opposed to this, the majority of women belonging to the white-collar
class and the political elite were, not surprisingly, able to utilise the possibil¬
ities originating from paid labour, because they enjoyed certain advantages
compared to other women and also because they were able to pass on a part
of their caretaking responsibilities to other women. Zimmermann has pointed
to this fact by quoting the study Two Generations’ Perceptions of Femininity
in Post-Socialist Hungary (1999) by Anna Kende and Maria Neményi:
White-collar professionals, or experts with a college degree with a career, have
on occasion achieved more than their husbands, and women whose families had
substantial reserves had the opportunity to delegate housekeeping onto other
women. Based on this study, the positive three-part identity of these women ¬
enjoying social privileges due to their employment compared to other women —
has at the same time been linked by both the traditional family roles and gender
equality.°’®
Finally, we can state that the real problem of discrimination against women
could not be solved by the soviet emancipation model. It turned out that, irre¬
spective of the particular social organisation and its ideology — which had a
significant impact on social relations and provided opportunities to hundreds of
thousands of women in the world outside of their family —, the biggest disadvan¬
tages that women had to endure, the traditional social roles based on gender
stereotypes and structural disadvantages, remained unchanged. We can assert
that as long as women’s emancipation exclusively serves the goals of propaganda,
and the equality of relationships inside and outside the family is not actually
realised, no change will ever take place.
352 Schadt: , A feltörekvő dolgozó nő", 128.
353 Neményi-Kende, guoted by Zimmermann: A társadalmi-nemi (gender-) rezsim, 83-84.