This talk focuses on the case study of the Committee for the Bulgarian Women’s Movement, and examines its international activities during the United Nations Decade for Women. It is rarely considered that Eastern Bloc women may have used their privileged relationship with the Communist Party to promote policies that actually helped women that they could push back at male patriarchal elites by appealing to higher communist principles regarding the woman question. In the West, these state women’s organizations were treated with suspicion they were often viewed as tools of authoritarian control, mobilizing women to fulfil Party goals.
Although the specificities of these organizations varied from country to country, they were all state-run mass organizations variously charged with mobilizing domestic women and/or representing their nations at international forums concerning women’s rights.
This talk reflects on national women’s organizations, which were a ubiquitous feature of all of the East European communist nations.
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