Mihaela Miroiu: Ethical Liberalism – an Ally to Feminism? Reflections on Post-Communist Transition and Europeanization

28. Oktober 2014, 19:00 c.t.
Rewi-Hörsaal, Schenkenstraße 8-10, 4. Stock, 1010 Wien

Post-communist transition and Europeanization created enabling as well challenging conditions for feminism. However, one lesson must be learned:
Neither the classical liberalism, nor social-democracy, nor (even less) communism, not to mention the nowadays neo-conservative and neoliberal backlash against welfare policies provide sufficient conditions for gender justice. The de-politicization of the feminist agenda, which is now an insidious phenomenon in advanced liberal democracies, is dangerous: It lets women get carried away by the mainstream agenda without being able to determine policies in accordance with their ideas and interests; it encourages new democracies to deal with gender problems as footnotes to the political agendas, even in the name of gender mainstreaming. The lecture will critically reflect these processes from a feminist perspective which is deeply
indebted to ethical liberalism.

Mihaela Miroiu is a Professor at the Faculty of Political Science, National School of Political Studies and Public Administration, Bucharest. She is the author, editor and co-editor of several books published in Romanian, including “Road to Autonomy: Feminist Political Theories” (Polirom, 2004), “Priceless Women” (Polirom 2006) and “Convenio: On Women, Nature and Morals” (Alternative Publishing House, 1996). She founded Romania‘s first gender studies Master program in 1998, and helped to organize one of its earliest independent women’s nongovernmental organizations: AnA –The Romanian Society for Feminist Analyses.
She is an expert advisor to both UNESCO and the European Union, and has won international fellowships at Cornell University, Oxford University and the Central European University in Budapest. She was also a Fulbright recipient and was resident in the Department of Political Science at Indiana University in 2003–2004. In 2010, the U.S.-based Association of Women in Slavic Studies awarded her its Outstanding Achievement Award for her accomplishments as a philosopher and her mentorship of a new generation of young Romanian feminists.