Questioning Perestroika

A Socialist-Feminist Interrogation

Bibliographic Data

ID3947259
AuthorsRuth Pearson (0000-0002-5741-5050, Development Studies Unit of the University of East Anglia, corresponding author)
Year1991
Volume39
Issue1
Pages91-96
Publication date1991-11-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueFeminist Review (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0141-7789 • E-ISSN: 1466-4380
PublisherJSTOR (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.2307/1395442
OpenAlexW4245051020
LanguageEN
Citations received5
References cited4

At the end of 1989 when I was asked to write a background paper about trends in the world economy and the implications for women in Europe, the scenario seemed manageable. I was able if somewhat tentatively to identify five major trends and to speculate on their implications for women in Europe in the context of the changes in Eastern Europe and the USSR which were beginning to unfold.' But, by post-Gulf War 1991, predictions are no longer feasible. All that is possible is to try and catch the questions which subsequent and continuing events have disclosed, and to map out some of the parameters which might constrain the answers. The first task therefore is to grasp the implications of opening up the Eastern European states and the Soviet Union, not only to the global economy, but to the systems of trade and finance which govern international economic relations. The need to earn hard currency has been met in various Third World countries by export of manufactured goods which are competitive in Western markets because they are based on the exploitation of cheap female labour (Elson and Pearson, 1981). The enthusiasm of reforming East European governments and their advisers from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for the privatization of industry and the elimination of obstacles to trading outside the protective barriers of COMECON have raised the possibility in many quarters of foreign investment in Eastern Europe and the USSR on a similar basis to the export platforms of South East Asia, Northern Mexico and elsewhere (South, 1990). Indeed during recent months the administrations of several Soviet cities and states, including Leningrad (CDSP, 1990a), and Sakhalin Island in the Soviet Far East (The Economist, 1990) have proposed establishing Free Economic Zones, where economic and legal restraints to private enterprise will be removed. These proposals echo the logic of Free Trade Zones and Export Processing Zones where much of Third World export

Context (archaeology) · Currency · Economics · Economy · Enthusiasm · Feminism · Goods and services · Human sexuality · International relations · International trade · Interrogation · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Anthropology · Communism, Protests, Social Movements · Cultural Studies · Eastern European Communism and Reforms · European history and politics · Gender Studies · Law · Urbanization and City Planning

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