Authors

Discussion

My paper explores a new 'foundational' period of Romanian feminism, this time in relation to the global trends of democratic deconsolidation in the Central and Eastern European region as well as a response to the political insurgency of conservatism. In this new context political which had as its decisive moment the constitutional referendum of 2018 regarding the ban on same-sex marriage, Romanian feminism has preserved its diversity built in the previous period, but had to consolidate itself, turning into one of the most assertive paradigms of opposition to it. Although part of some global trends, democratic deconsolidation and an important crystallization of its, illiberalism, have a specific configuration in Central and Eastern Europe. These actually coincide in the decade 2010-2020, with the economic-financial crisis and the shaking of the model neoliberal capitalist, both through social protests in the street and through electoral and governmental changes. Although the economic and financial crisis called into question the neoliberal order, with the exception of some Southern European countries such as Greece and Spain, the result was not a strengthening of the anti- and alter-capitalist left. Throughout this decade we see rather a strengthening of authoritarian forces, nationalist and conservative, with Donald's presidency as the main benchmark Trump, the British vote to leave the European Union, the emergence of some autoritarian leaders and political forces in Turkey, Israel, Hungary or Poland as well as the emergence / strengthening of political parties which had previously been non-existent or irrelevant (for example AfD in Germany, VOX in Spain, FN in France). This apparently paradoxical dynamic provides the context for the transformations from the feminist field. Although the economic and financial crisis should have disturbed or maybe even end the global hegemony of liberal feminism, giving way to a social feminism, may more or less anti-capitalist, by the end of the decade both are on the defensive and in a the difficult alliance in the face of the conservative insurgency. My paper explores  the way in which the recent conservative mobilization has in turn criticized the liberal feminism and used popular resentment born of economic decay, integrating numerous identity elements that force Romanian feminisms of all kinds to reposition themselves. The population decline one is a central theme of the nationalist-conservative agenda in the region (Poland, Hungary, Romania) which is based on the following conjecture: liberal feminism had as its stake the fight for reproductive rights, so it is to blame for dramatic decrease in population. Simultaneously with this culpability of women for the depopulation and weakening of the nation-state, there was another blame attached to women - the crisis of masculinity, perceived in Eastern Europe also as a crisis of the nation (Zdravomyslova and Temkina 2014; Hallama 2020).