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Social Science General

Unequal under Socialism

Race, Women, and Transnationalism in Bulgaria

by (author) Miglena S. Todorova

Publisher
University of Toronto Press
Initial publish date
Sep 2021
Category
General, Eastern, Feminism & Feminist Theory, Women, Women's Studies
  • Hardback

    ISBN
    9781487528409
    Publish Date
    Sep 2021
    List Price
    $79.00
  • Paperback / softback

    ISBN
    9781487528416
    Publish Date
    Sep 2021
    List Price
    $31.95
  • eBook

    ISBN
    9781487528430
    Publish Date
    Aug 2021
    List Price
    $31.95

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Description

Unequal under Socialism examines the formation of racial, gender, and national identities and relations in the socialist state. With a specific focus on Bulgaria, a former socialist country in the Balkans, Miglena S. Todorova traces the intertwined local and global forces driving racialization, socialist state policies, and Eurocentric Marxist and Leninist ideologies, all of which led to valued and devalued categories of women. Roma women, Muslim women, ethnic Bulgarian women, sex workers, and female factory and office workers were among those marked by socialist authorities for prosperity, accommodation, violent reformation, or erasure.

 

Covering the period from the 1930s to the present and drawing upon original archival sources as well as a constellation of critical theories, Unequal under Socialism focuses on the lives of different women to articulate deep doubt about the capacity of socialism to sustain societies where all women prosper. Such doubt, the book suggests, is an under-recognized but important force shaping how women in former socialist countries have related to one another and to other women in the global North and South.

About the author

Miglena S. Todorova is an assistant professor in the Department of Social Justice Education and Director of the Centre for Media, Culture, and Education at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto.

Miglena S. Todorova's profile page

Editorial Reviews

“Miglena Todorova's book deserves the attention of both scholars and political activists at a time of extraordinary violence against women's, queer, and racialized bodies in former socialist states and beyond.”

<em>Aspasia</em>