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This study argues that the changing relationship between paid work, unpaid work and paid care work and social services, and the struggle over this relationship and its implications, constituted key factors in shaping the ‘state socialist’ gender regime in Hungary from 1949 to the 1980s. The study is based on a wealth of recent scholarship, original sources and Hungarian research conducted during the state socialist period. It tries to give a balanced and inclusive analysis of key elements of women’s and gender history in the state socialist project of ‘catching-up development’ in a semi-peripheral patriarchal society, pointing to constraints, challenges and results of this project. Due to the complex interaction of a variety of actors and factors impacting on and shaping the state socialist gender regime not all women were affected in the same way by state socialist politics and gender struggles. Women’s status and opportunities, as well as gender relations, differed according to class, ethnicity and economic sector. As a rule, the gender struggle over state socialist family and gender arrangements in Hungary sought to reduce or temper tensions and conflicts by avoiding substantial or direct attack against the privileges of men both within the home and elsewhere.

This article looks at various models of women's agency in Poland in the context of religion. Based on fieldwork among members of two feminized religious milieus—a new religious movement the Brahma Kumaris and an informal Catholic fundamentalist group—this article discusses the role of silence in ritual and everyday life as a form of agency. From the perspective of feminist discourse, particularly Western liberal feminism, silence is often interpreted as a lack of power. Drawing on informants' experiences, under Polish gender regimes, particularly as they relate to the organization of public and private spheres, silence is shown to be a fundamental component of agency. The analysis of silence displays the complexity of religious issues in Poland and serves as a critique of assumptions about religious homogeneity and the pervasiveness of religious authority in Poland.

This article offers an analytical review of the research on gender and the military in Israel since the 1970s. I argue that the research in this field has undergone a paradigmatic shift that is based on five analytical transformations: (1) a move from a binary gendered conception to intersectionality analysis; (2) a shift from a dichotomous perception of the military organization to an analysis based on 'inequality regime' theory; (3) an emphasis on women as agents of change and resistance; (4) a focus on men and militarized masculinities; and (5) macro-analysis of the significance of women's service in a militaristic society. The article concludes with a discussion of the current political dynamics and conflicts that shape both the construction of the military gender regime and the production of the research in this field.

The article gives a systematic assessment of legal attitudes toward family and domestic violence in Soviet Russia to examine whether the incidence of family violence remained as high as it was in the pre-revolutionary period, whether forms of family violence changed due to the new regime and new legal categories, and whether and how the new gender regime (i.e., the proclaimed equality of women and men) influenced the state of family violence in Soviet Russia. The analysis reveals that the Soviet state used the concepts of “hooliganism” and “family-domestic crimes” as the legal frameworks to deal with family violence while the concept of the “problem family” was employed to suggest prevention policies against domestic violence. The article also addresses the problem of continuity in social and criminal policies of Russia within the current application of “traditional values” and explains why this concept is consistent with the Soviet past.

This article advocates autoethnography as a critical feminist methodology for using personal testimony to investigate women’s experience and performance of fandom The article’s centerpiece is an analysis of the personal testimonies of three women—researcher-fans of different ages—of a fan-owned club Hapoel Katamon Jerusalem. In addition to revealing women’s gendered-based experiences and the different ways in which women acquire and perform fandom, their personal stories prove valuable for exposing the gendered regime of the football field. Moreover, they reveal how women who are not fluent in the hegemonic language of fandom make their way in the fandom field as they seek their own voice and position in it. The analysis suggests that women’s participation can disrupt the hegemonic masculinity of fandom and challenge its established boundaries, thereby problematizing accepted definitions of the authentic fan.

Building on the assumption that cultural representations of the past contribute to the establishment and regulation of gendered power relations, this article investigates the representations of female participation in the Nazi regime in the German television series Hitlers Frauen. Stuart Hall's concept of decoding is used for a critical media analysis, asking how men and women are positioned as historical agents or passive objects in the series. In fact, the series plays on the gendered symbols and representations associated with the Third Reich. It reproduces traditional ideas regarding the (non)relation between femininity and politics and evokes a sexualized imaginary where women are seduced by a powerful, charismatic leader. Women are represented as dependent-materially, physically, and emotionally. In this way, the television series contributes to the continuation of traditional gender regimes. Even when the series apparently reacts to ongoing debates about women's role within the Nazi system, it disappoints those who hoped to learn about the reasons, interests, and possibilities of women between 1933 and 1945.