The Czechs in a Nutshell

The Czechs’ somewhat cold relations towards emigrants can also be explained in a more scientific way. The social anthropologist Ladislav Holý, himself a Czech who settled in Great Britain in the 1970s, claims that his former countrymen perceive emigration in a different way than is common in the West.

In the ideology of Western liberalism, Holý maintains, emigration is considered a personal matter, which is of no interest to the rest of the society. In a cultural ideology, as in Czech society, which, on the contrary, underlines collectivism, emigration is seen as a moral problem. One of the key concepts in Czech national identity is, according to the social anthropologist, the birth and the re-birth of the nation. In other words, the term “mother country” is to be interpreted literally; i.e., as a mother. Thus, those who leave their country for a longer period have in practice renounced their nationality forever.

Ladislav Holý’s views on emigration in a Czech cultural context were undoubtedly coloured by his own experiences with former colleagues, who did not exactly greet “the British smartass” with open arms when he returned to Czechoslovakia shortly after the Velvet Revolution. Today, however, his views on emigration may sound a bit categorical. During the last decade, emigrants have gradually lost their diabolical reputation, and emigration as such has been treated less and less as a touchy issue.

As a result, it stirred only minor commotion when two returned emigrants (both of them with double citizenships) took places in the government that was appointed in 1998. Another important milestone was reached three years later, when some 80,000 Czech citizens living outside the country’s borders got the right to participate in elections. It’s a less important fact that just a minority of them actually used their formal rights to vote.

Feminism

Ask any modern, educated Czech woman whether she thinks it’s acceptable for a man in the same professional position to earn 15-20 percent more than her. Then ask if she shares the view that women don’t belong in the Parliament or in the management of big companies. Or if she believes that a young woman’s natural career is that of a mother and housewife. Most likely, she will answer “no” to all three questions. But if you then, logically, conclude, “So you are a feminist”, consider yourself lucky if she only smashes your face.

Why? To the great majority of Czech women, the word “feminism” is automatically associated with an ugly, militant, man-hating creature with unshaved legs, greasy hair and a nasty personality; in short, a hag who will never ever get a husband, which she doesn’t want anyway, because in this country it’s commonly known that all feminists are, in reality, lesbians.

One obvious reason for this somewhat eccentric attitude is to be found in the recent era of communism. To the Bolsheviks, women’s liberation and feminism — in its Marxist interpretation — were important political topics. True, the Czech communists didn’t go so far as their Russian comrades, who took great pride in putting women at building railroads or driving cranes and heavy machinery, but also their method of “liberating” women from the capitalist order was based on forcing them to work. As a result, in no other country on the planet, except in the former German “Democratic” Republic, did women represent a larger part of the working force than in communist Czechoslovakia.

This, however, definitely did not mean that women were treated as equals with men. On the contrary, the propaganda spoke loudly about equal opportunities for both genders, but women were in fact systematically discriminated against, both in terms of wages and career opportunities. When it came to higher education, the communists even revealed themselves as far more conservative than most capitalists: as late as in the 1980s, young men were almost automatically preferred in natural sciences, whereas their female counterparts ended up studying humanities.

The political dimension of the communists’ mock fight for “equal rights” made it even more inedible. To show how progressive the regime was, many political organs had quotas that fixed an obligatory number of female members. Of course, in most cases these women were only assigned to walk-on roles as political alibis, but thanks to female comrades such as the infamous Marie Kabrhelová, a red version of Margaret Thatcher who preached the Party’s equal-rights gospel with downright religious intensity, feminism’s credibility was ruined for generations.