Civil society - important to the feminist project
Professor Anne Phillips from the School of Economics and Political Science in United Kingdom discussed if there exists a feminist angle on the civil society. She explained that in most countries the state is more thoroughly male dominated than the world of work, of education, of the professions. She argued that women both historically and today are caught within the family circumstances that they have experienced as confinement rather than haven, and denied access to most of the corridors of state power. Consequently, many women have looked to their involvement within housing associations, neighbourhood committees, campaign groups, and local branches of political parties as the main way of changing their own (and other people’s) lives. She said: “Civil society was hugely important to the development of nineteenth century feminism, which drew many of its activists from the philanthropic and reform associations that proliferated through the century and gave women their first experience of public life. Both historically and to-day, civil society could be said to be peculiarly important to the feminist project”. Hence she concluded that much of the activity in the civil society is highly gendered with some associations and activities that are predominantly male, and others that are predominantly female.

The non-profit sector is gendering the voluntary activities
Professor Thomas Boje from the University of Roskilde, Denmark, discussed the gendered organisation of paid work, unpaid work and care work in Europe in the late modernity.
He emphasized on the basis of an empirical study in The Netherlands, United Kingdom and Scandinavia that a high level of universal welfare commitment and an institutionalised welfare system seem to stimulate voluntary work for a non-profit organisation while the informal work done for friends and relatives seems to be widespread both in countries with a high and low level of welfare commitment. Moreover, he explained that the employed individuals tend to be more involved in voluntary work than individuals who are inactive. Citizens who are integrated in the labour market tend to have more extended social networks and more social resources than other and are therefore also more involved in voluntary activities. Regarding gender in voluntary activities, he concluded that “in countries where social services, health and education play a dominant role in voluntary activities women are in majority among the volunteers – the Netherlands, the United kingdom - while men dominate in countries where culture, sport, and interest groups are the principal non-profit organisations - the Scandinavian countries”.

Islamic NGOs may have been successful in creating masculine and feminine identities in South-eastern Europe
Professor Kristen Ghodsee from the Bowdoin College in Maine, USA, presented her initial research findings on foreign Islamic aid in South-Eastern Europe. She aims to expand the field of inquiry on foreign aid and NGOs in the post socialist context by examining a little-studied but very important alternate source of funding for civil society in the former communist countries – the Middle East. On the basis of four months of fieldwork in Bulgaria in 2004 and 2005 and a series of interviews with high-ranking officials in the Muslim hierarchy Ghodsee explained that the Islamic aid has been inserted into the Bulgarian context at a historic moment of time as masculine and feminine identities are being reimagined in the wake of the collapse of communism and the rapid disappearance of Bulgaria’s industrial and mining sectors in a rural area heavily populated by Slavic Muslims. Consequently, she argued that “Islamic NGOs may have been successful in creating new masculine identities for men displaced by economic restructuring and unemployment while at the same time constructing an appropriate femininity for women that erodes their position in the public sphere while strengthening their role in the home.”

Smaller Women’s NGOs struggle for survival after EU Enlargement
Dr. Silke Roth from the University of Southampton, United Kingdom, discussed the impact of the EU Enlargement process on women’s NGOs in the Central and Eastern Europe. She explained that “during the accession process, women’s NGOs were able to use the EU in order to put pressure on national governments to introduce women and gender friendly legislation and regulations, but after joining the EU, the governments of the new members states realized that there is little pressure of the EU to implement women friendly and gender sensitive policies and regulations”.
She emphasized that although women’s NGOs gained better access to EU bodies and the right to apply for EU funding through the EU membership, they realized that the application for EU resources is complicated, time-consuming and rarely successful. Moreover, the distribution of EU structural funds can be controlled by the national governments. At the same time women’s NGOs lost financial support from previous donors (for example American foundations) who assumed that it was not longer needed and should be spend on NGOs and projects in non-EU countries. As she argued: “while bigger NGOs benefited from these changes, better access to EU funds, smaller NGOs are now struggling for survival”.


Source web: http://www.cinefogo.org/workpackages/wp12/gender-citizenship-and-participation