According to the most recent statistics, every fourth woman in Bulgaria is a victim of domestic violence. In Bulgaria there is no special legislation to protect the victims of this kind of violence, even though a draft bill on protection from domestic violence has been pending in Parliament since April 2003.
In honour of International Women's Day, March 8, The Sofia Echo explores the various issues women in Bulgaria and abroad face.
Marlene Smits

In the past Bulgarian society had three classes: the zadruga, the peasants, the chorbadzhii, a small wealthy class of landowners, and the esnafi , traders, who later became the bourgeoisie. Until the communist era, most Bulgarians were so-called zadruga. They lived in an extended family that lived and labored together. For them the highest authority in the `family' was the zadruga leader. Whatever he says goes. His wife also enjoyed a great deal of respect. She was heading typical women's tasks like tending the garden, sewing and coordinating rituals.
During the 19th century the zadruga began to fall apart because youngsters started to leave the zadruga's traditional ways behind. The zadruga fell apart even more after Bulgaria's independence from the Ottoman Empire in 1878. Bulgaria began to adopt Western style laws, giving women inheritance rights. During the times of post-war communist modernisation, family life remained one of the most important values in Bulgaria. In 1977 in a sociological survey, 95 per cent of women claimed "one can live a full life only if one has a family." At the start of the 20th century until the 1970's, the marriage rate was stable at around 10 per cent per year. In rural areas there were significantly less couples tying the knot than in cities. This is due to the growing group of elderly people in villages. The average age of women who got married was between 18 and 25. For men, the average age was between 20 and 25. Village men married significantly earlier than educated city men, who often got married in their late twenties. The less educated men choose their brides on the following criteria: hard working, modest and pleasant character. In the more educated groups of men respect, common interest and education were the key factors.
Before 1944 divorce was rarely heard of in Bulgaria. But between 1944 and 1983 the divorce rate increased. It reached a peak of 16.3 per cent. In the 1980's the divorce rate was more than double in cities, compared to rural areas. Forty-four per cent of all divorces were among couples that were married less than five years. In 1991 these numbers changed and more often people who had been married for a longer period got divorced. The government issued restrictions on divorce in 1985 because it got increasingly worried about Bulgaria's dropping birth rates. In order to file for divorce one had to pay a sum that equaled an average salary of three months. Plus, every divorce application was investigated. The most common reasons for filing divorce were: infidelity, habitual drunkenness and incompatibility. The average family in 1991 consisted of four people. If families were larger, this mostly meant that grandparents were living in, not that more children were being born. Even though three, or even four, generations living together under one roof was mainly a village way of life, a lot of people in cities still lived in this way, mainly for financial reasons.
Under the socialist regime, emancipation of women was a favourite pet subject. That's why it is stated in the constitution that `all citizens of the People's Republic of Bulgaria are equal before the law, and no privileges or limitations of rights based on national, religious, sex, race, or educational differences are permitted' and that `women and men in the People's Republic of Bulgaria have the same rights.' Bulgaria's Family Code also affirmed equal rights for men and women. In 1988 Bulgaria's work force was equally balanced between men and women. In a survey almost 70 per cent of women stated that they `could not imagine life without their professional work, even if they did not need the pay.' Only nine per cent preferred to be housewives. However, men seemed to have a very different attitude to their wives working. They said that they only worked for financial reasons and that women should give up their work if they were needed at home.
Housework remained however on the woman's shoulders. So, this meant that after eight and a half hours at work, women were spending another four and a half hours on housework. Cooking, washing, cleaning, and taking care of children was considered women's work, for which most men didn't feel any responsibility. In order to stimulate women to have more children, certain laws came into action giving women special privileges. Women were banned from doing heavy labor, which could endanger their health or their capacities as mothers. The list of `forbidden' jobs was ever changing, but very popular among women, because they offered better pay and benefits. Depending on the work, women were able to retire after 15 or 20 years. Women who had had more than four children, retired after 15 years as a sort of baby bonus no matter what kind of work they did. Some jobs were for women only, unless there were none to fulfill the posts. These jobs were mainly low skill and low paying jobs, that were considered appropriate for women.
After the arrival of democracy in Bulgaria quotas for women were abolished. Therefore forcing women out of the work place, which deteriorated their social status, into more traditional roles. (Although it should be noted that statistically compared to other former Eastern Block countries, Bulgaria for example has the highest rate of female representatives in politics on all levels.) Childcare facilities became more and more expensive, leaving women to take care of their children on their own. The remaining non-familiarity with part time employment and the reluctant attitude to hire women that either have small children or that are expected to have children in the near future, forces women out of the workforce. Women that have persevered and that have a career are still expected to run the household and take care of the children, leaving them burned out, constantly juggling responsibilities, like acrobats juggling plates in the Chinese circus. Hopefully Bulgaria's growing economy will lead to a broader spectrum of possibilities, like part time work for women who want to have children AND a career AND an actual life apart from these two factors.

Superwoman syndrome

"It is more than obvious that the prestige and well-being of the Bulgarian socialist `emancipated' woman is a sham. On the contrary, she is not free, she is exploited twice, at home and at work, twice muted, twice excluded from history, politics, and social life," the three authors of the essay "Bulgarian Women's Im/possibilities" write. They describe the split personality of this Bulgarian woman who ends up being "hypersensitive, hypertense, cantankerous and unsatisfied by work and home," concluding that "if this extreme situation is called the `superwoman syndrome' in the United States, then in Bulgaria 90 per cent of our women are superwomen, or rather, super toiling pseudo-emancipated women".

Emancipation: a more exhausting than liberating trend
Ralitsa Dimitrova, Sociologist

The emancipation of women in Bulgaria is one of the many contradictory issues we could be both proud and ashamed of as a nation. In local terms emancipation may be interpreted as freedom as well as imprisonment. Still, there's no denying its existence as a socio-cultural factor that shapes our society as a whole.
To better understand its nature one needs first to understand that female emancipation in Bulgaria is a product of an ambiguous social order that tears us all between modernity and tradition and stands somewhere between our communist past and the confusing pseudo-democratic present. Bulgarian women share a general image of a person with many qualities: open-minded, intelligent, educated, fashionable and stylish, very often the main provider in the family, or pursuing a successful career in the world of business or politics. Like a Far Eastern goddess with many hands and faces, she somehow manages to deal with it all - another mysterious phenomenon, which probably has its roots in the same secret power that has dragged crowds of our `poor' and `unemployed' fellow citizens to fill the restaurants, pubs and night-clubs 24/7 throughout the recent years of socio-economic crisis.
To sum up, Bulgarian women are an important and active factor in our schizophrenic reality, bearing the burden of many different and sometimes contradictory tasks. Her emancipated profile combines the role of mother, wife, house-keeper, carer of elderly parents or in-laws with that of a lady, boss or employee, artist or scientist. Emancipation has turned out to be more of a burden than a dream come true, more an exhausting than liberating trend. And if anyone wants to extend this social portrait of the Bulgarian woman into a more objective study then it can be neither here or now, nor could I be the one to do it because my baby's already crying, my husband's hungry and I still want to make myself look nice for tonight because as you know there's more to a woman than work and nappies - a woman wants to feel beautiful, adored and satisfied. Let's drink to that and celebrate our challenging lives not only on the 8th of March! Cheers!