The Romani Women's Movement

The Romani Women’s Movement; edited by Angéla Kóczé, Violetta Zentai,
Jelena Jovanović and Enikő Vincze

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This pioneering volume refocuses scholarship and activism in striking ways. The
authors are as knowledgeable about feminist and gender theory as about the
political dilemmas of activism. Filled with fresh, critical insights for productive
alliances, the book is innovative in genre. Some chapters, inspired by postcolonial
thought, offer sharp analyses of the Romani women’s movement. In others,
activists and scholars reflect together on their motivations and differences of
position, identity and vision. Facing inward, the book courageously dissects ten-
sions within Romani communities and among differently placed women. Facing
outward, it locates Romani gender politics within European national and trans-
national contexts, in a regime of non-governmental organizations.
Susan Gal, Mae & Sidney G. Metzl Distinguished Service Professor
of Anthropology, of Linguistics, and of Social Sciences,
University of Chicago
This much needed contribution is unique in three ways at least: as a novel and
specifically European contribution to anti-racist scholarship; as a very fine-
tuned, empirical and exemplary contribution to political intersectionality inte-
grating race, sex, gender, sexuality and class; and as a solid scholarly illustration
of giving voice to Romani feminist activists.
Mieke Verloo, Professor of Comparative Politics and Inequality
Issues, Radboud University, Nijmegen
The Romani Women’s Movement volume makes a key contribution to the

field, enriching and revitalizing debates about the importance of theories and
practices of structural and political intersectionality for an adequate under-
standing of the crucial role that the Romani women’s movement has played
in the contemporary struggle for justice, equality, rights, and recognition for
Romani women and men. This timely and important collection brings
together a team of internationally pioneering scholars who themselves have
played a vital role in the movement and who analyze its history, challenges,
and prospects in the broader context of feminist, gender, Black, subaltern,
and LGBTQI theories, practices, and movements.
Huub van Baar, Justus-Liebig University Giessen, Germany,
and University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands
9781138485099_text.3d;

9781138485099_text.3d;
The Romani Women’s Movement
The lack of recognition of Romani gender politics in the wider Romani movement
and the women’s movements is accompanied by a scarcity of academic literature on
Romani women’s mobilization in wider social justice struggles and debates.
The Romani Women’s Movement highlights the role that Romani women’s
politics plays in shaping equality related discourses, policies, and movements in
Central, Eastern, and South-Eastern Europe. Presenting the diverse experiences and
voices of Romani women activists, this volume reveals how they translate experi-
ences of structural inequalities into political struggles by defining their own spaces
of action; participating in formalized or less formal activist practices, and challenging
the agendas and mechanisms of the established Romani and women’s movements.
Moving discourses on and of Romani women from the periphery of scholarly
exchange to the mainstream, the volume invites scholars and activists from different
disciplines and movements to critically reflect on their engagements with particular
social justice agendas. It will appeal to students, researchers, and practitioners inter-
ested in fields such as social movements, gender quality, and social and ethnic justice.
Angéla Kóczé is Assistant Professor of Romani Studies and Academic Director

of the Roma Graduate Preparation Program at Central European University,
Budapest, Hungary.
Violetta Zentai is co-director of the Center for Policy Studies at the Central
European University, Budapest, Hungary.
Jelena Jovanović is Policy and Research Coordinator for the European Roma
Grassroots Organizations (ERGO) Network, Brussels, Belgium as well as
Research Affiliate of the Center for Policy Studies at Central European Uni-
versity, Budapest, Hungary.
Enikő Vincze is Professor at Babeş-Bolyai University and housing activist in

Cluj, Romania.
9781138485099_text.3d;
Routledge Research in Gender and Society
Bodies, Symbols and Organizational Practice

The Gendered Dynamics of Power
Edited by Agnes Bolsø, Stine Helena Bang Svendsen, Siri Øyslebø Sørensen
Beyond Gender
An Advanced Introduction to Futures of Feminist and Sexuality Studies
Edited by Greta Olson, Daniel Hartley, Mirjam Horn-Schott, and Leonie Schmidt
Girls, Aggression and Intersectionality

Transforming the Discourse of ‘Mean Girls’
Edited by Krista Mcqueeney and Alicia A. Girgenti-Malone
Modern Motherhood and Women’s Dual Identities

Rewriting the Sexual Contract
Petra Bueskens
Age, Gender and Sexuality through the Life Course

The Girl in Time
Susan Pickard
The Romani Women’s Movement

Struggles and Debates in Central and Eastern Europe
Edited by Angéla Kóczé, Violetta Zentai, Jelena Jovanović, and Enikő Vincze
Affective Inequalities in Intimate Relationships

Edited by Tuula Juvonen and Marjo Kolehmainen
Masculinities, Sexualities and Love

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For more information about this series, please visit: https://www.routledge.com/

sociology/series/SE0271
9781138485099_text.3d;
The Romani Women’s

Movement
Struggles and Debates in Central and

Eastern Europe
Edited by
Angéla Kóczé, Violetta Zentai, Jelena
Jovanović and Enikő Vincze
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First published 2018

by Routledge
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© 2018 selection and editorial matter, Angéla Kóczé, Violetta Zentai, Jelena
Jovanović, and Enikő Vincze; individual chapters, the contributors
The right of Angéla Kóczé, Violetta Zentai, Jelena Jovanović, and Enikő
Vincze to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the
authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with
sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced
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ISBN: 9781351050395 (ebk)
Typeset in Bembo
by Taylor & Francis Books
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Our volume is dedicated to the lives of Romani women who

have endured, resisted, and struggled to transform difficult and
unjust social conditions without public recognition.
9781138485099_text.3d;

9781138485099_text.3d;
Contents
List of tables xi
List of contributors xii
Acknowledgements xiv
Foreword xvi
MARGARETA MATACHE
Introduction: Romani Feminist Critique and Gender Politics 1

ANGÉLA KÓCZÉ, VIOLETTA ZENTAI, JELENA JOVANOVIĆ AND ENIKŐ VINCZE
PART I
Social Categories and Agendas 27
1 Missed Opportunity or Building Blocks of a Movement? History
and Lessons from the Roma Women’s Initiative’s Efforts to
Organize European Romani Women’s Activism 29
DEBRA SCHULTZ AND NICOLETA BITU
2 Negotiating the Identity Dilemma: Crosscurrents Across

the Romani, Romani Women’s and Romani LGBTIQ
Movements 51
LUCIE FREMLOVÁ AND AIDAN MCGARRY
3 Gender Relations and the Romani Women’s Movement in the

Eyes of Young Romani Men: The Potentials for Transversal Politics 69
JELENA JOVANOVIĆ AND VIOLETTA ZENTAI
4 Heroines of Ours: Between Magnificence and Maleficence 88

JELENA M. SAVIĆ
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x Contents
PART II
Linking the Personal and the Political 109
5 Towards an Anti-Racist Feminism for Social Justice in Romania 111
CARMEN GHEORGHE, LETIŢIA MARK AND ENIKŐ VINCZE
6 Romani Women’s Friendship, Empowerment, and Politics:

Views on Romani Feminism in Serbia and Beyond 135
VERA KURTIĆ AND JELENA JOVANOVIĆ
7 Untapped Potential of Romani Women’s Activism in

Contemporary Europe: Czech Republic 159
JAMEN GABRIELA HRABAŇOVÁ AND GWENDOLYN ALBERT
8 Roma Gender Politics in Hungary and Feminist Alliances in

Practice 178
LÍDIA BALOGH
9 The Dilemmas of the Romani Women’s Movement in

Bulgaria: From Assimilation to Empowerment? 193
TEODORA KRUMOVA
PART III
Transnational Inspirations 207
10 ‘The Silk Revolution’ – Tracing the Genealogy of Gitanas
Activism in Spain and its Influences on the International
Romani Women’s Movement 209
ANNA MIRGA-KRUSZELNICKA
11 The Challenges of Kalí NGOization after Francoism:

Rethinking Activism in and Beyond Spain 227
PATRICIA CARO MAYA AND SARAH WERNER BOADA
Concluding Remarks: Promises and Prospects of the Romani

Women’s Movement in Central and Eastern Europe 247
ALEXANDRA OPREA
Index 265
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Tables
1.1 Recommendations: Romani Women’s Policy Forum 41

9781138485099_text.3d;
Contributors
Gwendolyn Albert, Editor and translator, Romea.cz; Expert Consultant,

Czech Helsinki Committee; Expert Consultant, Abunoyo Consulting,
Czech Republic; Chair, Roma Education Support Trust, UK.
Lídia Balogh, Junior Research Fellow at the Institute for Legal Studies,
Centre for Social Sciences, Hungarian Academy of Sciences.
Nicoleta Biţu, President of the Democratic Federation of Roma, Bucharest,
Romania.
Sarah Werner Boada, a PhD Candidate at the Department of Gender Studies,
Central European University, Budapest, Hungary.
Patricia Caro Maya, Associate of Women’s Link Worldwide, Madrid, Spain.
Lucy Fremlová, Fellow at Romani Studies Program, Central European
University, Budapest, Hungary.
Carmen Gheorghe, Executive Director of E-Romnia, Bucharest, Romania.
Jamen Gabriela Hrabaňová, Director of ERGO Network, Brussels,
Belgium.
Jelena Jovanović, Research Affiliate at the Center for Policy Studies, Central
Angéla Kóczé, Assistant Professor at Central European University, Budapest,
Hungary.
Teodora Krumova, Program Director of Center Amalipe Center for Interethnic
Dialogue and Tolerance, Veliko Tarnovo, Bulgaria.
Vera Kurtić, Program Coordinator of Women’s Space, Nis, Serbia.
Letiţia Mark, Founder of the Roma Women Association “For Our Children”,
Executive Director of Roma Educative and Cultural Center in Timisoara,
Romania.
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List of contributors xiii
Margareta Matache, a Houser Post-Doctoral Fellow at the FXB Center for

Health and Human Rights at Harvard University, US.
Aidan McGarry, a Principal Lecturer in Politics at the University of Brighton,
UK.
Anna Mirga-Kruszelnicka, Deputy Director of European Roma Institute for
Arts and Culture, Berlin, Germany.
Alexandra Oprea, Lawyer, author and activist, USA.
Jelena M. Savić, MA student at the Department of Philosophy, Central
Debra Schultz, Assistant Professor of History at Kingsborough Community
College of the City University of New York, US.
Carol Silverman, Professor of Anthropology and Folklore at the University of
Oregon, Eugene, US.
Enikő Vincze, Professor at Faculty of European Studies, Babes-Bolyai
University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania.
Violetta Zentai, Co-Director and Research Fellow at the Center for
Policy Studies; Adjunct faculty at the Department of Sociology and
Social Anthropology and the School of Public Policy, Central European
University, Budapest, Hungary.
9781138485099_text.3d;
Acknowledgements
The idea of this volume crystallized around 2013 when some of us felt that
Romani women activists and scholars together should theorize their political and
social mobilization. That was also a time of an embarrassing decline of intensive
networking, gathering, exchange visits, and summer schools that had earlier
helped our collaborative work. Moreover, there was a need to discuss and react
on various gender-related developments in our wider social and political
environment. This was connected to but not directly caused by diminishing
civil society supporting mechanisms. The emergence of new fault lines and alli-
ances within civil society groups and platforms within the women and Romani
movement, the transformations in European politics of human rights, equality,
and justice, and several other forces coming to the fore in the 2010s encouraged
us to bring together several Romani women and practice a collective reflection
on the last two decades. To this end, we received the encouragement and active
support of various institutions and individuals.
We are immensely grateful to those who have given devoted, enthusiastic,
and proficient help to bring together the authors of this volume and support
the production of the manuscript. It would have been impossible to reach out
to and hold together the authors without a workshop held at the Central
European University in Budapest in 2015. We owe thanks to the Friedrich
Ebert Stiftung Budapest and Eszter Kováts, its program leader for co-organizing
this event. We are grateful to the participants who engaged in deeply honest
and critical conversations and expressed their desire to develop such a collective
reflection on Romani women’s activism. In addition to those participants, who
have become authors of this volume, we would like to thank Ágnes Daróczi,
Anna Daróczi, Lýdia Gabčová, Simona Gamonte, Elena Gorolová, Blanka Kozma,
Szilvia Lakatos, Jana Luptáková, Miglena Mihaylova, and Barbara Tiefenbacher for
their passionate participation and critical thoughts on the book project and on
many puzzles and dilemmas we raised in our workshop discussions.
As the volume started to take shape, some of our colleagues have given parti-
cularly important support to us. Wanda Balzano, Chair of the Department of
Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies at Wake Forest University (North
Carolina) provided Angéla Kóczé with feminist encouragement and a thoroughly
9781138485099_text.3d;

Acknowledgements xv
inclusive academic home during her visiting academic appointment at the uni-
versity in 2014–2017. The Center for Policy Studies at the Central European
University has offered generous intellectual, personnel, financial, infrastructure,
and moral support to nurturing the idea and subsequently coordinating various
steps of developing this manuscript. We are indebted to all colleagues for their
interest, patience, and active assistance to our initiative. We have used the gener-
ous support and the intellectual environment of the ‘INTEGRIM – Integration
and International Migration’ project sponsored by the European Commission’s
Marie Curie Initial Training Network scheme, to explore the interfaces of
social movements in support of various marginalized and disempowered groups
in European societies.
We deeply appreciate Gwen Jones’s relentless efforts to copyedit our chapters
with feminist sensitivity, curiosity, and academic rigor in addition to linguistic
professionalism. She has been willing to work with us by tolerating a workflow
where deadlines were always strict for her and tender to the authors. We thank
Árpád Bak, fellow at the Romani Studies Program, CEU who meticulously
checked and revised the bibliography of several chapters. In countless ways we
owe Lilla Jakobsz, our colleague at the Center for Policy Studies, a debt that
we could hardly repay. She has helped us manage a multifaceted communica-
tion between authors, editors, and the copyeditor, mastered the various com-
ponents of the package to the publisher, and coordinated the final manuscript
preparation. All this has been indispensable for making a volume of 22 authors
fully complete. Most importantly, she has cared for incomplete bibliographies,
inconsistencies, diacritical marks, foreign language referencing, and many other
textual properties of our work, without which a decent publication would have
been impossible. She has done it with her unparalleled attention to the qualities
of texts and never fading curiosity for their content with which few people
read and care for scholarly writings around us.
We are grateful to the chief editor and the technical editors of Routledge, Emily
Briggs and Elena Chiu, who pro-actively engaged in finalizing this volume and
inspired us, shepherding all duties in a relatively short period of time. Their gen-
uine interest, professional attention, and always cordial manner of communication
have greatly contributed to an enthusiastic work in a stage of book production that
often appears as a painful burden for authors already in new research endeavors.
Many of us received inspiration and support from family members, teachers,
friends, and colleagues, men and women alike, to speak up for injustices and
inequalities both at times of friendly attention and in hostile or repressive
environments. Therefore, this volume has many more authors than the table of
contents shows. It would be impossible to name them all but it would be unfair
to name only a few. We truly acknowledge all Romani women who speak up,
question, comment on, and redefine their presence in various private and
public affairs and thus contribute to reconstructing gender and wider power
relations in society. They all have shaped the content of this volume.
9781138485099_text.3d;
Foreword
Margareta Matache
During war and peace, in countries that may be dictatorial, transitional, or

democratic, a basic reality persists: racism, classism, sexism, and other inter-
related factors have made it possible to objectify, dehumanize, and threaten the
bodies of Romani women. From being incarcerated or killed as witches during
the Middle Ages to being forcibly sterilized in the EU’s Czech Republic and
Slovakia, Romani women have continuously seen their bodies become the tar-
gets of state-sponsored hatred. They have also been degraded, in both the past
and the present, as ‘libertines’ (Hoyland 1816, 7), as women with ‘the instincts of
street bitches,’1 and as ‘aggressive stinky Gypsy’ females (Scicluna 2007). So it
comes as no surprise that, like their African American sisters, Romani female
activists and scholars have frequently felt sexism to be “insignificant in light of the
harsher, more brutal reality of racism” (hooks 1982).
Given this background, the theory of racial formation has allowed us to begin to
contextualize the inequalities facing Romani women and girls – but only to begin.
Then, in 2003, in the context of a scandal over the forced marriage of a 12-year-
old girl, Alexandra Oprea, a groundbreaker and fearless Romani scholar and
lawyer and the former student of Kimberlé Crenshaw2 – called on us all to
recognize “the intersectional nature of systems of oppression” as a more pertinent
way to address both racist and patriarchal practices. Angéla Kóczé has fortified that
argument, calling states to foresee “specific measures to address intersectional dis-
crimination” (Kóczé 2009, 7).
And indeed, the experiences of Romani women and girls fall into several
categories of intersectionality, including political as well as structural (Crenshaw
1991). In practice “[r]ace, class, gender, sexuality, age, ability, nation, ethnicity”
are relational (Collins 2015), but so far, not many – whether Romani activists,
non-Roma feminists, or activists voicing the stories of other oppressed groups –
have embraced an intersectional approach. This failure leaves many Romani
women and girls at the margins. But in the past few decades, to address the com-
bination of race, class, and culture, Romani feminist activists and scholars, especially
those featured in this volume, have explored intersectionality as a field of study, an
analytical framework, and critical praxis (Ibid.). They have often tackled the inter-
section of sexism and racism, and more recently also class and sexuality. Yet, some
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Foreword xvii
Romani women confront the additional burden of other factors, such as ability,
migrant/IDP/refugee/stateless status, religion, or age. Nevertheless, Letiţia Mark
does suggest anti-ageism as a new dimension of intersectionality, and Enikő Vincze
and Angéla Kóczé do the same for class3 (Kóczé 2009). Alas, all these dynamics and
aspects need to be included in our frameworks of thought and practice.
However, the violations of Romani women’s and girls’ rights are also falling
into the trap of human rights dogmas and frameworks oriented toward indivi-
dual cases, which fail to incorporate the prevalent, collective nature of anti-
Romani practices. Human rights frameworks put the emphasis on individual,
fixed situations of rights violation, isolating a discriminatory event from the
wider circumstances of the victim, but also from the structural and historical
nature of a particular discriminatory phenomenon (Freeman 1977). For exam-
ple, in the cases of forced sterilization of Romani women (Cahn 2017), the
court decisions have indeed had the capacity to inform better future laws and
current and future practices. Yet, there are no remedial, reparatory obligations
set by the states towards the large numbers of Romani women who could not
file a complaint to court, but were, in fact, victims of a structural, complex,
long-standing phenomenon, not only to an isolated incident of discrimination.
Thus, laws, policies, and dogmas need to be revisited not only to reflect an
intersectional approach but also wide-ranging, inclusive remedial obligations.
Several Romani feminists contributed to this volume, and it is overwhelming
to see them sharing their own stories and to see the movement’s history written
through their eyes. I say that advisedly, agreeing with Jelena Savić’s plea for
self-criticism and self-reflection. I also say that recognizing the privilege of my
own education, even though the gadjo education left its wounds, stripping me
of my own sources of self-worth and instilling self-doubt: the white/gadjo
supremacy inside of me, which I had to learn how to recognize and reject.
Savić asks us who authorizes us to speak, and who “is speaking behind the
unifying signifier of Roma woman, from which social positions?” in this volume.
And undeniably, the Romani women we talk about in our academic or activist
encounters usually become “nameless,” standardized, stripped of their individuality
and unique experiences.
Moreover, echoing bell hooks’s concern about whether the public is genu-
inely interested in the issues of women or merely responding to demands from
the market, we can address similar questions to Romani and non-Romani
scholars and activists alike, as in the terrific open conversation between Patricia
Caro Maya and Sarah Werner Boada. In their chapter, they argue that “The
construction of Kalís as ‘victims’ of their ‘backward culture’ […] is equally
present in some Gadje feminist discourses.”
It’s also compelling to read the dialogues between feminists in some chapters,
appreciating not only the depth of their thinking but also the solidarity and
humanity they exude. Nicoleta Biţu and Debra Schultz have cooperated, deba-
ted, and developed their camaraderie over more than two decades. In a high
point, Nicoleta voiced the demands of the Roma Women’s Forum during the
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xviii Foreword
launch of the Decade of Roma Inclusion. They succeeded in including gender as

a dimension in the Decade’s plans, although it was approved only as a cross-
cutting theme, as Debra Schultz also recalls in this volume. Still, feminist work
has been limited, as across all of Europe only a handful of Romani feminists,
most of them featured in this book, are also involved in the broader Romani
movement.
As I read each chapter, I returned again and again to Jelena Savić’s
questions, which I found to be so thought-provoking and stimulating. Her
fears are shared by other authors in this volume, who also struggle to
understand and address their own privilege, positions of power, and ties
with communities. Carmen Gheorghe and Letiţia Mark try to reconcile
these issues by returning to communities to work directly with Romani
women and girls. Vera Kurtić and Jelena Jovanović struggle with the invi-
sible borders between different Romani women and the voices of invisible
women, or what Jamen Gabriela Hrabaňová and Gwendolyn Albert call
“untapped potential.” In an earlier piece, Alexandra Oprea also recognized
this issue, but she described how (similar to Angéla Kóczé, also conscious
of her delicate position, Kóczé 2009) she chooses to “appropriate the act of
writing (as opposed to being written about) in order to progress and take
control of our identities” (hooks 1982).
Yet, outside their tiny ‘circle,’ the voices of Romani feminists rarely reach
the front lines at conferences, in the media, or in policymaking. As Oprea
argued earlier, during the Ana Maria Cioaba marriage conflict, Nicoleta Biţu
received little attention from the media or the public, despite being a
renowned Romani feminist and virtually the only one in Romania at that time
(2005). And in 2009, when The Guardian reported on domestic violence in the
UK’s Gypsy and Traveler communities, it failed to include the voices of
Romani feminists. “Cultural barriers are believed to be one reason that Tra-
velling women stay in violent relationships for longer than other women,”
argued the journalist,4 completely disregarding the ways that racism, income,
and other factors allow and exacerbate domestic violence. That piece did fea-
ture several women, but not Lucie Fremlova, a vocal feminist and LGBTIQ
activist, who also adds value to the present book by writing, with Aidan
McGarry, a chapter on crosscurrents across the Romani, Romani Women’s,
and Romani LGBTIQ movements. Another place where Romani feminist
voices were missing was the domestic violence project that Teodora Krumova
discusses in her chapter. She discusses how Romani women were included in
the research mainly as informants with the paternalistic attitude often applied
by non-Roma organizations. Thus, as the Romani feminist voices do not enter
the mainstream, the representations of Romani women remain distorted and
demonized. Hence, to me, representational intersectionality or “how women of
color are represented in cultural imagery” (Crenshaw 1991; Ravnbøl 2009)
is also a pressing issue we need to address forcefully from the local to the
European level and beyond.
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Foreword xix
Also, as Letiţia Mark reminds us, some claim that even having a role or a voice
in the movement represents a privilege for Romani women. And in many
aspects that is true, mostly in relation to other Romani women. Yet, after more
than ten years working closely with Nicoleta Biţu and others, I can recall few
instances when they seemed to be in any position of privilege or power in their
work environments, and not only there. Privilege becomes blurred when faced
with the sexism of male Romani peers and the combined racism and sexism of
gadjo stakeholders and society. Double standards, paternalism, and doubt about
Romani women’s qualifications also pass unaddressed in both the feminist and
the Roma movements. Had these women been male Romani leaders or gadjo,
their voices would probably have mattered more to their Roma and gadje col-
leagues. I too have experienced marginalization and distrust inside the Roma
movement and in interactions with Romanian state representatives and European
academics. And I was in a position of so-called power, as the director of a well-
known Romani rights NGO and then a scholar at a prominent US university.
Thus, the very few Romani feminists we know of do not generally own
privilege in their day-to-day environments but are merely given the illusion of
it, as educated and middle-class Roma, particularly when they succeed in not
making those in power, whether gadje or Roma, feel uncomfortable. In this
context, what stands out is their resistance and their fearless speech, which
Cornel West calls “parrhesia,”5 in the face of multiple forms of oppression, and
so does their gentle response to the very people who dehumanize them. This
has made them, along with other women of color, not only “twice militant,”6
as Larraine Hansberry would say, but also twice as valuable.
Looking forward, Romani feminists have the opportunity to reflect on coalition
politics in more tactical ways. There is a need for stronger and more creative coa-
litions with Romani communities and allies, as “the political demands of millions
speak more powerfully than the pleas of a few isolated voices” (Crenshaw 1991).
And perhaps the Gitanas movement in Spain, which Ana Mirga-Kruszelnicka
discusses in her chapter, “born through the acknowledgment of the diversity and
plurality of Romani communities,” can offer a model of bottom-up mass mobili-
zation and inclusion. Also, to advance a more robust and inclusive feminist
movement, perhaps other women of color, including Dalit and African American
feminists, will prove to be more natural and reliable allies. Finally, in the world-
wide picture of oppression, whether intersectional or isolated, Romani feminists
could join forces with other social movements to contribute to a global project
against repressive dogmas and practices.
Notes
1 Recent statement by the Bulgarian Deputy Prime Minister Valeri Simeonov, in “Bul-
garians Unfazed by Anti-Roma Hate Speech from Deputy Prime Minister,” Deutsche
Welle, accessed January 3, 2018 at http://www.dw.com/en/bulgarians-unfazed-by-
anti-roma-hate-speech-from-deputy-prime-minister/a-41183829.
9781138485099_text.3d;

xx Foreword
2 Crenshaw coined the term “intersectionality.”

3 See Chapter Five of this book.
4 Jill Clark, “Domestic Violence in Gypsy and Traveller Communities,” The Guardian,
August 13, 2009 at http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2009/aug/14/gypsies-
travellers-domestic-abuse.
5 Professor West discussed this concept in the “Race and Modernity” class at Harvard
Divinity School on September 21, 2017.
6 https://www.villagevoice.com/2014/02/26/lorraine-hansberrys-letters-reveal-the-
playwrights-private-struggle/.
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Kóczé, Angéla. 2009. “Missing Intersectionality: Race/Ethnicity, Gender, and Class in
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tions from Raluca Maria Popa). Working Paper, Center for Policy Studies, Central
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Oprea, Alexandra. 2005. “The Arranged Marriage of Ana Maria Cioaba, Intra-Community
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ment.” European Journal of Women’s Studies 12, no. 2 (May): 133–148, https://doi.org/10.
1177/1350506805051234.
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Introduction: Romani Feminist

Critique and Gender Politics
Angéla Kóczé, Violetta Zentai, Jelena Jovanović and
Enikő Vincze
The origins of this volume go back a long way. Many of the authors started to
work together in the middle of the 1990s, following of the fall of the Berlin
War. As activists or supporters, they engaged in building spaces, platforms, and
conversations that contributed to Romani women’s local and transnational mobi-
lization in Central and Eastern Europe. In a broad sense, they actively took part in
forming the histories and accounts of political and civic activism that this volume
presents. We cannot claim that the fall of the Berlin Wall is the marked beginning
of the Romani women’s movement. Romani women expressed their opinions,
took positions, and made important claims before this historical junction. The
multiplicity of personal and collective trajectories of Romani women that has
emerged since 1989 delineates an unfinished and unbounded history of politics that
a particular group of women shapes at the intersections of various experiences of
disadvantages and patriarchy and claims for justice, rights, and recognition.
With this volume, the authors aim to relocate discourses on and by Romani
women from the periphery of scholarly exchanges to academic and public sites
that receive more pronounced attention. To date, the meager recognition paid
to Romani gender politics in both the wider Romani movement and the
feminist/women’s movement has been complemented by a rather modest aca-
demic focus on Romani women’s mobilization. Those few authors who
observe and comment on Romani gender politics are mostly Romani women.
Critical social science inquiries are often keen to dwell on the invisible, the
weak, and the oppressed in societal and political power relations. Thus, the
reasons behind such peripheral recognition of the Romani women’s movement
in academic debates are far from being evident.
The authors of this volume extend the definition of the Romani women’s
movement to include actors, debates, and practices that address heterogeneous
Romani gender politics. Accordingly, we discuss Romani women who do and
who do not break the taboos while articulating “Romani women’s issues.” We
also focus on Romani women who do or do not address women’s issues in
terms of male domination, yet act as emancipated women within the commu-
nity, and as outspoken critics of power relations shaped by generations or cul-
tural traditions. Many such women contribute to the recognition of Romani
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2 Angéla Kóczé, Violetta Zentai, Jelena Jovanović and Enikő Vincze
women as active agents in societal affairs. Further, there are women who do
break the taboos and articulate women’s equality agendas, but who do not frame
their work as feminist. This is why Debra Schultz argues for using the expression
of Romani gender politics rather than Romani feminism when referring to the
Romani women’s agenda and activism in general (Schultz 2012, 40).
Angéla Kóczé posits Romani women’s activism as a voice challenging “societal
hierarchy in general” (Kóczé 2011). Alexandra Oprea proposes that it is essential to
view Romani women’s experiences as the ‘quintessential foundation’ for both
anti-patriarchy and anti-racist politics (Oprea 2004). Debra Schultz defines
Romani feminism as “breaking a taboo common to marginalized groups: never
criticize your own people to the dominant society,” and creating a Romani
women’s rights agenda despite many challenges (Schultz 2012). Enikő Vincze
argues for the political potential of Romani women to address the systemic causes
of social inequalities, exclusion, and advanced marginality while experiencing
gender oppression connected to larger forms of social injustices, racialization of the
Roma, and economic exploitation (Vincze 2014). These experiences inspire
Romani women activists to engage intensively with challenges of multiple and
intersecting politics of difference and inequality. Romani and non-Romani
women activists frequently address the intersections of ethnicity, class, and gender
from different social and political positions (Magyari-Vincze 2006; Kóczé 2009;
Schultz 2012; Biţu and Vincze 2012; Oprea 2012; Gheorghe and h.arta 2010).
Vera Kurtić sees the Romani lesbian existence not only as the most marginalized,
but also as a threat to the patriarchal system (Kurtić 2013). Several Romani
women activists become part of or allied with a new generation of Romani acti-
vists and researchers who further the academic discourses on Romani LGBTQI
concerns (Baker 2015; Máté 2015, Fremlová et al. 2014) and on the category of
age, in particular concerning youth political activism and participation (Mirga
2014).
This volume demonstrates collective political, civic, and intellectual efforts, to
help build a robust Romani women’s activism in both domestic and transnational
settings. The authors of this volume, Romani and non-Romani activists and
scholars, most of them declared feminists, examine the political and social strug-
gles of Romani women in Central and Eastern Europe through their voice and
visibility achievements from the mid-1990s onwards. By the same token, the
platform that this volume establishes responds to the pressing need that Romani
women often express: to have safe and empowering spaces where they can meet
and discuss common or dividing issues (Jovanović, Kóczé, and Balogh 2015).
The two objectives of struggling and protecting may contradict or compete in
certain contexts, but it is hoped that the volume will reconcile them. This
reconciliation may be temporary but not extraordinary.
Romani women’s activisms are unfolding in European frames, platforms, and
domains, whereas Romani politics and Romani gender politics are shaped by
various national and sub-national contexts as well. This volume presents reflec-
tions and knowledge most importantly about Central and East European as well
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Romani Feminist Critique and Gender Politics 3
as South-East European activisms by connecting those to the Spanish Romani

women’s struggles. The rationale for this choice stems from the genealogy of
Romani women’s political activism, and the gendered and often racialized bio-
graphies of the authors of this volume. In different compositions, these authors
engaged in various exchanges to critically reflect on their activist experiences up
until the end of the first decade of this millennium. Since then, this volume
appears as a rare opportunity and platform which enables these activists to talk to
each other as well as their networks, comrades, sisters, and friends across borders
and scales of collective actions. Romani and non-Romani women have worked
together in various localities from the very beginning of the Romani women’s
movement, most of the time from different power positions. This volume man-
ifests forms of cooperation that have been inspired by the spirit of solidarity and
also by alertness to the controversies and complexities of the non-Romani
involvement in forming Romani women’s activism.
Conceptual Inspirations
In an inclusive definition of the Romani women’s movement, feminist and non-
feminist activists, women and LGBTQI people, Romani and non-Romani alike,
contribute to address Romani gender politics from different subject positions.
Some activisms emerge as social movements, others remain dispersed and transient,
or move from one shape to another. Some actors identify themselves as movement
activists, others as spokespersons, advocates, civic or community leaders, or activist-
scholars. To address this diversity and complexity of actors and voices, this intro-
duction turns to four larger streams in the scholarly literature for inspiration:
Romani feminism inspired by Black and post-colonial feminism; intersectionality
theorems; social movement studies; and citizenship inquiries. In what follows, we
highlight the inspirational arguments and frames within these four fields to discuss
Romani women’s activism in Central and Eastern, and South-Eastern Europe.
Romani Feminism as a Way of Challenging Multiple Forms of

Oppression
Universal or ‘global sisterhood’ has, since the 1970s, become a compelling para-
digm by proclaiming essentialized identities of womanhood and shared gender
oppression by patriarchy. This unifying global feminist idea has been criticized by
black women, women of color, and ‘Third-world feminists,’ who – by doing so –
have challenged the societal system that privileges middle-class, white ‘Western
women.’ This critique has significantly shaped the conceptual language of Romani
feminisms in Central and Eastern Europe. Described as a pioneer in integrative
race, gender, and class studies (Barnett 2003), Angela Yvonne Davis, in her book
Women, Race, and Class (1981), addressed Black women’s oppression by analyzing
the legacy of slavery. Thus, subjected Black women were not only an exploited
labor force, but also became victims of sexual abuse or other mistreatment that
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could only be inflicted on women. Most importantly, Davis showed that Black
women also have the potential to become fighters against racism, sexism, and class
oppression. Already in her early writings, such as Ain’t I A Woman: Black Women
and Feminism, bell hooks (1982), talked about the silence of the oppressed and
revealed how this silence was broken by Black women. Black women raised their
voices against the imperialism of patriarchy and against racism. She highlighted the
complex relations between the fight against racist oppression and Black male
patriarchy, and between the struggle against sexual oppression and the racism of
white women’s rights advocates, a context in which Black women’s struggles
developed against different but inseparable forms of oppression.
Chandra Talpade Mohanty’s famous article Under Western Eyes: Feminist
Scholarship and Colonial Discourses (1984) is also known as a seminal text in the
deconstruction of the concept of ‘global sisterhood.’ She argued that Western
feminists had employed their colonial power to construct “Third-World”
women as a monolithic group and victims of their patriarchal culture and tra-
ditions. Mohanty criticized Western white feminists, seen as ‘powerful sisters,’
who wanted to save and rescue ‘Third-World’ women from their oppressive,
wild/barbaric cultures. She underscored this narrative with various cases of
precedence under colonial rule where invasion was justified based on the
oppressive treatment of women. Mohanty’s ideas are directly referred to by
contemporary Romani feminist voices who argue that, similar to Western
feminist concepts of gender relations, some currents of Romani studies partici-
pate in the production of a bounded and implicitly unique cultural entity of the
Roma (Gelbart 2012, 27).
Patricia Hill Collins’ Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness and the
Politics of Empowerment (1990) responded to the need to explore the words and
ideas of Black feminist intellectuals and writers, within the academy and
beyond, while encouraging White feminists, African-American men, and all
others to investigate their own standpoints. Expressing the politics of Black
feminist thought, Collins acknowledged that African-American women’s
oppression encompassed three interdependent dimensions: their labor was
exploited as essential to US capitalism (the economic dimension); they were
subjected to disenfranchisement regarding the rights to vote, to literacy, to
equal treatment in criminal justice system, or to access to public office (the
political dimension); and their public image and representation was stereotyped
in different forms by racist and sexist ideologies that aimed to justify oppression
(the ideological dimension). A similar line of critique is used by Angéla Kóczé
in her forthcoming book regarding certain developmental projects in Central
and Eastern Europe which aim to empower women at the expense of stigma-
tizing Roma culture (Kóczé, forthcoming).
In her most influential article Can the Subaltern Speak? (1988), Gayatri Chak-
ravorty Spivak, who challenged the foundational tenets of ‘Western feminism,’
questioned the possibility for subalterns to be represented – even with good
intentions – by intellectuals who have silenced them. Spivak’s main argument is
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that the subaltern voice will always be co-opted, misrepresented, and thus
doomed to preserve the colonial status hierarchy. This became an intriguing
question in several Romani women’s writing on the ambiguous relationship to
white women who wanted to represent the interests of oppressed Romani
women (Oprea 2004; Kóczé 2009; Brooks 2012). This is particularly relevant in
the context of well-intended Western liberal feminist discourses on issues such as
early marriage, sterilization, or the rights of Romani women. Romani women
characterize this Western feminist discourse as an imperial ‘white’ gaze which sees
Romani culture as patriarchal and backward/primitive (cf. Oprea 2004; Kóczé
2009). Accordingly, white feminists are compelled to intervene and “save Romani
women,” similar to their attempts at saving other women in the ‘Third World’.
Kimberlé Crenshaw captured the complex circumstances of Black women’s
lives at the intersections of race, gender, and class. In so doing, she challenged
both the concept of ‘global sisterhood,’ which did not account for class or racial
inequalities, and the mono-focal identity politics in the Black movement (Cren-
shaw 1989). Crenshaw’s (1989, 1991) intention with the theory and methodol-
ogy of intersectionality was to critique the invisibility of Black women in both
gender equality and anti-racist projects. In her essay Mapping the Margins: Inter-
sectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence against Women of Color, she argues that:
“racism as experienced by people of color who are of a particular gender (male)
tends to determine the parameters of antiracist strategies, just as sexism as
experienced by women who are of a particular race (white) tends to ground the
women’s movement” (Crenshaw 1989, 139). Crenshaw suggests that the solu-
tion is not to examine race and gender oppressions as separate mechanisms, or
patch them together (an ‘additive’ approach), but rather to recognize precisely
the shortcomings of these discourses and pursue an ‘intersectional’ approach.
Feminist intersectional theories have been recently enriched by including class as
a third key category of difference. Hence the multi-tier ‘race-class-gender’
approach is becoming a decisive concept in wider gender equality discourses
(Kóczé 2011). Intersectionality enables scholars and activists to understand the
interactions of gender, race, and class that limit various aspects of black women’s
lives in the educational system, the labor market, and so on. Intersectionality has
been introduced and used in Romani political activism by some Romani women
to challenge the monolithic ethnic identity-focused Roma movement as well as to
contest the one-dimensional concept of ‘Romani women’ (Kóczé 2009, 2011;
Brooks 2012). But it has also been used by non-Roma academics and activists to
highlight the political potential of Romani feminism in critically positioning
resistance to racism, patriarchy, and class exploitation (Magyari-Vincze 2006, 2009;
Vincze 2010).
Intersectionality as a Political Project

Intersectional approaches have been developed to explore the ways categories
of differentiation and systems of oppression shape each other, and to contribute
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to a political project of systemically critiquing contemporary societies. Many

feminists would agree with the assessment that intersectionality is the “most
important contribution that women’s studies has made so far” (McCall 2005,
1771), or at least among of the most important contributions. Contemplating
the appeal of intersectionality, some suggest it is a theory, while others regard it
as a concept or heuristic device, or see it as a reading strategy for doing feminist
analysis (Davis 2008).
The conceptual distinction between structural and political intersectionality,
as outlined by Crenshaw (1991), has great relevance in the context of the
Romani women’s movement. We conceive of the Romani women’s move-
ment as a political endeavor responding to the structural position of Romani
women in their immediate communities and the larger society, a position that
is produced at the crossroads of several power regimes. We also acknowledge
that the movement itself contributes to the construction of this subject position
by its debates and actions. By using intersectionality as both a heuristic device
and an analytical lens to read politics in a broader sense, this volume explores
how Romani women activists articulate individual experiences, axes of differ-
ences (Yuval-Davis 2006), and social structures that coalesce in certain streams
of voice, vocabularies, ideas, and public statements. In other words, this volume
examines political manifestations of intersectionality as those that reflect upon
key experiences of structural intersectionality (Collins 2000, Anthias and Yuval-
Davis 1992, Yuval-Davis 2006).
Feminist scholars have elaborated different intersectional approaches to offer
promising critiques of the classical categories of differentiation (e.g. gender, ethni-
city/race, social status, class, age, and sexuality), and on a variety of oppressive
systems of power (e.g. sexism, racism, classism, ageism, and homophobia). They
have challenged the master categories and narratives of social justice for failing to
account for a wide variety of experiences, identities, and social locations (McCall
2005). Their approaches have informed a great variety of analyses on how indivi-
duals are subjected to several forms of subordination; for example, how women
from ethnic or racial minority backgrounds are affected by patriarchy and racism. It
should be acknowledged, however, that although intersectional perspectives have
generated a multitude of analyses on the intersections of gender and ethnicity/race,
they have been underutilized in addressing how inequalities between women and
men, and among women, are shaped by the operation of class (Verloo 2006).
Further, when centering on Romani women, intersectionality has inspired inqui-
ries that frequently focus on how policy practices and administrative routines
interact with each other to create social hierarchies, but which remain much less
interested in describing how the politics of resistance and social justice may con-
tribute to cementing category-based and unequal social positions. Therefore, the
volume intends to demonstrate that the nexus between structural and political
intersectionality begs for robust empirical explorations and critical discussions.
Political activism by Romani women is deeply embedded in the post-Cold-
War restructuring of economic, social, and political domains (Kóczé,
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forthcoming). Scrutinizing models of capitalism in Central and Eastern Europe as

part of a thorough critique of gender relations helps to enrich the understanding
of intersectionality and connect categorical and distributive injustices. The new
capitalisms in the region have had a major impact on Romani women’s social
position and on their role in broader societal reproduction. Wider global condi-
tions of deindustrialization and the domestic downsizing of public services often
make Romani women highly exploited actors in both the formal and informal
economic sectors (Smith 2008; Ong 2006). Iris Marion Young’s illuminating
arguments are taken into account when reckoning how these conditions “inhibit
the ability of some people to live and be healthy, or grant some people resources
that allow them to coerce others, some distributions must come into question no
matter how they came about” (Young 1990, 29). Interrogating the claims by
Romani women’s political activism reveals the racializing and gendered aspects of
late capitalism in Central and Eastern Europe, and also the power of structural
intersectionality over political claims concerning social exclusion. By the same
token, inquiry into the political mobilization of the most disadvantaged women
will illuminate the potentials for broader political projects, such as fusing demo-
cratic politics with distributive justice.
By mobilizing the analytical power of intersectional approaches, this volume
will examine how Romani women activists experience their own voices and
actions in the wider Romani movement, and how they articulate their claims for
social justice and recognition. Authors will reveal how Romani women activists
translate structural intersectionality into political struggles by explaining how
multiple differences are turned to inequalities. These activists will define their
own sphere of action (e.g. grassroots activism, service provision, or political
mobilization) by enacting political intersectionality (Crenshaw 1991; Davis 2008),
or noticing the risks of depoliticizing intersectional inequalities (Jibrin and Salem
2015). They initiate and take part in institutional forms of action as well as
informal arrangements within the wider Romani and women’s movements or
larger social struggles. Intersectionality-sensitive inquiries in this volume uncover
how Romani women conduct identity politics while reconstructing certain social
categories. These inquiries also explain how Romani women employ the idea of
difference as a foundation for political empowerment, and the idea of inequality
as a base for social reconstruction. It is envisioned that explorations of the ways in
which political energies and actions are produced by Romani women by navi-
gating between sometimes colliding agendas will enrich the analytical power of
political intersectionality as a concept in wider scholarly endeavors.
Romani Women Advancing Social Movements of the

Marginalized
Particular theories and concepts applied in the study of social movements
inform various avenues of scholarship on Romani political and social mobili-
zation. In this volume, we are concerned with actors who hold weak positions
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in the decision-making process of formal institutions. The very existence of

social movements could be seen as a critique of representative democracy.
Social movements, however, do not spring directly from social cleavages: the
wider political context, inspiration ideologies, and institutional resources facil-
itate or hinder the actions of the excluded (della Porta and Diani 2006).
Studying Romani women’s movement formations demonstrates that social
movements, due to their informal and fluid nature, become apt forms of poli-
tical action for mobilizing socially and economically disadvantaged groups
(Weldon 2011). Romani women’s groups mobilize themselves to address social
injustices and various experiences of domination. Even if subjected to condi-
tions of domination, Iris Marion Young sees the political mobilization of the
marginalized as being based on a relational understanding of social groups.
Accordingly, social groups are based on ‘affinities’ among people who share a
common historical narrative, style of reasoning, and understanding of their
personal possibilities (Young 1997).
In the light of this relational understanding of groupness, a particular social
collective is a complex series of divergent experiences, identities, and interests
designated by social institutions and practices or resistance to those (Young
1997; Weldon 2011). Articulating Romani women’s positions and agendas
relates to, among other things, experiences in relation to mainstream society,
Romani communities, wider gender hierarchies, and histories of Romani
mobilization along racial and ethnic equality lines. As the writings in this
volume reveal, while Romani women have divergent experiences, identities,
and interests, they are designated as a social group by social institutions and
practices. This groupness is constituted as an internal dynamic among people
tied by histories, identities, and possibilities. When Romani women act as a
group or series of groups their personal experiences become visible, tangible,
and explicable. Exchanges, discussions, and joint actions help Romani women,
as several other marginalized social groups, spell out knowledge of existing
social structures and domination (Weldon 2011).
Romani women’s movement actors frame their strategies of action by
naming injustices that Romani women suffer from and by offering explanations
on the causes behind and remedies to those injustices. Various experiences of
injustice that Romani women have are also shared by non-Romani women
and Romani men. Romani and non-Romani feminists argue that patriarchy is
a common experience of many or all women in varying degrees in all com-
munities and cultures. Although Romani men benefit from patriarchal hier-
archies that subordinate women, patriarchy does not stem from Romani
cultural traditions (Lamoreux 2011). Enikő Vincze argues that Romani femin-
ists “[protect] women’s and children’s rights within their own communities
while deconstructing the way in which such mainstream positions are repro-
ducing convictions according to which Roma are an inferior race performing
pre-modern/primitive practices of life” (Vincze 2013, 37). She considers that
by articulating their own master frames and engaging in disputes and actions
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around injustices and inequalities, Romani women transform their personal

experiences into political messages within Romani communities and beyond.
Framing movement agendas is eminently linked to wider debates about the
normative implications of representing the voice of marginalized groups.
Exclusion, discrimination, and poverty, as well as practices of stigmatization and
securitization are an everyday reality for many people who consider themselves
Roma. The articulation of the experience of marginalization, however, may
easily slip in stereotypical representations of the Roma as permanently ‘inac-
tive’ and socio-economically ‘immobile,’ even if encountering these experi-
ences is not voluntary (van Baar 2012, 130). Representing minority women as
fundamentally weak and voiceless further multiplies and disturbs the positions
of inferiority in society. The framing of groupness and common agendas as
victims creates tensions, debates, and internal resistance within the margin-
alized group. Several writings in this volume will dwell on how Romani
women’s activism uncovers different marginal positions and builds corre-
sponding agendas for recognition. Claims for recognition question and even
disrupt the meanings of marginality and its potential to induce empowerment.
Investigating Romani women’s activism draws attention to pro-active efforts
to overcome marginalization and powerlessness rather than articulations of
marginalization itself.
A seminal concept by the influential postcolonial theorist Gayatri Spivak
posits the ‘subaltern’ at the center of the social movements of the marginalized
and their sympathetic academic observers (Spivak 1999). The concept refers to
those oppressed who are not part of a broader culturally and politically inscri-
bed social order or universe. The editors and authors of this volume believe
that the tremendous appeal of the concept should not make scholars of
Romani politics blind to the caveat that Spivak herself spelled out. Accord-
ingly, not all social groups who suffer oppression or exploitation constitute a
subaltern. The experience and social position of Romani women are often seen
as quintessentially subaltern, but it should not be taken for granted that all
Romani women feel comfortable with such characterization of their societal
presence. Strategic essentialism, a term coined by Spivak (1999), refers to ways
in which subordinated social groups may temporarily put aside internal differ-
ences in order to forge a sense of collective identity through which they can
band together in political movements. This sort of essentialism may generate
controversies as it imposes unity on a whole group, making it appear homo-
geneous and united by identical experiences in all aspects of life. Scholars of
Romani women’s activism therefore use the notion of strategic essentialism in a
cautious manner, in the spirit of Spivak’s suggestion, harking back to the ana-
lytical and political power of the concept (Silverman 2014). Benedik, Görderle
and Tiefenbacher (2013) put forward promising theoretical approaches to the
discussions of Romani belonging in Central Europe. They stress that instead of
idealizing or romanticizing the subaltern, it remains important to take a closer
look at liminal zones where the clear borders between oppression and
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empowerment, examiner and examinee, subject and object, but also inter-
viewee and informant, are rendered questionable.
In addition to articulating the consequences of past or enduring margin-
alization, emancipatory social movements experiment with practices of social
diversity. These groups engage with the meaning of difference as a tool for
political struggle in contrast to using difference to justify exclusion. Articulating
group difference is the route to undermining oppression (Young 1997). Yet the
concept of internal difference destabilizes the core group or category of
movement action. The question of who shall have the right to form a voice
within a social group enacts internal relations of power. Some voices in feminist
scholarship entertain that social movements are more effective at representing
marginalized groups when they act upon the norm of inclusion and strengthen
internal solidarity (Weldon 2011, 25). Nonetheless, as discussed through the
lens of political intersectionality, voices along internal differences within a par-
ticular social group often develop competitive or contentious relations when
conducting their collective actions. Verloo (2013) points out that social move-
ments often draw and endorse lines between social categories, monopolize
knowledge that help them, and reaffirm certain experiences while downplaying
others in their struggles for justice. There is plenty of empirical evidence to show
that social movements are more active in addressing advantaged sub-groups than
disadvantaged ones within their spaces (Verloo 2013, 906). Chapters in this volume
will invite reflections on the conceptual and empirical tensions between feminist
aspirations of solidarity and alliances, and the competitive opportunity hoarding of
social movements.
Novel Concepts of Citizenship and Citizenship Acts

Citizenship struggles are gaining significance in various societal reactions against
exclusionary forces. Although recent new approaches have often emerged from
migrant and refugee research and solidarity actions, the struggles of women of
color and minority women are similarly important contexts and causes that
dwell on these approaches. One of the most important capacities of citi-
zenship concepts is the emphasis on disruptive or transformative practices by
which new political subjectivities are constituted. The fine line between
citizenship acts and political mobilization is often discussed with reference to
the realization of potential to produce new political subjects (Darling 2017).
Romani women’s activism reveals multiple inspirations, openings, and
scripts of actions that have contributed to the formations of political acts in
the last two and the half decades in Europe. Citizenship theories assist
scholars of Romani women’s movement to explore the struggles, the acts of
contestations, and the search for new ways of being in the world that build
up social movements and politics in a broad sense and tie individual and
collective acts. This potential of novel citizenship concepts appears note-
worthy in spite of powerful contestations of the methodological and
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empirical relevance of the notion of citizenship in the context of Romani

politics (Ivasiuc 2015).
Participation in politics and policy formations is enabled by citizenship, and
conversely, different qualities of citizenship are becoming the very subjects of
political participation. Whereas citizenship is crucial for individual members of
society, the quality of citizenship is dependent of the individual’s location on
the map of social groups and boundaries. Formal politics relies on the direct
representation of interests by pre-set categories of citizenship. Citizenship
practices disrupt these institutionalized spaces in politics and its order of cate-
gories. There is an emerging body of citizenship studies that interrogate citi-
zenship in the nexus of state, market, and civil society actions that distinguishes
between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ citizens in the current formation of late capitalism
(Ong 2006; Hohle 2017). Kóczé and Rövid argue that even though Roma
have lived in Europe for many centuries and possessed legal citizenship, “by
being racialized and less worthy from a neoliberal perspective, their political
citizenship is not recognized, it is questioned and (dis)articulated” (Kóczé and
Rövid 2017, 693) by the hegemonic political discourses.
Iris Marion Young’s magisterial work on democracy, equality, and citizen-
ship reveals that the liberal understanding of citizenship stems from uni-
versalism, which excludes from citizenship those who cannot adopt a general
point of view (Young 1997). The universality of citizenship excluded not only
women but other groups as well. Particularly relevant to Romani women’s
claims are Young’s theories on how articulations of situated experience con-
tribute to the public interest. These experiences are not only based on varying
interpretations of social justice, but also on differential distribution of privilege
(Ibid.). Participation in public life does not require citizens to leave behind their
particular group affiliations or histories, and thus deny their different perspec-
tives. People cannot fully grasp the point of view of others from different per-
spectives, but a commitment to communicating across differences creates a
universalistic public realm (Ibid.). This argument resonates with the approaches
of various Romani women activists who venture to speak for various social
groups that do not possess privileges in participation in public affairs.
Recent theorizing on citizenship acts (Isin and Nielsen 2008; Aradau et al.
2013) adds further elements to this framework by viewing citizenship as a
process embedded in social and political struggles in which actors constitute
themselves as subjects with the right to hold rights. This approach makes those
actions visible that constitute new political subjects by disrupting existing cate-
gories of rights holders. Since the notion of rights is no longer limited to legal
provisions or access to previously defined rights, it includes the creation of new
rights that emerge from particular struggles. Acts of citizenship – such as acts
with which Romani women claim attention, space, and voice in public affairs –
enact forms of political activity which rupture rather than work within existing
conceptions of participation. This redefinition of rights claims has come to
include not only the right to equality, but also the right to difference, which
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specifies, deepens, and broadens the right to equality (Dagnino 2003). Several
authors in this volume underline the contribution of contemporary social
movements based on gender and ethnic differences to debating the intricate
relationship between equality and difference and to making claims for justice at
the boundaries of citizenship rights.
Engin Isin and scholars inspired by his notion of citizenship act distinguish
various citizen rights. They propose to blur the boundaries between human and
civil, political and social rights, and to articulate rights to cities, regions, and
across states (Isin 2009). Their aim is to develop a fluid and dynamic concep-
tion of citizenship that is geographically responsive and historically grounded.
Isin advocates for studying subjects in their acts to become citizens and their
claim for citizenship. This is possible through zooming in on ‘sites,’ ‘scales,’ and
‘acts’ through which actors claim to transform themselves (and others) from
subjects into citizens as claimants of rights. Citizenship can be performed or
enacted by various categories of subjects including aliens, migrants, refugees,
states, courts, and so on (Isin and Nielsen 2008; Isin 2009; Aradau et al. 2013).
Other inspiring explorations identify political and cultural forces and experi-
ences that constitute an alternative construction of citizenship, including
everyday knowledge and tactics to challenge existing constructions of the
public and political rights therein (Darling 2017). In these revelatory cases,
Roma experiment with alternative modes of representation, claiming access to
rights and freedoms often beneath or outside official or formal politics (Aradau
et al. 2013; Çağlar and Mehling 2013).
Romani Politics and Dilemmas of Participation
The Emergence of a Multilayered Scene

In the last three decades, new spaces for Romani participation have emerged
and now operate, either formally or informally, on the local, regional, national,
European, or transnational levels. An internationally renowned scholarship has
also shaped up to explore the involvement of the Roma in formal political
institutions, civil society formations, and informal settings in the new, post-
1989 democracies of Central and Eastern Europe. Key authors highlight how
political and civic activities articulate opinions, interests, and values through
often-adversarial relationships with representative political and policy-making
institutions (Klímová 2002; Sigona and Trehan 2009; Ram 2011; McGarry
2010; van Baar 2011; Sobotka and Vermeersch 2012; Kóczé and Rövid 2012;
Vermeersch 2014). These authors portray struggles for empowerment parallel
to the manifold dependency of Romani representation on mainstream political
institutions. It is argued that in the absence of power sharing between main-
stream society and the Roma in formal political mechanisms, the Romani
movement serves as the main vehicle and terrain of Romani mobilization
(McGarry 2010). Due to blocked channels of involvement at the national level,
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the Romani movement seeks alternative structures of representation sub-

nationally and transnationally (McGarry 2010). In this relatively narrow space
for domestic political participation, Romani politics does not posit gender
equality as a central agenda. This politics of gender is not extraordinary com-
pared to the mainstream political configurations in the new democracies of
Central and Eastern Europe.
The Europeanization of Romani politics opened a new phase in the history
of the European Roma. It is frequently argued that Roma have become Eur-
ope’s biggest vulnerable group in the post-Cold War transition towards
democracy. Against this backdrop, Vermeersch describes how Romani activists
entered the post-socialist political scene as active agents creatively relying on
political opportunities generated by international organizations and transna-
tional advocacy networks (Vermeersch 2006). Huub van Baar’s revealing
inquiry places Romani politics in a larger framework of theorizing European
political and institutional architecture. Since the start of the EU’s enlargement
negotiations with former state socialist countries in the early 2000s, European
institutions and non-governmental organizations, alongside Romani activists
and media, have increasingly represented the Roma as a European minority.
Minoritization embodies mechanisms and assemblages of power that constrain
the Romani movement in experimenting with politically salient and efficient
frames of mobilization, yet transnational European politics may also offer
openings for reassembling alternative courses of action (van Baar 2011, 2015).
The problem of minoritization eminently connects critical inquiries on Roma
participation to the issue of political intersectionality and the tensions between
ethnic and any other major social distinction, including gender. The primacy of
a particular social category, in this case ethnicity, makes claims for social justice
by members of the ethnic group along any another social category potentially
weakening, challenging or undermining minority politics. By the same token,
several authors of this volume have experienced in various junctures of their
personal biographies that gender politics could barely be conceptualized within
the dominant frames and vocabularies of minority politics.
Regarding the proliferation of NGOs in transnational civil society devel-
opment in the 2000s, the problems of dependency, access to participation,
and co-optation of transformative agendas into project-friendly goals saturated
internal debates within the Romani movements as well. Nando Sigona and
Nidhi Trehan (2009), in an influential volume, address the debate on the
impacts of neoliberalism on Romani civil society formations. Accordingly,
international NGOs have become a “vehicle” of neoliberal hegemonic order,
and thus reinforced the marginalization of Roma. Kóczé and Trehan also reveal
that the ‘marketization of Roma rights’ has led to ignoring the diversity of
needs of Roma, in particular the gender dimension (Sigona and Trehan 2009).
Huub van Baar challenges the ‘NGOization’ thesis by raising the question of
whether advocacy and activist networks may strategically appropriate key
arguments of neoliberal reasoning for ends they define (van Baar 2012, 294).
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Other scholars examining the development of social movements in Central and

Eastern Europe also reveal that several organizations have learnt to play the
“funding game” while preserving the core of their main agenda. This entails
that the relationship between international and national organizations is not
unidirectional or locked in a single logic of operation (Jacobsson, Kerstihn, and
Saxonberg 2013). Others (e.g. Mendelson 2002) stress that international fund-
ing sometimes makes it possible for domestic NGOs to focus on ‘taboos,’ such
as domestic violence. Several writings in this volume will contemplate on the
enabling and constraining impacts of international support to Romani women
activists, and will gauge to what extent international funding has affected the
transformative content of their agenda.
Sigona and Trehan’s volume also stresses the importance of other related yet
distinct binaries embodied in wider Romani movement formations, most
importantly that of elite-grassroots division, of top-down and bottom-up
organizational principles, and of technocratic professionalism and social justice
agendas (Sigona and Tehran 2009). These binaries saturate movement dynamics
in domestic arenas as well. According to several authors, such as Angéla Kóczé,
Nidhi Trehan, and Iulius Rostas, ’NGOization’ has resulted in a divide within the
movement and displaced Romani grassroots voices. Related to the ‘NGOization’
debate yet not identical to it is the distinction between the ‘Romani elite’ and
‘ordinary Roma,’ which often relies on a sharp political and moral language to
assess the value and contributions of different movement participants. The concept
of the ‘Romani elite,’ although denoting in the first place a group of activists with
formal education, network capital, and access to participation, also signifies roles
and duties towards the Roma as a transnational group and political agenda, as well
as the actual Romani communities (Vermeersch 2006). Status hierarchy among
actors within the wider Romani movement and debates on the movement leaders’
moral and political obligations add to the challenges of the political space in which
Roman women articulate and represent their claims. Several authors of this
volume participate in these debates and support women’s groups and activists that
pursue critical reflection, intersectional understandings of the access to knowledge,
participation, organizational resources, and self-empowerment in the wider
Romani movement for equality and recognition in Europe.
Politics of Identity and Romani Women

To study mobilization around a particular social category, such as the Romani
women, invites conceptual engagement with the problem of identity, identity-
based political claims, and intra-and inter-category definitions of group belonging.
Scholarship on Romani politics is eminently tied to debates on the problem of
collective identity formed by social movement participants (McGarry and Jasper
2015). This volume resonates with scholarly positions that conceptualize Romani
identity, similar to other national or ethnic identities, as an unfinished process,
which is continually made and remade through social interaction and political
9781138485099_text.3d;

struggles. Romani studies scholars examine the emergence and the functioning of
the term ‘Roma’ as a frame of identity and means of identification in small- or
large-scale social settings (Gheorghe and Acton 2001; van Baar 2011). Others
explain the production of this term as a political designation through its ratification
by governments, international governmental institutions, and NGOs (Klímová-
Alexander 2005; McGarry 2010; Sigona and Trehan 2009). In his recent writing,
Vermeersch (2014) argues that the Romani movement is a diverse totality of
actions and activities interested in defending and cultivating a shared Romani
identity. Nonetheless, the term ‘Roma’ remains fluid and results in a complex
composition of the wider Romani movement.
A concise review of how leading Romani intellectuals understand ‘Roma’ as
a socially constructed category will help to understand the place of gender
agenda in the larger Romani movement. Nicolae Gheorge, a visionary leader
of the Romani movement for several decades, viewed the political construction
of Romani identity as crucial for the recognition of Roma as a people and for
‘restoring dignity.’ He believed that this envisioned path of ethnic empower-
ment required working together with political institutions (Gheorge 1997,
157). Critical of the construction of ‘Roma’ as a national minority and the
concept of the nation-state, he hoped that the development of the movement
would predominantly enact a category of transnational people (Ibid.). Nicolae
Gheorghe and Tomas Acton asserted that ethnic unity is a creation and “always
illusionary.” The common experience and threat of racism, however, generate
feelings of common belonging: “[I]n so far as these groups share a common
experience of discrimination based on dominant ethnic groups’ perception of
them as non-white […] common identity will become an increasing reality”
(Gheorghe and Acton 2001, 58, 59). These proposals stress that representation
and participation puzzles generated by concerns with ethnic identity address
important failures of democratic governance. Ethnic identities help building a
grammar of political claim-making despite the recognized challenges of creating
enduring unity or common ground.
Roma and non-Roma feminists understand and contest efforts for strategic
categorical unity by articulating and relating hidden or obscured dimensions of
social difference. A leading Romani thinker and activist, Nicoleta Biţu, argues
that “[her] aim as a Romani feminist is to contribute to the construction of a
modern Roma identity, one that considers diversity and equality within
Romani communities and that addresses all the problems Romani women are
subjected to at the intersection of gender, ethnicity, and class.” Romani
women, she argues, “also need to deal with the complicated problem of the
relationship between women’s universal rights and ethnic/community rights
[and that they] want to function differently; […] not wait for funds or requests
from anyone before acting” (Biţu 2009, 45–46). Biţu frequently talks about the
position of Romani women activists within the Romani movement empha-
sizing the relevance of in-betweenness, referring to the worlds of Romani and
non-Romani, and to the ideals of gender and ethnic justice.
9781138485099_text.3d;

Others also employ the notion of in-betweenness to characterize the position

of Romani women in a different referential direction. For example, Carmen
Gheorghe and h.arta define in-betweenness as being “at a crossroads between
oppression from a racist society and the gender discrimination that comes with
patriarchal Roma community” (Gheorghe and h.arta 2010, 183). According to
Alexandra Oprea, Romani feminism is translating Romani women’s experi-
ences into race and gender policy concerns, and making their experiences the
quintessential foundation for feminist and anti-racist policies and politics, as
opposed to being an afterthought, a footnote, or a special section (Oprea 2011).
Vincze proposes that deconstructing the idea of homogenous Roma culture, by
introducing the perspective of gender difference into the community that lives
through this culture and (re)produces it in its daily life, is not an attack on
cultural identity. On the contrary, it is a contribution to the acknowledgement
of the internal diversity of this identity and of everyone’s ability within that
respective community – regardless of gender, age, and so on – to participate in
defining the problems and finding the solutions. Feminism is not an enemy of
other identity politics, even if it systematically denounces essentialisms of any
kind, including its own. But it is a form of “activism directed against any
regimes of power, criticizing them from the perspective of the subordinated
and disadvantaged, thus being able to mobilize cross-ethnic solidarities, too”
(Vincze, 2010, 9). Besides, in several of her later writings already mentioned in
this introduction, as a political credo, Vincze sustains the political potential of
Romani women to go beyond ethnic and gender identity politics and be
involved into struggles for socio-economic justice together with other actors
engaged against class-based inequalities.
The dynamics of unity and diversity of a social category is also addressed by
Romani women’s intellectual voices imbued with experiences both from
within the Central and East European region and from global engagements.
They unpack the category of Romani woman as used in Romani women’s
activism. Magda Matache, combining insights from European and transatlantic
engagements in the wider Romani movement, portrays two markedly different
identity patterns among Romani women activist groups and their agendas. One
of these addresses emancipation from the imperatives of tradition, whereas the
other pursues an explicit gender equality agenda without losing a Romani
identity (Matache 2009). Rita Izsák, the international human rights expert and
activist, reveals how Romani women’s movement participants have managed to
agree on important issues and to come to conclusions regarding diversity
among Romani women. She argues that discussing value differences in family
and partnership matters and sexual practices contributed to acknowledging both
the relevance of sexual identity and harmful gender practices within Romani
communities (Izsák 2008, 8). Izsák finds an apt example for such discussions in
larger international Romani women’s gatherings of the mid-2000s.
This volume portrays a variety of forms of Romani women’s engagement
with the wider Romani movement, human rights activism, and the women’s
9781138485099_text.3d;

movement. Romani women often debate their essentialist and constructivist

positions when forming their identities and strategic positions in activism.
Their opinions diverge on the opportunities and limits to elevating a power-
ful Romani women’s movement within the main Romani movement, but all
want to deconstruct gender hierarchies in public and private affairs. Simulta-
neously, they are committed to fighting against injustice, paternalism, and other
forms of oppressive domination in other major social hierarchies. This volume
will demonstrate how Romani women experiment and reflect upon identity
pluralism which allows both men and women to cultivate group loyalty together
with parallel commitments.
About the Volume

This book is divided into three sections. The first section (Chapters 1–4) examines
transnationally relevant concepts and interactions in the formations of the Romani
women’s movement. The authors explore the exclusionary nature of masculine
discourses and practices within the wider Romani movement and the diversity of
political subject positions of Romani women. They also address exchanges and
debates between the Romani LGBTQI, the Romani women’s movements, the
wider Romani movement, the mainstream LGBTQI, and the women’s move-
ments. Chapters reveal possibilities for crafting critical, self-reflexive, de-canonizing,
and anti-mythical epistemologies for Romani feminist writing.
Nicoleta Biţu and Debra Schultz document the establishment, development,
and legacies of the Roma Women’s Initiative, a dedicated program of the Open
Society Foundations, launched in Budapest, Hungary in 1999. The program
was an unprecedented experiment in intersectional feminist practices on the
transnational level. While it created distinctive spaces, resources and capacities
for Romani women, it faced many obstacles. Biţu and Schultz, as leading figures
in the project, present their experiences and analyze both enabling factors and
challenges encountered, by reflecting on a unique cross-racial and cross-regional
feminist collaboration. Lucie Fremlová and Aidan McGarry look at ways of
decolonizing knowledge production within the Romani, LGBTQI and feminist/
women’s movements, arguing that the lessons learnt are shaped by the discourses
and practices of Romani LGBTQI and Romani feminist activists and thinkers.
Relying on Judith Butler’s work, they also argue that employing critical,
counter-normative queer, as well as intersectional concepts, which interrogate
the deployment of dominant social orthodoxies, fixed identity categories
and other discursively produced binaries as ‘regulatory fictions,’ enables a re-
conceptualization of Romani identities.
One finds primarily gender-blind equality politics or universalist human
rights arguments in the public statements of Romani men holding leadership
positions in the Romani movement. To test the possibility of transversal politics
in Romani movement practices, Jelena Jovanović and Violetta Zentai explore
ideas concerning gender politics in younger generations of Romani men. The
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authors’ examination reveals that younger generations tend to reject exclusive

understandings of social justice due to their exposure to a multiplicity of spaces
and convictions in their socialization histories and in emerging new models of
leadership visions. They also test and reflect upon cross-generational and cross-
ethnic collaboration in their co-authorship work. The final contribution to this
section by Jelena Savić reflects on the phenomenon of intersectional exclusion in
the Romani movement with the focus on the cultural and historical invisibility of
Romani women and their social contributions. The author discusses exclusionary
practices by Romani men, while also critically disclosing the self-sacrificing per-
spective of Romani women themselves. In addition, this chapter illuminates the
possible effects of self-sacrificing postures on the identity of the younger generation
of Romani women activists, on their motivations to participate in the movement,
and to forge trans-generational learning and solidarity among Romani women.
The atomization of individual struggles in the Romani movement is also addressed
in a wider context of growing austerity, unemployment, and precariousness.
The second section (Chapters 5–9) explores movement experiences in national
contexts in relation to transnational Romani women’s activisms. Authors highlight
personal experiences embedded in social positions at the intersections of gender,
ethnicity, class and age, diverging and cutting across generational lines and scales of
actions. Histories of private and public conversations and cooperation between
intellectuals and activists, and between Romani and non-Romani women activists
are revisited, reflected, and reassessed. The potentials of feminism are critically
examined as intersectional politics with a deep interest in addressing different forms
of oppression, and creating alliance and solidarity between different causes of social
justice.
Carmen Gheorghe, Letiţia Mark, and Enikő Vincze present a conversation
between two Romani women of different generations and a non-Romani fem-
inist. The two Romani women participate in the Romani movement as intellec-
tuals and activists, whereas their non-Romani peer works as a housing activist and
academic. The three of them talk about their divergent and shared histories and
conceptions regarding the role of feminism in Romania. They highlight their
personal experiences in relation to socio-economic conditions, and the recogni-
tion and representation of Romani women seen at the intersections of gender,
ethnicity, class, and age. Believing in the political potential of feminism understood
as an intersectional politics, their dialogue argues for a feminism that starts from
solidarity among women, but which addresses larger social issues and fights to
improve the life of the oppressed and to dismantle structures of exploitation. The
next chapter enacts a dialogue between the authors, Jelena Jovanović and Vera
Kurtić, two Romani feminist women from Serbia. They maintain the dialogue
through writing email letters to each other with the aim of discussing their own
experiences of being Romani women and feminists. They intend to understand
the constitutive elements of their own paths of empowerment. They also wish to
examine the inspiration to claim Romani identity publicly both as women and
feminists, although they do not limit the understanding of their identities to these
9781138485099_text.3d;

three categories. The chapter reveals the relationship between the personal, the
structural, and the political by explaining the authors’ rationale to write together,
the roles and positions of Romani feminists, personal histories, identities, and
language.
Jamen Gabriela Hrabaňová and Gwendolyn Albert explicate the trajectories and
framings of Romani women’s activism in the Czech Republic. The authors
explore the roles and recognition of Romani women activists in defining a
broader ‘Romani agenda’ in the post-socialist context and in a new nation-state
structure. The main protagonist’s biography connects the years of university stu-
dies to mid-career leadership positions and various forms of leadership engagement
in political, policy, and civil society participation. The authors contemplate how
this uniquely rich personal-professional biography reveals a particular model of
democratic politics conceptualized in the democratic opposition prior to the sys-
temic changes, and larger social forces that regulate Romani women’s con-
temporaneous everyday experiences. Teodora Krumova investigates state policies
concerning Romani women in Bulgaria before and after the fall of communism.
The chapter studies the policies of the Bulgarian Communist Party towards
Romani women embedded in the general measures towards minorities in an
assimilation-driven policy frame. The author also examines how Romani women
became active agents during the communist regime, despite the fact that they were
largely seen as the objects of these policies. The way in which the Romani
women’s movement has tried to influence the post-socialist formation of Romani
politics concerning gender and wider equality agendas in Bulgaria generates a
particular historical path and political framework to represent and empower var-
ious groups among the Roma.
The third section (Chapters 10–11) portrays the inspirations that the
Romani women’s movement in Central and Eastern Europe received from
the sites and histories of activism by women of color and Romani women in
Western Europe and the US. Chapters investigate transnational exchanges
that challenge the understanding that Romani women’s movement emerged
in Central and Eastern Europe.
Anna Mirga-Kruszelnicka explores the influence of Spanish Romani women’s
political activism on the development of Romani feminism in CEE countries. She
uncovers how Spanish Gitanas ideas travelled from West to East to challenge the
internal and external patriarchy that shapes the lives of Romani women. Since the
early 1990s, the Spanish Gitanas have shared their vision of women’s activism with
Romani women from Central and Eastern European at several international fora.
Patricia Caro Maya and Sarah Werner Boada discuss the challenges and possibilities
for moving forward for Kalí feminists and allies in Spain. They mobilize arguments
of intersectional feminist scholarship on social movements, NGOization, and the
neoliberal State, as well as critical race feminism. In addition, the authors enact a
dialogue between a Kalí (Spanish Romani woman) and a Gadji (non-Romani
woman) to pursue creativity, reflexivity, and solidarity between Romani and pro-
Romani activists and scholars in Europe and beyond. They examine the difficulties
9781138485099_text.3d;

of building a Kalí feminist movement within a fundamentally anti-Gypsyist,

patriarchal institutional context, which merely tolerates civil society activism under
neoliberal logics of governance.
Concluding remarks are offered by two feminist thinkers who observe, sup-
port, and comment on broader Romani politics and wider societal talks on the
Roma in Europe from within the North American academic and professional
domains. Of two different generations and professions connected by feminist
reflections on their own standpoints, Alexandra Oprea and Carol Silverman
advocate for a practice of solidarity.
*
One of the most significant precursors to this volume, the tri-lingual journal
Nevi Sara Kali (New Black Sara), proposed that transnational and multi-scale
collaborative efforts are to be mobilized to addresses the complex and compli-
cated issue of ‘Roma women’ at the intersection of their geopolitical position,
ethnicity, social and economic status, and age with the aim to represent the
socio-cultural diversity of the European Roma women. The editors’ aim was
to understand both intersectional discrimination and the ways Romani women
are acting as powerful agencies. This volume furthers this ambition by extend-
ing reflexive scholarly and activist attention to changes that Romani women’s
activism has induced in the politics of justice in a broad sense. It reveals that
Roma women are not only subjects of multiple and intersectional discrimina-
tions, but are also agents of social change in view of social justice, human dig-
nity, equality in civic and political representation, and fairness in distributing
means of human life across social categories and groups. When seeking social
justice, voices of Romani women are multiple and diverse, and are often in
disagreement on matters of politics, injustice, identity, and strategy. This
volume attunes multiple voices and opinions to speak about the relevance and
the potential of Romani women’s activism in Central and Eastern, and South
Eastern Europe but does not wish to offer synthesized accounts and to close
debates. Instead, it intends to inspire others engaged in the Romani women’s
movement to elevate all richness of the movement experiences to auto-critical
and dialogical reflections to both promote and challenge scholarship and poli-
tical advocacy.
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Part I
Social Categories and Agendas

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Chapter 1
Missed Opportunity or Building

Blocks of a Movement? History
and Lessons from the Roma
Women’s Initiative’s Efforts to
Organize European Romani
Women’s Activism
Debra Schultz and Nicoleta Bitu
Contexts
The Soviet Union’s fall, the transition to market economies, and democratic
experiments in Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union in the
late 1980s and early 1990s exacerbated hardships for Roma communities across
the region. Long targets of discrimination in many countries across this vast,
diverse region, Roma communities shared experiences of poverty, high unem-
ployment rates, segregation and housing problems, discriminatory education,
poor healthcare and health outcomes, as well as hostility and racist violence from
their home countries.
Within this context, and inspired in part by Spanish Romani women’s acti-
vism, a few Central/Eastern European Romani women activists began to
examine women’s experiences in the evolving Romani rights movement. They
struggled to find their place in a movement that sought to end discrimination
against Romani people while still preserving Romani culture and identities.
Some of the tensions that arose from this effort led to increasing interest among
Romani women activists to meet and start to define their own agendas.
This chapter documents and analyzes what happened when a core group of
Romani women activists encountered the Open Society Institute (OSI)1 Roma
Initiatives in the 1990s, and particularly the Open Society Institute’s Network
Women’s Program (NWP), founded in 1997. At that time, George Soros and
his philanthropic network, the Open Society Institute, were among the main
investors in developing the Romani rights movement, and particularly nurtur-
ing a cohort of young Roma leaders.
This chapter, written by Dr. Nicoleta Bitu, pioneering Romani women’s
activist, and Dr. Debra Schultz, feminist historian and founding Director of
Programs for the OSI Network Women’s Program, recounts and analyzes their
collaboration in creating the Romani Women’s Initiative (RWI), an opera-
tional yet semi-autonomous project of the Network Women’s Program from
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30 Debra Schultz and Nicoleta Bitu
1999 to 2006. We posit the Roma Women’s Initiative as an unprecedented

collaborative experiment in intersectional feminist practice that operated at
local, national, and transnational levels.
The Romani Women’s Initiative articulated its mission as working to:
develop, link, and catalyze a core group of committed Romani women’s

leaders – including many dynamic young women – in an effort to improve
the human rights of Roma women in Central and Eastern Europe. The
RWI connects Romani women from different countries and creates
opportunities for them to map out the common challenges they face to
begin resolving problems together. While respecting the role of Roma
women as mediators between the demands of modern culture and tradi-
tional Romani values, the RWI asserts that Romani women’s rights are
integral to a better future for all Romani people.
(Network Women’s Program 2005)
This mission statement articulates a set of finely-wrought Roma and feminist

operating principles. One of the RWI’s core methods was to build Romani
women’s leadership and to create opportunities for Roma women to define and
pursue their own social change agendas. At the beginning of the RWI, there was
no clearly defined social change agenda, but rather the need to create spaces and
allow time for reflection on the position of Romani women activists and their
potentials and roles to be played. After time for reflection, an agenda was shaped
with a number of layers: the first layer was to capacitate and empower Romani
women activists to address inequalities within both the Romani movement and
feminist movements, and the second layer was to put questions related to
Romani women’s needs on the political agendas at national and international
levels. These layers were addressed while members of the network continued
their work in Romani associations and communities at the local level.
For Debra Schultz, the principle of Romani women setting their own agendas
arose from the US civil rights movement’s commitment to building grassroots
African-American leadership. For Nicoleta Bitu and other Roma leaders, the
concept of ‘nothing about us without us’, a slogan used at the beginning of the
1990s by the disability rights movement, and ‘Roma for Roma’, which appeared
in the OSCE Action Plan for Roma and Sinti in 2003, were critical ideas.
Another core operating principle was the collaboration of Romani and non-
Romani women in supporting Romani women’s activism, always with the
recognition that Romani women should lead. Fortunately, the Open Society
Institute structured its network to value and prioritize local knowledge, though
perhaps without realizing they were enacting feminist epistemology.
In the words of NWP-RWI consultant Azbija Memedova (Macedonia):
RWI was created and coordinated by a few Roma women activists who
emerged from the Roma movement and have designed the very first
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Historic Romani Women’s Initiative 31
narrow path for the Roma women’s movement, a path that is growing up
together with the personal growth of Roma women activists in all coun-
tries. As an informal network of Roma women activists, RWI is building
the Roma movement from the start and step by step. NWP provides
financial, operational, and strategic support without seeking to influence
the agendas Roma women create for themselves. This is one of the main
unique elements of RWI.
(Network Women’s Program 2005)
Personal introductions
Nicoleta Bitu
Not many people know that my first reflection on the condition of Romani
women dates back to 1993, when I wrote an essay for my faculty on the roles of
Romani women in post-conflict situations, making reference to the interethnic
conflicts in Romania. Those conflicts and my mentoring by Nicolae Gheorghe –
one of the founders and visionaries of the Romani movement as well as later on
my late husband – shaped me as an activist since 1991. Just for the sake of clarity:
I didn’t know what a feminist was but I have acted as one since I was a teenager.
In 1998, while already involved in the Romani movement in Romania and
in Europe, I was invited by the Roma Participation Program – led in that
period by Rudko Kawchynski – to attend a conference of Romani women. It
was the first time I experienced a space organized mostly by men (Jud Nirenberg,
István Forgács, Sejdo Jasarov, and Bernard Rorke), but the women had the floor;
the men only served as translators. That is where I met other Romani women,
particularly the ones with whom I established the Romani Women’s Initiative:
Azbija Memedova, as well as our partner, Debra Schultz. I met Enisa Eminova a
few years later. At that time, Azbija Memedova was a leader of the Roma Center
of Skopje, a local non-profit organization that aimed to integrate the Roma
community into Macedonian society, with a focus on Romani women and
youth. Among the young women activists she worked with was Enisa Eminova.
Azbija served as a consultant to the RWI for five years, as a board member of the
European Roma Rights Center, and since 2005, has worked as the Macedonia
representative for the Pestalozzi Children’s Foundation. Enisa Eminova also
served as a regional consultant to the RWI for five years and then went on to
work with vulnerable populations such as street children, refugees, and women
and children living in slum-like conditions for over a decade.
I am wondering even now if my contribution to that meeting was a wise
one. I questioned the preconceived idea of setting up an international Romani
women’s organization without more discussion and debate. I was one of the
critical thinking voices and proposed to work in an informal network, to foster
a process first, and afterwards to establish an organization. Having already been
involved in the European Romani mobilization (since 1993), as a passive par-
ticipant rather than as a direct actor, I had witnessed the way the international
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Roma associations such as the International Romani Union and the Roma
National Congress had functioned. For many years, even now, as I write this
piece, I still see the organizations across our region centered on one leading
figure and not on the process among the members. So, in these conditions,
even at that time, I wanted to create a group of Romani women activists
which, eventually, would take the responsibility together, equally, for estab-
lishing, if needed, an international organization.
But the main reason behind all this was that I didn’t envisage a separation of
the Romani movement into men and women through organizations, my
vision was to seek an equal place at decision-making tables across the Romani
movement for women and other discriminated groups within, such as LGBT.
Therefore, we decided to create a network and start working together to create
resources to address also the multiple roles we played in our daily life.
I was invited, along with Lilyana Kovatcheva (of Bulgaria), by Debra Schultz
to New York to visit the Network Women’s Program. It was my first encounter
with feminists and with feminist books. After long discussions where I expressed
my questions, fears, and confusions I received one of the gifts that changed my
life: a box full of feminist books from Debra. Those books have somehow shed
light, but not completely, on the situations I had lived or seen.
Until I discovered the book! The book that succeeded in pointing out the
things I couldn’t explain in the case of Roma. This book was by bell hooks, her
famous Ain’t I a Woman. It was the book that we (Nicolae and I) shared during
one holiday we spent in Czarna Gora in Poland with Andrzej Mirga’s family. That
was the key to understanding our history and the position of Romani women.
I came to discover and make friends with Azbija, Enisa, and Debra. As Roma
women, Azbija’s and Enisa’s partnership has always positively challenged me.
We related to each other in a feminist way, personal but also political. Our
personal stories of racism and sexism created bonds across our ethnicities or
citizenship, but always keeping up with the responsibility we had taken (which
we were not invested with) to empower other Romani women. We created an
open space for other women too – a space where we could share our problems
but also work together.
The way Debra and her colleagues worked with us by respecting fully the
roles we have played in our lives was a lesson for me, a lesson I have tried to
apply with my women colleagues.
The sections that follow underline exactly the contribution the Romani
Women’s Initiative made to the advancement of the Romani women’s agenda
and leadership, but also to the role it played in connecting the feminist worlds
and Romani worlds at the same time.
Debra Schultz
When I attended my first regional Roma women’s conference in 1998 at the
dingy Hotel Astoria in Budapest’s former Jewish ghetto (now a hipster
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neighborhood), the Open Society Institute’s Network Women’s Program was

barely a year old. As its Director of Programs, I worked collaboratively to
create a regional women’s program dictated by the knowledge, needs, and
priorities of women from the 28 post-Soviet countries in Central and Eastern
Europe with which the Soros Foundation/Open Society Institute was then
engaged. This was not an easy process, to say the least, but it was both chal-
lenging and exciting.
However, when I listened to the incredibly strong and clear women in the
Hotel Astoria that day, I felt like I had come home. Things began to make
sense and a burning sense of mission emerged.
As a well-educated, relatively privileged American whose country had until
recently been the Cold War enemy of the post-Soviet women with whom we
were trying to exchange feminist ideas and institutionalize women’s rights pro-
grams, there were many sensitivities. Organizations like the Network of East West
Women (NEWW), founded in Dubrovnik in 1991, had already started the con-
versation, seeking to bridge these gaps. Although the feminists of NEWW were
aware of and individually supportive of Roma rights and Roma women activists,
there was no strategic discussion of Roma women’s issues. When I visited the
Moscow Center for Gender Studies soon after its founding in 1990 (on my first
trip to the region), I recognized the enormous cultural, political, and epistemolo-
gical divides between western and post-Soviet women who may or may not have
considered themselves feminists (Posadskaya 1994). Therefore it is not surprising
that it took some time to develop the intersectional feminist thinking required to
address Romani women’s issues in gender studies or strategic activist agendas.
After the OSI Network Women’s Program was founded, I observed that when
I was with Roma women, I could just relax and be my multicultural feminist,
Holocaust-obsessed American Jewish self. I did not have to contort myself intel-
lectually, politically, or emotionally to make my key concept – anti-racist feminist
intersectional analysis – central to my work.
I had already been deeply influenced in college by US Black feminist thin-
kers like Audre Lorde and bell hooks, and in graduate school by Critical Race
Theory and Kimberlé Crenshaw’s concept of intersectionality. I had worked
for six years as Assistant Director of the National Council for Research on
Women, a consortium of 75 research centers on women around the US.
Despite good intentions and the constant efforts of Black feminist scholar/
institution-builder Beverly Guy-Sheftall of Spelman College, the organization
was undeniably white. The inability of well-intentioned feminist institutions to
grapple fully with racial inclusion bothered me so much that I left to get a doc-
torate and to explore my own relationship to race and history. That led to a dis-
sertation that eventually became my book, Going South: Jewish Women in the Civil
Rights Movement (Schultz 2001). These experiences and intellectual explorations
were immediately relevant resources to draw upon when I first encountered
Roma women activists and began to think as a feminist and funder about how to
strategically support them.
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I have written elsewhere about what an honor it was to be invited to be an

observer/ally at that 1998 conference of Roma women, sponsored by OSI’s Roma
Participation Program, sitting in a tightly-packed meeting room with 30 Roma
women activists (Schultz 2012, 37–43). The diversity of those women from Spain,
Germany, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania, Slovakia, Macedonia, Serbia,
and Croatia immediately communicated a message that precluded any impulse to
‘essentialize’ Romani women. They differed in so many ways: appearance, lan-
guage, self-presentation, cultural commitments, political ideas, and priorities for the
Roma rights movement and Roma women’s activism. What they had in common
was abundant energy, enthusiasm, and excellent analyses. At that meeting, I met
two of my three future co-conspirators in developing the Romani Women’s
Initiative: Azbija Memedova of Macedonia and Nicoleta Bitu of Romania.
My collaboration with Nicoleta, Azbija, and Enisa was both congenial and quite
productive. What made that possible? I am extremely skeptical of essentializing a
term like ‘feminist sisterhood’ and attributing the successful collaboration of Roma
and non-Roma women to it. There have been far too many instances of unsisterly
feminist behavior to leave such a term unquestioned. However, the ideas of con-
scious feminist collaboration and cross-racial solidarity seem both more accurate
and more self-reflexive. That is what we sought to practice.
Feminist anti-racist theory often discusses white privilege and the attendant
responsibilities of allies. OSI at that time was a complex institution that both
empowered and marginalized Roma activists and feminists. Sometimes I could use
my privileged status as ‘an insider’ to advocate for Roma women and Roma
women’s issues. At other times, we had to accept limits. In trying to calibrate my
role, I drew inspiration from white women in the civil rights movement who said
they learned when to step aside and, in the words of several of my interviewees,
‘when to shut up’. For them and for me, this was not about self-abnegation but
about the shared goal of enabling a group of emerging activists to lead. Did this
always work perfectly? Not at all, since I sometimes had to fulfill internal bureau-
cratic requirements without the input of my Roma women colleagues. None-
theless, there was a remarkable level of honest communication among us that
allowed us to move past these stumbling blocks.
A brief history of the Roma Women’s Initiative

Self-reflexivity is a hallmark of feminist theory and knowledge-creation. The
fact that the co-authors of this article were actors and have a vested interest in
the story that is about to be told of the RWI may suggest possible bias. How-
ever, we hope that this will be balanced by the intimate insights we have as
participants and leaders in this complex endeavor. It is important to document
and discuss what we genuinely feel was a strategic effort to lay the foundation
for regional Romani women’s activism. We had many debates about lan-
guage – should we call this feminist? Many Roma women would object,
including one of our leaders at the time, Azbija Memedova. Are we trying to
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build a Romani women’s movement or simply supporting Romani women’s

activism taking many forms? Whatever the debates were, fortunately we just
kept thinking and moving forward.
Working with NWP Director of Programs Debra Schultz, Romani women
leaders who served as senior consultants guided RWI strategy development.
Nicoleta Bitu, founder of Romani Criss in Romania, led in 1999–2002 and
2004–2006, and Azbija Memedova, founder of the Roma Center of Skopje,
joined from 2000–2005. Enisa Eminova served as a consultant for five years,
providing leadership on the Virginity Project and RWI Information Initiatives
(Roma women’s website, listserv, and directory of activists). Together they
developed three-year strategy papers for the OSI leadership as part of NWP’s
strategy submissions. Approval of strategies and budgets was by no means a
foregone conclusion but successful review enabled the work to proceed.
During these years, RWI’s core budget was always modest, ranging from
$75,000 to $100,000 annually. Partnerships and co-funding with women’s pro-
gram coordinators in Soros national foundations also supported coordinated
activities at the national level and brought a new level of commitment to Roma
women’s issues by mainstream women’s movements. Though these funding
partnerships with national foundations were also quite modest (approximately
$10,000 annually in Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, the Czech
Republic, Hungary, Macedonia, Montenegro, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, and
Ukraine), the personal commitment to finding and supporting new young Roma
women leaders was large and invaluable. Despite serious downsizing of many of
these Soros foundations in the mid-2000s, the commitment to Roma women’s
leadership remained strong among NWP’s national foundation partners.
From 1999 to 2006, RWI and NWP sponsored over 50 projects, trainings,
and events, reaching hundreds of Roma activists and their allies with informa-
tion, learning experiences, policy development, and opportunities for colla-
boration, creative project development, and leadership. What follows is a
chronological account of the most important activities, highlighting their stra-
tegic rationale. While the account is primarily chronological to document
development over time, many different approaches were pursued simulta-
neously, especially when strategic opportunities arose. To accomplish its goals
of empowering and linking Roma women’s activists to develop their own
action agendas, the RWI engaged in training, convenings for strategy-setting,
skills development, peer mentoring, research and knowledge creation, policy
actions, funding Roma women’s groups, and making Roma women’s issues
visible in the Roma rights and women’s movements.
Seven years seems a short amount of time to catalyze an entirely new
movement but the history of the US civil rights movement and other move-
ments around the world, such as the Arab Spring, suggests that when the his-
torical moment is right, much can be achieved in a short time. Conversely, as
human rights advocates well know, terrible destruction can also happen in a
short time, such as the Rwandan genocide.
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In thinking about why the RWI (and other OSI Roma Initiatives) were able
to have a big impact in a short time-frame, it is important to remember the
groundwork already in place. Pioneers such as Nicolae Gheorghe in policy and
diplomacy, and scholar-advocates like Ian Hancock and Andrzej Mirga had
done much to raise awareness and develop Roma consciousness. There was a
pride and militancy in the generation they mentored who assumed it was
appropriate for Roma people to advocate for their rights. So, when a core
group of Romani women activists encountered feminist ideas, it was not so
difficult for them to conceive of bringing these two streams together. They
were already respected leaders, albeit sometimes subject to sexism.
Laying the Foundations

The RWI always pursued a multifaceted agenda, creating separate spaces for
Romani women to meet and define the issues, while also ‘mainstreaming’
Romani women’s issues in the regional Roma rights and women’s rights
movements. This started in 2000, when Nicoleta Bitu became the first Roma
woman Human Rights Fellow in NWP’s Women’s Human Rights Advanced
Leadership Training program, which supported over 100 women fellows over
the course of a two-year project.
Bitu used her new understanding of international women’s human rights
mechanisms to help develop the NWP-sponsored Euromni Zurali Leadership
Training in 2000. This landmark event was the first international Roma
women’s rights training designed and delivered by Roma women for 25 Roma
women. Following the training, Roma women activists convened national
agenda-setting meetings in Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Kosovo,
Macedonia, Romania, Serbia, and Slovakia. These national meetings helped par-
ticipants identify promising new Roma women activists from many regions of
each country. This movement-building approach expanded the numbers of Roma
women involved, generated confidence and power for Roma women activists,
and brought them funding and allies through alliances with NWP’s national
coordinators and their country’s women’s movement. These alliances were
mutually reinforcing, enabling the women’s program coordinators to take a
stand for anti-racist programming as part of their understanding of women’s
rights agendas.
While engaging in linkages and movement-building on the national and
regional levels, NWP and RWI realized that seasoned Roma women activists
could introduce Roma women’s issues in major international forums. If anti-
Roma racism was one of Europe’s still acceptable forms of discrimination, we
wanted Roma women activists to be part of the discussion at the equivalent of
the first global summit on racism: the UN World Conference on Racism in
Durban, South Africa (September 2001). At the conference, the Center for
Women’s Global Leadership held a Tribunal on Racial and Sexual Oppression,
to ensure that this global discussion of racism included feminist analyses.
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Testimony by Roma women activists Slavica Vasić and Vera Kurtić of Serbia
was integral to the video the Center produced: ‘Women at the Intersection of
Racism and Other Oppressions: A Human Rights Hearing.’ The video and the
Center’s Summer Institute explored the meaning of intersectionality and women’s
strategies for overcoming multiple oppressions based on race, gender, caste, and
class. Demonstrating her already international and intersectional analyses, Vera
Kurtić testified that ‘the international community has ignored the facts about the
rape of Roma women in Kosovo, and the trafficking of women, among which
the great numbers are of Roma nationality.’ Arguing that few women ‘around the
globe’ receive adequate support and justice after rape, given the tendency to blame
victims, Kurtić said: ‘Therefore you will understand what kind of situation a raped
Roma woman is faced with’ (Raj, Bunch, and Nazome 2002).
Within this early period, it also became clear that there was a generation gap in
the Roma movement and that some older Roma women activists were not
focusing on developing young Roma women’s leadership. In 2002, the Inter-
national Roma Women Network was set up as an organization of Romani
women to combat the discrimination against Roma but not with a feminist
agenda (Izsák 2008). As Rita Izsák witnessed, and later wrote about her
experiences as a young Romani woman member of IRWN:
The older generation of Roma women believe and teach the younger
generation that it is part of Romani culture to respect and follow our male
leaders and to maintain peace through agreeing with them. This clearly
became the gap between the younger (and progressive) generation and the
older (conservative and traditional) Romani women. The author can recall
statements from IRWN meetings when the older women argued that those
Roma girls who wore trousers or lost their virginity before marriage were
not real Roma women and needed more guidance (Ibid.).
Partially as a reaction to these experiences inside IRWN, the RWI made a

policy decision to invest more of the Initiative’s limited resources on young
women. This decision paid off magnificently, as young Roma women took the
lead with the Virginity Project, a ground-breaking research/action project
challenging the traditional virginity cult (which requires public evidence that a
newly-married bride is a virgin), and promoting freedom of sexual choice.
Originated by thirteen young Roma women in Macedonia in 2001, the Vir-
ginity Project was replicated in Serbia and Hungary, and extended to Bulgaria,
Montenegro, Romania, Slovakia, and Ukraine in 2005. In Macedonia, the
young women interviewed 660 young women, young men, and parents in all
parts of the country. One young woman researcher wrote: ‘I interviewed
patriarchal and poorly-educated families and expected to be refused, but the
opposite happened – they accepted the survey, filled in the questionnaires and
welcomed our initiative’ (Young Leaders 2001, 3). What made this project an
outstanding model of intersectional feminist practice was its initiation by young
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Roma women, the inclusion of young Roma men and parents as agents of
potential change, and leadership and knowledge-creation by young Roma
women. A non-Roma woman sociologist helped the ‘Young Leaders’ group
design the methodology but it was truly their project, one that challenged
many preconceived notions, including the idea that Roma communities were
not open to change, particularly on issues of gender and sexuality.
Inspired by the success of the Macedonian Virginity Project and listening to
Romani women’s expressed desires to learn more about feminist frameworks,
the RWI reached out to gender studies pioneers in the region. Working with
RWI leaders, the Belgrade Center for Women’s Studies designed the first
Gender Studies Mini-School for Roma women in August 2002. Nineteen
young Romani women from Serbia, Montenegro, Kosovo, and Macedonia
received scholarships to attend and left with a follow-up mentorship program.
Continuing the cross-fertilization of Romani women’s ideas with global
feminist frameworks, NWP supported the participation of four Romani
women activists at the ninth annual AWID (Association for Women’s Rights in
Development) International Forum, ‘Re-inventing Globalization’ in Guadala-
jara, Mexico in October 2002. Enisa Eminova was the first Romani woman to
speak on a plenary session at AWID, thus introducing Roma women’s issues to
2,000 global feminist leaders in an effort to combat Roma women’s invisibility
and to forge alliances. In a panel entitled ‘Why a Roma Women’s Movement:
Between Women’s Rights and Roma Rights,’ Vera Kurtić and Rozalia Ilić
(Serbia) discussed the challenges they faced articulating Romani women’s issues
to both the women’s movement and the Romani rights movement. Andrea
Bučková (Slovakia) showed a documentary film about the lives of Roma
people in Slovakia, which touched on gender-related issues and generated
much discussion and questions from AWID participants. The panel and film
represented one of the first opportunities for leading Romani women activists
to bring Romani women’s priorities to the global women’s movement. RWI
was hopeful that Roma women’s issues would remain on global feminist
agendas. That was difficult because the global women’s movement tended to
think of Europe as the colonizer of all the other regions represented in the
movement. So it was hard, at first, even to include women from Central/
Eastern Europe in the global women’s movement, a perspective NWP spent
several years reframing. The conceptual shift required to include the issues of
Roma women from a diasporic, internally colonized people within Europe did
not fit easily into global feminist paradigms of oppression.
RWI was constantly calculating how much energy to invest in building
Roma women’s activism at the grassroots level while fostering alliances with
national Roma and women’s movements, European policy structures, and the
global feminist movement. Technology provided a way to build the grassroots
while maintaining visibility at other levels. In 2002, the Soros Foundations
began to think about how to use technology to accelerate organizing for
Romani rights. Co-funded by OSI’s Information Project, Network Women’s
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Program, Roma Participation Program, and Roma Media Program, the eRider
Initiative trained six young Roma men and women to provide technical assis-
tance to Roma NGOs on using information and communication technologies
(ICTs) to promote outreach, networking and advocacy campaigns. NWP sup-
ported training for Enisa Eminova, Gabriela Hrabaňová (Czech Republic), Maria
Metodieva (Bulgaria), and Nora Costache (Romania) to become Roma eRiders.
In keeping with the value of Roma to Roma knowledge exchange and to help
spread Roma women’s activism to countries where it was less developed, the
RWI also supported a week-long study visit for Indire Bajramović, President of
the Roma Women’s Association ‘Better Future’ in Tuzla, Bosnia and Herzego-
vina, to Macedonia. The goal was to share the Macedonian experience of Romani
NGO development with an emphasis on gender issues, and to strengthen ‘Better
Future’s’ skills in NGO management, advocacy, and lobbying. Such cross-country
exchanges with more experienced Roma women’s groups continued throughout
RWI’s existence.
The Roma Women’s Forum in 2003: A Turning Point

RWI’s pool of seasoned Roma women activists was relatively small, but the
demand for their input grew exponentially, due to rapidly changing European
politics, specifically the European Union Accession process. Treatment of mino-
rities was one of the criteria the EU established to decide whether to admit
emerging Central/Southern European states to membership. RWI was among
many initiatives that sought to use that leverage to advance Roma rights agendas.
The ‘Roma Women’s Forum’, held on June 29, 2003 in Budapest, was a
milestone event for the emerging Roma women’s movement that highlighted
the expertise of an impressive pool of Roma women activists. Over 100 Roma
women activists, donors, international human rights leaders, and government
representatives from Central/Eastern Europe attended. Initiated and organized
by RWI precisely to ensure that Roma women’s issues would be part of the
large-scale policy and financial investments in Roma rights, the Forum marked
one of the first times that Roma women presented their own comprehensive
policy agenda to high-level officials from regional governments and interna-
tional agencies, including the World Bank and the European Commission.
The potential agenda for the Roma women’s movement was very complex
but the RWI worked hard to articulate Roma women’s concerns as policy issues.
These included such issues as early and arranged marriages, girls’ access to edu-
cation, the ‘virginity cult,’ domestic violence, coerced sterilization, trafficking and
prostitution, poverty and economic empowerment, multiple discrimination, cul-
tural preservation, and gender politics within the Roma movement.
The ‘Roma Women’s Forum’ was held one day prior to the international
World Bank/Open Society Institute agenda-setting conference, ‘Roma in an
Expanding Europe: Challenges for the Future.’ The conference marked an
extraordinary turning point in Europe’s relation to its Romani population.
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Prime Ministers from most of the countries with large Roma populations, both
in the new EU accession states and aspiring candidate states in Southeastern
Europe, pledged their governments’ support for comprehensive efforts to integrate
Roma as full citizens, and to include serious policy initiatives to improve condi-
tions for Roma in the fields of education, health, housing, and employment.
OSI President Aryeh Neier and World Bank President James Wolfensohn
supported and participated enthusiastically in the Roma Women’s Forum,
but the RWI was disappointed that the Forum was not officially included
in the larger high-level conference ‘Roma in an Expanding Europe,’ which
launched the Decade of Roma Inclusion (2005–2015). Nevertheless, in his
address to prime ministers from nine EU-accession countries, World Bank
President James Wolfensohn praised the leadership of Roma women and
young people. To ensure that Roma women’s issues would be integrated
into the Decade of Roma Inclusion, Nicoleta Bitu presented a summary of
the Roma Women’s Forum agenda to the Prime Ministers. RWI hoped
that this international support and visibility would position it as a leading
contributor, as the Roma community partnered with donors and policy-
makers to implement the ‘Decade of Roma Inclusion’ strategy from 2005–
2015. NWP published A Place at the Policy Table: Report on the Roma
Women’s Forum to disseminate the ideas generated at the Roma Women’s
Forum (Network Women’s Program 2004).
The following table encapsulates the key issues as identified by Roma
women activists and their policy recommendations.
It was one thing to create a Roma women’s policy agenda and another to
advance it within the structure created to implement the Decade of Roma
Inclusion. The Secretariat was charged with implementing the four main
focus areas – education, health, employment, and housing – with gender and
anti-discrimination as cross-cutting themes. NWP and RWI staff argued
vigorously against having gender as a cross-cutting theme because experi-
ence with gender mainstreaming had already shown its inherently tokenistic
nature, which resulted in almost no substantive analysis of gender issues,
let alone translation of the issues into policy agendas with accountability
mechanisms and target goals. The need to constantly gender-integrate every
process, structure, and resource-allocation as part of the Decade would be
reactive rather than pro-active.
By the first year of the Decade, it was clear that it would be challenging to
hold the governments to their basic commitments, let alone to more nuanced
gender-related issues. Although Roma women had addressed their recom-
mendations at the Forum and the Decade conference to national governments
(who were scrambling to initiate or improve national machinery on Roma as
part of the EU accession process), the World Bank and other donors (whose
funding of Roma women was often idiosyncratic and divisive, rather than
synergistic), and the Roma and women’s movements (both of which failed to
seriously integrate the concerns of Roma women), it would be an uphill battle
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Table 1.1 Recommendations: Romani Women’s Policy Forum

Summary: Education
Issues:
➢ Early marriages, cultural obligations, lack of female teachers as role models, segregation,
discrimination, etc.
Recommendations:
➢ Train and employ more Roma women as teachers and assistants;
➢ Add Roma women’s perspectives to textbooks;
➢ Create community-based literacy programs for Roma women (which tend to improve the
literacy levels of entire communities);
➢ Encourage parents to increase their expectations for their children, especially
girls.
Summary: Economic Empowerment
Issues:
➢ Lower life expectancy rates and educational levels, higher rates of fertility, mortality, unem-
ployment, poverty, extensive social exclusion, and gender-based discrimination;
Recommendations:
➢ Create micro-credit lines and micro-enterprise programs that would provide employment
opportunities, help end dependency on the social welfare system, and increase the overall
quality of life for Roma women.
Summary: Sexual and Reproductive Rights
Issues:
➢ Coerced Sterilization, Sexual Taboos, Arranged Marriages, and Domestic Violence
Recommendations:
➢ Prompt governments to oppose coercive provisions (such as forced sterilization) and the denial
of health services to Roma women;
➢ Provide funding for community-based educational efforts for parents and men that address the
effects of the virginity cult, early marriage, and sexual taboos.
Summary: Grassroots Leadership and Political Participation
Issues:
➢ Promoting Roma women’s human rights, political participation, Roma women’s leadership,
and solidarity
Recommendations:
➢ Mainstream Roma women’s issues into national Roma development agendas;
➢ Ensure that Roma women’s rights are considered within mechanisms to monitor political
criteria for EU accession;
➢ Promote equal representation of Roma women and men in government;
➢ Appoint a National Advisor on Minority Women’s Issues in Central/Eastern European
Governments.
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to keep Roma women’s issues central in what would become complex, highly-
politicized efforts on Roma inclusion.
At the Roma Women’s Forum, Blanka Kozma, founder and president of
Hungary’s Association of Roma Women in Public Life stated: ”Though many
Roma women work in Roma self-governments (a parallel political process
to ‘empower’ Roma communities in Hungary), the nature of the minority
self-government system empowers neither Roma women nor their commu-
nities”’ (Network Women’s Program 2004, 31). She could have easily been
speaking presciently of the Decade of Roma Inclusion.
It is difficult to comprehend why the architects of the Decade of Roma
Inclusion’s founding conference and secretariat denied RWI’s request to have
gender or women’s issues as one of the pillars of the Decade, and not a cross-
cutting issue. The women who spoke at both the Roma Women’s Forum and
the Decade’s founding conference were undeniably substantive, poised, impress-
ive, and moving. It may have had something to do with the epistemological
inability to accord Roma women’s knowledge creation and activist agendas the
same status as the Decade’s other key priorities. As philosopher Elizabeth Kamarck
Minnich has written in Transforming Knowledge: ”There is no more powerful
position than that which dominates while appearing not to, no more influential
position than that which sets the standards for and informs cultural meanings and
their expression as knowledge” (Minnich 1990, 161). Such exclusion is ultimately
counterproductive. How could Roma leaders conceptualize solutions to problems
within the Decade’s four ‘pillars’ – health, education, housing, and employment –
without a gender analysis and Roma women’s input? Including Roma women
activists and their ideas could only strengthen the Decade and increase its chances
for successful implementation.
Nonetheless, although there was resistance to committing fully to Roma
women’s policy agendas, Roma women were called upon to lead at the inter-
national level. Enisa Eminova represented Roma Youth at a World Bank
Youth Summit in Paris. Azbija Memedova led a regional delegation of young
Roma activists to an agenda-setting meeting at the World Bank in Washing-
ton, DC for the ‘Decade of Roma’ and the ‘Roma Education Fund.’ Though
many Roma women did the work of the Decade, it proved difficult to prioritize
Roma women’s issues.
The RWI used such international visits to advance the interests and visibility of
Romani women leaders. Roma women led a speaking tour in Washington and
New York. Azbija Memedova, Gabriela Hrabaňová (Czech Republic), Refika
Mustafić (Serbia), and Delia Grigoreva (Romania) spoke at many mainstream
events, including at the Open Society Institute, introducing US policymakers to
Roma issues. For the first time, Romani women activists from Central/Eastern
Europe met with Roma women activists in New York. The NWP arranged for a
study visit and exchange of ideas with women of color activists.
While enjoying the high visibility of Romani women leaders internationally,
the RWI realized the need to continue developing Roma women’s leadership
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in the Central/Eastern Europe region. NWP continued to co-fund the gender-

related aspects of OSI’s Roma Information Project eRider Initiative. The
women eRiders provided technical assistance to Roma women’s groups in
their countries and worked on special RWI projects. They developed the first
Roma Women’s Website and the first Directory of Roma Women Activists, which
provided contact information for over 120 Roma women activists in nine
Central and South Eastern European countries.
The eRiders project was a successful joint effort of the Roma Women’s
Initiative and the Roma Participation Program, but such collaborations were
sometimes uneasy. In the beginning, RPP staff members seemed willing to
collaborate but perhaps when the stakes became higher, with the Decade of
Roma Inclusion, there was both less incentive and less political will to grapple
with how to co-create this kind of programming.
The challenges of RPP and RWI programmatic cooperation reflected both
internal OSI tensions and wider Roma movement tensions. Internally, all OSI
programs competed for resources and there seemed to be a perception that
Roma women ‘belonged’ to the Roma programming units. This created both
tension for the Network Women’s Program and conflicts for the Roma
women leaders. They did their best to be visible in and contribute to both
agendas. All three Roma women leaders of the RWI were also high-level
leaders of major OSI Roma initiatives, including serving on boards of impor-
tant organizations like the European Roma Rights Center.
What exacerbated the tension was the lack of models for translating inter-
sectional feminist theory into European policy practice. The idea that two
programs – one focused on ‘race’ and the other focused on ‘gender’ – should
collaborate to create programming was difficult to implement in the Founda-
tion, just as it was at the level of European policy machineries (Zentai 2015).
While the term ‘intersectional feminist practice’ has not made it to the EU,
small inroads were made for Roma women’s policy agendas by using the term
‘multiple discrimination.’
The tension between a focus on ethnic nationalism and women’s empower-
ment is reminiscent of struggles over gender in the civil rights and Black Power
movements. Racial nationalists often posited gender issues as less important than
cultural survival, but these movements did enable some Black women to take
leadership roles. Historian Robyn Spencer documents this in her book, The
Revolution Has Come: Black Power, Gender, and the Black Panther Party in Oakland
(Spencer 2016). As in the 1960s United States, the severity of anti-Roma racism in
21st-century Europe could be used to make a compelling argument for privileging
anti-racist activism over Roma women’s issues. However, that would create a false
dichotomy; both agendas have been and should be pursued simultaneously.
Thus, RWI’s work continued in the mid-2000s. The Macedonian young
women’s national research project on sexual taboos and sexual choice in the
Roma community grew into a groundbreaking regional initiative. Eminova
consulted on methodology with two new NWP-supported Roma women’s
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groups, ARANJ in Pécs, Hungary, and ‘the Young Researchers’ in Novi Sad,
Serbia. ARANJ published the results of its survey ‘On Virginity’ in spring 2003
and the Serbian team published their results in August 2003.
In the summer of 2003, the eRiders conducted preliminary consultations
with Roma women’s groups to replicate the survey in Slovakia, the Czech
Republic, Romania, and Bulgaria. The innovative bi-national Czech/Slovak
Women’s Fund helped to build young Roma women’s research capacity for
this and other projects by sponsoring a gender studies mini-school for young
Roma women from the Czech Republic and Slovakia.
In 2004, RWI launched the first Roma women’s website (www.romawom
ensinitiatives.org). This enabled information-sharing, visibility, and greater impact
on a regional basis. For example, by 2004, data collected from seven countries
allowed for comparative analysis and the design of locally-appropriate public
education campaigns. By surveying several hundred Roma parents, young men
and women in each country, the research projects started to raise taboo issues of
sexual choice in Roma communities across the region. Backed by solid evidence
that demonstrated Roma communities’ willingness to discuss and modify certain
aspects of the virginity cult, this project represented one of the first grassroots,
research-based efforts to challenge harmful traditional practices. Virginity Project
training continued in 2005, including young Roma activists in Bulgaria and Slo-
vakia, two countries with relatively large Roma populations, and Ukraine, the first
inclusion of a post-Soviet country outside the region of traditional Roma activism.
Also in the mid-2000s, Roma women activists from eighteen European
countries launched the International Roma Women’s Network (IRWN) to
lobby governments for better living conditions and to advocate for Roma
women’s rights. Primarily working through the Council of Europe, IRWN
operated differently than the RWI. The two networks attempted to collaborate
but sometimes foundered on different visions of Romani women’s activism.
Seizing Strategic Opportunities Offered by European

Enlargement
While efforts to gender integrate the Decade of Roma Inclusion processes were
slow, the RWI still sought to leverage the historical moment of European enlar-
gement to take Roma women’s activism to a new level. Using the momentum
and visibility generated by the Roma Women’s Forum, and in order to develop
long-term strategies for a Roma women’s rights and policy agenda, NWP-RWI
and the European Roma Rights Center co-sponsored the first workshop to
address human rights advocacy strategies for Roma women’s rights at the Eur-
opean and global levels. Designed primarily for young Roma women and men
lawyers and law students, the workshop presented an overview of Roma women’s
issues and different vehicles for advocacy, including successful national case studies.
Andrea Bučková (Slovakia) presented on forced sterilization, Rozalia Ilić (Serbia)
presented on trafficking, and Mária Pálmai (Hungary) presented on the virginity
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cult. Dimitrina Petrova, Director of the European Roma Rights Center, analyzed
ERRC’s advocacy strategy, exploring opportunities for strategic litigation on
Roma women’s rights. Zarine Habeeb, a Muslim Indian woman lawyer working
for the ERRC, led a workshop on how to use the UN Convention on the
Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW).
As part of the workshop, Roma rights experts and advocates held an Open
Forum at the Central European University on March 10, 2004. They addressed
the following questions: With ten states joining the European Union in May
2004 under pressure to create and implement effective national plans on Roma,
how can Roma women activists best promote their agendas at the local,
national, and European levels? What strategies will support the development of
policies that address the reality of double discrimination faced by Roma
women? Given various European and national structures addressing Roma and
gender issues, how much effort should Roma women devote to mainstreaming
Roma women’s issues into all structures related to Roma and women’s issues?
Is there a need and future for a separate Roma women’s movement?
While the panelists did not fully resolve these vital (and still relevant) ques-
tions, Roma women started to use the advocacy strategies discussed at the 2004
workshop. They created some historic firsts for Romani women in high-level
European and global policy bodies. In 2005 and 2006, Roma women presented
their issues at the UN Commission on the Status of Women 10th Anniversary
Review of the Beijing Platform for Action, the United Nations Committee
on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW)
hearings, and the European Parliament’s Hearing on Roma Women.
Why were all these hearings important? They represented a claiming of
social change space and advanced a series of challenges. They challenged Roma
women activists to see themselves as part of the regional and global women’s
movements, and to actually use international mechanisms to advance their cause.
They challenged those movements to take Roma women’s issues seriously, and
to see them as part of their own feminist agendas. Finally, they made the Roma
community in general, and Roma women’s issues in particular, visible at the
highest policy levels.
While global feminists at the UN were celebrating the 10th anniversary of
the Beijing Platform for Action, young activists Kerieva McCormick of the
European Roma Rights Center and Enisa Eminova of the NWP-RWI pointed
out at a high-level session that the position of Roma, Gypsy/Traveler, and
immigrant women in Europe received almost no attention from women’s
groups regionally, internationally, or at the United Nations. They wanted to make
visible once and for all the extreme marginalization and vulnerability European
Roma women faced due to social exclusion, poverty, and harmful community
practices. Such a breakthrough was also due to the unprecedented support of the
Central and Eastern Europe/Commonwealth of Independent States NGO
Caucus, which endorsed the Roma women’s statement as one of the representa-
tive statements from the region. Such support was the fruit of intensive efforts to
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integrate Roma women’s issues into the region’s feminist agenda. That required
overcoming racism, building relationships, and exchanging ideas.
At the 49th session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women, Roma
women activists sought to keep the momentum going. Addressing the practical
and conceptual barriers to representing Roma women’s issues in policy forums,
Alexandra Oprea, a Romanian-born Romani activist who lives in the United
States, called for an intersectional approach to collecting race and gender-sen-
sitive statistics to accurately monitor the situation of Roma women.
Romani women researched and presented a shadow report on the situation of
Romani women in Macedonia to the UN Committee on Discrimination Against
Women (CEDAW). This was the first time CEDAW had received a report spe-
cifically on the situation of Romani women in a particular country under review
for its stand on women’s rights. Thanks in part to the report, the Committee fol-
lowed up and monitored the situation of Romani women in Macedonia.
In an effort to use EU accession leverage to create national change for
Romani women on a discrete intersectional issue, NWP and the Central
European University’s Center for Policy Studies developed a project to train
young Roma women policy researchers to document Romani women’s
access to employment in ten countries of South-Eastern Europe. The result-
ing fact sheets were used to raise awareness of the issues at the European
Parliament and other international organizations such as the OSCE, the
Council of Europe, and the EU Monitoring Center on Racism. The title on
each country fact sheet, ‘Your Sex and Race Matter,’ was a less-than-subtle
way to promote the challenging concept of multiple discrimination among
policymakers and advocates alike.
In June 2006, the European Parliament issued its first, historic resolution on
The Situation of Romani Women in the EU. This ground-breaking event reflected
RWI’s research and policy contributions, working in collaboration with Lívia
Járóka (Hungary), the first Romani woman elected as a member of the European
Parliament.
Legacies of the Roma Women’s Initiative

In retrospect, it is astonishing to see how much was accomplished, how
many women (Roma and non-Roma) from so many countries were tou-
ched by the ideas of the RWI, and how, in some ways, the youngest
Roma women activists today display a confidence in their right to leader-
ship that did not exist previously. This is a testament to pioneering Roma
women activists but also to several pro-Roma feminist pioneers, as well as
the non-Roma women’s program coordinators who understood that pro-
moting Roma women’s rights was an integral part of OSI’s and European
feminist agendas.
By 2006, when the OSI Board required a new three-year strategy, the RWI
set an ambitious agenda despite troubling signs in several areas. These included
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resistance from the Decade of Roma Inclusion infrastructure to seriously enga-

ging with gender-related issues, conflict between different wings of the Romani
women’s movement, the ‘mandated’ collaboration of the Network Women’s
Program and Roma Participation Program in a ‘joint Roma women’s initiative,’
and downsizing of the founding national women’s programs of OSI’s Network
Women’s Program.
In 2006, the OSI leadership decided to consolidate programming on Roma
women by the Network Women’s Program and the Roma Participation Program
into a Joint Roma Women’s Initiative. The JWRI was staffed by Nicoleta Bitu,
Enisa Eminova, and RPP’s Isabela Mihalache (Romania). This was a non-con-
sultative, top-down decision, not a desired outcome for NWP or the RWI.
Essentially, the two programs continued to do their own work. RPP made useful
grants to start or support local Roma women’s NGOs and NWP-RWI continued
with research, policy development, and advocacy.
By 2007, both Nicoleta Bitu and Debra Schultz had decided to move on
from work with the Open Society Institute. Both continued to work on and
think about Romani women’s issues. With the loss of two key players inside and
outside the structure of the Open Society Institute, there was little momentum
to continue the work of the Roma Women’s Initiative, although many of the
Roma women involved became leading Roma women’s and Roma rights
advocates, as well as policymakers and scholars. Distance and time provide an
opportunity to reflect on whether the Roma Women’s Initiative represented
a missed opportunity or an important foundation of Roma women’s activism
in Central/Eastern Europe.
In the aptly named publication, A Lost Decade? Reflections on Roma Inclusion
2005–2015, Margareta Matache, a Romanian Roma activist, former director of
Romani Criss, and a post-doctoral research fellow at Harvard University, assessed
the Decade of Roma Inclusion for its attention to gender equality. She wrote:
”Overall, gender equality was the weakest point or the greatest failure of the
Decade, in terms of ambitions, dialogue, and results” (Matache 2015, 42). She notes
the Decade’s failure to implement the Roma Women’s Forum’s sophisticated
policy platform, to allocate budgets to address gender discrimination, to clearly
identify goals, actions, indicators, and benchmarks for attention to gender equality,
and to put into place monitoring mechanisms within existing processes such as the
National Action Plans, the Decade Watch, Civil Society Monitoring Reports, or
the Decade Intelligence Report. Matache nonetheless cites the inclusion of Roma
women’s issues in the OSCE Action Plan in 2003 and the Decade of Roma
Inclusion regional framework in 2005 as ‘a double first.’
Because of its unrealized full potential given its ambitious vision, the RWI
can feel like a missed opportunity, but it truly represents the building blocks of
a movement. In final reflections, Debra Schultz and Nicoleta Bitu share some
lessons learned that they hope will contribute to future Romani women’s
activism. Finally, the chapter concludes with Enisa Eminova’s statement on the
legacies of the RWI.
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Concluding Thoughts
Debra Schultz
It was gratifying to read Margareta Matache’s analysis in 2015, but at the start of the
Decade of Roma Inclusion in 2005, it was clear to many of us that naming gender as
a cross-cutting issue without dedicated resources would doom Roma women’s
policy efforts. Yet we could not ignore what was then considered the best opportu-
nity to fast-track European Roma rights advocacy and social inclusion. The Decade’s
lack of gender inclusion was an enormous missed opportunity. There have been
many other critiques of the Decade, including the fact that grassroots activists were
not truly involved. Nonetheless, it represented the most organized, well-financed,
cooperative alliance of international institutions and donors seeking to help the
Roma Rights movement take an exponential policy leap forward. If we had known
that the RWI’s work would not be as well-integrated as it should have been, we
might have focused less on trying to educate and mainstream gender into various
institutions. However, the frustrating effort to do so actually provided opportunities
to hone Roma women’s leadership skills and to build a Roma women’s movement.
The RWI was vulnerable because it was never formalized as an activist network.
It should not have been reliant on one funding source, institution, or even a small
number of founding mothers. Yet the RWI’s semi-location within OSI allowed
us to access resources and create linkages in ways that made a tremendous
amount of experimentation and work possible in a short time. The OSI net-
work enabled the RWI to serve as a model and an incubator. It raised questions
about the need to build Roma women’s leadership within all Roma initiatives,
and it legitimated Roma women’s issues within and outside the network.
Among the RWI’s legacies is the gift of friendship and trust. When I studied
the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee’s dream of creating the
‘beloved community’ at a time in the US when it was illegal and possibly life-
threatening for Blacks and whites to be in the same room, I learned the power
of demonstrating through interpersonal relationships a vision of how the world
should be, what political scientists call ‘pre-figurative politics.’ When Kati
Stojka trusted me enough to invite me to visit the school for Roma kids she
established in her house in Kalocsa, Hungary, or when Nicoleta, Azbija, Enisa,
and I stayed up way past midnight in some god-forsaken motel laughing,
writing strategy papers, and talking about life, that generated a kind of power
that transcended the limits of institutions or politics. Therefore, if I had to sum
up the legacy of the Roma Women’s Initiative, I would say that the RWI
created empowering, boundary-crossing relationships, whose impact lives on.
Nicoleta Bitu
The lessons I have learned are both personal and political. The RWI gave me
the space, security, and growth to navigate my own route. The history of RWI
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is similar to mine. During its existence, I discovered the joy and sadness of
being in a limited position of power, the limits of my character and knowledge
in connection with others, the painful learning that nothing comes without
struggle, and the lifelong sweetness of discovering and rediscovering friends.
I have learned that the world and our movement was not ready to welcome
a feminist type of leadership based on partnership, equality, and cooperation in
complementarity. The very fact of being an informal network gave us pluses and
minuses: we were seen by some of the other actors as an instrument of white
feminists from the Open Society Institute and labeled as marionettes, while we
were the ones shaping the programs and activities. Not having a clear structure of
leadership was confusing for most of our Romani women colleagues, while it was
clear that Azbija, Enisa, and I were the leaders of the program.
But I would highlight two of the most important lessons I’ve learned. First,
we need separate secure spaces as Romani women, but in communication and
solidarity with both the Romani and feminist movements. Second, we need to
recognize class privileges within Romani communities and the Roma move-
ment. The recognition that the vast majority of Roma people are still pro-
foundly marginalized provides fuel for continuing our activism.
Enisa Eminova
RWI produced knowledge, put it into practice, and shared it with others in the
Roma and women’s movements. RWI has created spaces and facilitated con-
versations that were intentionally avoided, either because of lack of knowledge
on the part of the Roma, or because of lack of knowledge/interest on the part of
governments, donors, and international organizations. RWI set the tone of these
conversations. RWI served as a space for critical activist voices to be heard outside
of Roma communities. RWI and IRWN (the International Roma Women’s
Network) represent an important moment of history: the first attempt to build a
Roma Women’s movement in Europe.
Note
1 The Soros Foundations Network is now known as the Open Society Foundations
(OSF). At the time of the events described in this chapter, it was known as the Open
Society Institute (OSI) and we have decided to retain that usage here.
Bibliography
Izsák, Rita. 2008. “The European Romani Women’s Movement – International Roma
Women’s Network.” In Changing Their World: Concepts and Practices of Women’s
Movements, edited by Srilatha Batliwala. Toronto: Association for Women’s Rights in
Development. https://www.awid.org/sites/default/files/atoms/files/changing_their_
world_-_the_european_romani_womens_movement.pdf.
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Matache, Margareta. 2015. “Nothing about Us without Us: Roma Participation,

Gender Equity and the Decade of Roma Inclusion.” In Bernard Roarke, Margareta
Matache, and Eben Friedman A Lost Decade? Reflections on Roma Inclusion 2005–2015,
28–42. Budapest: Decade of Roma Inclusion Secretariat Foundation.
Minnich, Elizabeth Kamarck. 1990. Transforming Knowledge. Philadelphia: Temple
University Press.
Network Women’s Program. 2004. “A Place at the Policy Table: Report on the Roma
Women’s Forum, Budapest Hungary, June 29, 2003.” New York: Open Society
Institute. https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/sites/default/files/roma_womens_
finalreport.pdf.
Network Women’s Program. 2005. Roma Women’s Initiative Brochure. New York: Open
Society Institute.
Posadskaya, Anastasia, ed. 1994. Women in Russia: A New Era in Russian Feminism.
London: Verso.
Raj, Rita, Charlotte Bunch and Elmira Nazombe , eds. 2002. Women at the Intersection:
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Schultz, Debra L. 2001. Going South: Jewish Women in the Civil Rights Movement. New
York: New York University Press.
Schultz, Debra L. 2012. “Translating Intersectionality Theory into Practice: A Tale of
Romani-Gadže Feminist Alliance.” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 38 (1):
37–43. doi:10.1086/665802.
Spencer, Robyn. 2016. The Revolution Has Come: Black Power, Gender, and the Black
Panther Party in Oakland. Durham: Duke University Press.
Young Leaders. 2001. On Virginity. Skopje: Women’s Action.
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and Roma in Contemporary Europe: A Symposium on Global Governance, Democracy
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Salem, April 7–8.
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Chapter 2
Negotiating the Identity

Dilemma: Crosscurrents Across
the Romani, Romani Women’s
and Romani LGBTIQ Movements
Lucie Fremlová and Aidan McGarry
Introduction
Identity has long generated attention for social movement activists as well as for
academics (Melucci 1995; Whittier 1995). Whilst most subscribe to the belief
that identity – a dilemma in and of itself – is socially constructed and contested,
there is a common consensus that identity is potentially empowering and
inspiring, making it attractive for protestors, who harness identity to build
support. Identity has been deployed strategically in order to secure certain rights
and privileges in legislation and policy, but has also been used to raise awareness of
certain issues such as gender inequality and discrimination based on sexual orien-
tation, and in anti-war protests. Identity is useful because it helps to delineate ‘us
and them,’ affording the opportunity to define our position, ideas, and interests in
relation to others. The common consensus is that identity has a wealth of advan-
tages for movements and protestors (Klandermans 2014) which helps to account
for its popularity among activists and academics alike. However, historic and
contemporary manifestations of popular mobilization reveal risks associated with
social movements, including the tendency to essentialize a particular group, and to
downplay more complex realities. There is a danger associated with the public
recognition of a collective identity, even as some regard public recognition as a
goal, as is the case with first nation communities in Canada and Australia. Public
recognition can generate substantive policy interventions and affective invocations
of pride and belonging, but can also distort and exclude by reifying some groups
as belonging to certain social-cultural and political spheres and not others. The
identity dilemma is ever-present, requiring activists to strategically negotiate the
value, utility, and impact of collective identity (McGarry and Jasper 2015). Over
the years, Roma activists and advocates have negotiated numerous identity
dilemmas, and this chapter will explore significant moments in the mobilization
of the Roma movement, from the articulation of nationhood in the 1970s to
more recent negotiations of intersectional identities, including Romani women
and LGBTIQ Roma.
Multiple, often negative representations of Roma tend to originate in and be
sustained by non-Romani actors including organizations, governments, and the
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52 Lucie Fremlová and Aidan McGarry
majority (McGarry 2014), as well as academia (Mirga-Kruszelnicka 2015;

Kóczé 2015). Other social movements have shown that this situation is not new
for non-dominant groups who have had to challenge representations which
impede the opportunities, rights, and expectations such representations induce
(McGarry 2014, 757). Recently, dominant orthodoxies within the predominantly
patriarchal and heteronormative Romani movement and academia have been
ruptured by a series of interventions which emphasize the importance of Roma
agency and political voice. Specifically, these ‘revolutionary’ Romani, post-
colonial feminist (Mirga-Kruszelnicka 2015), intersectional (Kóczé 2009;
Brooks 2015; Dunajeva et al. 2015; Jovanović and Daróczi 2015), and queer
(Máté 2015; Baker 2015; Fremlová 2017) voices call into question the prevailing
essentialist legacy within Romani Studies, as well as the ‘epistemological erasure/
invisibility’ of Roma within Romani knowledge production that continues to
conserve the West as Subject (Brooks 2015, 57, 61). This chapter, partially based
on Fremlová’s doctoral research, will examine the emerging Romani LGBTIQ
movement that has been negotiating ways of ‘decolonizing’ knowledge produc-
tion, and the lessons learnt by the Romani movement, the LGBTIQ movement,
as well as the women’s movement. It will also argue that employing critical,
counter-normative queer, as well as intersectional concepts, which interrogate the
deployment of dominant social orthodoxies, fixed identity categories, and other
discursively produced binaries as ‘regulatory fictions’ (Butler 1990) enables a re-
conceptualization of Romani identities. Such a revised approach more adequately
attends to the pluralist, multidimensional identifications that members of the var-
ious heterogeneous groups and sub-groups of Roma make, and is more attuned to
the multifaceted, non-fixed, constantly negotiated nature of Romani identities and
identifications.
This chapter begins by considering how identity has been negotiated and
harnessed by Roma activists and advocates particularly though the articulation
of Roma nationhood which promotes Roma as a ‘nation without a territory.’
Such invocations of Roma identity have attempted to forge a collective iden-
tity based on language, culture, and shared experience, and have tended to
promote a cohesive and bounded Roma group identity in order to build
internal solidarity and to establish political power. Second, it explores how the
emergence of the Romani women’s movement, planted within the largely
patriarchal and heteronormative Romani movement, has challenged prevalent
understandings of Roma group identity by introducing intersectionality as a
concept to highlight multiple sites of inequality and discrimination, particularly
the nexus between race/ethnicity, gender, and class, while largely omitting
sexuality. Finally, this chapter considers the recent emergence of the Romani
LGBTIQ movement in response to the need for embedding sexuality within
intersectional discourses. Roma LGBTIQ and queer identity can be understood
as a more recent manifestation of the identity dilemma where identity is
regarded as potentially politically expedient, but is based on the conviction that
labels ought to be rejected lest they become political truths. Recent discussions
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Negotiating the Identity Dilemma 53
on queer advocacy and Romani identity reveal a number of fault-lines that

activists, advocates, and academics need to negotiate in the future. The numerous
different identity dilemmas cannot be easily presented in a linear format, nor
are they bounded to fixed time and spaces. The intention here is to highlight
three identity dilemmas in the Roma movement in order to better understand
the role of identity in Roma mobilization and how identity is negotiated.
Dilemma 1: The Roma Nation: Between Oppression and

Power?
Roma identity is not a cohesive tangible ‘fact,’ and this has consequences for
how individuals feel they belong with or to other people. Nationalism is pre-
mised on the elevation of one group – the nation – over others, and this would
suggest that there is no place for a minority ethnic identity in the nation other
than as a stigmatized other (Thobani 2007). Some stigmatized groups, such as
Roma, have attempted to change the nationalism script, and to assert belonging
to the majority nation. Roma activists and advocates have sowed the admittedly
extant seeds of domestic division and demanded rights to redress inequality and
stigmatization by drawing attention to the difference of Roma communities vis-
à-vis the majority. We do not want to suggest that Roma activists or advocates
want to reinforce their difference, but rather that the political power of Roma is
premised on difference, and this “identity dilemma” (McGarry and Jasper 2015)
is one which must be tackled. Put simply, Roma nationhood is both the basis of
oppression as Roma communities are marked as different, but at the same time it
is the basis for political power (Gamson 1995), which is harnessed by the
Romani political elite premised to generate solidarity.
The nation is one of the key organizing units in modern Europe and has
been supported by the establishment of the sovereign state. Nations, like other
identity-based groups such as women or LGBTIQ, function to the extent that
members feel solidarity with others based on the assumption of a common
culture, which can produce a sense of shared belonging (Calhoun 2003). Roma
communities across Europe often speak the dominant language of the state
(many Roma are bilingual), practice the official religion, and possess formal
citizenship rights, but this has not shielded Roma groups from processes of
othering where the differences between Roma and non-Roma are high-
lighted. In practice, Roma identity (not Roma groups per se) is reified to negative
stereotypes, usually behaviors and pathologies such as criminality, nomadism, un-
adaptability, faineancy, and secrecy, which create an incessant narrative of differ-
ence. Roma scholar Ian Hancock (1994, 9) argues that due to inhabiting territories
that belong to others Roma are ‘outsiders everywhere.’
The creation of the Roma nation over the years has been pushed by Romani
political elites and international organizations seeking to address ‘the Roma
issue.’ ‘Roma’ has been used as common currency amongst academics since
the 1970/1980s when Gypsy elites determined that the use of ‘Roma’ was
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preferable to the exonym ‘Gypsy,’ the latter being loaded with negative associa-
tions. It should be noted that not all use ‘Roma’ and many continue to identify
as ‘Gypsy.’ Since the arrival of Roma communities in Europe in around the
fourteenth century, Roma have been labelled by established populations as,
amongst others, Atsinganoi (Greece), Tsigani (Bulgaria), Tsigane (France),
Zigeuner (Germany), Cigányok (Hungary), and Zingari (Italy). Today, ‘Roma’
as a self-appellation carries a normative power and is used by policymakers,
journalists, activists, advocates, and academics. It has been noted that today it
might be more appropriate to conceive of Roma as a political project or phe-
nomenon (Vermeersch 2006; McGarry 2014). In the first World Romani
Congress in 1971, a flag and anthem were created, laying the foundations for
the elaboration of the Roma nation. Nationalism implies a challenge to the
existing political order in a given space, and so the emergence of Roma
nationalism has been interpreted as a threat: “once invented, nations become
intolerant of those who do not fit into their narratives of invention” (Isin
2012, 162).
The claim to Roma nationhood was first clearly articulated in 2000 in the
“Declaration of a Roma Nation” at the fifth meeting of the World Romani
Congress organized by the International Romani Union in Prague. The
declaration asserts a right to self-determination as a non-territorial nation but
makes no claims to territory. The declaration was made by IRU President Emil
Ščuka (Acton and Klímová 2001, 216):
Individuals belonging to the Roma Nation call for a representation of their

Nation, which does not want to become a State. We ask for being
recognized as a Nation, for the sake of Roma and of non-Roma indivi-
duals, who share the need to deal with the nowadays new challenges. […]
We are a Nation, we share the same tradition, the same culture, the same
origin, the same language; we are a Nation. We have never looked for
creating a Roma State.
In line with international legal principles, any claim to self-determination as a

nation requires recognition by others, usually states, that it exists. The Roma
nation is dialogically created: first articulated, then recognized. If the Roma
nation is denied, denigrated, or mis-recognized, then this has the potential to
cause harm to Roma, and it is arguably this harm that the call for recognition
seeks to overcome (Goodwin 2004). Mirga and Gheorghe (1997, 17) hold that
the concept of nation has more of a symbolic, moral, and political value than a
legal one, especially as a resource to galvanize solidarity and shore up political
power. It has been argued that Roma identity is weak (Bárány 2002, 288–290)
and lacks a coherence that is found with other nationalisms, usually those tied
to territorial claims or cultural preservation. But most nations retain a contested
historiography, and ideas of essentialist culture are usually as constraining as
they are liberating. The promotion of Roma as a transnational minority
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without a kin state is useful to an extent in order to build political capital, but it
does reinforce the idea that Roma do not belong in or to any one state, even
though Roma are, for the most part, citizens of the states in which they reside.
The 2000 Declaration seeks to circumvent the nation state and appeals to the
international political community for recognition and support.
Nationalism has been incorrectly described as ”collective action designed to
render the boundaries of a nation congruent with those of its governance unit”
(Hechter 2000, 7). Such a definition does not capture the Roma nationalist
movement because no claims to territory are made or implied. Anderson
(1991) demonstrates that the presence of one or more imagined communities
on a territory can lead to tension as different claims to self-determination col-
lide. This might help to explain why Roma have faced economic and political
marginalization as they are actively excluded from narratives of history, origins,
and culture of national identities expressed across Europe. Roma communities
reinforce difference vis-à-vis the majority with the use of ‘gadje’ to describe
non-Roma, “an ‘us/them’ opposition that has been historically reinforced by
centuries of internalized oppression and isolation” (Petrova 2004, 7). The
construction of the Roma/gadje dichotomy acts as an adhesive for a disparate
group, and creates a sense of belonging and community for a group that has
been held at arms-length by the majority. When identities become struggles,
they require coherence so that people understand what it means to belong to
an identity group and from this, political capital can be built, such as demand-
ing recognition and claiming rights. A key defining feature of an ethnic
movement is that ”claims are made based upon a particular identity or bound-
ary, defined by the presence of racial or ethnic markers” (Olzak 2003, 667),
typically including skin pigmentation, ancestry, language, history of dis-
crimination, or other shared experiences. With Roma, this is acutely challen-
ging to the heterogeneity with and across Roma groups.
Since much of the work of nationalist movements concerns the construction
and expression of collective identity, it is worth considering the processes that
underpin them. We should not regard collective identity as a “thing to be
studied” (Melucci 1995, 46), but rather a tool to capture shared meanings and
understandings, and the opportunities and constraints which such constructions
engender: “In the process of constructing a collective identity, challenging
groups adopt labels for themselves […], draw lines between insiders and out-
siders, and develop interpretive frameworks, a political consciousness” (Whittier
1995, 15). Using the case of the women’s movement in Australia, Maddison
(2004) argues that collective action is discursively constructed through move-
ment participants’ reflexive discussion and contestation over ends, means, and
field of action, thus movement participants discursively create the movement
itself from the bottom up. She also points to moments when there is a shared
sense of threat from outsiders, such as the police, which cements feelings of
interdependence for movement participants who, in turn, identify more strongly
with others similarly threatened. The goals of Roma nationalism are multiple and
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shifting: to secure recognition; to change policy or law; to challenge Romapho-

bia; to politicize other Roma to become more politically active; and to build a
collective solidarity. None of these goals can be addressed without negotiating
the meaning of Roma identity, an identity that is highly contested.
The move towards Roma nationhood has been presented as part of a col-
lective consciousness, and a determination to address the very real problems
facing Roma people across Europe. Roma nationhood has been the vehicle
for Roma political mobilization in order to acquire power, to become visible,
and to address the relative weakness of Roma communities across Europe.
Nationalism is merely a strategy to unify disparate Roma groups, and to
become politically significant, which could temper Romaphobia by countering
hostility, humiliation, resentment, and oppression. Roma nationhood, like all
other nation-building exercises, is fostered for political ends envisioned in the
image of political elite. What should concern us is the meaning and content of
Roma nationhood as articulated by elites and what this says about Roma
identity, particularly for Roma communities. Mirga and Gheorghe (1997, 4)
believe that the main challenge facing Roma political mobilization is defining
its “political space” and struggling for political status at the national and inter-
national levels. Additionally, for Fraser (1995), Roma mobilization means for-
ging a collective agency in spite of the tendency amongst Roma to emphasize
differences between various Roma communities across Europe. The fact that
many have rejected the umbrella term ‘Roma’ is testament to the lack of
coherence in building a collective identity (Marushiakova and Popov 2004),
never mind a political movement with clearly defined goals. For many, the
birth of the Roma nation heralds an affirmation of a collective existence as well
as a demand for recognition and the adequate redistribution of socio-economic
provisions. But for others, it signifies a backwards step, and the creation of an
ethnic boundary in society which reinforces difference.
Dilemma 2: The Compatibility of Romani Ethnic and Gender

Identities?
The then nascent Romani women’s movement of the mid- and late 1990s and
early 2000s was evolving organically not only in the context of the ‘Roma
nation’ narrative in terms of collective identity formation, but also as part of the
long-term process of advocating for and securing rights by Romani women and
men. This occurred in a series of responses by Romani women (and some
men) to violations of Romani women’s rights both outside and inside Romani
communities. These breaches related mainly to: sexual and reproductive rights;
coercive sterilization; and segregation in healthcare in particular (The Center
for Reproductive Rights and Centre for Civil and Human Rights/Poradňa
2003; Danka 2006; Fremlová 2006; Kopalova 2006; Albert 2011; ERRC
2016); the lack of access to education for Romani girls and women; unem-
ployment; poverty; poor and unsafe living conditions; and specific forms of
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multiple discrimination affecting Romani women (ERRC 2006; Izsák 2009).

Romani women activists also raised concerns about practices in some Romani
communities, such as early school drop-outs among Romani girls and young
women, whose role tended to be seen as linked to the household and child-
bearing only, as well as early/forced marriages and virginity tests (Oprea 2004,
34). These practices affecting some Romani women were perceived by
Romani women activists as holding them back, preventing them from being
involved in decision-making processes, and restricting Romani women’s access
to education, thus hampering their access to information, including information
about physical, mental and sexual and reproductive health, controlling their
independence, and limiting their freedom of choice. This was happening
against the backdrop of a general lack of attention paid to Romani women and
the issues they were exposed to by predominantly male activists, scholars and
leaders, some of whom considered patriarchal practices and customs to be an
integral part of Romani identity and culture (Oprea 2004; Kóczé 2009). By
focusing on other, intersecting axes of inequality such as gender, class, social,
and economic status (Kóczé 2009), and – to a very limited extent – religion
(Fejzula 2015), sexuality (Máté 2015; Baker 2015, Jovanović and Daróczi 2015)
and (dis)ability (Dunajeva et al. 2015; Vajda 2015), Romani women activists and
scholars started to pose an ‘intersectional’ challenge to the dominant patri-
archal conceptualizations of Romani identity, which had been, until then,
seen predominantly through the lens of ethnicity.
The Romani women’s movement was perceived by some as “a fracture or
rupture of the Romani rights movement” (Maya 2006, 1), diluting the overall
agenda of the Roma rights movement, as well as the assumed homogeneity of
Romani identity. These attempts to speak out about their rights resulting from
their social position as women, as Romani, and as Romani women, and efforts
to challenge practices Romani women had suffered over decades at the hands
of the nation states, and also at the hands of some Romani communities, were
often met with criticism or rejection, or were simply ignored by Romani male
activists. Oprea (2004) drew attention to the fact that “espousing a non-racist
view [may be] at the expense of ‘turning a blind eye’ to patriarchal practices
and excusing them as the others’ ‘culture’” (2004, 31). She explains that when
Romani women criticize internal practices, they are portrayed as traitors to
their communities, who have become ‘non-Roma,’ ‘white’ or ‘gadjikane.’ At
the same time, some of these ‘traditionalist,’ conservative attitudes were also
held by the older generation of Romani women activists, who believed and
taught the younger generation that:
[I]t is part of Romani culture to respect and follow Romani male leaders
and to maintain peace through agreeing with them (…) [and] that those
Romani girls who wear trousers or lost [their] virginity before marriage
were not real Roma women.
(Izsák 2009, 201)
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Apart from gender equality, younger Romani women activists were also pushing
for a redefinition of Romani identity, particularly in relation to acceptance of
internal differences, including freedom of choice of partner irrespective of sex,
gender, and sexual orientation, as agreed at a joint Roma women’s meeting in
2006 (Izsák 2009, 203). However, despite these advances, attempts made by
some Romani women, who had been active on an individual level in both the
Romani women’s movement and the mainstream LGBTIQ movement before
the emergence of the Romani LGBTIQ movement (that is, in the early 2000s),
resulted in them being rejected or excluded by activist groups, including Romani
ones (Jovanović and Daróczi 2015, 79; Fremlová 2017). This ideological rift
between the older, conservative generation on the one hand, and the younger,
more liberal generation of Romani women activists on the other, as discussed by
Izsák, made it clear that Romani identity was in the process of being reconcep-
tualized by those Romani women who defined themselves intersectionally, that
is, not only through their ethnicity, but also through the intersection of gender,
class, and sexuality.
At an academic level, almost a decade and a half ago, the list of renowned
Romani activists-scholars tended to include the names of Romani men (Oprea
2004), despite individual Romani women’s involvement in ground-breaking
work, as well as collective initiatives such as the Joint Roma Women’s Initia-
tive, launched in 1999, and its database of Romani women activists containing
more than 135 entries from 12 countries (Izsák 2009, 201). Fast-forwarding to
2016, the landscape of Romani women’s activism and ensuing scholarship has
undergone a substantial change. Drawing on Kimberlé Crenshaw’s concept of
intersectionality, which she first introduced in 1989, an intersectional approach
to Romani women’s experiences was first heralded in Romani Studies by
Oprea in 2004. It was then taken up and developed by Kóczé (2009, 2011),
Brooks (2012), Gelbart (2012), Schultz (2012), Jovanovic and Daróczi (2015),
and others. Writing at different points in time within a span of eleven years, these
feminist scholars have been concerned with the position of Romani women with
respect to two main sources of oppression – racism and sexism – within the social
fabric of non-Romani society and Romani communities, as well as within the
Romani rights movement and the women’s rights movement.
Oprea (2004) raised the issues of Romani women being “tolerated” in male-
dominated Romani organizations, and at the same time excluded from Eur-
opean feminist discourse that oftentimes remains silent on racism (Oprea 2004,
33, 35). She maintains that within the Romani rights movement, which
implicitly came to represent (the interests of) Romani heterosexual men, the
assumption was that Romani women would promote their ethnicity at the cost of
erasing their experience of living at the intersection of ethnicity, gender and
sexuality. Romani women were expected to remain silent on gender-related issues
that were considered non-Romani women’s issues, and an “untouchable Romani
tradition” (Oprea 2004, 34), thus reproducing patriarchy and the subordination
and oppression of Romani women.
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While the gendered and sexualized representation of what it means to be

Roma as presented by Romani feminists faced ostracism from the Romani
rights movement, Romani women’s exclusion from the mainstream feminist
movement and discourses on gender equality, which remain silent on racism,
rendered Romani women invisible on that front, too. For instance, Oprea
(2004) notes that:
Replicating the flawed vision of feminism, international NGOs often neglect

Romani women by failing to address the intersections of racism and sexism.
[…] Clearly race in Romania serves to privilege some women over others.
The only way one could effectively ignore race is by using a white woman as
the quintessential woman. If Romani women, who are multi-burdened, were
used as the basis for evaluating policies, then the problems related to both race
and gender would surface; in other words, the problems plaguing both
Romani men and white women would emerge if the experiences of Romani
women were used as the nexus.
(Oprea 2004, 35–36)
Using the lens of critical race theory to understand how Romani women’s
experiences differ from those of both white females and white males in Hun-
gary, Kóczé (2011, 64) is adamant that a dialogue needs to take place between
Romani women and the “sisterhood of women of color” who have challenged
the “totalizing norms of the broader feminist movement.”
Other dilemmas that Romani women activists have been confronted with
when tackling the intersections of sexism and racism are “intra-differentiation”
and “intra-group hierarchies” (Kóczé 2009, 20–21). By intra-differentiation,
she means issues specific to different groups of Roma, including Romani
women confronted with distinct problems, who may thus have different
needs from Romani men. However, even ‘Romani women’ are not a
monolithic group, as they encompass single Roma mothers, young Romani
women from traditional communities, educated Romani women, Romani
women professionals, older Romani women, disabled Romani women, and
so on. This is where Kóczé develops her intersectional approach as she suggests
that ‘ethnicity/race’ and ‘gender’ may not be enough. Indeed, contrary to the
image of a homogenous Romani identity championed by the then pre-
dominantly male Romani movement, these two facets of identity are com-
plemented by other, multiple and intersecting aspects of identity such as class, age,
(dis)ability, social and economic status, sexuality, and religion, which determine
their position in society. By arguing in favor of intersectionality, Kóczé reminds
us that as a result of the presence of intra-group gender hierarchies within the
Romani movement, Romani women activists began to interrogate the intersec-
tions of racism and sexism. However, she also cautions against the danger of fur-
ther stigmatizing Roma by bringing into the open these gendered hierarchies, as
in the case of early marriages. Such practices have often been attributed to Roma,
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fueling further wholesale misrepresentations of Romani culture, not only by

society at large, but also by mainstream human rights organizations, including
women’s and children’s rights organizations.
Reiterating some of the assertions previously made by Oprea (2004) and
Kóczé (2009), Dunajeva et. al. (2015) comment on the lack of intersec-
tional analysis in Romani Studies. Yet, it is much needed, given the
oppression Romani women experience both from the dominant society and
within communities, alongside their absence within mainstream feminist and
anti-racist discourse (Dunajeva et. al. 2015 75). Outlining the essence,
benefits, and relevance of intersectionality to Romani Studies, which they,
too, believe is still missing, Jovanović and Daróczi (2015) stress the critical
importance of feminist theoretical approaches in the transnational Romani
movement. They argue that it is of crucial importance for the Romani
movement to endorse and incorporate an intersectional approach in order
to avoid a narrow Romani identity politics that assumes national and/or
ethnic identity as having exclusive relevance to experiences of Romani
people (Jovanović and Daróczi 2015 79, 80). Intersectionality makes it
possible to address the identity dilemma faced by Romani individuals other
than men (that is, Romani women, Romani LGBTIQ persons, poor, old,
disabled Roma, and so on) at the intersection of these multiple sites of
inequality; intersectionality facilitates an investigation into how the domi-
nant discourse fails to examine gender relations, socioeconomic status,
ethnic belonging, age, sexuality, and so on, and ignores contexts in which
certain groups of Roma are vulnerable to specific forms of oppression.
Within Romani Studies, intersectionality as a post-colonial critique has
recently, on the one hand, challenged the role of maleness, and particularly white,
non-Roma maleness, in the production of knowledge on Roma. On the other,
as a critique of heteronormativity, it has been challenging Romani Studies’ focus
on certain Romani subjects while not including others. By focusing on the multi-
faceted, intersecting experiences of predominantly Romani women, as well as
other Roma who have been historically left out of Romani academic and activist
discourses, intersectionality has slowly paved the way for inclusion of issues per-
taining to sexuality, sexual orientation, and gender identity, previously deemed to
be a social taboo.
Dilemma 3: Romani-LGBTIQ Identities?

Intersectional feminist discourses initiated and maintained predominantly by
Romani women over the past two decades have problematicized the Romani
identity ‘dilemma’ even more by extending it, in due course, to Roma who
self-identify as LGBTIQ. Nonetheless, as suggested above, until quite recently,
sexuality as a specific ‘category of difference’ and ‘site of inequality’ was omit-
ted, at times avoided both within the Romani rights and Romani women’s
movements, as well as within Romani Studies scholarship. This has led to the
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invisibility of Romani LGBTIQ people, and particularly that of Romani les-

bian women, as evidenced below:
Now what I have to say is that our existence is not visible either in Roma
community, or Roma movement specially and either in LGBT movement
particularly. I… what is my… because I’m a feminist, I’m a radical feminist…
I work in, I work, I’m activist in Roma women’s network and within our
network, we have a group that are dealing with Roma lesbians in the way
that we gather Roma lesbians, we empower ourselves. My focus is inter-
sectionality, actually, between different grounds of discrimination. You know
as Roma, we can be discriminated like … by gender, Roma women [face]
multiple discrimination and also within Roma women, they are, we can be
discriminated based on our sexual orientation and our abilities, and our health
condition. And what is important is … for being part of the Roma move-
ment, it is important to find, to figure out that we can be, we can be different
inside of the Roma community. We have rights to be different.
(Fremlová 2017)
In particular, the past decade has witnessed Romani LGBTIQ becoming more
visible at an individual, as well as at a collective level. However, placing the
intersectional issues faced by LGBTIQ Roma onto the Romani movement’s
agenda has been possibly as laborious a process as in the case of Romani women.
The same arguments about “diluting the Romani agenda” and Romani identity
that had been previously made about Romani women were raised in connection
with the Romani LGBTIQ movement. The prospect of the Romani rights
movement building alliances with the larger LGBTIQ movement has been a
concern for some Romani activists who fear the Romani rights movement might
get swallowed up and lose control, as evidenced by the following quote.
There is a lot of political… knowledge that can be learnt from what the
LGBT movement did in the past […] but I know for a fact that the LGBT
movement is so big and so powerful and has moved so far that it’s also scary
for Roma organizations because the LGBT movement is more powerful
than they are and if they cooperate or build alliances, some of them even say
“we might get swallowed up by them, they might take control, we need to
be careful, we need to take a step back.” And this is actually coming from
people who are very… open… to being… to LGBTIQ Roma or other
LGBTIQ issues… they say “we need to keep a little bit of distance from the
LGBT movement because they’re bigger and more powerful than us…
even though we can learn from them and they can be allies.”
(Fremlová 2017)
At the same time, some Romani LGBTIQ activists feel that the prevailingly
heteronormative Romani movement is starting to turn to them due to the
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exhaustion of discourses on Romani women over the past 20–25 years. As

suggested by the following quote, some Romani activists, organizations, and
community groups may be turning to the Romani LGBTIQ discourse out of
strategic necessity rather than genuine conviction that Romani LGBTIQ
people are as deserving of dignity, equality, human rights, and a life free from
homo/lesbophobic, biphobic and transphobic discrimination as ‘mainstream’
(that is, heteronormative and cis-normative) members of Romani communities.
We need to touch what is the reality. The reality is that we have the Roma
organizations that 20 or 25 years it’s in the middle of the corruption. You
know. First. Second have the same programs for 20, 25 years. All the time,
they have this discourse of victimism. We are victims, the Gadzo is all the
time the bad thing, we are in this situation because of the Gadzo, because
the Gadzo… we are all the time the victims. What is the problem in this
moment? After 25 years, the people know what these organizations are…
and the people don’t have a new discourse… and it’s for this, in this
moment, that the Roma organizations are starting to have some interest for
the LGTBQ Roma because the discourse of the women is finished, too.
Because after 25 years, they’re speaking for new work in the Roma orga-
nizations of the women… you see… it’s not new. Because after 25 years, it’s
not new. In this moment it’s for this that the people are starting to be more
near. It’s like…. I need to support these people, it’s not exactly my thing
but we need to make new programs and we need to make a new discourse.
I think it’s only a political strategy, you know… this is my point in this
question of the organization and the approach, the political approach of
the organizations for the LGBT but in the reality, the situation is that the
people is in the same situation of discrimination inside the community, we
have the problems because some people is kidnapped, is fighting, is passing
though terrible situations personal and we have… the history is really terrible.
It’s not… the political discourse does not match the reality.
(Fremlová 2017)
The emerging transnational Romani LGBTIQ movement has become

visible thanks to its public presence at numerous European gay pride events
and other Romani LGBTIQ-themed events in Western, Central and Eastern
Europe. Following the queer slogan “We’re here, we’re queer, get used to
it!,” Romani LGBTIQ people have been making a strategic claim to be
recognized by mainstream societies, the mainstream LGBTIQ movements, as
well as by the Romani rights movement. The existence, presence, and visibility
(or lack thereof) of LGBTIQ Roma within the larger social fabric has been
explored in recent publications such as Dzuvljarke: Roma Lesbian Existence (Kurtic
2014), Barabaripen: Young Roma Speak About Multiple Discrimination (Fremlová and
Georgescu 2014) and Roma Rights Quarterly: Nothing About Us Without Us
(ERRC 2015). It is possible to conceive of all of the afore-mentioned
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publications as individual, as well as collective and institutional responses to the

need to better address issues arising not only as a result of the multiple, or inter-
sectional discrimination that Romani LGBTIQ people face, but also in relation
to conceptualizations of multiple, intersecting identities, and identifications.
As in the case of Romani women/feminists facing the identity dilemma as to
the ‘compatibility’ of ethnicity and gender as discussed above, a similar dilemma
has occurred in the case of LGBTIQ Roma. While at the policy level there is
an urgent need for ‘strategically essentialist’ conceptualizations of identity,
which may be politically expedient in relation to spelling out the issues with
which LGBTIQ Roma are faced at the intersection of multi sites of inequality,
are these ‘labels’ not already becoming a political truth?
The emergence and gradual, albeit reluctant inclusion of LGBTIQ Roma
within activist and academic discourses have come to present a challenge in terms
of reconceptualizing Romani identity, particularly in relation to sexualities, sexual
orientation, gender, and gender identity. By referring to multiple identity, mul-
tiple categories of identification, multiple discrimination, or “multiple values”
(Máté 2015, 93–97), the intersectional analytic frame has disrupted the tendency
to treat race/ethnicity and gender as mutually exclusive identity categories.
Informed by anti-essentialist and anti-identitarian conceptualizations of identity
(Hall 1992), intersectionality has facilitated debates about the fluid and changing
nature of identities, along with concepts such as hybridity and super-diversity,
discussed within Romani Studies by Tremlett (2009, 2014).
Tremlett (2009) suggests introducing the concept of hybrid identities
(hybridity)1 to avoid the trap of cultural essentialism, as well as to account for
the multifaceted diversity of the various Romani identities. She goes on to
claim that while a Romani person may be deeply engaged with the cultural
practices of their group, they may be undertaking activities considered typical
for the majority culture. At the same time, they may be influenced in differ-
ent situations by their age, gender, sex, class, nationality, sexuality, social
status, and so on. Elaborating further on the notion of hybrid identities,
Tremlett (2014) suggests employing ‘super-diversity,’ a concept coined and
introduced by Vertovec (2007), as a means of looking ‘beyond ethnicity’ to
describe the experiences of immigrants to the United Kingdom. Tremlett
believes that ‘super-diversity’ best encapsulates the much-needed shift in how
ethnicity, heterogeneity, and diversity are currently used in Romani Studies,
“still leaving the potential of limiting talk about ‘the collective world view’ of
‘the Gypsies’ that can easily slip into essentialized talk” (Tremlett 2014, 838).
However, a number of issues arise when applying this concept to Roma: its
provenance (that is, its specificity to the UK); the challenge that looking
‘beyond ethnicity’ might entail in terms of ‘losing sight’ of ethnicity; and its
potential to reify the stereotypical image of Roma as ‘nomadic’ by focusing
on immigration (Tremlett 2014 838–840). Additionally, the concepts of ‘race’
and ‘ethnicity’ are over-used and under-discussed in Romani Studies, which
means that even though both are overarching concepts, ethnicity in particular
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is referred to as a defining, essential(ist) feature of Roma (or all ‘ethnic

minorities,’ for that matter), when in fact it can be considered a universal
denominator for everyone as all people are “ethnically located” (Hall 1996,
447, original emphasis). While it is important to be aware of the usefulness of
these two concepts in relation to Romani identities, it is important to realize
that intersectionality and queer theoretical concepts have been key in con-
ceptualizing the interplay and intersection of race/ethnicity, sexuality, sexual
orientation, gender, and gender identity.
Scholarly debates about the fluid, socially constructed nature of identities and
identifications have been facilitated particularly by employing queer (that is,
non-normative) theoretical concepts. Not only have they been the main thrust
of scholarship on gender and sexualities since the 1990s, they also make it
possible to understand identity categories as historical and social constructs, or
‘regulatory fictions’ (Butler 1990, 32), shaped by histories, practices, taboos,
social rules, customs, and traditions, which are necessary, viable, and politically
useful (Gamson 1995). ‘Queer’ and ‘queerness’ are a positionality, locating one
in relation to the dominant norms, whether they are established and maintained
along the lines of sexuality, gender/gender identity, ethnicity/race, age, or
religion, and so on. Queer theoretical concepts explore and unpick how iden-
tities are constructed through the process of identification. That is why queer
theoretical concepts are especially relevant to the ‘Romani-LGBTIQ identity
dilemma.’ Employing queer theoretical concepts in relation to conceptualiza-
tions of Romani identity makes it possible to take away its ‘essentialism,’ or
‘anchoring’ Romani identities in any sort of fixed, essentialist, primordial
‘groupness.’ Writing about ethnic and sexual identity construction in ‘queer
Gypsies,’ Baker (2015) notes with reference to Butler (1993, 105) that indivi-
duals develop, combine, and manage multiple identity facets precisely because
identity is fluid and open to continual discursive negotiation in relation to the
surrounding systems of cultural meanings and representation. Conceptualizing
Romani identities by means of queer theoretical concepts enables us to not
know, name, stabilize, fix, or ‘essentialize’ Romani identities in time and space.
Instead, it allows Romani identities to keep ‘becoming’ beyond being (Puar
2005, 128). This means that certain aspects of identity and identification may
be located differently, in relation to temporal or geographical factors, or may be
more or less prominent at different points in time, depending on the discursive
practices of the social and cultural systems and majority prescripts, with which
identity is in a permanent dialogue: the systems as part of which and/or by
means of which identity is constantly constructed and reconstructed.
Conclusion
Identity dilemmas can be understood as strategies to negotiate particular socio-
economic and political positions and are often related to power. As Roma
communities have addressed diverse issues related to belonging and inclusion, a
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series of identity dilemmas have been revealed, which necessitated a significant

discussion of the meaning of Roma identity. The construction of the Roma
nation was dominant and elite-driven from the 1970s and was realized in the
“Declaration of the Roma Nation” in 2000. This fed off increasing transna-
tional activism and the realization that nation-states were unwilling to address
the issues facing Roma communities within their territory. In part, this can be
interpreted as a desire to raise awareness of the issues facing Roma, but also of a
desire to bolster claims for recognition as a nation. However, the Roma
nation-building project required answers to questions of who belonged to the
nation and who did not, which de-stabilized notions of inclusion and exclusion.
The attempt to build solidarity and political power simultaneously undermined
the Roma movement. However, challenges to the Roma movement are not
always intended to break it down, but to make it more constitutive of the people
it claims to represent, more equal, and responsive to diversity. This too can be
interpreted as a strength. The Roma women’s movement and the Roma
LGBTIQ movement both advocated inclusion and a repositioning of what it
means to be Roma. In particular, both movements advocated the language of
rights in order to secure inclusion and visibility with the Roma community and,
most importantly, pushed for an understanding of intersectionality in creating
multiple marginalizations. The outcome has been transformational, as certain
narratives have been exhausted and new ideas and alliances have emerged which
can strengthen the Roma movement through its inclusivity.
Note
1 Hybridity as a way of conceptualizing Romani identity has also been commented
upon by Okely (1994), who was careful to use it in relation to Roma ‘because it
carries with it the suggestion of incongruity’ (1994, 62), and Silverman, who discusses
both the viability, as well as the more problematic nature of using hybridity to con-
ceptualize Romani identities, culture and music, where ‘[h]ybridity also brings up the
problem of antecedent purity’ (2012, 42).
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Chapter 3
Gender Relations and the

Romani Women’s Movement in
the Eyes of Young Romani Men:
The Potentials for Transversal
Politics
Jelena Jovanović and Violetta Zentai
Introduction
Feminist intersectionality accounts emphasize that oppression by non-Roma
contributes to shaping norms and relations within Romani communities;
however, patriarchal social norms are not purely self-defense mechanisms.
Gender relations are enacted and maintained through asymmetrical power
structures in society based on differences inscribed and endorsed by categoriza-
tions and boundaries. This is not idiosyncratic to the Roma. Romani men cannot
be directly responsible for multiple discriminations that Romani women
encounter, yet they are part of patriarchal hierarchies, often in an unnoticed way.
Many women take part in the reproduction of the patriarchal system too, but
men are less likely to be disturbed by it. Some Romani feminists argue that “[i]n
an oppressed group such as the Roma […] there is a high probability that those
who are oppressed will become new oppressors in a different domain of social
life” (Kóczé 2011, 65). This implies that men who experience oppression as a
consequence of their ethnicity do not necessarily reflect upon their own privi-
leged gendered positions.
The softer and harder forms of resistance within the Romani movement to
giving voice to women’s and broader gender agendas are documented by various
academic voices and civic testimonies by Romani women (Gheorghe 2010, Oprea
2004, etc.). These accounts describe various domestic and international debates
and events that have revealed the variations and practices of this resistance. The
most frequent Romani men’s discourses opposing Romani women’s feminist
practice emerge from considerations of political hierarchy among Romani issues
(where ‘the Roma issue’ comes first followed by ‘Romani women’s issues’), and
the fear of portraying ‘Romani culture’ or ‘the Romani tradition’ as harmful.
Romani feminists often criticize Romani men activists who argue that Romani
women must “choose the fight against racism over the one against sexism, so as to
not ‘fragment’ the movement” (Gheorghe 2016), or even to “choose between
their ethnicity and their gender” (Kóczé 2009, 21).
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70 Jelena Jovanović and Violetta Zentai
More than ten years ago, a well-known Romani feminist, Azbija Meme-
dova, portrayed the first generation of Romani men leaders as critical towards
discrimination and racism against the Roma but without a gender perspective.
However, she also acknowledged that “there are some progressive waves
coming mostly from younger Romani activists. These up-and-coming activists
have begun to confront the patriarchy and oppression coming from inside.
However, there are still cross-generational barriers that remain a challenge for
all of us” (Memedova 2004). Today, one can hear Romani feminist voices
noting that even some men from the older generations of Romani men leaders
are changing their wording, and perhaps their values as well, but with the
caveat that changes are often limited to official statements and representations.
Regardless of these rare occasions of voicing hope about the younger gen-
eration and the changing discourses of the senior Romani men leaders, Romani
feminists still experience older generations of Romani men misunderstanding
and devaluing their standpoints, experiences, and work. At an international
conference held in 2014, several Romani men reacted vehemently to the
gender and LGBT panel, and “recreated misconceptions that feminism pro-
duces separatism within the Romani movement and that we [Romani political
actors] are concerned only with national or ethnic identity” (Jovanović and
Daróczi 2015). Some even claimed that Romani women had not done any-
thing for Roma (Ibid.). Despite or even because of these sorts of reactions from
Romani men, there were hardly any platforms or occasions when Romani
men were invited or felt obliged to speak their minds on gender relations and
gender politics. They are rare guests at gender-related events among the Roma.
Low density and the seemingly homogenous character of Romani men’s public
statements on gender issues do not mean that they do not formulate positions,
or that these positions are durable, fenced, and impenetrable. Further, the
gender-related values and standpoints of young Romani men are even less
visible and known compared to opinions in leading positions of the movement.
We assume that many young educated Romani men will have important duties
or positions of authority in the Romani movement or organizations rather
soon. Therefore, their thoughts on gender and other relevant differential power
relations within or related to Roma will profoundly shape social affairs in the
near future.
This is the rationale behind this chapter, which takes the first steps in a more
ambitious academic and political inquiry exploring the potentials and resources
for radically anti-hegemonic male political standpoints and paths of action in
the wider Romani movement. The current study focuses on the younger
generation of highly-educated Romani men. What we mean by the younger
generation is not only connected to age but also to the concept of political
generation (Mannheim (1928) 1952). The latter is concerned with an entry
point to a social movement and the level of recognition an established voice has
within a movement. We conducted interviews with a micro-cohort understood
as a cluster of participants “shaped by distinct transformative experiences that
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Gender Relations and Young Romani Men 71
differ because of subtle shifts in the political context” (Whittier 1997, 762). On
the one hand, with our research, we wanted to generate a space for small-
scale and linked discussions that rely on but also multiply the encounters
that dyadic interviews initiate. On the other hand, we hoped to sharpen the
theoretical arguments that support inquiries into articulations and experiences of
gender and ethnicity in a particular social movement context. Our main
research puzzle intends to connect the empirical and theoretical dimensions of
transversal politics within discourses of a micro-cohort of young, highly-educated
Romani men.
Theoretical Framework and the Research

In the context of Roma-related research on gender and ethnicity, inter-
sectionality is the most commonly used framework. The internationally
renowned African-American feminist activist-scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw
frames political intersectionality as a critique to fight against injustices along
a single inequality ground by neglecting, minimizing, or neutralizing another
inequality ground, which is followed by exclusion within. Most typically, the
tensions of political intersectionality occur in the lives of women of color
when feminists pursue color-blind mobilization and/or become racist in their
political statements and practices, or when antiracist movements downplay,
neglect, or enact patriarchy (Crenshaw 1991). It is noteworthy that the advice
of influential Black feminist voices on the intersections of ethnic and gender
subordinations are not taken for granted by contemporary Romani feminist
activists and scholars. Carmen Gheorghe expresses her caveat in relation to bell
hooks’ position that in a racist society, the claims of colored women are closer
to those of colored men than those of white women. The Romani feminist
thinker calls for critical scrutiny of the crossroads between oppression from a
racist society and gender discrimination in patriarchal Romani communities
(Gheorghe and h.arta 2010, 183). Politically intersectional tensions between
ethnic- and gender-based subordinations are also captured by other Romani
woman scholars who notice that when they reveal controversies of internal
practices of their community, Romani women leaders are more often blamed
for being gadjikani – behaving as white – than men leaders (Oprea 2004, 31).
The ambiguity of intersectional subjects’ agency has been discussed in recent
critical accounts on intersectionality. Attention is paid primarily to resistance or
counteractions of marginalized subjects, which complicates matrices of dom-
ination. Some scholars, such as Levine-Rasky (2011), raise the possibility of
extending the theory to intersections of categories constructed as dominant
(whiteness, masculinity, and economic privilege). If intersectionality theories
focus more on the ‘dominant constructs,’ Levine-Rasky argues, researchers can
reach a better understanding of power relations. This inquiry focusing on young
Romani men – social agents who have the chance to hold power positions
within a (largely) marginalized group – aims to help conceptualize resistance to
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domination from within. It will explore how the experiences of oppressed sub-
jects who are simultaneously privileged shape up in spaces of political inter-
sectionality, and how this resonates with the fight of those who have less
privileged positions, such as Romani women.
The concept of transversal politics has been proposed by Nira Yuval-Davis as
an alternative to the universalizing politics of the Left on the one hand, and to
the essentializing operation of identity politics on the other. The first element
of transversal politics is the standpoint epistemology that recognizes that from
each positioning, the world is seen differently and any acknowledged position
is unfinished (Yuval-Davis 1999: 94–95). Yuval-Davis borrows the concept of
situated knowledge from Donna Haraway and uses it to argue that unfinished
knowledge does not require dismissal, but dialog. Only this would allow one to
make knowledge finished. Yuval-Davis advocates for a new epistemology and a
road to ‘the truth’ by a dialog between people of differential positionings. In
addition, the focus should be on ‘encompassing’ or replacing the concept of
equality with the concept of difference. Transversal politics is based on non-
hierarchical relationships where different positionings are respected and power
relations are acknowledged. Besides positioning, values and identities are two
other key elements of transversal politics. Transversal politics starts with recog-
nition and respect for each other’s positionings, identities, and values. The final
important property of transversal politics is that it does not create ‘leaders’ or
‘representatives’ but advocates for the cause of their constituencies (Ibid., 95).
Our inquiry focuses on the generation ground in the categorical organization
of social and political power, and investigates how the notion of political
intersectionality should be refined in a multi-ground approach. We examine
the interpretive frameworks that a particular group of young educated
Romani men develops on social and political matters that shape gender poli-
tics around Romani women. To this end, we also rely on Nancy Whittier’s
(1997) proposal concerning differences between political generations and
micro-cohorts within a political generation. But we are not interested here
in the classical research problem of cohort replacement as a source of orga-
nizational change. Rather, we are concerned with the production of ideas and
positions that may create new understandings of the hierarchy of social
inequalities in the eyes of leading Romani activists. In other words, we
examine whether generational difference may transgress boundaries of social
categories and promote transversal politics within the Romani movement and
other relevant social movement formations.
Our research aims to understand the formation of young Romani men’s
understandings of gender and other hierarchies in society. In particular, we
intend to uncover how Romani women’s activism and gender politics in the
Romani movement and beyond are viewed by young Romani men of parti-
cular social positions and backgrounds. We are also curious about what inspires
the formation of these young men’s ideas and how their interpretative frames
relate to wider social justice debates. Ultimately, we examine how a younger
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generation of educated Romani men situate themselves in an intellectual and

normative space where the potential for transversal politics are explored and
experimented with.
We explore the ideas and claims of younger Romani men through formal
interviews, connected but dispersed conversations, and participant observations.
We assume that university education in an internationalized environment offers
opportunities and invitations to speak one’s mind and react to other articula-
tions, and which generates a diverse, dynamic, and challenge-rich political
environment. We also believe that despite some tangible differences, this
environment, in terms of its intensive exchanges and networking resources, is
comparable to the fast-growing, trans-border democratization created for and
by the older generation of Romani leaders after the end of the Cold War. We
approached Romani men aged 25–40, professionals and activists alike, all edu-
cated to at least BA level. We conducted ten formal interviews and engaged in
series of dyadic and collective conversations. Eight of the interviewees were or are
studying at the Central European University in Budapest, and five graduated from
its Roma Access Program, a full-year preparatory course for English-language
graduate studies. We have also engaged in shorter and longer conversations with
more than a dozen other young Romani men outside of the interviewee circle by
addressing questions of gender hierarchies and movement politics with them. This
substantially nourished our understanding of the ideas and norms of young
Romani men.
In addition, we interviewed a few Romani men who are already established
leaders of the Romani movement and have more than ten years’ experience in
public affairs. They were very young at their entry into public life. Some of
these male leaders govern strong and visible civil society organizations on the
national level, and are deeply involved in transnational Romani politics as well.
Others hold leadership positions in Romani movement and empowerment
organizations on the transnational level. These mid-career Romani men help us
understand the genealogy of a gender-sensitive voice within the Romani
movement that this chapter cannot flesh out in detail. Dialogical explorations
conducted among young Romani men will be interpreted in a relational
understanding of any actors within the Romani activists’ circles who have a
voice and standing in gender politics.
Our young Romani conversation partners come from various countries of
Central and Eastern Europe, including Bulgaria, Serbia, Macedonia, Romania,
Hungary, Albania, and Slovakia. They are mostly from smaller towns and vil-
lages and were raised in working-class families. They all self-identify as Roma.
Interestingly, not even one of the interviewees was born into activist families.
At the time of conducting the interviews in 2016, more than half our inter-
viewees lived outside of their home countries. These young men are embedded
in networks of peers and activists, and some of them have a standing in the
making in transnational and national professional and civil society settings.
Their voices stem from various standpoints or roots, and speak from within
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particular individual and collective identity constructions. We view all of them

as a generational micro-cohort of potential or actual influence on movement
debates and transformations.
Young Romani Men on Gender Politics
Gender Regimes in the Parental Family and Private Domains

Our informants have decisive family experiences from childhood, while some
already have their own families and children as well. The structure of the par-
ental family is usually described in their accounts as matriarchal, where mothers
are posited as decision makers: “In my family, women have been women […],
they were always above men, because they were doing all the thinking, and
men are usually the doers, not the thinkers.” In most families concerned, it is
seen as a normal state of affairs that women are ‘the thinkers.’ But in a family,
described as a traditional Romani family, shared decision-making happens only
‘behind the curtain.’ This is also defined as part of the tradition in the
community.
When asked about the gender roles in the family, young Romani men’s
most common experience is that women do ‘the job of two or three people.’
Similar to the gender regimes across time and space, women combining profes-
sional work and domestic tasks are viewed within the family as unproblematic.
While almost all interviewees see this situation today as unfair, they remember that
they grew up in an environment where women were ‘compensated’ with
proper respect for the double or triple burden they carried. Respect here seems
to mean a private matter and behavior on behalf of the men and children in the
family. In one tragic case, the death of a mother and a sister was a consequence
of gender-based violence, as assumed by some family members and the inter-
viewee: “My mother didn’t have any rights in the family. I don’t like to say
‘traditional Roma family rules,’ it’s only family rules in which males think they
are the leaders.” The young Romani men portray their fathers mostly acting as
‘providers.’ “My father was the main provider, as a man, he had to build up the
house, he had to provide us with money, with education, to buy a car […]. So,
my father’s role was to provide for the family, without any egoism, to give
everything to my mom and to us.” Mothers are mostly described as those who
perform in the kitchen. Further, women are expected to stay at home when
their children are small. By the same token, Romani women with school-age
children are expected to work. Accordingly, the gender roles in the family are
described as largely traditional but only rarely posited as specifically part of the
Romani communities: “I am coming from a traditional Roma family […]. But
many people understand it in a wrong way what coming from a traditional
Roma family means.”
Most young Romani men in our research characterize their communities as
sites where gender hierarchy is either not pronounced, never too exploitative,
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or embedded in a very soft or flexible hierarchy. “You wouldn’t see a man

walking before a woman to show his status […]. Women from my commu-
nity went to school, and they got a chance to know their rights, to know
their value in the family and the community.” These experiences are expli-
citly contrasted with the practices of some traditional Romani groups where
“they couldn’t wash their clothes together with the men’s ones.” One of our
interviewees reported on marriage arrangements in his family with a certain
level of understanding. His grandfather used to marry off his daughters to
protect them from certain types of men. This was motivated, our interviewee
believes, by a wish to contribute to his daughters’ wellbeing rather than a
desire to oppress them.
It is noteworthy that our interviewees expressed their conviction that their
families were not typical in terms of the dominant Romani gender regimes.
Contrariwise, these families are seen as outliers in the ruling gender regimes
of the community, home country, and region. Others see gender regimes in
their cities, countries, and regions as something they would not be so ‘opti-
mistic’ about, but they can also see a slow change when they compare the
gender performances of their grandfathers and their younger brothers. They
believe that the young generations of both women and men understand
society in a ‘more sophisticated way,’ including gender relations. This con-
viction, in rare cases from our sample, could be laced together with surpris-
ingly contradictory accounts from one’s own private life and practices. One of
our interviewees describes his vision of bringing up his daughter to become a
‘listening, respectful, and docile’ woman. He envisions that she not be
exposed prematurely to human rights lessons if there is none to provide those
rights for her: “The ultimate rationale is that it is easier to transit from obe-
dience to power than the other way around.” Notwithstanding, this protec-
tive attitude is fundamentally constraining towards young women in the
family, similar to the grandfather protecting his daughters with controlled
marriage.
Despite or perhaps according to the gender roles observed in the family, our
interviewees have clear memories or lived experiences of the normative
expectations in their local communities and extended families regarding how
they should practice their own gender roles. One of the most challenging tasks
is to relate to marriage and partnership practices. In their extended families and
communities, young men often hear references to expectations regarding mar-
riage in a timely manner. Some reveal acts of resistance to their parental families
that may resonate with broader community expectations even if not always
agreeing with them. Others receive support from their families if they prioritize
career development goals over marriage rules. Resonating with a widespread
generational shift, most young men prefer to share housework in their own
independent lives and believe that they do meet these standards. Some young
Romani men venture to negotiate their gender norms in their parental families.
This sort of negotiation is portrayed by one informant in a succinct way:
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On both the Roma and non-Roma side, men are treated a little bit dif-
ferently, a little bit better […], there is food coming, I should just sit and
everything is gonna be served, I don’t have to do the dishes. But in my
personal life, we share these things with my girlfriend. So, I pursue two
practices. I don’t want to offend my family, for them it’s normal […].
When I come with my girlfriend to my family, I also do the dishes and my
mom is fine with that. My father would take care about certain things, but
certain things he would never touch.
It seems that sharing different tasks equally and equal respect in the domestic/
private spheres is an unquestionable value for the young Romani men in our
research. In their broader environments, however, our interviewees only see
rare individual cases where men take over some of the traditionally ‘women’s
jobs,’ such as cooking. Young Romani men look at the wider gender regime
in society as still unequivocally subordinating women. In other words, they do
not see the traditional gender division of labor as pertaining only to Roma.
They also contemplate the constructed and thus challengeable nature of con-
ventional gender practices. One important inspiration for this comes from their
own lives in which they were able to get rid of the belief that Roma loyal to
community traditions should treat the women in their families as inferior.
In sum, the educated young Romani men were not embarrassed when
explaining their gender experiences in the family, with both a critical yet
loyal approach. They all see themselves as men who not only respect but also
actively drive for promoting equal gender roles and relations in their own
partnerships and social environment. They also seem to be conscious and
occasionally proud of their capacities in transforming their own ways of
practicing gender.
Identities, Identification, and Categories of Difference

The young Romani men in our research regularly use a variety of categories
and concepts when describing themselves: Roma, man, researcher, CEU
alumnus, individual, traditional, minority, activist, queer, wolf (resistance), born
in Serbia, father, human rights activist, and Roma rights activist. When asked to
mention only three identity categories, all refer to their Romani origin. Some
of them explicitly state that ‘Roma’ is one of the main categories or group
belongings in society. Most of them, however, emphasize that they do not
aspire to prioritize their identities or identity relations. Some responded to the
question “who are you?” by referring to their interests and human capabilities,
such as an interest in philosophy and political science, being open-minded,
non-stereotypical, non-judgmental, punctual, organized, flexible, tolerant, and
solidarity-driven. This self-initiated and reflexive approach to claiming iden-
tities and group belongings is a major signal of these young men’s interest in
potentially transformative engagement with normalized identity categories. It is
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noteworthy that none of our interviewees felt it important to claim that he is a

feminist or a friend of feminists when asked to refer to the main identity cate-
gories. This shows that the research agenda has not motivated anyone to step
beyond his current state of identity formations. Nonetheless, relations to fem-
inist agendas are more intensive and explicit when the focus of discussion is
placed accordingly.
Most of our informants are not from activist families, yet they grew up
within families of Roma identities. There were only two families in our sample
where explicit links to collective identification with Roma were ambiguous.
One of the interviewees revealed that his father was not comfortable expressing
his belonging to the Roma, and advised his children to do the same for the
well-known reason of protection against prejudice. One interviewee prefers
not to reveal that he is a Roma in any situation because, as he put it, “everyone
is expected to be influenced by that, either positively or negatively.” This does
not mean that it should be hidden, but it has a “tendency to shift the attention
from the actual matter.” This definite denial of the tensions and struggles rela-
ted to one’s Romani origin and identity remained unmatched in the circle of
young Roma we engaged in the research, and rarely occurs in our wider con-
versations with educated young Roma in Central and Eastern Europe.
Regarding their gender identity, some interviewees felt they enjoyed privi-
leges because they were a man. One informant contends that in his environ-
ment, if someone is racist, people react, but if someone uses sexist language
people do not react, as they consider it a good joke. Other young Romani
men also express their sense of being on the privileged side of gender relations
in wider societal spaces. They recognize sexism and gender-based discrimina-
tion, including the gender pay gap and compulsory ‘multitasking’ for women:
[I]t is more difficult to be a woman than a man […]. For example, a

woman who has a small child wakes up in the night […], a never-ending
multitasking for women. Some say “oh, to keep a flat clean and to cook,
it’s nothing.” Oh, it’s a lot. To do all these jobs it’s a big job, plus
receiving less money than a man for a job.
The level of comfort in normatively realigning the dominant traditions of

gender relations is quite different among our interviewees. The strongest and
most unambiguously positive transformation is reported by one young man
who had the opportunity to take part in international university education in
the social sciences:
I realized how homophobic I was and how I didn’t open up to others and
how I believed in some truths that were wrong. The university just helped
me open up and understand how these things really are. It was a period in
my life when I understood how the world functions […]. When I came to
CEU, I was a ‘decent homophobe.’
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Now he confronts with his friends’ homophobic and sexist statements and
declares himself a feminist. Several other interviewees also consider themselves
feminists or pro-feminists when asked specifically about gender matters. For
most of them, it was a process motivated by seeing ‘many unfair things.’ The
above-cited interviewee also emphasizes a young Romani feminist peer’s
influence on his understanding of gender relations and gender politics. He
describes her as a ‘true warrior’ who had amazing energy and convincing
arguments, and who shared eye-opening knowledge with him. The interna-
tional learning environment is explained as the location of critical knowledge
on gender and LGBT matters that young Romani men are exposed to.
One interviewee explained that the international university was a formative
experience helping him learn about his own sexuality. For him, ethnicity and
sexuality are the most two relevant identity grounds. He was openly gay, yet
he had not been invited to relate to the concept of LGBT Roma before
coming to CEU. The university gave him big support and this strengthened
his identity.
On my first day, I saw a huge rainbow flag at CEU and I am coming from
a Catholic college. And I said “oh my God, you can be whatever you
want here!”
An opposite position is taken by one of his colleagues about the public

nature of sexuality.
Look, I have to point out that I don’t have a problem with sexual differ-
entiation of people. This is part of their private life. I don’t have the right
to say bad things or judge them. We, Roma people in my village, we
don’t talk about sexuality in front of each other. I don’t see the connection
between sexuality and our Roma issue, because the latter is a political,
social, economic, and ethnic-based issue, while the former is about perso-
nal matters. Many people are considering LGBT and Roma issues under
the same umbrella. To be honest, I don’t see the point with this.
This account not only exemplifies a denial of sexuality-based identities as

public matters but also voices an anti-intersectional conviction. The notion of
intersectionality was not used in our questions to explore the conceptual and
linguistic repertoire to address intersecting or multiple differences, distinctions,
and inequalities in society. The concept was nevertheless mobilized by our
interviewees, especially in their narratives on positioning themselves in gender
hierarchies in their social environment. One interviewee felt it important to
articulate his own thoughts through the language of international policy reports:
Roma women are discriminated and intersection plays a big role here
because they are both Roma and women. Roma women face double
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discrimination in this situation and then if you add all the other indepen-
dent variables, like poverty and what else you can think of when you say
Roma, then we have serious issues. It’s not only gender, but gender is one
of the alarming ones.
Another young man revealed a situation in which a friend explained that her
wife’s opinion does not matter because she comes from a poorer Romani family
and from a different Romani group. The value of the woman was diminished
because of her family’s socioeconomic status, while she was also treated as inferior
for belonging to a different Romani group.
Regarding major explicit intersectional configurations, Romani men refer
most importantly to LGBT and class issues. One pointed out in our conversa-
tions that the LGBT Pride programs in Budapest are just for intellectuals and
city people, and thus neglect the working class. He poses the question: “What
can one capture from the perspectives of yoga class or contemporary dance that
matters in a Roma village?” Only one single interviewee referred to disability
by questioning how it is that this issue is never discussed in the Romani move-
ment, even though marginalization of people with disability is a huge challenge.
In other young men’s narratives, further categories of difference were mentioned
as parallel or unrelated phenomena. Some talked of categories and contexts such
as being a Muslim in a Christian country, belonging to a certain class, being a
public sector worker, living outside of big cities (for example, outside of Buda-
pest), age, urban or rural school experience, and parental background. These
relations and experiences of difference either did not seem to be decisive, or our
research was framed in such a way that such relations and experiences could not
be otherwise in our conversations.
The broader literature on masculinities posits that the anti-sexist or at least
gender-conscious politics of masculinities can be captured by a triad of possible
approaches: exploring the costs of masculinities, focusing on the privileges of
manhood, and emphasizing the diversity of men (Messner, 1997). Our young
Romani men primarily articulate opinions that are identical with the two latter
approaches. Other authors, like Connell and Messerschmidt (2005), acknowl-
edge that there are masculinities that rebel against hegemony. These often stem
from the aspirations of groups that are themselves subordinated in some fashion,
for example gay men, ethnic minority men, or poor men. This may lead to
changes whereby new, less oppressive ways of being a man become hegemonic
or, as is less pronounced in our research, lead to more oppressive positions
(Connell and Messerschmidt, 2005). Our research is concerned with aspirations
to deconstruct hegemonies based on genuine experiences of young men
belonging to an ethnic group of a largely oppressed position. Their gender and
sexuality-related identities, and their understandings of gender and sexuality
hierarchies, are imbued with opportunities to reflect upon wider hegemonic
relations. Our informants belong to the most educated part of the Roma on a
European scale. They claim fairly diverse gender and sexuality-related identities
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and feel different levels of comfort with these identities. Therefore, a position
of contestation or direct revolt against gender hegemony is shaped by the
mixed effects of intersecting hierarchies in their lives, rather than neatly tailored
relations of subordination.
Romani Women’s Activism and the Romani Movement:

Tensions and Conjunctions
Few of the young Romani men in our research are known for their public
statements on gender politics. Some of them have already engaged in serious
public conversations or debates on the politics of Romani women’s claims, but
our conversations invited many of them to engage with the topics in an explicit
manner. One stream among our informants acknowledges that women who
call themselves feminists are fighting for their rights, yet they are also struggling
for the general values of democracy. Several interviewees have colleagues and
friends who also endorse this opinion, but all our conversation partners know
Romani men and women who are resistant to the idea of feminism. Our
conversations revealed that because feminism is ‘not really understood,’ it
should be explained to people beyond the human rights advocacy community.
It is believed that quite a few women in the Romani community do not know
what feminist politics could bring to them despite the fact that many Romani
women nurture a ‘natural desire for emancipation.’
Another strand not only endorses Romani feminist currents but suggests
that Romani women should be much more radical. Accordingly, they have
to become more visible, engage in public discussions, and thus challenge the
current Romani leaders. Actions are needed, through “some kind of cam-
paigns, [a] kind of punch.” The prime target of these actions should be men
and young girls, those who, respectively, could be the most difficult and the
fastest to be convinced about the relevance of a women’s rights agenda. Most
young Romani men are well informed about Romani women’s activism in
their home countries and almost all have strong opinions on the international
Romani women’s movement as well. Regarding the latter, they acknowledge
that few Romani activists attained such high political positions in Europe as
Viktória Mohácsi and Lívia Járóka. This is viewed as an outstanding achieve-
ment, but also as a politics deceptively distant from ‘ordinary Romani
women’s claims.’ Indeed, in the last decade, the two Romani women’s
activities at the top levels of European political structures simultaneously ele-
vated and obscured the actual participation of Romani women in political
and public life. This captures the attention of young Romani men, but the
type of leadership that other senior Romani women perform appeals to them
more.
Interestingly, several see – among the contemporary senior women leaders in
the European Roma movement – Ágnes Daróczi as the pinnacle of women’s
participation: “She is an older Romani woman, but she is always at each and
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every place when something important is happening, a Holocaust remem-

brance, the international Roma day, etc.” Irrespective of their nationalities,
some interviewees recognize Daróczi as the most important Romani move-
ment leader in Hungary. This recognition might be read as a displacement of a
critique of younger Romani feminist activists. Others see respectful and well-
known Romani women leaders in Macedonia, Romania, and Serbia, countries
with active women’s organizations. Some argue that there is no big gap
between the Romani and mainstream gender equality movements in terms of
women leaders’ positions, referring to the permanent need for compassion and
determination that these leaders must possess.
Only a few young Romani men express a caveat or feelings of ambiguity
towards the Romani women’s movement’s outspoken leaders. It is explained
that in countries of the region, women’s organizations fight for substantive issues,
whereas in the European Romani women’s movement, ‘leadership is put first.’
This is a straightforward reference to the conviction that empowerment and
voice cannot precede advocacy for substantive social and policy issues. It also
mirrors embarrassment at the outspoken questioning of gender hierarchy when
young Romani men argue that the “Romani women’s agenda shall not be a
gender issue but of women’s rights, unequal pay, gender-based discrimination,
etc.” This reasoning does not shy away from supporting women’s rights but
remains reluctant on claims of equal representation and explicit power sharing.
One of the participants in our discussions presents himself as a pro-feminist with
the caveat that in an ideal state of affairs, a feminist position doesn’t shift the
‘most important order of things.’
Some voices reveal tangible resistance to explicit feminist standing and agendas,
especially when women activists turn to certain types of performativity:
I see people who are provoking. For example, it does not make you a
feminist if your head is bald-shaved, you sit in front of the university, even
when it’s raining, by smoking a cigarette. I’m sorry, it’s not feminism […].
In my eyes, it’s not a nice way to behave […]. If make your hair like a
rainbow, you put such clothes on, I feel ashamed to look at it […], it’s not
feminism […] and all this is to show that we, women, can do this, but it’s
not nice to behave in this way.
The same interviewees voice moderate or more robust contestation on how

Romani activist women seek opportunities to develop their voices, forms, and
tools of action. Romani women’s meetings and platforms embracing only
women or explicitly rejecting men’s participation are mentioned with outrage.
But in the following quote, a more condescending remark is made parallel to
ridiculing the Romani women’s activists:
A man wanted to be at the meeting of Romani women but they did not
allow him in. We thought it was stupid. You cannot separate something
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and fix it. But I understand them. They may have bad experiences or false
perceptions that nobody can do it better than them. In each project, there
is a fight for positions and resources, so they may also fear that men would
take this.
Some young men hold sensitive and informed positions on what is at stake for
several Romani women when expressing their views and experiences of gender
hierarchies. This position often stems from the critical accounts of their own
families, neighborhoods, and smaller communities discussed earlier. They are
sympathetic towards how Romani women activists articulate their experiences
in communities where women are treated in a rigidly traditional manner. In
the eyes of the interviewees, women’s desires for emancipation and empower-
ment at the grassroots level often look more appealing than when these desires
are cultivated among higher positions and in the international milieu of the
movement.
It is widely acknowledged among the educated young Romani men that
there is not enough space for gender equality issues in the Romani movement.
By the same token, even those who entertain gender conscious convictions
often express resistance to a potential division in the movement. They separate
their caveat, however, from many other men’s fears of feminism and women’s
betrayal of the movement. The Roma Women’s Network, established in the
early days of the democratic transformations in the 1990s, is seen positively by
many of our informants, but entities “which would at one point become
playgrounds for leadership roles” are regarded with suspicion. It is recognized
that Romani women activists must compete with men leaders if they want to
win recognition for their claims and concepts of wider societal matters. Yet the
concern is also raised that if Romani women pursue a strong gender equality
agenda, it renders ‘women [working] primarily for women.’ Such a worry over
an essentialist clustering of women’s political claims may hide some irritation
with gender politics, but could also signal a potentially elevating embarrassment
at the notion that Romani men are always seen as working for all Roma.
When the place of Romani women’s activisms is discussed, many of the
young Romani men believe that the Roma in Europe have to have a unitary
voice. When contemplating Romani movement dynamics and the risks of
division, our respondents implicitly place the responsibility mostly on the
women leaders. In other words, proper accommodation and incorporation shall
be conceived and practiced by the women activists. The emphasis here is not
on agency, but the duty to accommodate. The example of Macedonia is pos-
ited as a successful movement configuration, where women leaders are seen to
lace a gender agenda into the general movement objectives: “There is no
division between women’s issues and the main Roma issues. It’s just some
women chose to get an expertise on women’s issues.” When asked to gauge
their opportunities for active involvement in pursuing gender equality agendas,
some informants refer to ‘too much ideology’ associated with women’s claims.
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The politics of gender are felt to be ‘too noisy’ and imbued with the language
of oppression against which many young Romani men prefer to see a ‘genuine
policy rationale.’ This caveat mirrors certain, largely unnoticed, resistance to
women’s claims for a voice as a prerequisite to articulate political and policy
positions.
Beyond the prime concerns with a unified voice of the Romani movement,
several members of the young Romani men’s circle we reached out to advo-
cate for prioritizing and sequencing equality agendas: “First, we have to come
to the point when we have a real movement, a real impact on politics and
policies, then we have to think of how to involve more women.” It is voiced
that discussing oppression in different frameworks is going to weaken the
movement. Further, engagement with a strong feminist agenda can strengthen
the prejudice against Roma traditions. This fear is endorsed by a great deal of
empirical evidence of the racist exploitation of particular gender equality mat-
ters that the majority society clusters as quintessentially Romani or minority
practice. It is fair to argue that most young educated Romani men in our
research want to see a genuine gender equality agenda incorporated in the
mainstream Romani movement without endangering the unity of its wider
political goals. While the unity and strength of the wider Romani movement is
a major concern, it is only a few young Romani men who explicitly argue that
alliances across inequality grounds would not bring anything positive.
Our conversations revealed that against an imagined and unified voice in the
broader Romani movement, actual activist practices do enact various tensions.
Our interviewees explain that public statements for incorporating a gender
equality agenda into the wider political struggles often hide a genuine resistance
to or neglect of this agenda. Likewise, examples are mentioned of how political
intersectionality clashes are covered and believed to be tamed by denying
hierarchies on the grounds of inequality. The most optimistic voices, however,
nurture the hope that equality advocates can work together in and beyond the
Romani movement if they understand the “intersections of hierarchies and
liberating aspirations.” This belief in transformative politics is often pursued
together with perpetuated dreams of unified politics within the Romani
movement. One of our protagonists goes the furthest in contemplating inter-
or multi-categorical politics:
If I establish a political party, it will have a Roma profile. However, it will

represent women, gender issues, Roma issues, different kinds of minorities,
all the people who are excluded.
Finally, it is worth revealing that some of our informants envision opportunities

for alliances between Romani women’s and other women’s groups as a step
forward. Some also believe that Romani LGBT and Romani women activists
should work together with other LGBT and women’s movement groups.
“When we promote Roma feminism, it should not exclusively remain within
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the Roma movement.” The enthusiastic vision of Romani and non-Romani

feminists working together may become a vision of an empowerment path, yet
it could distance and tame feminist currents from the main course of the
Romani movement.
Potentials for Transversal Politics
This chapter sets out the following query: is the micro-cohort of educated
young Romani men we involved in our research ready to act upon genera-
tional difference to transgress the hierarchies and boundaries of social categories,
and to promote transversal politics within the Romani movement? Do they
have the inspiration and political and intellectual resources to experiment with
new movement formations and work for equality and justice agendas in non-
hegemonic spaces in ways that the current Romani and wider gender equality
politics may not yet consider feasible?
According to the overwhelming majority of young educated Romani men
we talked to in recent years, gender equality purposes should be incorporated
in the wider goals of the Romani movement. The most enthusiastic young
Romani men think that if collective actions make one part of the community
stronger, the whole community will grow stronger. This conviction stands in
sharp contrast to the belief in priorities among equality goals that wider
Romani politics pursues and which several of our informants ultimately also
support. One can argue that these young Romani men have little to fear from
power sharing in private life, university classrooms, and some other micro-set-
tings. But they are yet to be convinced that power sharing is the path towards
strengthening the moral and political community of the Roma. They are elo-
quent about the structural intersectionality that generates gendered ethnic/racial
dominations and exclusions, but are still in search of tools with which to navigate
through political intersectionality. Despite acknowledging the achievements of
Romani feminism and women’s equality claims, young Romani men seem to be
reluctant to align with them. Even if their creative agency is fully acknowledged
in our research, they cannot be made responsible for this state of affairs. There is
an abundance of visions, ideologies, and identity frames from which feminist
women can create their own standpoints, but these gender-sensitive young men
have much fewer such resources.
The former generations of Romani leaders often claimed that ethnic (racial)
and gender inequalities compose a hierarchical order, and that strategic actions
in social and political activism should be set accordingly. Nevertheless, gender
equality-conscious male voices have been heard and some Romani leaders have
been known to willingly stand up for gender equality principles. In contrast to
the reluctant or directly resentful voices, some well-known mid-career Romani
leaders have advocated against seeing gender politics as a source of cleavage
within the Romani movement. The generational divide between the older
Romani leaders and the subsequent cohort is pronounced in these mid-career
activists. They are uncompromising on the principle that men and women
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should have the same rights in the Romani community and beyond. One of
our informants, a leader of a significant Romani NGO, is proud of his orga-
nization’s initiatives on early and arranged marriage with which they pio-
neered a path to address an intersectional social justice issue. He takes pride
that they did so despite the warnings of resistance within the community,
which they believe they have managed or circumvented. Moreover, lacing
gender equality into the main activities of his organization is a signal of the
most genuine commitment to the gender agenda in Romani activism. This
sort of institutional commitment and operational track, however, is rather rare
among the major Romani organizations.
The primary target of our research has been to explore young men’s views
on gender politics and on the role and recognition of Romani women’s acti-
vism in the broader movement. We have not yet gathered data on young
Romani men’s serious involvement in activist and political work, or their main
professional practices to relate and act upon their ideas. In search of aspirations
for transversal politics, our research has revealed that our young educated
Romani men informants and acquaintances hold reassuring desires to establish
non-hierarchical relationships through a sensitive understanding of the rela-
tions of domination according to gender roles and principles in both Romani
communities and majority society. They are fairly eloquent about the
Romani women activists’ positioning and places in power hierarchies within
and outside the Romani movement. Most of these interviewees have devel-
oped genuine recognition and respect for Romani women’s agendas and claims,
and are on their way to being convinced that women activists are advocates
for the cause of their constituencies, and do not pursue power to establish an
alternative hegemony.
Romani men’s collective struggle against sexism and anti-feminism might
be possible, but difficult to frame. Merely repeating the politically correct
claims of the mid-career Romani activist generation on the principle of
gender equality no longer suffices. Anti-hegemonic beliefs and contemplat-
ing the sites of emancipation have not yet produced enabling forms of
actions. These young Romani men face the challenge that bell hooks posits
so powerfully: “How do we create an oppositional worldview, a con-
sciousness, an identity, a standpoint that exists not only as that struggle
which also opposes dehumanization but as the movement which enables
creative, expansive self-actualization?” (hooks 1990, 15). Our observations
resonate with the findings of a recent account of young Latin American
activist men who are engaged in feminist-inspired consciousness-raising.
These young men face a scarcity of ideals that enable ‘non-machista’ men’s
creative and expansive self-actualization, as bell hooks suggests. They com-
pose a unique group of first-generation, highly-educated men who can take
an avant-garde path in search for gender-equitable forms of masculinities.
But as in the case of our young Romani men, they have few role models
to work with (Goicolea et al 2014, 411).
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With transversal politics, the very cause for which advocates will work may
also change. Young Romani men and women may join other young people to
claim new distribution of resources and recognition in society. Young and
older Romani women may work together with young Romani men and other
minoritized groups on new legitimate partnership arrangements in society, just
to name some transversal outcomes. The most radical hopes strive to dissolve or
seriously diminish the appeal of social categories in explaining and eliminating
relations of domination. It would be fascinating to observe that a fundamental
reorganization of the political universe will be proposed by, among others,
gender equality-conscientious ethnic minority men, or that the political sal-
ience of social groups or collectives without categorical separation will be
envisioned from within an intersectionally mixed position of privilege and dis-
advantage. Our next modest step in this research will be to explore the variety
of efforts put into self-actualization efforts for building a politics of counter-
hegemonies that young educated Romani men have started to name, define,
and invest in.
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Chapter 4
Heroines of Ours: Between

Magnificence and Maleficence
Jelena M. Savić
Introduction
Canonical analytic epistemology often turns vibrant social subjects, such as
social movements, into the silent objects of observation about which knowl-
edge is only to be produced (Chesters 2012). The Roma movement, including
the Roma women’s movement, is no exception in this sense. In the field of
science, marginalized subjects, women, and especially women of color, often
served as nameless and speechless objects, bodies of systematic scientific research
about whom racist canonical knowledge was produced for the purposes of
exploitation (Fausto-Sterling 1995; Stepan 1986). As feminist antiracist theore-
ticians reveal, colonial objectifying and racist practices in knowledge production
persist in many ways (Grasswick 2011; Roberts 2015). Political questions of
recognition and redistribution (Fraser and Honneth 2003) bear upon Roma
women in academia, politics, and policy, making it a significant obligation for
us to choose with care epistemic approaches and politics of knowledge pro-
duction, including politics of remembrance, that is, history making. I argue in
this chapter for the self-reflective practice of academics, activists, and the ones
who find themselves in-between, those who operate under power structures of
the frequently challenged and problematized coproduction of knowledge about
Roma people (Surdu 2016; Vajda 2015).
I start with the idea of the canon, which I draw from feminist literary theory.
I focus on myth as a common ground between canonical art, nation-building,
historiography, and knowledge production, Further, I raise the possibility of the
mythologization of knowledge production in the case of our future endeavor,
the historization of the Roma women’s movement. First, I question the
potentially embraced ideas about the nature of the subject of knowledge –
namely, the knower – and the knowledge itself. Second, I deal with commu-
nity mapping, that is, with issues of representation in knowledge production.
I offer a feminist and critical epistemic approach to historization as a preventive
solution against potential canonical knowledge production. The idea of pro-
gress is not embraced here; on my account, the feminist future of knowledge
production in and about the Roma women’s movement also includes possible
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Between Magnificence and Maleficence 89
dystopias. We, Roma women, many of us feminists, as historical subjects,

might also fail in our knowledge production to really “make women’s studies
feminist” (Pollock 1993, 19).
Canon: The institute of sainthood

Thinking about the Roma women’s movement as a part of our national his-
tory, I reach for a parallel in the literary field. I start with the questions: ‘what
are literary canons?’; ‘how are they made?’; and ‘what is their function?’. The
term canon was originally employed in different areas, but was mostly related
to ruling and law, especially religious law, referring to the designated sacred
scripts, ‘the standard’ of religious practice; while the term canonization signified
the act of introduction of the priests into the order of saints (Đurić 2009, 42;
Locher 2012, 30). With the secularization of the term in academia, “canon”
develops other meanings, but retains some of its religious connotation (Đurić
2009, 42, 30). In the constructivist, discursive, and institutional reading of art
which I embrace here, the process of canonization proceeds as follows: major
cultural agents, involved in the production and assembling of the corpus of
what is usually seen as ‘great art’ (similar to the assembling of sacred scripts),
convey canonical pieces of literature with a special status. However, the role of
the social actors making the selection is hidden, and the offered narrative is that
the works, presumably, inherently share some expressed ‘universal, higher lit-
erary quality’ which grants them this status. This is analogous to the notion that
sacred scripts derive their value from their words’ alleged proximity to the will
of God. As such, canonized literary works are rendered ‘recognizable’ and
selected on supposedly purely aesthetical, unquestioned, ‘universal’ criteria
(Locher 2012; Šuvaković 2010, 132).
Let me now focus on the myth that plays significant role in the creation
of nation as an imagined community and national identity, and, as will
be shown, science. Mythical cosmogonies, stories about the origin, the first
beginning, and constitutive arch-points of a community are a pivotal, una-
voidable part of a collective memory. The mythical characters, Gods and
supernatural god-like arch-ancestors – usually male gendered on their heroic
journeys – personify hyperbolized characteristics, virtues, values, and princi-
ples present in the narrative of the community by the means of phantasy and
desire. Myth has a strong capacity to emotionally engage: “[G]ood myths
have entertainment value and the magic of their poetry delights the audience.
This affective, performative aspect of myth is important to its power. Its dra-
matic appeal works not only to capture and impress an audience, but also to
convince them” (Overing 1997, 2). This is what I find especially important
for a critical understanding of historical readings that are inevitably carried out
in the present. As Overing warns us, myth provides not just foundational
ground for the idea of the common descent of members of the community,
but also eschatology and ideas about final destiny; on the historical axis, myth
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90 Jelena M. Savić
operates on the double political level. In addition, Kølvraa sees myth as an

inextricably legitimating tool:
[M]yth – understood here as the narration of the communal past, present,

and future utilizing the privileges of a collective memory discourse – is not
to be understood simply as a “primitive”, “degraded” or “amateurish”
form of historical recounting, but as form of political narrativity which
delivers legitimacy to both present power structures in a community and
to future political aims.
(Kølvraa 2015, 63)
Canonical art and national history collide in their narrativity, establishing the
canonical discourses of Tradition (Pollock 1993, 12). That is, archive material
assembled by art historians and historians in general makes most of what is to
constitute a collective memory and draws the political lines of memory, mem-
bership, speaking, and meaning in national community, and this is done in the
authoritative way inherent to canons. It is important to stress the political and
institutional character of this practice. As Locher points out concerning art:
[E]ven if historians, collectors, dealers or politicians tried to establish “the”

canon of art, there is at any time a very broad set of possibly acceptable
canonical objects, which are all artifacts classified as “art”. From this field
the objects of reference are chosen and marked as outstanding by critics,
art historians, dealers, and collectors, according to the specific interests of
the person acting or the group or institution this person represents, and
laid down in some kind of listing – such as, for example, the national lists
of historical monuments protected by national law, or the UNESCO
world heritage list, or, of course, the many art-historical surveys recom-
mended to students of art history.
(Locher 2012, 33, 34)
I suggest this is applicable to historical material in general, including that rele-

vant for the processes of the historization of the Roma women’s movement,
similar to the present volume, which indeed might be found in some syllabus,
recommended to future students of the history of the Roma women’s
movement.
In this interpretation, canons actually create what is to be seen as ‘authentic’
cultural legacy, an archive of selected material named Tradition, thus there is
no such thing as metaphysical ‘authentic’ culture, or ‘the essence’ of national
identity based upon it, and national communities can hardly be seen as firm
ontological entities. In national communities, as in other types of commu-
nities for that matter, prototypical community members nevertheless proclaim
‘our way’ of being and doing things, while other members have to fight for
their narratives. This shows that literary and historical canons and their
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powerful explanatory, performative, and normative roles need to be histor-

icized and politicized.
The main function of canons is to delineate what is designated as ‘authentic,
deserving and proper’ from what is not, and to normalize this delineation from
an already value-laden position. This governing and policing of community
borders happens through time and space. Being situated in historical, social
conditions and power structures, the main lines of differentiation for canons are
quite recognizable, for example: nationality, gender, race, geography, language,
class, and so on. Importantly, canons have clear legitimizing effects for the
present, and normative effects for future political agendas. This delineation can
be applied in many different forms and on different levels. I should mention
that following Foucault’s footsteps, I accept governing and policing practices as
always imperfect, and the possibilities of resistance as always present (Foucault
1995).
Making Roma Women’s History

How we can use this model of the canonical production of culture to under-
stand the production of knowledge about history concerning Roma women
from a feminist perspective? For feminists, literary canons are patriarchal; they
are made by proclaiming “great” men in the history of art, who are often
considered relevant for the history of a nation, even humanity. These are
idealized, fatherly, heroic figures, almost as phantasmagoric semi-Gods, similar
to the mythical ancestral, fictional characters they themselves produce. Their
right to be in the canon is rendered from a position of power, valuing their
contribution to the mythologized cultural community, usually a nation. Being
excluded from these canons, as authors or the subjects of myths created,
women often remain with limited possibilities for participation on their own
terms in art, history, or an imagined community, such is a nation.
However, women surely do create imagined apparatuses and produce
their own canons, and they often perpetuate exclusionary practices. Con-
cerning canons in knowledge production, Lorde bitterly criticizes the para-
digmatic example of exclusion by white women related to the mythical
legacy of Black women, stressing the effect of exclusion on the politics of
solidarity among women: “[W]hat you excluded from Gyn/Ecology dis-
missed my heritage and the heritage of all other non-European women, and
denied the real connections that exist between all of us”1 (Lorde 1983). In
another text, we see why the author considers this knowledge important.
Myths about Black women are, for Lorde, a potential prerequisite for soli-
darity among Black women themselves:
[D]o we reenact these crucifixions upon each other, the avoidance, the
cruelty, the judgments, because we have not been allowed Black god-
desses, Black heroines; because we have not been allowed to see our
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mothers and our selves in their/our own magnificence until that magnifi-
cence becomes part of our blood and bone? One of the functions of hatred
is certainly to mask and distort the beauty which is power in ourselves.
(Lorde 1984, 164, 165)
Canonical heroes who “shaped and wrought, and light they caught to hide in
gems on hilt of sword” (Tolkien 2012, 275) seem to be substantial for identity
and self-formation, craved by men, but also women, even though they do not
need to be “goddesses of sword” in the same patriarchal narrative. When we,
Roma women, might also crave our own heroines, the question is: from the
feminist standpoint, how do we approach the historization of our movement?
How do we address the perils of mythical Roma women’s History production,
canonizing selections, masterful bordering which indeed happens to be
wrought into the ontology of the canon? I turn to the history of art again since
Pollock gives us valuable directions:
The situation in which we are at present requires a historical analysis and

beyond that, an ideological reading of how what anyone of us thinks or
theorizes arises within a social formation to produce what Roland Barthes
redefined the cumbersome Marxist notion of ideology as: myth. No
theory will protect us against our own mythologizing tendencies. For the
former is often the intellectual face of the latter. But a practice, committed
to critical self-analysis and to the necessary tension between what the mind
invents in the way it thinks and the political effects of the logical structures
we produce for representing the concrete, social world and analyzing his-
torically those representations, such a practice may get us somewhere.
(Pollock 1996, 21)
Let me unravel this pregnant statement in the context of our own knowl-
edge production and history making: I see here two major subjects of our
concern, not necessarily separated. First, more broadly, I will deal with
ontological and mostly epistemological questions about knowledge, and in
the second part, I will narrow the analysis to the issue of community map-
ping, that is, the politics of representations.
Ontology: The Place with the View
Pollock asks us to understand that theory, in both art and history, is also a field
where imagination and myth play a significant role. This is why the author
considers it crucial to treat the position of the knowledge-producer and their
knowledge as historically immanent. Following this suggestion, we need to
historically position not just non-Roma in general, or Roma men, but also
ourselves and our own knowledge production within the “dirty business of
politics and power” (Pollock 1993, 19). According to this feminist epistemo-
logical credo, the history making needs to be historicized, including our own
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production. Why is this necessary? We can find the justification in feminist

epistemology:
Although there are wide differences amongst them, feminist epistemologies

based on situated knowing all stand in sharp contrast to the predominant
approaches of traditional epistemology that characterize knowing as taking
up the “view-from-nowhere.”
(Grasswick 2011, xvi)
To avoid this deceitful interchangeability of epistemic subjects and their

knowledge, we should bear in mind that in the production of knowledge
related to history, the often-unifying signifier ‘Roma women’ under which we
live our lives, does not necessarily place us in social reality on the opposite side
to canonical exclusionary, patriarchal, and phallocentric history-making. There
are Roma women who would support exactly this kind of historiography in
their knowledge production.
Further, by itself, the nominator ‘Roma women’ does not position us in
confrontation with non-Roma women, even in feminist history-making, in
which subjectivity of non-Roma is often universalized, and their privileges
made invisible. There are Roma women who would support this kind of
knowledge production for different reasons, such as admiration or assimila-
tion, and there is of course enough pressure too. Also, it is less risky and
more profitable to participate with non-Roma, including non-Roma
women and feminists, in the ‘epistemology of ignorance’, which Grasswick
sees as “the result not of a benign gap in our knowledge, but in deliberate
choices to pursue certain kinds of knowledge while ignoring others”
(Grasswick 2011, xviii).
Further, as Roma women, we are not ‘emancipated’ from social condition-
ing by our class, citizenship, religion, physical ability, education, and so on. As
historical subjects, we are hardly free from our own entanglement in historical
social structures and processes. Nor are we absolved from consequential self-
preserving interest and agendas, or the ability to use our privileges and oppor-
tunities – no matter how limited they might be – without questions, and even
with a sense of entitlement.
One of the motivating ideas to create material dealing with Roma women’s
history might be the idea that a joint past might bring us closer in the present
and, possibly, in the future. An awareness of the ontological and epistemic
demand to treat knowledge as providing ‘views-from-somewhere’ has histori-
cally been of great importance for feminists regarding the politics of solidarity. I
believe Pollock puts a strong case for feminists to brace themselves and be
prepared for self-reflection from the ever-present, yet still challenging blind
spot of feminism, which, as the author claims, “shipwrecked” the idea of sis-
terhood in America in the 1970s (Pollock 1999, 35). Women and feminists do
not escape historical subjectivity, and use disciplining power (Foucault 1995) in
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the production of theoretical myths, theories that specifically call for social
integration based on sacralized, normalized, and unquestionable theoretical
authority. The ‘magic’ in myth is always present, and the magician operates on
“misdirection (the diversion of attention away from its method) so that the
audience does not notice how it was produced” (Kuhn, Amlani, and Rensink
2008). White middle-class feminists produced ‘magical’ and emancipatory
‘theory-from-nowhere’ (Grasswick 2011, xvi), which only ‘bewitched’ them,
taking away their powers to acknowledge and deal with the complex empirical
realities of different women; realities embedded into complex power structures
and processes. And these persistent differences are, of course, not differences
that can be settled easily and safely, without serious conflicting ideological
debates or other practices, without challenging the existing politics of recogni-
tion and redistribution in the domain of cultural and social politics (Fraser and
Honneth 2003). Since solidarity was not possible between white and Black (or
other women of color or minority women) feminists in the USA under these
conditions (Mohanty 2003; Moraga and Anzaldua 1983), the sense of belong-
ing and solidarity is, for sure, not possible between non-Roma and Roma
women, especially feminists, under similar conditions. It is also not possible
between us, Roma women, particularly feminists, without addressing our own
differences and the positions of power in our community and in the move-
ment, no matter how small this movement might be.
Hitherto, I believed that mythologizing of our own ‘Roma women’s way’ did
not have much ground in our knowledge production in general, even though in
my judgment, this production often lacks truly critical perspectives. In my opinion,
there is not much mythologization specifically related to knowledge of our history.
This might not be because we, in our experiences of exclusion, developed some
special resilience to it, but simply because of fewer opportunities. The successful
endeavors to introduce Roma women into academia and to grant them the status
of knowledge producers, as well as attempts to systematically historicize the Roma
women’s movement, are very recent. However, it is important at this moment to
be aware of the possible and most likely perpetuations of these mythological
schemes. In the process of historization of our movement, let me point out some
of the possible perpetuating practices of mythologization in our knowledge pro-
duction, and possible consequences to be aware of.
Concerning such mythologizing schemes in our approach to history making,
we canonically represent super-heroic, patriarchal, sacrificing, motherly, pro-
tectionist, saving or even self-blaming figures, transferring their authoritative
canonical legacy to the younger generation in a diachronic and progressive
unraveling of history, rather than dealing with the ideological, social, and
material structures and mechanisms of domination through politicized syn-
chronies. As Pollock further expands on the problem:
[I]n the developmental flow of time, there is no space for conflict, for
ideology and for politics which fracture the evolving diachronic story to
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produce complex, politicized synchronies. Feminism cannot be understood

or defined only diachronically, as the history of ideas or the succession of
social movements, or an unfolding of generation. In our moment, there
has emerged a dispersed and fractured feminist space in which conflicting
ideologies and politics simultaneously coexist within, between groups,
tendencies, communities. These conflicts of loyalty and politics often
coexist within individuals.
(Pollock 1993, 16)
Accordingly, in order to avoid, for example, substituting the patriarchal role of

macho “deserving heroes” with “sacrificing heroines” of the nation, I suggest
that we delineate the work of Roma women which, compared to the majority,
needs to be more included and visible in general, from structural thinking
which calls for a critical approach, to the work itself. This means fighting biased
assessments by the majority, but also acknowledging the ideological differences
in our positions and our work. It would, among other things, further make us
answer the questions: ‘do we agree?’; ‘why exactly do we agree or not agree?’;
‘how do we politically act upon our insights?’; ‘at which ideological positions
can we find allies?’; and ‘how do we meaningfully, critically and openly fight the
views we do not agree with?’
This, I would say, critical approach to knowledge production would also
allow us to exercise caution regarding the perspectives in the ‘magic
mirror’, looking at each other and our knowledge as if they were our own
beautiful reflections. It would not allow us to make a convenient mytho-
logical, unifying selection of historical events and processes, generating our
own warm, fuzzy feelings of sharing based on these selected experiences of
domination and resistance, underlined by our collective implicit or explicit
consensual agreements and self-admiration, and all from privileged positions
we nevertheless have.
This approach would make us especially aware of our social-identity threat
(Shepherd, Spears, and Manstead 2013), and not allow the ‘magic’ dis-
appearance of certain perspectives in order to avoid such threat. This would
make us open to acknowledging our own complex conflicting entanglement in
‘the ugly, evil and maleficence’ of historical processes, politics and power, our
strange silences, alliances, coalitions, conformism, neo-liberal and patriarchal
practices, paternalism, exclusions, academism, elitism, monopolization, token-
ism, clientelism, careerism, and so on.
Self-admiration, self-legitimizing, self-righteous, and self-proclaimed high
status in knowledge production would likely inhibit criticism and readiness to
question differences and social hierarchies, and incapacitate contribution to
social change (Sweetman et al. 2013), including the changes in the knowledge
production system for which we argue, and which we have a privilege to
influence now, no matter how small this influence might be. It is not unknown
that “maintaining or justifying the system itself may serve a palliative function”
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(Sweetman et al. 2013, 540), especially for the members of marginalized

groups. So, it should not surprise us, but this selective, affirmative identity
homogenization and subsequent self-legitimate nesting in the social position
of power would not be unique to us, members of marginalized groups on
certain points. It would affect us, as producers of knowledge – most of it
about other people – as much as any producers of knowledge in or beyond
academia, unchallenged by the criticism of people about whose lives they
produce knowledge, and whose absence is even expected, calculated, and
woven into these theories, as we very well know. This critical feminist
approach would urge us to expect the fallibility of our knowledge, simply due
to the status of our subjectivity; us, being historical subjects with agency, but
at the same time determined by many global and local social structures and
processes, and not imagined, infallible super-heroines.
A critical feminist approach to the position of Roma women as knowers, their
knowledge production and history making would be challenging because this
approach would account for political structures and processes, presupposing that
“community is not geography, not a fixed and stable terrain” (Hejinian 2000, 38),
and that it cannot be neatly mapped and classified. There is always an ‘excess’ of
experience in the community from our manifold standpoints, due to the inter-
subjective nature of the always conflictual social order. And it is important that this is
emphasized because although the nature of our community might not be unfa-
miliar, in my opinion, the accounting of this fact, especially concerning the con-
flictual character of social positioning, is more professed, and less enacted upon.
This approach could even be dangerous, considering the tension between
the need for cohesion between already small and atomized social groups as
feminist Roma women in the movement, but, in my opinion, commendable. I
believe it would provide an opportunity to draw meaningful and critical knowl-
edge and practices ‘from below’, responsibly, meaningfully and critically challenging
the knowledge production system and its practices. Further, it would allow us
to produce our knowledge better prepared, and better trained to listen for the
significant differences (S. Savić 2010), which would possibly bring us closer to
the democratization and social changes we are committed to. This approach
would allow us to avoid the old, probably inevitable, and predictable mistakes
of any collective social enterprise such as Roma women, and especially the
Roma feminist movement.
However, we should be aware that this is all conditional. It is important to
emphasize how we witness knowledge as not being a ‘silver bullet,’ fulfilling
promises of the human capital neo-liberal narrative, not even in better-off
countries (Simmons, Thompson, and Russell 2014). We need to embrace
debunking the myth of the power of knowledge in that sense, and question
historical conditions of this zealously-professed, unquestioned transmission of
knowledge to individual and social change, and try to understand under which
conditions this knowledge would possibly lead to the actual benefits for the
majority of oppressed historical subjects.
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Representation: ‘Are you Talking to me?’

Let me proceed to the second point I find relevant in the Pollock quotation
mentioned above (Pollock 1996, 21) related to community mapping, that is,
the representativeness of us as knowers, and representations we offer through
our knowledge production, the question of whose knowledge about whom is
exercised over whom. To restate Pollock’s claim, the author asks us to critically
engage with representations and be aware of historical situatedness and perfor-
mativity. Pollock says:
[I]t is, therefore, of critical importance that we think about, i.e. theo-
rize, how we study women, their condition and history, their place in
representation and their representations, how we make women’s studies
feminist. That is, to refer one final time to Toril Moi, to politicize and
to practice the politics of theory.
(Pollock 1993, 19)
There is no theory without representation, and all representations of the social

world, baring specific meanings, are political. As I elaborated above, knowledge
has its temporal axis, which presupposes a selection of potential information, and
which can be proclaimed as knowledge from a certain social positioning in the
present; in this way, knowledge is always situated, it is interpretation ‘from-
somewhere-and-by-someone.’ Yet knowledge is so often universalized, with
performative, legitimizing effects for the past, present or future. Time, geography,
culture, race, nationality, class, and so on were often neglected as benchmarks of
meaning, of knowledge and its production in epistemic communities.
To move closer to the issues of representativeness and representations that
emerge from this situation, I offer three related examples. The first references
processes inside the academy; the second points to the power dynamics
between the academy and wider epistemic community, which will ultimately
reveal the relevance of the third; which deals with the representativeness and
representations offered in knowledge production about the Roma women’s
movement. I acknowledge that a strict division between the academy and the
wider epistemic community can be criticized. However, this division remains
relevant, since it has strong roots in social practice (Baćević 2014); still, in my
third example, I try to account for the complexity of this relation. Under the
term “wider epistemic community” I include politicians, policy makers, and
communities of different social groups, including the Roma community.
The first simple example revealing the lack of representativeness and repre-
sentations refers to the situation in humanities, where we predominantly learn
about science and in particular, about humans from the so-called W.E.I.R.D.
group of people (white, educated, who come from industrialized, rich, so-called
democratic countries). A vast amount of knowledge produced in psychology,
behavioral, and brain sciences is based on representations of the social world by
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researchers and research participants, mostly undergraduates at prestigious uni-

versities in the USA (Adams et al. 2015; Jones 2010). Whenever the case is
otherwise, the system of knowledge production is not sufficiently democratized
to include such production in the canonical corpus of “knowledge proper.” This
system operates according to normative standards, which researchers with privi-
leged intersectional social positioning in more affluent countries, such as the
USA, can more easily negotiate, set, and fulfill (Jaggar 2007).
The second example shows that even under the questionable neo-liberal
academic agenda (the so-called ‘third mission’ of the academy after teaching
and research, which is supposed to enforce the efficiency of the knowledge
enterprise through its enhanced production and usage in communities), the
dialogue between academics and the broader epistemic public is less demo-
cratic than expected. Instead of shared responsibility in creation and appli-
cation, it mostly consists of broadcasting academics’ knowledge to politicians
and other policy decision-makers, who have the discretionary right to uti-
lize it in their own social and economic decision-making about recognition
and representation (Baćević 2014). When we speak about the participation
of marginal communities in this process, as many Roma are familiar with
already, and as Baćević shows in her work:
[W]hile there are clear attempts to involve representatives of different

community groups in co-ordination of coproduced research, their role
usually remains limited to data collection or providing input for the ana-
lysis, which, in turn, is usually done by academics. Although typically
research findings will be presented to the representatives of the community
in question, who will be able to give feedback and even influence the
formulation of the results, scientific authority tends to remain within the
realm of the academia.
(Baćević 2014 19)
Here I would add that ‘the third mission’ is a tendency that is researched less on
the semi-periphery (Blagojević 2009b). Two further points based on anecdotal
evidence, relying on my own experience in activism on the semi-periphery for
the last eighteen years, might serve for further investigation. First, even if aca-
demia showed an interest in the social relevance of the knowledge produced,
or in any kind of ‘reality check’, it would mainly concern universities that
already have an ‘applied’ profile. Not to devalue the importance academics’
right to think freely, but the humanities might remain trapped in their fight for
the autonomy and meritocracy. As an example, we can use the application of
affirmative measures for Roma students in Serbia.
The production of ‘knowledge proper’ in academia is in the hands of aca-
demic elite. Educated Roma, far from being let into this space, are instead left
to apply their basic academic knowledge and skills in non-governmental orga-
nizations (NGOs) to become the ‘NGO elite’, producing bureaucratic reports,
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a tendency noticed almost a decade ago (S. Savić and Grbić 2008). This
‘knowledge proper’ about Roma serves to assist universities in accessing funds
for inclusive practices, but is rarely invested by universities in systemic change
of themselves. At these ‘engaged’ universities and departments, Roma students
go through all the same negative experiences theorized in their professors’
books (J. Savić 2015). In turn, these books will further be referenced by the
‘NGO elite’ in policy proposals and reports about the education of Roma,
which, nevertheless, have not truly been implemented for the last ten years. As
a second point, I would say that it is really questionable whether academics
would present their work to the members of the communities and ask for
feedback. My hypothesis, which I do not have space to elaborate here, is that
Roma are ghost-like, without substance, epistemic subjects, with “easy”,
“empty” subjectivity, as without agency, if they are subjects at all. They are
present, but have a cartoon-like subjectivity, able to be drawn or erased by will;
in fact, in the production of knowledge, or even art for that matter, their
absence is what is accounted for.
With the third example, I further address the issue of representation of
minority groups in knowledge production, with reference to the community of
Roma women. I provide here a somewhat different perspective dealing with
the case of Roma women who are themselves producers of knowledge about
their community. To focus it even more, as a humble suggestion, I offer one
possible reading of the position of knowledge producers and knowledge pro-
duction of the authors of this book. Here I follow Fiske’s idea about the dif-
ference between ‘readerly’ and ‘writerly’ text (Fiske 1989, 103). The ‘readerly’
text “invites [a] essentially passive, receptive, disciplined reader who tends to
accept its meanings as already made. It is a relatively closed text, easy to read
and undemanding of its readers” (Fiske 1989, 103). On the opposite side, the
‘writerly’ text is that “which challenges the reader constantly to rewrite it, to
make sense out of it. It foregrounds its own textual contractedness and invites
the reader to participate in the construction of meaning” (Fiske 1989, 103). To
do this in a feminist way, following Pollock, it is necessary to ‘break the magic,’
and situate producers of knowledge and their work in the reflection of the
above-mentioned political constellations and processes.
To begin with, I would assume it would be easy to treat this collection of works
as a canonical piece. This book is made of thoughts, experiences, knowledge, and
ideas of women selected according to certain criteria. Women who recognized
themselves as “Romani and non-Romani women scholars and activists, most of
whom have played a significant role in shaping Roma related discourses, policies
and projects in Europe in the last twenty years” (Jovanović, Kóczé, and Balogh
2015, 3). Accordingly, the reader can conclude that these women must be relevant
for the community on the national and state level. As a privilege, these women
“offered critical reflections on the history of their work in this regard. They also
initiated debates about the present and future gender politics in relation to the
Romani movement” (Jovanović, Kóczé, and Balogh 2015, 3).
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As mentioned before, canonical pieces operate so that past contributions,

canonically selected in the present, can influence and legitimize the present
and the future. Contributions are defined here as inherently ‘significant,’
obviously in a positive way; otherwise I do not think we would be selected.
If we accept the explanatory, performative, and normative role of the process
of canonical selection in the act of remembrance from the present, this is a
creation of Tradition, and History; we are only to submit this process to
‘estrangement’, make it a subject of ostranenie – defamiliarization – and a
certain “dis-enchantment” (Shklovsky and Berlina 2015), in order to com-
prehend the politics of delineation and the power positions from which this
bordering is actually made.
According to this method, in order to legitimize the selection of certain
Roma women, to whom I will refer to as ‘our circle’ or ‘the circle’ – among
whom many have who contributed to a better life for Roma women in past,
nevertheless not in this book – I am obliged to ask: how can these specific
contributions actually be justified as significant and valuable, and in which way?
What are the procedures and criteria to do this? My decision here operates on
the assumption that there are no major public, uncomfortable, needed debates, or
critical assessments about the actual effects and contributions of the Roma
movement in general, and the Roma women’s movement in particular, to the
lives of Roma women. There is no institute of such public scrutiny. It is not
that no official reports of numerous projects exist, but rather that there are no
such truly critical assessments of contributions to the lives of Roma women,
including the ones very different from us, outside ‘our circle.’ There are, in
particular, no assessments made by exactly those women whose claims we are
supposed to advocate for. To my knowledge, there are no other collections
reflecting on this topic in the English language, and on the international level.
Hitherto, there have been no works produced and/or published by any
respected and powerful academic (or other) institution, such as the Central
European University.
If my assumption is correct, then in the absence of competing, similar works
by other powerful social agents – let alone by Roma women who are in many
respect different and less powerful – to create potentially challenging narratives,
then, collectively, our interpretations can, and probably will, easily and inevi-
tably be referenced at least in two ways: as representative and significant. Our
interpretations, in and outside ‘the circle,’ could easily be seen as representative
of the Roma women’s movement in Europe, including some very different
Roma women from ourselves. It appears that it is not difficult to acquire the
status of a legitimate speaker, once we are selected into the canon.
Further, contributions to the lives of Roma women outside ‘the circle’ can
also easily be more or less self-evaluated in ‘the circle’ as significant, in a posi-
tive way, designating the successful subject interchangeability of representation.
Accordingly, we would also be able to reap academic and social benefits, no
matter how small they might be, and indeed contribute to the lives of Roma
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women – ourselves. Since this might be challenging to hear, I will also say that
if there was no openness to the possibility that this profit from the illusion of
interchangeability might happen in some version, there would probably not be
the consequent openness to criticism and meaningful, critical reflection and
debate in ‘our circle.’ Without this openness to self-criticism, the practice of
deceitful interchangability of subjectivity will continue without real change for
women outside ‘our circle,’ and the status quo will be maintained.
For this not to happen, there are questions we might want to ask ourselves
before we proclaim the significance of our representations. For example: ‘who
chose us?,’ ‘who authorized us to speak?,’ ‘under which conditions?,’ ‘about
which topics are we to speak?,’ ‘who selects the topics?,’ ‘in which format are
we to speak?,’ ‘in whom do we trust more?,’ ‘which format is taken as more
“trustworthy,” “objective,” “scientific”?”,’ ‘who can produce in such formats?,’
‘who will speak more?,’ ‘is there any support for those who speak less?,’ ‘who is
not going to speak at all?,’ ‘what is done to include them?,’ ‘who is listening?,’
‘is there reciprocity in communication?,’ ‘what is done to ensure reciprocity?,’
and so on. In other words – how are the epistemic and Roma women’s com-
munities currently politically mapped, from the position of power? Let me try
to answer two of these questions with answers that may be obvious, but which
I still find necessary, maybe crucial, to point out.
Inevitably, in ‘our circle,’ some Roma women’s perspectives would be in,
while others would be out, and thus two logical questions appear. The first
question is: ‘who is in?’; ‘who are we?’; ‘who is speaking behind the unifying
signifier of Roma woman, from which social positions?’ (Hejinian 2000). Even
though it is obvious, sometimes conveniently disregarded fact is that compared
to the majority of Roma, we, Roma women in academia and/or activism and
policy-making, are a minority, very ‘weird,’ unrepresentative Roma. We are
not much like the often-referenced, disadvantaged, dramatically poor, and
uneducated sick, living in a slum; ‘the Roma women’ from statistics, whose
position we might use to legitimize our own. Of course, this might be familiar
and well-known, but let me stress it once again: being among the very few
educated Roma, with enough cultural and social capital to be in academia, in a
position to produce what might be seen and published as meaningful knowl-
edge, even in the position to determine the conditions of its meaningfulness,
and our ability to think about the lives of Roma women outside our social
positions and representations, I take to be quite debatable. As mentioned, we
might as well legitimately be only our own representatives, negotiating our own
authority in social space.
As Roma women with all our intersectional marginal standings, and still
in a position to contribute to this book, I believe we should pay close
attention to this possibility when we think about our own representative-
ness and/or the significance of our own representations of the social world
in a critical and self-reflecting way. At the end, I take this not as a dubious,
uninviting, or insupportable suggestion.
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On this track, we would also acknowledge that we will inevitably ‘simply

forget’, that is, exclude someone; so, when we produce knowledge, we
might also ask our second question: who might be left behind the borders
of our community mapping, knowledge and history making? For example,
these might be the voices of the activists who come from small and poor
countries on periphery or ‘semi-periphery’ (Blagojević 2009b), those without
organizational membership; the ones who are poor, less-educated or unedu-
cated; those without ‘expertise’; those who do not believe in such a thing;
those without significant social networks, published works and other academic
privileges; those on the streets, at the protests; or those who contribute in
some other way, maybe not directly ‘significantly’ influencing projects, policy-
makers or discourses.
I believe that the bureaucratization, professionalization, ‘expertization’,
NGOization, project-orientation (Blagojević 2009a), and tokenism in social
movements, including the feminist and Roma women’s movements, exten-
sively based on ‘foundational activism’ from the top-down (all of which is how
I see the painfully under-represented or timidly, if at all, critically approached
topics in our knowledge production), is familiar to all of us, and would hardly
constitute a brake on the fall of their narratives into epistemic and historical
oblivion. Moreover, my take is that the meritocratic non-Roma academic
community would certainly allow – if not stimulate – by its current political
arrangements, narratives, and knowledge of the less powerful to be excluded, in
this case by Roma academics, as a norm, awarding the obedient, good reproducers
of the meticulously learned academic rules of exclusion (Collyer 2015; Davis
2016; Smith 2013). To at least some of us, these acts of non-solidarity happen
to be painfully familiar too.
I will finish with these two questions open. Based just on this short – I
would say critical, some might say pretentious – reflection, I will sum up this
part by claiming that decision-making points, mechanisms, criteria, and effects
should be the most telling indicator of the domination, of the positions of
power in the process of knowledge production, and the canonical character of
the knowledge produced in and about what we would call the Roma women’s
movement. In my opinion, this is the colliding point of individual Roma
women as historical subjects and hegemonic discursive narratives about Roma
women (Mohanty 2003), in which we can be seen as implicated and actually
performing them. Thus far, in the process of knowledge production about
Roma by non-Roma, but also, more importantly for us at this point, by
Roma, that is, Roma women, this clashing political process remains quite
opaque. In my view, it leaves still unanswered, undoubtedly familiar, uncom-
fortable questions regarding our representativeness and our representations, and
in essence, questions about moral debt and concrete actions we owe to fellow
Roma women, especially the ones beyond academic doors.
Even though we are also not equal in some sense within ‘the circle’, I
believe these political questions about recognition and redistribution indeed
9781138485099_text.3d;

place upon us, Roma women in ‘the circle,’ a significant obligation to carefully
choose politics of knowledge production.
This includes the politics of remembrance, that is, history making and commu-
nity mapping in the light of accountability and community-identified needs. At
the moment when legitimacy has almost been lost on the part of our current
Roma officials and representatives – mostly men, but also women – in order not
to fail in this task (and which I see as a highly likely possibility we need to be very
aware of), I believe this would, as a prerequisite, necessitate situated critical self-
reflection. This awareness of the possibility of failing should also keep us awake,
and/or keep us from falling into a peaceful ‘disadvantaged-privileged-minority
slumber,’ not just for the moral reasons we took to be our guide in our commit-
ment, but for the fact that social change happens in revolutions also. ‘Bewitched’
by our own mythical theories and lost in overcoming the imagined “darkness and
shadows” we might produce for ourselves, it would be but our own fault if we
end up in astonishment, stripped from “a star bound upon her brows” (Tolkien
1991, 1:442), on the other side of the mythical, heroic, and celebratory side of the
history. And this is absolutely not to say that ‘darkness and shadows’ are not upon
the lives of Roma women today, even the educated and privileged ones.
Conclusion
Making knowledge about history, in particular feminist knowledge about his-
tory, is not to make a new chapter in the old knowledge and history books,
heavily drenched in the legacy of domination, or to fill them with our own
distinguished ‘saintly’ representatives’ names and their unchallenged theoretical
authoritative interpretations. To be feminist, the Roma women’s movement
history needs to challenge the paradigm, to historicize the production of the
knowledge about the history of the movement from the present. If we as
Roma women make our own archives, this also refers to our own knowledge
production. In case the Roma women’s movement does not advance this cri-
tical, self-reflexive, de-canonizing, and anti-mythical venture, it is hard to see
why Roma women who are left out of this book, and to whose situation we
constantly refer when we speak about Roma women’s plight, would take this
information we produce as legitimate knowledge, or its producers, us, who
might be seen and/or claim to be their representatives. If some lesson is to be
learned from the past, it is to be ready to problematize canons, selections, and
archives made for us by others, but also by ourselves, and on my account, next
to this modest proposal as a contribution, we are still left to figure out how to
do this with a truly meaningful and critical feminist commitment.
Note
1 Audry Lorde, radical feminist, lesbian, activist, theoretician and writer, wrote an open
letter to Mary Daly, the white professor and philosopher, and author of the book
9781138485099_text.3d;

“Gyn/Ecology” (Daly, M. (1990). Gyn/Ecology: The Metaethics of radical feminism.

Boston: Beacon Press). Daly, who also self-defined as radical feminist and lesbian,
presents ancient myths about women and Goddesses, believed to be the substantive
tissue of womanhood, making the controversial selection of myths – all related to
white and only one related to Black women’s history – negatively connoted in
relation to genital mutilation, that is, in the context of female victimization.
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Part II
Linking the Personal and the

Political
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Chapter 5
Towards an Anti-Racist
Feminism for Social Justice in
Romania
Carmen Gheorghe, Letiţia Mark and Enikő Vincze
This chapter evolves in the form of dialogue structured in three sections:

becoming a feminist by border-crossing; being a Romani feminist; and femin-
ism, social justice, and anti-racism. This dialogue was performed in 2016 with
the explicit aim of preparing our contribution to this volume. Two Romani
women of different generations, both of whom play a role in the Roma move-
ment as intellectuals and activists, and one non-Romani feminist academic and
housing activist, talk here about their divergent and shared histories and con-
ceptions regarding the role of feminism in Romania. They highlight their per-
sonal experiences as reflected in key political issues of the socio-economic
condition, and the recognition and representation of Roma women situated at
the intersection of gender-, ethnicity- and class-based systems of oppression.
Moreover, the authors refer to certain points of their encounters in different
contexts during the past two decades, as well as how they shaped and supported
each other’s views and actions. Regardless of the source of the (lower-) middle-
class feminists’ connection to the most marginalized or precariatized working class
(feelings of guilt, a need to return to the roots, revolt against inequalities and
injustices, and so on), all three authors nurture the sense of a moral duty and
political commitment to critically challenge economic deprivation, social injus-
tice, and racism. Their life trajectories reflect the fact that stepping out from
dominant positions and acting on behalf of subordinated categories – while not
benefiting from the systemic advantages/ privileges of such dominant positions –
is an open-ended process, one that must, nevertheless, be revisited again and
again at each and every stage.
The chapter as a whole focuses on more than one type of injustice to culti-
vate feminism as intersectional politics. This type of feminism is rooted in
political solidarity among women1 and it addresses not only patriarchy,2 but
also class inequalities and racialization. Such a feminism posits a systemic cri-
tique of capitalism, and fights to dismantle the intertwined structures of dom-
ination, as well as imagining a better world where gender equality is
empowered by the broader regime of social justice.3 This is how our chapter
contributes to one of the major statements of the book, that is: to understand
that feminism as a political choice, far from being an act by women for
9781138485099_text.3d;

112 Carmen Gheorghe, Letiţia Mark, and Enikő Vincze
women – due to its embeddedness in women’s struggle against multiple forms

of injustices – is a boundless source and inspirational comrade for all kinds of
progressive social movements.
Becoming a Feminist by Border-Crossing
Letiţia Mark: Breaking out from the Patriarchal Community and the
Feminist Consciousness on the Perplexities of being “the” Exception
I do not know how I became feminist. I think I always was a feminist but did
not know it. And I had to make ends meet in a given context, I mean in
practical terms. For me, theory came after I had rehearsed women’s emanci-
pation at my own expense. I broke up with my community, I broke up with
my family, broke up with them to enter another world. That is why I say that
my existential becoming meant breaking up. And I sort of believed in my
ability to adapt to unfamiliar, strange environments. A setback came later, fol-
lowed by an awakening. Because the environments I pursued were not always
welcoming all the time. They started rejecting me as soon as I started to come
out and be outspoken regarding my identity. It meant a sort of exhibitionism
up to a certain point; to look at who I am, the first one from the colony who
graduated from high school, the first one to graduate from college, the first one
to break down tradition and rules. I refused to marry and challenged my
father’s authority, which was extremely powerful in our family. Some of these
statements opened certain doors during the Communist regime. I even enjoyed
some privileges as I was the exception to the rule. Only later did I realize that
being the exception – meaning that I was accepted while other Roma were
not – was a kind of trap, and I started to be ashamed of being distant from my
group. I said loudly who I was, and there were certain opportunities back then
around this. I felt protected and privileged, especially at the university in
Bucharest. After that, I entered directly into another environment as a young
teacher, and relying on identity did not work anymore. So, the case we have
here is a speculation with our identities in a certain sense. Now, as mature
individuals, we look at the younger generation with reproach because they take
advantage of today’s opportunities for identity politics. But we have to
acknowledge that the older generation, in a different milieu, also made use of
its identity. In the end, everyone makes the most of the opportunities given in
a certain situation. This is not opportunism.
I joined the Roma movement, and that was solid and pure enthusiasm. I was
already mature, intellectually speaking, so I could hardly say that I owed my
intellectual becoming to affirmative action or to newly-emerged opportunities.
At the beginning of the Roma movement, I felt that I had a duty, an obliga-
tion, or a mission; that I had to do something I had never done before. Those
were the times when we learned how to create a non-governmental organiza-
tion and act under its umbrella. In 1997 in Timişoara, we established the
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Anti-Racist Feminism for Social Justice 113
Association of Gypsy Women ‘For Our Children’,4 which reflected my ideas

about the need to support Roma children from marginalized communities and
their mothers in their efforts to go through school education. Nevertheless, I
think the enthusiasm I felt those days was closer to idealism or naivety. I really
believed quite strongly in that mission, I was an idealist, and I struggled from
this position without knowing that I was a feminist. But, I repeat, I was a
feminist, first of all because I had passed through community borders, and left
behind the tradition and patriarchy I grew up in. All these break-ups left their
mark, for sure, on me as a person; there were some things in the patriarchal
order that I never succeeded in overcoming in my formation as an intellectual.
Later, when I enrolled in the gender studies Master’s Program at Babeş-Bolyai
University, I read feminist literature and many feminist texts resonated with
me, and I finally came to understand things in a different way. All these
moments were important steps towards conceiving and launching, together
with Enikő in 2009, the Roma women’s journal entitled Nevi Sara Kali. It
produced only three issues, nevertheless, it remains a crucial reference in the
history of Romani feminism, and not only in Romania. This was one of the
products of our joint program ‘Equality through Difference. Roma Women’s
Access to the Labor Market’ (FEMROM) within the framework of which we
also organized an important international conference, ‘Romani Women for
Equal Opportunities.’ The latter brought together in 2011 in Timişoara Roma
and non-Roma activists, politicians, artists, researchers, feminists, and non-
feminists from Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria, Macedonia, and Spain. Among
other things, our message was the following: “disadvantaged Roma women are
not only victims of multiple and intersectional discrimination, but are also
agents of social change towards promoting equal opportunities, ensuring social
justice and human dignity, eliminating prejudices and unequal treatment,
increasing self-esteem, and affirming economic independence, cultural recog-
nition and civic and political representation.”
After a period of active involvement in the movement, I isolated myself.
I did not know that I had the potential to do more, and thus did not fulfil
it. Likewise, I also felt that I had not lived up to my academic potential
either. I was a university professor, I went through several examinations,
and now I admit that I did not elevate my career. I got lost, and my
attention was dispersed in small things. Now I am retired and in elementary
education program again. I feel it like a regression, a step back, even
though I have great satisfaction in working with children. It is satisfying
because I stay connected to these children when nobody cares about them.
And I miss them. I need them. But, sometimes, I feel that maybe I could
have done other things as well. And I am now finding another –ism beside
feminism, and that is anti-ageism, because misogyny is not the only short-
coming of our society. Societies are also against older generations and con-
demn old people because of their limited concerns: elders either concentrate
on doctors and hypochondria or keep thinking of burial sites and death.
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There is hardly anything between the two. So, I found a stone to roll in
this domain. I do not know how to do it exactly, but I know the direction.
Carmen Gheorghe: From Personal Rebellion to Questioning the

Limitations of Mainstream Feminism from the Perspective of a Romni
I have always been aware of inequality and I always fought against it; I fought
inequality in my family, the inequality stemming from my role, my destiny as a
girl shaped some way just because I was born a girl, compared to my brother
and my cousins, who had all the privileges just because they were boys. I
remember that I started criticizing family members ever since I was a little
child; every time I asked why he could do this or that, the answer was
because he is a boy and that is why. It was the supreme, final word no-one
could challenge. Because he was a boy and this was a privilege. All this
annoyed me very much when I was a little child, and I think I have been a
feminist since then; let us say an organic feminist reacting instinctively to
these inequalities I perceived back then.
Moreover, I had known I was a ‘Gypsy’ ever since I was born. My parents
used to tell me laughingly: yes, you are white but you are still a Gypsy, don’t
worry, you belong to us. And I thought about inequality regarding the color of
your skin. I grew up with the feeling that for every person there was more than
one identity. I thought that you were not just a girl or a woman, but also a
Gypsy. And you were all that at the same time. Later on, or more precisely
since I started working in civil society, I saw that people are made to choose
one identity over another. Having more than one identity should not matter,
you have to act as a Roma or as a woman, and maybe you do not even call
yourself Romni (‘Gypsy’ woman). The main reason for this is that people in
this social environment do not really think about their own identities or the
inequalities that connect and bring all the identities and inequalities they have
into one. My family were workers living in an apartment in a block of flats.
We lived among Romanians and it was very weird to live in that situation.
People knew you were Roma, but to make them accept you as you were and
to fight all these things was not easy, and you could already learn in your
childhood how to fight all these.
Discovering feminism later in my life fit like a glove with what I have felt
all my life; I mean all those inequalities, I rebelled against them and com-
plained to my mother who, poor woman, gave me a strange look every time
it happened. Having an instinctively rebellious reaction to inequalities at
home and at school, I felt a sense of familiarity with the books on feminism I
discovered. It felt great and wonderful to discover that there are other women
in the world who express so well the things I cannot express that well, but
which I nevertheless experience and feel. It enlightened me. I realized that
this was my way. It did not seem like theory and practice came in some sort
of order. Feminism came from the books I read, and it fit like a glove with
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the things I had already experienced and felt ever since I know myself. I
remember that as I child I had long discussions with my mother, father,
brothers, and everyone else about what it was like being a girl, and I told
them I wished I was a boy. And every time, I reached this conclusion: why I
was born a girl and not a boy? In other words, I was sad because I was not
born a boy and did not have access to so many privileges they enjoyed. Later
on, life in Bucharest and at the university changed my perspective. But the
change came with a price; I became alienated, estranged from my home and
my family for many years. I come from Mizil, Prahova County in southern
Romania. There is a large Roma community there, they speak Romani and
they are pretty conservative and traditional. Many of them are craftsmen,
artisans; at least they used to work with skins during communism. They
organized guilds and obtained their place throughout the local infrastructure.
However, life in Bucharest, as I have already said, put some distance between
me and that world for a while, because I tried to disown – not my Roma
identity or being a Roma, which I had never done, to be honest. But I felt
estranged from home and all that it meant, because it seemed to me that the
values I learnt about at home did not fit in the life I wanted to live as a
woman.
I went through a phase of denial. And this is probably where this repulsion
toward the institution of marriage comes from. Marrying means heading
towards that woman-as-wife ideal or prototype I do not want to become.
Thus, I reject marriage. On the other hand, although men made decisions and
were in charge in my family, in a somewhat contradictory way, there were also
powerful women in this family; these women were economically independent,
they earned their own living, they had a word to say, they were high-school
graduates: they were women who had something to say about life. This is what
had a great impact on how I saw things and the position women should
occupy. It seemed to me that women did not have inferior positions, because I
did not see that at home. But I instinctively realized that despite this, men are
in charge, no matter what. Thus, estrangement from family was a logical
implication.
Now, something interesting happened to me next. After thirty years, I want
to return to my roots. Practically, all these years I had been in organizational
environments, I worked in many types of organization, from left to right and
from academic to grassroots, Roma and non-Roma. I tried to enter each
environment to learn something, take it from there and bring it to another
environment. In fact, this is my way to test and see where I fit best. I asked
myself all the time: where am I, where does it leave me? I remember when I
started the Master’s Program at the National School for Political and Adminis-
trative Sciences (SNSPA) in Bucharest and learned about feminist theory and,
in general, about white women’s feminism and the second wave. Very soon I
asked myself: where do all these leave me as a Roma woman? Where are we
Roma women in this story? And the feeling that I am partly in one world and
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partly in another started to increasingly capture my attention. It is hard to

negotiate all the time, in each space you enter: who are you, how are you,
what do you bring to the next domain. And this is why I wanted to know
several milieus and environments, to learn new things, and to see and express
all of my identities. Practically, I looked for a place where I can be me with all
my identities.
Even today, I cannot say that I found a solution to that, because I did not. I
am still asking myself where my place is. After various experiences in several
places, I cannot say which my place is. Because this is the very experience of
intersectionality; being an amalgamation of identities while parts of your iden-
tity are in different spaces. However, the theory of intersectionality does not
satisfy me completely in saying that yes, I have several identities, and I come
with all of them into a feminist space and find myself complete. I do not think
a place or space exists where this can happen. This is why intersectionality does
not seem to be complete for me. It is clear that I could not find myself in the
feminist space of SNSPA and the Master’s Program in Gender studies. We read
Western texts and American literature; they came from spaces very different
from our own; spaces with problems also very different from our own. As
Roma women, we were speaking about utilities, water, electricity, and so on,
while they were speaking about gender quotas and participation in decision-
making, which for us meant that the first right step would be to participate in
decision-making at home and in our community. Having enrolled on a Doc-
toral Program, I asked myself and my supervisor, Mihaela Miroiu: how do
feminist theory and the life we live as Roma women fit, and finally, how can
we make a compromise between where theory is and where the life of women
begins, and how can we combine the two? And she always said to me: all right,
theory is theory, it is your call, either you emulate life according to theory, or
you leave it. This proved to be very complicated.
I suggest that revolving and migrating between different spaces, as I have
done, contributed to thinking about minority women. In 2006, when I atten-
ded the Master’s Program in Gender Studies, Roma women or Muslim
women were spoken about as if they were aliens, meaning that they were
distant women, women who are forced to marry and wear veils. Then, the
next year, we managed after all to talk about the differences between women –
structural differences, inequality, power, privilege and disadvantage – in other
words, we got to talk about women living very different lives in their com-
munities. I sort of believe that I made a contribution in changing feminist dis-
course in Romania.
Enikő Vincze: Being a Feminist in-between Theoretical Deconstruction of

Nationalism and Political Activism for Housing Justice
For me, the multiple ways of being in various environments, such as academy,
research, and activism, or more to the point, the emphasis on one or another,
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were part of different periods in my life. I had a rather long period of time
when I focused all my energies on building programs at the university, such as
the cultural anthropology program, and later the gender studies program. I felt
that it was my context, my purpose, and mission to build institutions while
advancing in my personal career. This period ended in 2004. By then, I had
constructed feminism for myself starting from a search for theory. I was con-
cerned about the critique of nationalism and ethnic identity politics, and was
searching for theoretical maps that might assist one in dismantling the homo-
genous imagery nationalism produces and spreads. During this endeavor, I dis-
covered the theoretical potential of feminism because it supplied different levels
on which to deconstruct ethno-national constructs, which acknowledged no
other differences than the ethnic and national ones built and also naturalized
during their construction. After a while, this discovery started to take shape in a
research about reproductive rights and decisions. In this project, I entered a
space that changed my life through a perspective I employ in seeing different
issues. The research carried out in 2003 in the Romanian town of Orăştie dealt
with abortion, reproductive decisions, and public health care services in this
domain. A little bit later, after my arrival in the town, I found out about a
marginalized Roma community, segregated, and isolated on the town’s out-
skirts. Therefore, starting from the topic of reproductive rights and decision-
making, I ended up asking a series of questions about the particular way these
rights and decisions are part of Roma women’s lives, who lived in poverty and
were faced with institutional racism. And I obviously reached the point at
which I addressed taboo topics regarding the way patriarchal relations in the
family and broader community shape, limit, and control reproductive decisions.
I observed what these Roma women do at the intersection of several power
relations, as they want to be accepted in their community and family (e.g. to
fulfill their reproductive role), but also want to make decisions that fit in or
adapt to precarious living conditions. Moreover, I observed how racism works
in health care and reproductive health. It was the time when Romania started
to institutionalize the free distribution of contraceptive pills, and it was clear
that when people holding racist beliefs would be the ones to implement these
measures, these could be used against Roma women to control Roma
reproduction.
The next research – on unequal access to school education and school seg-
regation, and limited access to secure and well-paid jobs – made me realize that
all these issues were also connected to the fact that Roma individuals con-
fronting these hardships were living in precarious housing conditions, in seg-
regated areas, isolated from the rest of the settlements. This recognition begged
the question why this happened, and how it related to the politics of urban
development and housing policies. It was during a research within the
FEMROM project (Roma Women for Equal Opportunities) conducted in
partnership with Letiţia in Timişoara and Cluj in 2009, when I heard the first
declarations of the Town Hall regarding “the need to solve the problems of
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Roma on Cantonului street, Dallas/Pata Rât and Coastei street.” Visiting the
spot, I told myself: I have to do something, I cannot just stay still and investi-
gate. And this brought about a turn in my way of being a researcher, as I have
already mentioned, recognizing once and for all: when one investigates such
situations, she cannot limit the engagement to research, but should also put her
knowledge into action to support the people affected by the observed injustice.
The deprived housing areas I have gotten to know in the last five years in
several towns and in villages across Romania are marginal dwelling spaces,
where the great majority of inhabitants are impoverished ethnic Roma. Among
others, a comparative research conducted on the faces and causes of the mar-
ginalization of Roma made me recognize that both racism and the political
economy – including housing and development politics – create the housing
and territorial inequalities that are related, at the end of the day, to economic
inequalities and the pauperization of working-class Roma. Together, they
create the phenomenon that I call ghettoization, which we also studied toge-
ther with a group of scholars from Babeş-Bolyai University under the research
‘Spatialization and Racialization of Social Exclusion. The Social and Cultural
Formation of “Gypsy Ghettos” in Romania in a European Context.’ Due to
such an understanding of the roots of the problems, nowadays I identify myself
with an antiracist feminism dedicated to social justice and equality. For me, this
is a critical feminism that addresses the entire political, social and economic
system, which produces multiple oppressive power regimes and class inequal-
ities that are also enacted and maintained by uneven differentiations of gender,
ethnicity, age or sexual orientation, and not just by one’s position on the labor
market. Nowadays, as an activist, I am involved in housing justice initiatives5
which address how housing politics reproduces inequalities by supporting the
dispossession of the impoverished working class while in parallel creating the
housing market as a tool for the accumulation of capital. In such endeavors, I
enjoy an enduring cooperation with Romani women from the city of Cluj
who live in the city’s most marginalized and deprived areas.
Being a Romani Feminist
Letiţia Mark: Alienated from the Community, Marginalized by

Mainstream Feminism and Facing the Internal Contradictions within the
Roma Women’s Movement
We grew up having a strong sense of competition, even in communities. Who
is the biggest boss among Roma? Why do Roma, men and women alike,
desire to reach higher positions? This road carries them an astronomical distance
from their communities, and they lose their roots, but they also start to search
for them after a while. But in fact, community roots are often just legends and
mystifications. Actually, Roma intellectuals do not know what community is
any more. How many of them still live in communities? However, one might
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also say that s/he does not have to live in the community in order to support its
endeavors for cultural recognition, or for the improvement of living conditions.
There were some attempts here and there to reconstruct clans, tribes, and
groups, but only a few intellectuals were accepted after they had already
reached a certain position in the gadjo world. Again, I represent a somewhat
atypical case because I parted with what I achieved in my career and I returned
to my clan, tribe, and community. The shock of alienation and estrangement is
powerful and that is why, at a particular point in your life, you look for
warmth and intimacy, and you find it in your clan. Of course, clans have
changed a great deal. And being in and out, belonging and maintaining a dis-
tance, are the two faces of the same never-ending story.
Being in the Roma movement, I recognized that I used generalizations many
times. When traditionalism was fashionable, I generalized the idea of traditional
values and we elaborated our mythology according to that. We looked up
some books, but all books are copies of other books and repeat stereotypes and
schematic thinking or certain hypotheses, some of them quite fancy and fan-
tastic. But for sure, most intellectuals have no links to family or clan history, or
they deny the latter. They are detached, atomized. And later, as is the case with
me now, they try to find some ways back to community. But the idea of the
community itself is also based on generalization. And we should not think that
there is only one right way to return. There are many ways. When I returned
physically to my closest group, I could see how my family avoided me. They
were hiding from me when they tried to arrange early marriages. They are
hiding from me, maybe because I am a feminist. And they do not want me to
know about early marriage, because they know that I am very critical of it.
This means that I have become alienated from my group, so my return to it
was not about finding my true self. One cannot even generalize about his/her
own true self either. Because you are always what you are in relation with
others, so you are in the process of identification, always looking for something
to fill in the gap between what you are and what you desire to be.
I also think about my feminism from another point of view, from the per-
spective of majority feminists. I remember a meeting in Warsaw where all the
women’s organizations participated. The Roma women’s movement was lost,
insignificant, or at least, it did not count very much in that context. Discussions
were about third-wave feminism, post-feminism, political representation, and
the fact that gender distribution in political structures is very unequal at
women’s expense. We, our organizations, also spoke because we were there,
and had to say something about who we were and how we positioned our-
selves, but hardly anyone noticed us. I also participated in two meetings of the
European Women’s Lobby. It was the same, never-ending discussions mostly
on budgets, in the sense of how women and men benefit differently from
public money, how public budgets are allocated, according to which priorities,
and how all these impact on you according to your gender. At one of these
international meetings around 2010, after the expulsions in Italy and attacks in
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which children were killed, I asked why we were seen as immigrants, when
Romania was a member state of the European Union, why were we different
kinds of citizens. We wrote a common letter of protest about this when the
Italian women’s representative stood up and vehemently said that we should
not allow ourselves to say that we were not immigrants. Her words came close
to fascist discourse.
Even if IRWN6 is a member of the European Women’s Lobby, I think that
there is no real solidarity (in the true meaning of the word) between the inter-
national feminist movement and the international movement of Romani
women. We mostly did our usual things, we met and talked about our problems,
while they always had some other agenda. They became bureaucratic and gained
financial and economic power via a sense of detachment that Roma women had
never reached. We had never had any power of that sort either. I have appre-
ciated almost every Roma woman who managed to articulate and write on the
theoretical and academic level, and I encouraged them as much as I could. I was
proud when I saw Angéla Kóczé’s name. Or even the name of Soraya Post,
although we had our disagreements and debates, because she started as a tradi-
tionalist in the Roma women’s movement and suddenly became pro-feminist,
and entered the European Parliament representing the feminist party in Sweden.
Tensions among Roma women involved in the movement on international
level were visible. I participated in several international meetings where we dis-
cussed some taboo topics, such as early marriage.7 IRWN was more traditional,
as part of the European Roma and Travellers Forum and as a creation of Stras-
bourg. The Roma Women Network was more universal as the creation of Soros
Foundations. For example, IRWN focused on forced sterilization in Slovakia,
while the Roma Women Network worked on hot issues such as early marriage.
European forums supported both organizations because gender equality was on
the European Union’s agenda. These high-level international discussions created
the impression that Roma women made the decisions, that the ideas were theirs.
And they promoted these ideas in quite a brutal way at times. There was not
much room for subtleties in these actions. Empowerment became a very pow-
erful idea, but I do not know how much power Roma women gained on the
international level or in their own countries. They were told that they had made
decisions, that they had the power invested in them. They actually had power in
some states, such as Sweden, which promoted women. The rest of the states
borrowed the discourse without any implications for policies.
Carmen Gheorghe: Highlighting Gender Inequalities in the Communities

and in the Roma Movement, and Finding Means to Fight Together with
Materially Deprived Roma Women
The good part in all these developments is that things have changed over the
last couple of years due to sustained discussions between several groups, and
because of several voices coming from the left and from LGBT and Roma
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communities. Things have changed in the sense that criticism of liberal femin-
ism in Bucharest changed the feminist agenda a little.
Regarding the Roma movement on the other hand, there are many women
working in organizations, but we must look at what do they do. It is a long
way to go from being a woman to being a feminist, pretty much as it is also a
long way to go from being a member of an organization, institution, or a party,
and being in a decision-making position. Women in organizations mostly speak
about inequalities between Roma and Romanians, but they do not speak about
inequalities between women and men, or about inequalities within their own
Roma movement. They do not talk about things we, feminists, have criticized
all along. Those few Roma feminists who openly define themselves as such
stood up and said that there were five men and no women at the table of
speakers. The great majority have never criticized this. Or if they have done so,
they only did it backstage. In other words, they have always criticized injustice
because they are activists, but they did not define themselves as feminists, and
did not follow a feminist agenda. Some even said that feminism seemed stupid
in their eyes, they qualified both the term and the agenda as trivial and con-
sidered our actions and activity unimportant. Usually, the Roma movement
speaks about Roma in a homogenizing way and does not refer to particulars
within the group, or to the fact that there are differences and gender inequal-
ities within. A few of us started talking about gender relations and power
relations between women and men in Roma movement, too. Many men
counter-argued, saying that there are more women leaders in the organizations
compared to men. This was one of their arguments. But if you look at the
positions of power, positions with authority in decision-making, you see men
in these positions. When you look at powerful lobbyists, people who push
things ahead and collect all the resources, you see men, not women. A recent
example is the Roma Federation,8 which comprises several Roma organizations
and very few Roma women. Looking at this power pole we see large and
powerful organizations, organizations with a name, visibility, resources and so
on, and we also see one woman of a certain age with a particular past. I think
that women like me in their thirties, who have not had guiding men around
them or who do not fit in as stereotypical women, are seen as dangerous for
men. This is because our discourse creates some kind of temptation or com-
petition in their eyes. The fact is that we are not present in these powerful
organizations. I will probably have access to those in ten to twenty years from
now, when I am older. I also think, as Letiţia has said, that there are also age-
related problems. The difference is that in this environment, the problem is
quite contrary to the one mentioned by Letiţia. There are men of my age in
these new organizations, but there are no women, and especially no ambitious
young women, who want to become more than what the organization offers.
The problem with such organizational structures is that they make you dis-
tance yourself from everything that community issues and women’s problems
mean. It happened to me, too. I was coordinating grand projects for Roma
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women, but I stopped communicating with Roma women, I only talked to

embassies, institutions, and important people. At one point, a journalist asked me
what Roma women had to say about something. And I realized that I did not
know what Roma women had to say about it. And I said nothing; I could not say a
thing, because I suddenly realized that in my desperate ambition to show the Gadje
that Roma women are clean, intelligent, educated, and can do many things in their
life, I was left with no time or energy required to see directly what happened to
women in communities, women who did not have the opportunity to show what
they were doing. Therefore, from 2012 on, I put an end to this practice of mine,
stepped out of this distant world, and returned to the grassroots. What Letiţia has
already said resonates with me very much, in the sense that those who are looking
at me now may consider that returning to the roots, building a new organization
and starting from scratch, working with women and in community development,
speaking about water, electricity, and tampons, is a setback in my career. Despite all
this, I simply felt that it was time to stop and start again from zero, because it
seemed that I was losing what was essential. And even if you feel that you do little
things, I think that the core of activism is to be with people and to be engaged in
missionary activities rather than lobbying and pretending to work with embassies
and institutions that change all the time. I had to return to women in communities
because I learned more from them than from people in embassies.
The dilemma is constant: you should choose between missionary work and
structural work. It is difficult to put energy into both at the same time. For me,
structural work means picketing institutions, and missionary work means
working with women to make them understand what our position is, to find
our means to fight for improvements. Because it seems very upsetting that
women continue to say they are ready for sterilization for a certain amount of
money. Women in such positions reveal how little support they have, and how
much support they need. Missionary actions are still needed.
I am not a martyr and I am not really an idealist, but when I wanted to go
back to basics, I decided to create and work with a group of women who –
like I have done – will continue to work in this realm of missionary activities,
to carry on the cause of Roma women.9 We do not need to empower, but we
can give women the means to become more powerful and ready to fight for
themselves, for their position within the community. This is my conviction,
and this is what I want to do. I am sure that I cannot do it forever and I will
leave this domain at some point, but I will leave the other missionaries to carry
on the work. So, our group should always extend.
Enikő Vincze: Romani Feminism is a Political Option for Addressing

Gendered and Racialized Class Hierarchies between and within Roma
and non-Roma
One may rightfully wonder how a person identified as non-Roma – and
moreover, who does not experience directly the material deprivations faced by
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the pauperized working class (Roma) or the multiple discriminations Romani

women are subjected to – how such a white, (low-) middle-class and non-
Roma woman might identify with Romani feminism. Let me put my answer
to this complicated question in a relatively simple way: similar to how, gen-
erally speaking, feminism is not a natural extension of femininity, or how
class-belonging does not naturally create class-consciousness, for me, Romani
feminism is a political option that I can identify with, while in a similar vein,
Marxist feminism informs my political perspective on capitalism without
directly experiencing the most severe effects of class-based exploitation. Why
is this so? Because at the crossroads of these two perspectives, I envision a
standpoint from where I am able to articulate the complexity of the power
regimes which create multiple relations of domination and exploitation across
spheres of production and reproduction, both by the means of political
economy and of the cultural ideologies justifying them. But before talking in
the next section about anti-racist and social-justice based feminism, I would
like to recall here some conclusions of my earlier analysis on the development
of Romani feminism within the Roma movement, or within a larger stage of
politics for Roma, but as well as of my credo, and its political potential that I
identify with.
For quite a long time, gender awareness did not characterize Roma politics
in any of its forms. According to the ethno-cultural paradigm, Romani women
were conceived of as naturally bearing the role of reproducing and nurturing
the nation, both in the biological and cultural sense, but were not recognized as
political subjects. The socioeconomic paradigm was no better either, in terms
of addressing Roma women’s status in the community or in the broader
society: their particular needs, interests, and experiences were overshadowed by
the seemingly gender-neutral effects of poverty and social exclusion on Roma
communities at large. Thus, for a long period, Roma women’s public voices
were silenced under the shadow of identity politics or social inclusion poli-
cies, both of them blind towards internal divisions and gendered and racia-
lized class hierarchies between and within Roma and non-Roma. Ironically,
for example, in Romania, Roma women’s status within their own commu-
nities was addressed first by the (otherwise patriarchal) mainstream public
discourse in a false feminist tone, which seemed to be deeply concerned with
their subordination to community norms regarding early marriage and child-
birth. This was and remains a challenge that Roma feminists are still faced
with: protecting women’s and children’s rights within their own communities
while deconstructing the way in which such mainstream positions reproduce
convictions according to which Roma are an inferior race performing pre-
modern/primitive practices of life.
The rights-based Roma discourse began to explore the gender dimension of
racial discrimination and the Romani women’s situation at the end of the
1990s, when the Specialist Group on Roma/ Gypsies of the Council of Europe
decided at its 7th meeting in Strasbourg (29–30 March 1999) to appoint a
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consultant to prepare an introductory report on The Situation of Roma/Gypsy

Women in Europe. The report framed the problem in terms of how Romani
women experience the conflicts between traditional culture and modern
society, and between acting for cultural rights on behalf of their groups and for
women’s rights as universal human rights. More recently, the ‘EU framework
for National Roma Inclusion Strategies’ (2011) made explicit references to
Roma women, but not surprisingly, this happened within its mainstream dis-
cursive frame. Romani women are mentioned in this strategy in the context of
reduced employment and increased school abandonment rates among Roma,
but also in terms of problematic access to quality health care. Consequently, the
promotion of gender equality is not conceptualized by this strategy in terms of
women’s rights or social justice, while it also fails to address the phenomenon
of multiple discriminations.
Meanwhile, Roma women continue to be pushed to the margins by the
whole socioeconomic system as members of their dispossessed class. Under
conditions of severe poverty, they are making tremendous efforts to fulfill the
household and motherhood-related duties allocated to them by a domestic
patriarchal regime. The combination of these private and public gender regimes
eventually exhausts their bodies and endangers their lives, so it is not surprising
that their life expectancy is more than 10 years lower than the life expectancy
of majority women, while the maternal mortality rate of Roma women is
0.62%, compared to 0.04% for the majority of women. Simultaneously, their
sexuality is expropriated from two directions: on the one side, they are viewed
as bearing the obligation for the biological reproduction of their own ethnic
group, and on the other, they become targets of racist fertility control and
dehumanizing discourses according to which they give birth to children with
less value than those of majority mothers, as the practices of sterilization or
discourses on Roma and non-Roma fertility demonstrate.
Furthermore, if the multiple deprivations they are subjected to occur in
socially and spatially segregated and ghettoized areas, which render access to
any form of social and legal protection impossible, Roma women can also fall
victim to sexual exploitation. Under these conditions, they not only suffer the
effects of economic marginalization, being placed in the category of undeserving
citizens alongside with Roma men, but, due to their reproductive and maternal
roles, they are also perceived and controlled more strongly as symbols of ethno-
cultural boundaries and embodiments of racialized differences.
But, as I already mentioned in the introductory paragraph, feminism in
itself – even if informed by the principles of anti-racism resulting from the
political awareness of Roma women – would be incapable of addressing social
injustice in its complexity without introducing into its conceptual package the
perspective of class-based inequalities. Equipped with all these critical tools, one
may become able to link the racialization of Roma ethnicity with the raciali-
zation of poverty, as well as to observe that Roma women of the pauperized
working class suffer most of the burden of reproducing the labor force
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exploited on the labor market, and of the bodily effects of unpaid domestic
labor, performed under severe material deprivations. My credo is that this is the
kind of feminism that has a huge analytical and political potential to explain
what the common ground is between the different types of inequalities created
by capitalism, that is, to highlight the fact that exploitation and dispossession are
the mechanisms by which pauperized and racialized working-class Roma
women are put into the service of capital accumulation by the privileged class,
gender and ethnic group of the society.
Feminism, Social Justice, and Anti-Racism
Feminist Revolts Against Different Forms of Injustices
Letiţia Mark
I was not always aware of all feminist theories, so they could not motivate me
to act against injustices. The actions I took started from the fact that I con-
sidered the conditions I observed were unjust. Here lays, in my case, the
intersection of feminism and injustice. I found it utterly unjust, for example,
that only the voice of one parent counted in a family, that women had no say,
or could have a say only if they resorted to tricks and backstage games. I am
referring to family, of course, but also to community. I found it unjust that
men decide using violence and aggression. Aggression and violence made me
rebellious and also convinced me to take sides and always support the weak.
When I graduated from university and worked as a teacher, I found it unjust
that Roma children were blamed all the time, and that teachers always had an
offensive attitude towards them. I could not accept this injustice or generally
the anti-Roma attitude in the school. After that, when I approached the Roma
movement, I could see that it was made up of men who commanded, and
women who just had to carry the plates, make coffee, or do secretary work.
That seemed to me unjust. I felt that I was more than equal; I was an intel-
lectual, a teacher, and this status made me a little stiff, straight, but also a per-
sona non grata in the movement. I was atypical, a radical of some sort. Back
then I was into radical feminism without knowing I was a radical. I was dis-
turbed by the fact that people accepted a role, without knowing why it had
been assigned to them.
Many thought that having a role in the movement was a privilege for a
woman. I looked beyond all this and saw that it was not a privilege at all to
always be in the background while others made decisions in your name, or
to be pushed into forms of servitude. I dared to resist and contradict the
great personalities of the Roma movement at that time, who were annoyed
by my appearance. I am talking about the beginning of the 1990s, when
the movement accepted only two or three women, who referred to tradi-
tionalism despite the fact that they had already stopped wearing the veil or
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observing traditional taboos. Nevertheless, they played their roles because

this was an opportunity. And it was exactly what others expected them to
do. And this made me revolt, and I gave voice to that revolt, which pushed
me into uncomfortable positions. Definitely, it was my feminist mind that
guided me in this process, even if, I repeat here, I did not use this term to
name who I am.
Last, but not least, I would like to bring another aspect of the problem into
the discussion because the problem is also about discourse exhaustion or
depletion, or that discourses are becoming empty. I want to say something
about how the state took over civil initiatives and undermined them. That
seems to be standard practice, a policy in relation to civil movements. This is
what has happened to the women’s movement and its claims regarding rights,
equality, and so on. The state took over these claims. The state gave women
the right to vote, the right to equal pay, and a quota system, and it seemed that
there remained nothing else to fight for. However, in reality, there is still pay
inequality, policies have remained the same even if there are more women in
decision-making positions, and politics has not changed regarding women’s
problems. Although by taking over social welfare points of contact, the state
has started to manage social issues, yet in each tiny village, the problems remain
pretty much the same. Social welfare may work, but it is passive and minimal,
meaning that it is not enough to let people live a decent life, but it will not let
them die either.
Carmen Gheorghe
When I was a student in Bucharest, the liberal feminist agenda did not include
women from ethnic groups or those who lived a different life compared to
ours, it included only women who were privileged, and so it was blind to these
types of injustice. Liberal feminist discourse did not even relate to the possible
idea that women’s problems should include, among other things, the lack of
infrastructure in communities, or the lack of water, which means that you as a
woman have to carry water because it is your duty, you are responsible for it.
The recognition of these sorts of problems means that as a feminist enjoying a
more privileged position, you can connect with the real life of the impover-
ished. If, in the academic sphere, civil society organizations or political parties,
you only continue talking about quotas and participation in decision-making,
this means that you are totally disconnected from other women’s worlds. The
liberal discourse dominated the feminist agenda for a while, at least in Buchar-
est. There was research conducted on these issues, some books were published
at Polirom, which had a powerful impact. Participation and decision-making
was the focus of pretty much all doctoral theses written in the field of femin-
ism. However, things changed over time. I think that now, we have no single
opinion leader in feminism in Bucharest, and this is a good thing because there
are several groups and several voices which need to be heard and represented.
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There is another trend of diversification nowadays which makes me happy.

There are many organizations and persons who try to find common ground
and intersecting areas of interest. Following the activist actions against ghettoi-
zation in Patarât from Cluj (the Local Group of Civic Organizations10), or in
parallel with the Căşi sociale ACUM!/ Social housing NOW! campaign of
Foundation Desire, there is an informal group in Bucharest that works with
evicted Roma people: the Common Front for the Right to Housing.11 The
group is diverse; it includes intellectuals, leftists, feminists, activists, and people
affected directly by evictions. Very recently, E-Romnja and the above-men-
tioned organizations held street protests in six localities, and addressed a letter to
local and central authorities on the occasion of International Roma Day,
exactly on the issue of housing.12 So what Letiţia said is true, there is no single
discourse that mobilizes all parties regarding an issue. But contrary to her, I see
this as a positive development rather than as discourse exhaustion.
As a Roma feminist, I went out and participated in every feminist protest in
every domain and on every topic, not just the feminist ones. Unfortunately, I
did not see many members of civic movements at protests related to the pro-
blems Roma are confronted with. However, there is a relatively new direction
in which feminists are rallying, fighting against work/labor exploitation. But
coalitions of left-wing and right-wing feminists are not very common, even in
Western Europe. I remember a report on sex workers’ rights written about
three years ago. Many feminist circles divided, split, or became fragmented
because some feminists, at least the right-wing feminists, argued that prostitu-
tion is a form of trafficking and exploitation of women’s bodies, while leftist
feminists argued that it is a type of work or labor that needs to be regulated as
such, while assuring labor rights to sex workers. And this was an issue over
which many feminist groups, including those in Romania, were divided.
Enikő Vincze
As had already been said, for the past eight years of my activism I focused on
housing injustice, because on the basis of my prior research I concluded that
this was a core element of the (re)production of inequalities under capitalism.
This injustice knows different forms, from forced evictions, through informal
and insecure housing in ghettoized areas and living in deprived housing con-
ditions, to the lack of access to adequate social homes. In a way, I would say
that housing injustice structures other types of injustices and is one of the core
elements of the political economy of the system. But obviously, it is also a
result of injustices suffered on the labor market, poverty resulting from being
enforced into low-paid and unsecure jobs, and also from high housing costs
resulting from how the housing market works with the support of state poli-
cies. Last, but not least, housing injustice is linked to gender injustice in the
sense that the two mutually shape each other. Housing injustice leads to con-
ditions of material and social deprivation under which the exploitation of
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women’s labor at home and their vulnerability in the face of private patriarchy
increases. However, women are very often at the front of actions for housing
justice, regardless of how they define themselves in terms of agency, as mothers
or activists.
Talking about housing injustice, let me recall our attention on class
inequalities and poverty as larger forms of injustice against which Roma fem-
inism might mobilize due to the fact that, as statistics show, ethnic Roma are
much more affected by these phenomena than non-Roma.13 Besides observing
this issue, one may also note that the socioeconomic aspects of Roma margin-
alization are more and more depoliticized; transformed, at best, into public
policy issues without addressing the major systemic causes of mass impoverish-
ment and exclusion. By the same token, we should recall the attention to the
class gap identified in European antidiscrimination policies by several scholars,
who observed that social class is the most prominent example of a social cate-
gory that is strongly connected to inequalities, yet which is not currently
included in the European equality agenda. The latter aspects make even more
crucial the possibility for (Romani) feminism to get involved with class
inequalities and poverty that Roma women are subjected to in the sphere of
production and reproduction. The fact that feminism acknowledges the gen-
dered inequalities created by patriarchy makes this analytical and political
standpoint able to recognize the differences/inequalities within the working
class, which are not only gendered but also racialized. As a result, the pauper-
ization of working class affects Roma more strongly than it does non-Roma,
and it definitely impacts Roma women differently from men, due to their
ascribed roles within the domestic sphere and the prejudices through which
they are perceived by mainstream society. Let me make an appeal here to an
explanation given by social reproduction theories about how social and gender
injustices related to exploitation are interlinked: gender inequality is reproduced
among laborers because “the oppressive relations beyond the workplace med-
iate the social reproduction of labor-power, ensuring not only that workers
arrive at capital’s doorstep, but that they do so embodying varying degrees of
degradation or dehumanization” (McNally and Ferguson 2015).
Due to their knowledge of and connectedness to Roma socio-economic and
territorial marginalization, Roma feminists have the potential to center attention
on class inequalities and, in doing so, to enrich the radical non-Roma feminist
agenda to which they seem to connect more strongly, compared to the liberal
version of mainstream feminism. For example, Roma feminists might address
violence against women as part of structural violence that dispossess precarious
Roma from decent jobs and homes while exploiting their labor force and forcing
them to live in materially deprived houses by keeping their salaries low, and
restricting their access to adequate, low-cost social homes. Simultaneously, Roma
feminists addressing social injustice might become important actors of re-politi-
cizing poverty, social inequality, and marginalization, including the re-politiciza-
tion of racism and patriarchy as cultural systems which not only justify and
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maintain the social divisions of classes, but also function as structural arrangements
which, alongside classism, produce social inequalities.
On the Chances of Feminist Coalitions Against Racism
Letiţia Mark
Regarding the role of feminism in anti-racist movements, I continue my
observation from above that now the discourse is exhausted. Not only the anti-
racist one but every discourse, in fact. Well, maybe this is the sin of excessive
democracy. In fact, this is not about democracy, but rather about slipping into
demagogy. People do not react anymore to anti-discrimination discourse the
way they did in the past. In the 1990s, when you mentioned the term dis-
crimination, everyone started arguing that there was no such thing as dis-
crimination. The anti-discrimination discourse is exhausted and the discourse
on social inclusion is tired, too. They do not resonate with people anymore.
Some people do not react because it was used for a long time, repeatedly, and
nothing much happened. It became a form of demagogy. And demagogy
makes no claims on things that really matter.
When I spoke about discourse exhaustion or depletion, I did not have only the
feminist movement in mind. I suggest that democracy moved onto the slippery
slope of demagogy, and people cannot understand the thread of the discourse. And
another danger, a profoundly racist one, appears in the diverse and complex social
and political configuration of nowadays. With the Roma in mind, it suffices to
mention the expulsions of Roma from Italy and France, and expulsion through
eviction in so many towns in today’s Romania. What can we small organizations
do to confront these huge trends in current society? But perhaps the connection to
social justice struggles of different sorts might give today’s feminism a new direc-
tion and a sense of self-reinvention.
Today, anti-racist discourse is going through new and dangerous times.
Due to the immigrants coming from outside Europe, it seems that Roma
started becoming some sort of “our people,” and are not perceived as a
menace anymore on the European level. In other words, Roma are not
dangerous anymore compared to the danger that refugees represent at the
level of European discourse. But it could happen in no time at all that
public discourse associates Roma with immigrants and the eastern danger,
or with the “Other” race. Whomever it is directed against, feminism has
the potential of being anti-racist. Historically, the feminist discourse has
been anti-racist from the beginning.
Carmen Gheorghe
I would contradict Letiţia on this last statement, at least in the sense that there
were many periods when anti-racism was not an issue for feminists. And even
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today, there are too few feminists who openly and explicitly address racism
and integrate anti-racism among their principles. I remember that in 2012 or
2013, we started talking in feminist groups and making various coalitions and
networks. We were discussing violence and its various forms, including vio-
lence against Roma women, and there were only few organizations I worked
with which spoke about this explicitly, about violence against Roma women
in aggravated forms, or about power relations between Roma and non-Roma
women in other positions, and so on. For me, it was a sign that feminism was
not yet explicitly anti-racist. It was not until last year that I managed to
convince feminist organizations from a network to work on evictions. They
argued that feminists had their own agenda to fight against patriarchy,
inequalities between women and men, and that was it. Feminism tends to be
ethnocentric in the sense that it argues that first of all you are a woman, you
were born a woman, and the inequalities you confront start from your
gender. Being a Roma woman, an immigrant or a black woman does not
really count in this approach. Feminist groups in different domains have not
talked about anti-racism, and this is a problem. I want to say that, honestly, I
could count on my fingers how many feminist colleagues went to meetings
and protests organized by Roma.
Letiţia Mark
I also believe that the mainstream women’s movement identified only on a few
occasions, you can count them on your fingers, with Roma women both on
the European and national levels. Anyway, the spontaneous feminist movement
has shown solidarity with Roma movement on key issues and in very difficult
times, at least at the level of public discourse. On the other hand, I do not
recall the solidarity of the Roma movement with certain topics or events in the
feminist movement. And regarding anti-racism we should ask: how many
organizations, besides women’s organizations, have a powerful voice or even a
voice on this issue? Very few.
Carmen Gheorghe
Lately we have seen new platforms and initiatives emerging under the umbrella
of fighting against anti-Gypsyism. And we see the recently-established Eur-
opean Roma Institute, which defines its agenda around the topic of anti-Gypsy
racism. Therefore, I am not that skeptical regarding these trends. Many voices
made themselves heard in the latter years, and I am glad this is happening and
that there are many and diverse voices. Things change and there is no single
leader or organization who creates discourse for all others to adhere to. This
might be a disadvantage from a certain point of view, because it seems that
nothing coagulates as it used to, and you do not see which discourse and
strategy brings everyone together.
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Enikő Vincze
In order to highlight the fact that feminism acting against socio-economic
inequalities as a form of injustice is also anti-racist, let me focus on some
structural aspects of the relationship between capitalism and racism. First, I am
repeating here that the construction of neoliberal capitalism is enacted, among
other means, by racism. In this process, racism functions most importantly as an
institutionalized arrangement producing material effects in the form of accu-
mulation on the one hand, and dispossession on the other. While the formation
of a precarious class is a consequence of how the neoliberal political economy
deprives marginal groups of the instruments and capabilities for living a life
defined by current standards as decent, racism claims that “Roma poverty” or
sub-standard living conditions are the outcomes of Roma cultural traits or
lifestyle. The interplay of capitalism and racism materially produces the dis-
possessed by pushing some people into structurally disadvantaged conditions,
and also racializes them discursively by asserting that they are sub-human or
non-persons, since they cannot fit into the ideal-type subject position pre-
scribed by the neoliberal order.
It is my conviction that the political intersectionality assumed by Roma
feminists might exactly address how racism and classism are intertwined in
the creation of inequalities or, to put it differently, how structural inter-
sectionality functions, that is, how is someone inferiorized and exploited
due to his/her position in the mode of production, but also due to his/her
ethnicity and gender? Institutionalized forms of Roma women’s representa-
tion have the opportunity to resonate with the experiential or structural
forms of intersectionality if – while formulating political and policy demands –
they are able to assure the participation of multiple Roma women’s perspec-
tives in this process. Or, to put it another way, if they are capable of providing
Roma (women) at the grassroots with the power to control their means of
production, reproduction, and representation. But obviously, this effort would
not in itself be enough for generating systemic change: for this, they need
alliances across gender, and across different social and ethnic groups that could
generate political action enforcing national and international stakeholders to
really act on behalf of the socially and economically dispossessed classes of
present-day societies.
Notes
1 Such solidarity is not about women’s universal sisterhood but about their cap-
ability to connect and act together around several concrete issues (see about this is
Henrietta L. Moore 1988; Feminism and Anthropology; Polity Press.)
2 Criticizing a dual-system theory defined at the crossroads of Marxist and radical
feminism, some views posit that patriarchy (as a system based on the domination,
oppression and exploitation of women by men, and most importantly on the
expropriation of women’s labor) is both an economic and ideological order that
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equally functions in the private and public sphere of production, and which has
assumed different manifestations over time, among others in the capitalist system
(Walby, Sylvia; 1990; Theorizing patriarchy; Basil Blackwell Ltd). While turning
from dual systems analysis to intersectionality, it is important to note not only how
different systems of domination interact while producing social inequalities, but also
to address them both as economic/material and cultural/ideological orders.
3 This challenge is linked to the endeavors of looking for the role feminism might
play in the current post-neoliberal social order, while critically addressing its work in
“state-organized capitalism” (or, one may add, in the context of state socialism) and
under neoliberalism (Fraser, Nancy: “Feminism, Capitalism and the Cunning of
History”. In New Left Review. March–April 2009, 56: 97–117).
4 Asociaţia Femeilor Ţigănci “Pentru Copiii Noştri” was created with the aim to promote
Roma in social and political life, without stereotypes, through educational and cul-
tural activities for Roma children and women.
5 These initiatives were/are running under Foundation Desire, such as the campaigns
“Căşi sociale ACUM!/ Social housing NOW!” (2015–2016), and “Consult us.
Roma are not garbage” (2016), or the ongoing program “Strengthening the Hous-
ing Justice Coalition in Romania through Reframing the Political Claims for Public
Housing” (2017). The actions under our initiatives are both the means and ends of
documenting manifestations of housing exclusion and injustice at local level on the
one hand, and on the other, why and how of policies lead to the latter under
emergent capitalism in Romania.
6 International Roma Women’s Network was launched on World Roma Day (April
8) 2003, bringing Roma women from 18 European countries together to lobby
governments for the rights of Roma women, and to increase the visibility of Roma
culture.
7 Roma feminists such as Nicoleta Biţu and Crina Marina Morteanu played an
important role in breaking the silence on this matter within the Roma movement.
Some of their early findings were published under UNICEF and Romani Criss in
Bucharest in 2010: The Case of Early Marriages within Roma Communities in Romania
(accessible here – https://www.unicef.org/romania/Early_marriages_Romani_
CRISS.pdf).
8 The Democratic Federation of Roma (Federaţia Democrată a Romilor, FeDeR), was
established in 2016 as a federation of several Roma non-governmental organizations
and the Roma Party (Asociaţia Partida Romilor Pro Europa). FeDeR declared its aim
was to promote, defend, and represent the interests of Roma communities from
Romania in order to ensure their socio-economic development based on the princi-
ples of social equity, non-discrimination, anti-racism, and self-determination.
9 Reference is made to E-Romnja – Association for Promoting Roma Women’s
Rights, formed in August 2012 by a group of activists, and which advocates for the
public agenda to include Roma women’s issues. More information is available
here – http://e-romnja.ro/e-romnja/about_eromnja.html.
10 Description of parts of GLOC actions started in January 2011 are available on the
website of Foundation Desire, since GLOC was initiated by this organization toge-
ther with Association Amare Phrala, http://www.desire-ro.eu/?page_id=1179.
11 Information about this informal group established in 2014 is available here – http://
fcdl.ro/, and on its Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/fcd.loc.
12 Information of these actions are available in English here – http://www.desire-ro.
eu/?p=3116.
13 The gap between Roma and non-Roma in employment, housing, health and
school education is demonstrated by several researches, among others the 2011
survey conducted by the European Union Fundamental Rights Agency in 11
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countries, including Romania, which shows that Roma are worse off in virtually all
areas of life, and are not only worse off than their non-Roma neighbors, but also
worse off than the “average citizens” in the respective EU Member State. Oxford:
Basil Blackwell.
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Review, 56: 97–117.
Gheorghe, Carmen. 2017. “Nu sunt doar femeile, alba sau de etnie romă. Sunt toate
astea la un loc.” Elle, March, 44–45.
Gheorghe, Carmen. 2016. “Feminismul Rom. Provocări idelologice şi instituţionale.”
In Civil society, democracy and institutional capacity, edited by Andra Nimu, Cristian
Pârvulescu and Arpad Tudor, 237–248. Bucharest: Polirom.
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te-ma-asa-cum-sunt.pdf.
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Chapter 6
Romani Women’s Friendship,

Empowerment, and Politics:
Views on Romani Feminism in
Serbia and Beyond
Vera Kurtić and Jelena Jovanović
Why are researchers so unwilling to include in their publications their own lives
and work? Is it that in order to do this one has to make oneself vulnerable, the
‘they’ becomes ‘we’ or even ‘I’ and the protective distance is removed? What
research process not only allows ownership and control but also enables personal
issues to be revealed, explored and validated as part of the learning experience?
(Plummer et al. 1993)1
About Us and Our Letters

The authors of the above quote argue that one way to address ownership and
exploration of issues is an exchange of personal letters as a legitimate research
process. The written exchanges presented here were made with the explicit aim
to start taking control over interpretations of Romani women’s lives and poli-
tics, and to explore the authors’ own ‘I’s by revealing their own experiences
through their own lenses. The explored issues are personal, yet what is inten-
ded to be validated in this endeavor is their highly political dimension. ‘The
personal is political’ is an argument used as a slogan by new social movements
from the late 1960s, enhanced especially by feminist activists and scholarship to
this day.2
These letters were exchanged at the time of conceiving the chapter for this
particular volume. The chapter is a dialogue between the authors, two Romani
feminist women from Serbia, who decided to cross the border of their comfort
zones, as they have been frequently doing in different research and activist
endeavors, but this time as a joint effort. They created the dialogue through
writing emails to each other with the aim of discussing their own experiences
of being Romani women and feminist activists, to better understand the ele-
ments of their personal paths of empowerment, and to open a discussion about
the current state of Romani feminism with the potential readership.
The chapter can also be understood as yet another public statement of their
Romani feminist political identities, but the authors do not limit the under-
standing of their identities to only a few categories such as gender and
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136 Vera Kurtić and Jelena Jovanović
ethnicity. The chapter talks about the relationship between personal, structural,
and political. The authors share their personal histories through discussing the
main themes: the history of Serbian Romani women’s activism and its devel-
opment; the intersection of their identities; the position of women within the
Romani movement and solidarity with other social movements; some influ-
ential Romani leaders’ resistance to Romani women’s and/or LGBT rights
discourse; the position of Romani emancipated women in the community;
obstacles in creating and keeping relationships and their possibilities to choose
freely; the position of Romani lesbians within the Roma community and
Roma/human rights defenders scene; and finally, building friendships among
women, achieving solidarity and finding a place beyond nation, race/ethnicity,
or gender. All these topics represent something that currently occupies the
minds of the authors, but also the problems that the authors are constantly
challenged by. Even though there is no large age difference between them, the
concept of ‘political generation,’ referred to throughout this book, is very
important for the Romani feminist movement too. Some five years ago, Jelena
approached Vera to learn more about Romani women’s activism in Serbia and
conduct an interview with her for her class assignment. This is when they
realized that they share not only interests in feminism and the Romani move-
ment, but also experiences and values. This paper is a story of resistance and a
story against silence and which emerges through a moment of Romani
women’s friendship.
In order to distance themselves from usual generalization and avoid relati-
vizing problems that Roma women face, and to discuss experiences of mar-
ginalization and a feeling of belonging to a community, the authors take an
open and honest attitude to the topics of the discussion, and illustrate the
necessity of creating a safe space for discussions about intersectionality as an
equal element of human rights.
The authors took the decision about the method for various political reasons.
The devalued ‘feminine style’ is used here with the purpose of deconstructing
the matrix used in ‘serious’ texts, and shows power relations by subjectivity
implied through informal, personalized style, and self-focus on Romani women.
The form of informal letters can include autobiography much more than an
essay. In this way, the authors can display a variety of their own identities:
Autobiography discloses everything that a person is or was. And no other

can do it better than the person in question. The writer is searching for
him/herself, his/her own identity. In the identity question of the auto-
biography, the person asks what has been the crucial event in his or her
life. Autobiography is awareness of the self.
(Finci 2011)
The knowledge gained through auto-reflection documents the historical

importance of activists and theorists. In situations where Romani women are
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Friendship, Empowerment, and Politics in Serbia 137
absent, such as public and academic discourse, the space for recognizing the
importance and achievements of Romani women needs to be revised in order
to hear their voices, inside and outside academia.
Besides the resistance to the power position of a Romani woman excluded
from academic circles, due to a lack of social capital, and racism and misogyny,
there is solidarity with other Romani women. The authors inquire: who is the
recipient of this text? If a text about the Romani women’s movement is pub-
lished by international academic community academics, how much will it be
available to Romani women, both out of activism and for local Romani
women’s NGOs? What is the duty of authors and publishers towards diverse
audience?
Finally, this text corresponds to the feminists writing to each other through
history, which is very close to Jelena and Vera in terms of time and place.
Friends’ correspondence during the war in the formerYugoslavia, such as the
letters of Biljana Jovanović, Rada Iveković, Maruša Krese, Radmila Lazić, Lepa
Mlađenović, and Igballe Rogova, present unique and precious pieces in the
feminist archive, illustrating women’s side of history, actuality, and connections
beyond the borders away from patriarchal interests. We give this writing to you
as it is.
Email Exchange 1
Dear Jelena,
Today I am very happy! We had an exciting day, performed on the position
of Romani women at the Republic Square in Belgrade. There were many
people. The support mostly came from other women’s organizations from
Belgrade, but the media were there as well. I am pleased with the performance
generally. Young Romani women were so brave to talk about themselves in
public. They thrill me.
I am thinking… The fact that we, even if only in this way, conquered that
public space appears to me as strange. How unimaginable this was at the
beginning of our activism! The center of the capital city! Our voice has also
been heard in the National Parliament! Of course, this is not enough, still not
what we are fighting for, actually far from enough and I am not talking about
that, I am talking about the spaces we could not have imagined entering. And
most Romani women still cannot think or imagine that.
Sometimes I believe we have been working a lot, but that we have not
achieved anything. However, in order to reach these little things, we needed to
make millions of small steps. We were building the Roma women’s move-
ment, and we still do, for women who will come and will have a better starting
point. I am sorry that few women know what these public spaces look like.
Those invisible borders surround us, some have dared to break through them.
I say few, but today I feel we are many and we are strong, that is how one small
action can empower us activists.
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I always feel it is necessary to tell people that our activism was built on
Romani women’s gatherings long before us. We continued along their road.
We placed feminism as a term into the movement, but solidarity, sisterhood,
being there for other women who need help and other core feminist values
lived in our grandmothers and mothers. They hadn’t known how to name it
and hadn’t been aware how precious that was. Our time brought knowledge of
human rights, more self-esteem, and louder voices.
Roma women activists succeeded in finding their own place in activism. At
the very beginning, we were not supported by existing Romani or women’s
organizations as Romani women’s groups. During the 90s and early 2000s, that
was the time when civil society started rising and we recognized that we should
have a place there, too. We managed to develop and improve our own capa-
cities. We learned to use our participation in other organizations’ projects, and
to build up ourselves as our own movement. At first, we were just beneficiaries
in projects and cooperated with many people who had their own ideas about
our directions of development. But usually, they didn’t ask us for our opinions
and needs, they imposed their plans on us, with most common activities being
humanitarian aid, medical checks and self-employment, sometimes the political
participation of Romani women. We could not feel that people approached us
with strong belief or passion, or it was just a job without real solidarity, in the
same way as when we go to Roma settlements to work with women and they
would automatically know: do we respect them or do we share the same
concerns or not. They helped us to become leaders in our communities but not
to become sisters and activists. We found our own way for that and involved
new issues. With contributions from international and Serbian domestic orga-
nizations, we got the opportunity to travel and meet each other, and thus to
develop our own cooperation. We took our mission seriously and worked hard
to create something bigger and better.
The years 1997 and 1998 were turning points for us. The group of us in Niš,
and Slavica Vasić and Đurđica Ergić in Belgrade, walked at the same time into
something called Romani women’s groups and we registered the Women
Space and Roma Women’s Centre Bibija. We were trying to fit into both
Roma and feminist scenes. Over the years, we met Rozalija Ilić, Slavica Rakić,
Kosana Nikolić, Olivera Kurtić Idić, Marija Aleksandrović, Tatjana Perić,
Jelena Jovanović (who has the same name as you), and many others, and later
on, in 2004, we formed an informal Romani Women’s Network out of diverse
Romani women’s initiatives – those who were registered NGOs, those who
were part of NGOs as women’s sections, and individual women who worked
in their own communities independently from organizations.
My personal story was that I was young and so full of energy, hungry for
knowledge and experience and so enthusiastic about what we can do, during
the late 90s. I believed that we have to make social change. I finally had a clue
how to link my studies of sociology with social reality. I took part in Niš in a
youth and peace organization, the Center for Nonviolent Conflict Resolution,
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volunteered within SOS Hotline for Women and Children Victims of Vio-
lence, and also traveled to Belgrade for activities of the lesbian organization
Labris and the peace and feminist organization Women in Black, and lectures at
the Women’s Studies Program at the same time. I absorbed a lot of knowledge,
but everywhere I was the only Roma and felt bad that there are no others, like
some dimension of everything was missing. That was similar to my experience
of being the only Roma in school and at university. So I started to be inter-
ested in Roma activism and that’s how I joined different programs for Roma. I
was so happy when I met other Romani women activists and I am still happy
to meet new Romani women. I was thrilled to meet you too, and after I
learned about your interests and work, your feminism and your courage, I was
excited even more!
So, I made a plan for organizing Romani women in my city, before any
Romani women organization existed there. I already knew how to do it. I
presented the idea to some feminists and after that to some Roma leaders. I was
naive to believe that they would like the idea and that they would support it. I
was convinced that the position of Romani women would be understandable
for all of them, since Romani women are both women and part of the Romani
community. I was shocked because nobody understood why it is important for
Romani women to come together. The first thought on my mind was that I
cannot present anything right. Only many years later did it become clear to me
that centuries of patriarchy and racism had closed their eyes, and years of my
existence as a woman and a Roma caused me to blame myself.
And when our group, the Women Space, once started to work, a number of
disappointments followed everywhere. Whatever we were doing, we con-
stantly faced returning a few steps back. We support girls to go to schools and
in the middle of the process, their parents put them into marriage. We raise the
topic of violence and empowerment, but women constantly come with new
bruises. We start to cooperate with local institutions and inform women how
to reach them for help, but in reality, it was almost impossible. I struggled with
the feeling that we are not achieving much, even though we were always tired
and it was so obvious that we work hard. But nothing seemed tangible. The
anger of women in my surroundings was missing, we were so passive. All the
time, I was conscious of second-wave feminism and their massive numbers and
big achievements, but I didn’t see the potential around me. I can see now that I
felt lonely on many occasions. It was as if the whole system turned against us to
show us our place. Better said, to show us where we cannot step. We have
been constantly fighting different battles and very often, because of the strug-
gles, we couldn’t see each other.
Today, at the street action, I saw that some strangers, ordinary pedestrians,
understood what we wanted to say. It was different than at our beginning. For
me it was also strange to see easiness, because I always assume difficulties. This
is because we faced problems and obstacles all over again. I realized what we
had achieved only when we talk about the history of our movement. It is
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significant to talk and write about our beginnings, challenges, and accomplish-
ments. Only then can I see the point.
Today’s event also has different meanings to each of the young women
performers. Some of them are twenty years younger than me. For most of
them, this was the first time doing something publicly and to be in the spot-
light. Each of them performed part of their personal stories, something that
they are facing and something that they are fighting for. We got a lot of fem-
inists and Romani women and men in the audience who came to see and
support us, and that is also very empowering to girls because they felt that
someone understands them. For me, this was a sign that we did achieve
something. Trust me, I will not exaggerate by saying that each of those young
performers thrilled me with their courage. I am not sure that would I have
been ready to do such a thing at their age. If nothing else, what we did today is
to manage to strengthen ourselves, to stand on the street, speak loudly, without
fear, and without the feeling that we do not belong there.
I am sending regards to you, dear, loudly too, and looking forward to your
email.
Your sister,
V.
Dear Vera,
I am glad that besides your (I think of Romani feminists in Serbia) long-term
struggle, and besides all the barriers, your enthusiasm is still visible. Not only
the enthusiasm, but also the concrete achievements of Romani feminism, such
as the performance you were telling me about. I watched the video. I thought
about my experience and how much it would have meant for me if I had met
someone like you earlier.
I see myself as a child of the Romani movement in a way. Now, this might
not be easy to understand. I was implicitly encouraged by my family to be
something different. That was more or less fine up until the point I could be
Yugoslav. However, once the importance of ethnic group won over taking
pride in our belonging to a state, I had to choose what sort of ex-Yugoslav I
am. Then the trouble started. I knew I am not Serb. I knew I am a ‘Gypsy,’
but I also knew that something was wrong about being a Gypsy, so I had to
stay silent. At that time, I did not know the word ‘Roma.’
I was anything but Roma. We created new categories in our minds like
‘Half-Slovak’ (since my mom is Slovak) and ‘Cocktail.’ You know my family
story. It is a complicated long story of love, classism, racism, sexism, and silence.
I lived for almost thirty years in a constantly accumulating shame. Some
eight years ago, I was in a job-search situation. I met a friend. He advised me to
go to a Roma-led institution because ‘they need educated Roma.’ He was so
relaxed while telling me this, even though we never talked about me being a
Roma. I of course knew that everybody knows my ethnicity because of my last
name, my skin, my father’s skin, his family, his profession. I could never ima-
gine someone would be so normal about me being Roma. Neither could I
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imagine that this would completely change my life. I started working in the
Roma Inclusion Office of the Government of Vojvodina. From that moment
on, I never wanted to leave the Romani movement environment because it
helped me finally get rid of shame. It motivated me to empower other Roma
people. These eight years were not without challenges, the path to empower-
ment is dynamic, but I have never been as happy and strong as I feel I am now.
One of the challenges was the sexism and misogyny I experienced from
some of the men of the movement, not very different from the sexism and
misogyny of men in general. However, it bothered me more because I wanted
the movement to be a safe space for all Roma. This is when I became inter-
ested in feminism. Svenka Savić3, a feminist professor from my university in
Novi Sad, supported me in many ways. Her encouragement is the main reason
why I went for further studies to Budapest, but also the reason why I stayed in
the ‘Roma field.’ Later on, I met other feminists who were equally supportive.
I encountered racism from non-Romani feminists too, but mainly through
reading their articles, public statements, and similar. I am lucky to have met
many self-reflective non-Romani feminists, but I didn’t know how it was at
the beginnings of Romani women’s activism. Though the lack of under-
standing among feminist circles does not surprise me.
Angela4 also said that ‘white’ institutions had their own ideas which come
from their own positions. She agrees with you as well that they helped Romani
women to organize. But it is difficult for me to understand why feminist
groups did not support your idea about Romani women’s organizing at the
beginning. Were they patronizing? Did they lack the awareness that Romani
women’s agency and leadership matters? It seems to me, from your story about
the performance, that some women’s groups supported the event. How did this
change happen?
It seems to me that in Serbia, ‘ethnicity’ or ‘race’ rarely finds its relevance in
the discourses of feminists. I entered feminism because of my own experiences
of multiple discrimination. My experience strongly reflects the intersection of
ethnicity and gender. This is why I never wanted to separate or could separate
feminism from the struggle for a better position of Roma. The result of this is
my definition of myself as an intersectional feminist. Do you think that some
feminists do not understand us because not many people can understand
something they have not survived, so they would also ask us to ‘choose
between our gender and our ethnicity,’ as some Romani activists did? Cren-
shaw did say that there has not been a frame for all members of society.5
It is also very important to say that there is a frame for many ‘white’ activists
I know. I prefer the term non-Romani feminists or, in their case, pro-Romani
feminists because I see ‘whiteness’ being performed by myself and other Roma
too. These pro-Romani feminists familiarized themselves with intersectionality
mostly through feminist literature, but they also practice the politics of coop-
eration, communication, and solidarity. Some of them are less, some of them
more self-reflective. Some of them are so self-reflective, to the point of pain,
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which causes emotional and physiological struggles for them. Sometimes, they
are better than me in reflecting upon different positions in society, even when
we are discussing Romani women’s issues. They do not fit into what usually is
understood as ‘white feminism,’ that is, feminism concerned with women as a
singular monolithic object. However, I do admit my limitations regarding a
specific circle I lived and worked in for six years. You know, at the CEU, the
open society ideology is the leading ideology, and diversity of people, and the
culture of discussion is on a very high level.6
However, even there, sometimes it happens that people do not understand
why is it so important to say that you are a feminist or a Roma. One of my
colleagues recently told me that she does not understand why the fact that I am
Roma is important. She told me that she used to have a Roma friend in school
while living in Romania and that she was a super-great girl, like I am, in her
opinion. I felt uncomfortable and afraid of what would happen if I start talking.
Anyways, I decided to tell her some of my experiences. I explained to her a
situation when a teacher in my elementary school did not want to support my
high chances for success in a school competition because of my ethnicity. I told
her only a few sentences people addressed to me in different situations. These
were quite ugly. I do not currently have a need to quote. I also told her that
maybe her friend would also talk about it if she was empowered, or if she felt
she would be understood and supported. My friend openly told me that now
she understands me and we became so close to each other. I could observe the
change on her face. From that moment, I realized I need to find more strength
to confront my fears, because it is worth the effort. Although, honestly speak-
ing, it is definitely not always worth the effort.
I would like to add that you did not only strengthen yourself, and you did
not only help other young women to strengthen themselves. Romani feminists
from Serbia were building roads to connect Romani neighborhoods with
schools, so Romani children from segregated communities can reach schools!
This is only small part. You could tell me so much more about it. I do not
identify with Serbian Romani feminism because, unfortunately, I did not take
part in your work. You know that I started thinking, talking, and writing about
that only once I was out of Serbia. I am very proud of you. It is still not
clear to me how people can say that Romani women have not done anything
for the Romani movement. You have affected both feminist and Romani
movement discourses and practices, in Serbia and the transnational environment.
I will never forget that workshop in Budapest when we heard that malicious
comment. In addition, I am not satisfied with the feeling that we did not
manage to confront these kinds of comments. You said you thought at the
beginning that you did not manage to explain in a good way why the Romani
women’s movement is important. Only later did you realize that the oppressive
systems are at stake, and not your inability to explain things. It is important to
understand that these are feelings, which are luckily not a constant state of
mind, I hope. The oppressive systems are, I agree, what makes us not being
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confident enough about our ability to support our arguments, but at the same
time, they give us reasons to exist.
I so hope we will meet soon again in Budapest, somewhere in Serbia or
wherever.
Take as much care of yourself as possible,
JJ
Email Exchange 2
Dear Jelena,
I am still under the impact of that workshop you mentioned with interna-
tional Roma male and female leaders in Budapest 2014. I still cannot let the
feelings go… that I can talk and talk, open up about my identities, spill my life
in front of people I do not even know and then hear, as feedback, that they
cannot accept my experience and my needs. They cannot accept my being?
The fact that I exist? The fact that I am different? Even though they organized
themselves as a movement for the same reasons? Because they differ from some
other people but still can’t understand how it is to be different. It was so ironic
that the name of the workshop was ‘Nothing About Us Without Us!’. Who
are Roma as nation? Are we all the same, all the same age, one sex and gender,
the same class position, same sexual orientation, with the same health and
mental condition, etc.? How can Romani patriarchal men represent all Roma
people?
A long time ago I learned that the personal is political and have been living
my life in this way. Examples from my life are used as illustrations for what I
am talking about. I accepted truth is always better than lies, but this has its
price, too.
Do you know that dream when you are suddenly naked on the street?
Sometimes in public, when I start to speak about myself, I feel totally exposed.
It is not easy to reveal all your layers, to make public things that other people
usually hide. And you know very well that at the moment you show who you
really are, you are becoming vulnerable. I have already written about how
frequently I come out; all the time, not only as a lesbian, but also as a Roma,
on different occasions with people who assume that all of us are from the
ethnic majority, heterosexual, etc. If nobody else has done it for you, you have
to pave roads to find own place under the sun and the burden is heavy, but
someone has to carry it, and there is no one except you to do that for yourself.
Some Romani leaders said we will dilute the Romani movement by
including issues of Romani women and LGBT Roma positions into the Roma
political agenda, while I believe that this is not weakening but strengthening
the movement, encouraging solidarity, and erasing the frustrating blank spaces
between ourselves. My experience, especially after the research I did of Roma
lesbian existence, shows that most Romani women would stay silent, above all,
about their sexual identities. And if they are ‘lucky’ to have a lighter skin tone
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and a typically Serbian last name, they would stay silent about their Romani
identities too. Having a lighter skin tone and a typical last name is an easier
path to access education. I could pass too, if we forget about my last name.
That I would have to explain, to be prepared for anyone to pump me with
questions about my ethnicity or place of origin. But I did not want to pass, I
speak out. I do not regret that either. My soul is probably a nudist, not only
my body. ☺
Yes, it is dangerous to speak publicly about your difference. There are many
extremist fools around and the majority can discriminate. But it is also danger-
ous when one stays silent. I defend myself by revealing, at least I am sure that
nobody else will reveal me, change her or his opinion about me, blackmail me,
or something else. It is not easy to be open but it is easier than to live in fear,
lies, and feeling that you are not worth enough.
My old fear returned that I will not present the subject very well. Isn’t it true
that this is what women are taught – that it is always our mistake? But I am
aware that I was not mistaken, all of us feminists there did our best and what
and how we were talking about was not a problem. Simply, they were not
open to listening. They were blinded by their own knowledge. No new ideas
could reach them, even though for some people, like us, these ideas are crucial
for existence.
One of my favorite quotes that gives me strength in situations like this is, of
course, that one by Virginia Woolf: ‘that the history of men’s opposition to
women’s emancipation is more interesting perhaps than the story of the
emancipation itself.’ It’s so important to know that all this antagonism to what
we do, despite all the importance of our work to the community and society in
general, does not happen only to us, but it is a result of historically created
social positions.
But there is a power in Romani culture that is concentrated in the hands of
the institution of puri daj – old women who are not in the reproductive period
anymore and, at the cost of respect from family and community, reject and
deny their own womanhood, and even do not express all the painful experi-
ences that they had being a woman in their family and community. With the
loss of reproductive capacities, a woman loses her identity and becomes some-
thing else. Women approached us with negativity regarding women’s and
LGBT rights in the name of the Roma community, but the truth was they
acted in the name of patriarchy. I think we have to be strong, we who are
Others, we also have the power, although it is not given to us and we needed
to take it by ourselves because we fight for something against the rules. I am
wondering whether anybody knows that there are some elements in Romani
culture I like, especially the relationship with nature and respect for the elderly
as human beings. These things are more present in Romani culture compared
to the other cultures around us, especially in this time of ubiquitous ageism and
the mad destruction of nature. I would really like to research and write about
that at some point. But it must be clear that we all have rights to choose what
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we want to like from tradition and customs and what not. I live my own life
and nobody can tell me what I have to think and how to live. Because it is
important to show that among us there are people who are different like any-
where else, and the Romani community is equally oppressive for their own
members as non-Roma.
I am leaving you now with a burden that is here every time when I think
about these issues.
Until the next piece of writing, power to the people! ;)
V
Dear Vera,
I am also still influenced by that workshop, while I think that neither of us
should be. Do you really think that the rejection of gender politics is con-
nected to ‘Romani culture?’ You used Romani words – puri daj – but the
concept is present in many societies as a reflection of patriarchal structures,
and it is interesting to write more about that. I am curious if you think it is
something different in ‘Romani culture.’ How do you see the relationship
with nature and respect for the elderly as elements of Romani culture? I do
not know, my culture is the culture of the environments I live in. As an
assimilated Roma, I do not know much about the Romani culture, if there is
such a phenomenon.
Now I am going back to the leadership rejection of gender politics. I am
thinking we should change the discourse, the focus. I think I would not agree
with the Woolf quote. It is indeed interesting, but it is clear. We understand
that this is, in each and every movement, happening in more or less the same
way. This is so clearly a reflection of patriarchal structures in most societies. I
have a feeling that we should focus less on what the ‘leaders’ reject. Maybe it
would be good to completely forget about this and to work more on what
we believe in, to focus on those people who understand, who support us, and
with whom we can continue working. There are also some supportive ‘lea-
ders.’ Am I right? I am using quotation marks because I am under the
impression of one of my friends who recently said something interesting. He
said that we give legitimacy to few people ourselves by talking and thinking
about them as leaders. However, we cannot ignore hierarchy within the
movement, while we may disrupt it in a way. I do not even believe in the
concept of leadership. Why we are not talking about all of us as advocates of
groups’ causes we associate ourselves with? I do not believe that we want to
lead or represent people. Rather, we want to advocate for the cause, for dif-
ferent issues members of the groups are facing. But if we want to talk in
leadership terms, for me, a leader is a Romani woman who confronted forced
marriage. I read about Danica Jovanović7 when she talked about her own
experience, for example. For me, you are a leader because you had the
courage to reveal your position as a Romani lesbian and you wrote a book
about Romani lesbian existence because it is about you and other Romani
women whom you wish to help.
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More and more people understand why it is important for me to do what I

am doing and even though they may not have similar experiences, some are
aware of their position and of the positions of others in societal hierarchies. If
one is part of civil society, a social movement, while not being aware of the
complexity of societal hierarchies and the ways they affect people, and if one
imagines solidarity and unity as only possible within a particular group, for
example based on ethnicity, one is not a leader for me, and will never be. I
know many people who are in different social movements and I am very happy
I can feel we do understand each other. Recently, I delivered a workshop to
many representatives of the institutions from Benelux countries about traffick-
ing in Roma children. I experienced some lack of understanding of structural
dimensions of antigypsyism. After a session, I was approached by a woman of
color (the only woman of color at the workshop) and during the discussion she
asked me a rhetorical question – ‘Are you explaining it to me?’ She just said
‘Look at me!’ It was a transcendental experience of connection going on
between two of us. There are still not enough people who understand the
importance of cross-movement relationships. Not even within the activist
circles.
Yes, the personal is political. I live this way, too. I am worried though,
because the political is becoming very personal, too. I am worried because I
feel politics is taking over, or at least strongly affecting our lives. My experience
shows that often I am not able to establish a deeper relationship with people
who are not in the same or similar kinds of ‘stories.’ I sometimes try and
manage with people who have highly curious personalities. I still wish more
people were like this. I also worry that we became too busy and have neither
time nor space to discuss how the political affects our personal relationships.
There are no initiatives for Romani women to gather and talk. Big conferences
organized by institutions sometimes bring many Romani women together, but
I do not see these events as safe spaces for us because, even though they might
be useful in some ways, they also reestablish power relations that sometimes
even prevent us from saying what we really think.
You said there is a rejection of the inclusion of Romani women’s concerns
into the Romani movement. I believe we should be working together, too.
However, I also see the necessity of building Romani women-only spaces. I
have recently experienced some talks with Romani men and many of them
actually argued that they would like to see it as a part of Romani politics. They
are criticizing our separatism. Very few of them reflected in their talks, and
even then only implicitly, an understanding that Romani women might need
their safe spaces too because of their experiences. Furthermore, these activists
created some hierarchies of our issues, so there are some issues that are more,
some that are less accepted. For example, ‘Romani women in leadership posi-
tions’ seems to be a very unpleasant topic to some.
Feminist hugs travel fast,
JJ
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Email Exchange 3
Dear Jelena,
What I think is that the rejection of gender politics is connected to Romani
patriarchy, not necessarily to the culture. I totally agreed with what you said
about leadership, and I do not like that concept, as much as the concept of the
Roma elite, although it is the most used term when non-Roma speak about
Roma activism. Today I got a book from Svenka Savić, called What is the Male
Gender for Virgin, Highly-Educated Roma Elite in Vojvodina, which is an important
testimony on the beginnings of the Roma women’s movement in Serbia in
general, but especially as a review of Roma education. I started reading the
book immediately, because Svenka presented the time when she did the men-
torship program with five Roma women I know, and one of them was Refika
Mustafić8 from Niš, and I first opened the chapters about her. Refika started
her postgraduate studies in the department of Serbian language and that was the
part of her life that I knew well, the time when we both started to become
activists. On the day when Refika died, in 2012, I got a circular email from
some people in NGOs, they wrote a short message about her death, and how
she became an activist in the 70s, but, in fact, she was born in 1970. I was very
shaken by her death, but at the same time very angry because they didn’t check
the facts about her life, even I knew this was not intentional. She died when
she was only 42 years old.
It is obvious that we have so many deep prejudices when we think and speak
about someone’s life that we are not even aware of. What is objective when
we make analysis, where do we start from? It is not so easy to define what
makes a person from the Roma community considered to be successful, not
only a leader but someone who will be spoken and written about? It is not only
due to someone’s hard work and good results, but the context in which
someone lived. I remember that when some male Roma leaders died, there
was much more publicity about their lives in the activists’ community. So far,
only women wrote about Refika, and those are Svenka Savić and Jelena Savić.
Unfortunately, about many other Roma women activists, whose lives were so
important and who are no more among us, no-one wrote a word. I will try to
write to you about Refika, although this letter is not about her but about our
conversation on the relationship of Roma women towards tradition and
feminism.
I knew Refika for a long time and I knew her well, we grew up together
and for most of our lives, we were good friends. We empowered ourselves
together and empowered each other, gained the courage to reconsider rules
and expectations that were thrown at us by our families, schools, peers, and by
ourselves. She was very important to me, not only as a friend but as the only
one in my surroundings beside me who was my peer and Roma and went to
school. When we were very young I saw how strong she was and not ashamed
of being Roma, which influenced me to not be ashamed either. But, along the
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way, we stopped being friends and I think what happened was that I was
assessed as too radical in resistance to social norms, and she didn’t want to be
perceived like that. The end of our friendship was a painful point in my life but
this is one of the stories about how strong patriarchy is and fear of social dis-
approval, female friendships and its breaks, but also about the sacrifices that we
have to make in order to stay ourselves.
Being open about who you are, about sexual orientation or gender
identity, or even about being a feminist, means that you will lose many
people in your life, I learned that very well. But I always understood that
the personal is political, and for me that wasn’t just an ordinary statement
from the theory. If you believe in something then you have to question it.
How to separate the things I work for from the way I live? It is necessary
to transform the personal into the political, and the political into the per-
sonal in this world. Even in subjectivity there is no personal, everything is
constructed to look as if it is our free will and personal choice. So why
wouldn’t we deconstruct that?
I would like to draw attention to the fact that Svenka’s book contains the
analysis of her mentoring diary, written by Silvija Dražić and Relja Dražić
(Little History of An Excitement: Mentoring work of Svenka Savić with Roma Female
Students: Diary of the What is the Word for Male Virgin, page 447–450), and they
say that to Romani women, personal interests are more important than the
interests of the community, because of the fact that Svenka’s mentees used their
opportunity to change or delete parts of the text where she wrote about her
work with each of them individually. They didn’t change parts that show them
in a bad light, they deleted parts that show important Roma men in a bad light,
weakening a critical perspective toward male-dominated patterns in Roma
traditional culture in order to avoid possible inconveniences or difficulties in
personal lives and personal interests. But I disagree whose interests come first, it
needs deeper analyses in whose name women talk and in whose interests… I
agree that women are displeased among men, as Simone de Beauvoir said, so
we are taught to keep their interests, to continue to protect those who are
dominant, not our own.
Refika told me that there is no such thing among us Roma for many
things I chose for my life, and as time flew by she became more and more
judgmental about most of my choices. Sometimes she was even stricter
about this than the authorities we feared. How could I believe that me and
my mother have to endure abuse, and at the same time accept that I don’t
have the right to oppose the fatherly figure? It’s known that women are
keepers of the patriarchy, and if they revolted against oppression, things
would be different. There is a quote from Refika in Svenka’s book as a
good illustration of this misunderstanding of women’s rights: ‘My dad was a
modern man. He used to say: ‘My daughter-in-law has to be a virgin when
she comes into the house, but you, my daughter, can enjoy your life, you
belong to others’. You could say that he was a progressive father.’ I know
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her experience with racism and sexism; I also knew what she defined as
racism at the women’s seminar when a white feminist placed her and
another Roma girl in the same room, while she was pleased at not having
to share a room with some of lesbians there. I meet so many conservative
women in the Roma movement that no men from the community have
to worry about keeping their dominant position and privileges. Whenever
I was talking about the existence of LGBT Roma, the women were always
the first to say that those themes are not for the Roma community.
Women were the ones telling me about how I shouldn’t talk about vio-
lence against Roma women, because that can present the Roma commu-
nity as bad in general. In the region, there are lots of Roma NGOs which
deal with women’s issues but still organize beauty pageants and approve of
early marriages, while at the same time declaring themselves to be Roma
human rights activists. Is it only a return to national identity and customs,
despite the general emancipation with which even we stepped out from
under oppression, that helps us prove that we are Roma, and only then we
can speak in the name of other women from our community? Who
imposed on us that feeling that we mustn’t lose our Roma identity, and
that our inner drive to act must be related to the preservation of something
that already exists, rather than creating something brand new, so that our
struggle can have the legitimacy? Refika didn’t use her opportunity to
change what is going to be published in the book because of her passing
away, and I wonder whether she would have changed something, and did
she change her view of women as someone’s property.
Jelena, neither you nor I are from the Roma ghettos, as a child I went
there only to visit, until I started working with people from the settlements
and went there frequently. Sometimes I hear that Roma leaders are saying
how Roma people do not know me, by which they mean to say that I’m
different and that I don’t fit into the common picture, which they use to
remove my credibility. If I had grown up in a settlement, would I get
more respect from these men? I don’t think so, but they probably think,
subconsciously, they could manage me easier because I would be more
exposed. And they do not have the same standards for men who don’t live
in the ghetto, but whom they consider to be their leaders. This is why
you understand what I’m saying when I speak about the tradition, and that
the thing called ‘Romanipen’ is not important to me, in the same way that
term ‘Serbdom’ has no meaning to me either. And I have all rights
for that.
But, if many of us rethink what we can or mustn’t do, then we have power.
I am not sure, honestly, whether we can speak about the Roma women’s
movement, but the potential for a movement is an open question. There are
new generations of Roma women who are openly feminist and consider
intersectionality in their activism, I am happy to see new women of all ages
who are more open and free to step out. Our communication is important as
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part of our personal histories. When I see how we valued our female
friendships I know that every woman is important and I do believe in
the future for the Romani women’s movement. And yes, I do think that
we need our separate places because only then we can be what we truly
are, free of the need to justify ourselves or explanations, without being
constantly watched or thinking about what something looks like, without
constant criticism toward us. I do not believe that we have to measure
everything according to how something seems to men. If that makes me
separatist, then I am.
Your true friend,
Vera
Dear Vera,
It always makes me angry to see how other people feel free to interpret
Romani women’s actions. I still haven’t read Svenka’s book, but from what
you told me, I see the Dražić couple’s interpretation highly problematic.
Maybe the women who deleted some parts of the text actually put community
interests before their own. Maybe they think that publicly criticizing Roma
men activists in a certain way is not productive for communities and therefore
for the cause. Sometimes, naming and shaming does not work. We have to
think about implications. If the women did not delete the parts that put them
in the bad light, how can we conclude that they care more about their personal
interest? Self-criticism is much harder than criticism. It is always easy to criticize
others. The bravest thing to do is an honest self-reflection.
To frame any behavior pattern as ‘traditional Roma’ struck me as wrong. I
made friendships recently with some Roma gays but also their heterosexual
Roma friends in Brussels. What I noticed here is not new for me. Heterosexual
Roma performing machoism would not explicitly support LGBT, while in
their everyday practices they would show that they have no problem with any
sexual identity. The problem is with words. People are not encouraged to talk
from their hearts, but they are trying to fulfill expectations, sometimes even
imagined expectations. This is what we have to confront. Even if we some-
times do not manage it, we should be proud of trying. Be proud of managing
to lose your friends. I am proud of that, too.
I have some friends coming from the community as it is imagined. I do not
see that we are performing our work for Roma differently. But I do not bother
with these questions of legitimacy anymore. You know why? Because for
many non-Roma, being Roma is bad enough, being poor and Roma much
worse though. As long as you work for a society free of racism and sexism, you
cannot work from a position different from your own, you just have to be
conscious of it. Romani women’s friendship is the most important for me.
Even if there is no formal movement, we have to keep talking and encourage
each other to keep acting.
Hugs from cold Brussels!
JJ
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PS: You should come visit, the Christmas fair, fries, and mulled wine are just
around the corner of my street.
Email Exchange 4
Dear Jelena,
I need to share with you my current feelings. I cannot clearly define a par-
ticular reason for my melancholy, with this letter I will try to systematize my
thoughts. This is related to you and to my other friends who are Romani
women, to all of us who do not have a defined place in society. This mood
came after the talk with one young woman from our organization. She is very
intelligent, highly educated, with a good job and has been visiting Women
Space9 for a while. Even though her last name is not Muslim, one can recog-
nize that she is a Romani woman by the color of her skin. I think she is so
strong that she would not hide it anyways.
Today we had more time to talk about other things than the organization,
and we started to speak about our families and love lives. We came to the issue
of different things that educated Romani women face regarding relationships
and marriage. I heard her experiences, she is a strong woman with lot of
ignorant people around her who judge, gossip, and have foolish ideas about
what her place is and with whom she can and cannot be in love. That was such
a painful topic. I thought I was immune when it comes to this issue, because of
my view on social norms and traditions, but I do feel burdened. I couldn’t help
myself not recalling all the stories that I heard from women during my whole
life, together with my personal tale.
When I was little, my family told me to go to school in order have a job and
to be an independent woman. At the same time, they advised me not to marry
someone who is not Romani, because he would eventually curse my gypsy
mother. I do not think this advice was bad, they wanted the best for me and
they were right in the same way. It is very important to be autonomous, not
only economically but in every other way, so other people’s prejudices
wouldn’t harm you.
Today, my friend told me how difficult is for her to establish a relationship
with any man. She says that if he is a Roma, she has problems with him
because of her independence. If he is not a Roma, then his family is troubled
because she is a Roma. She is broken-hearted because of her last breakup with
a non-Roma boy, even if he didn’t say that, she feels that he was ashamed of
her in front of his friends. It is the 21st century but people still suffer from
racism. Love is not a business arrangement; you cannot love someone on the
basis of ethnicity or race, because it is suitable. But people with less social
power have low self-esteem; they make compromises or do not dare approach
someone they like because they expect rejection and further marginalization. It
happens with low self-esteemed people from the majority, as well, they are not
comfortable in confronting their friends and family expectations.
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I had one friend who asked me whether Romani women are so proud and
ethnic-oriented, because Roma women do not want to marry Serbian men,
but Serbian women easily enter marriages with Roma men. Firstly, I was
shocked by that question as pure racism, but now I think it is important to
think about that in the light of patriarchy. In our society, women are still
deeply treated as property and status symbols, a man wants to show his power
by the women he is with. Having a white woman for Roma men means per-
sonal expansion on the social scale, for gays from the majority it is a challenge
to have someone who is Roma, for example. I think it is much harder for
women to face social inferiority being with someone who is more valuable on
the social scale based on something else in addition to being a man. Even for
lesbians it is similar, there are a lot of Romani women who faced racism in
their relationships with non-Romani women.
The experience of Romani women shows the price they pay for their
independence and confrontation of social taboo, especially those who are
activists, but mostly if they live in Roma settlements. If they are aware of
social injustice and fight against it they are exposed and will face con-
sequences in many forms. Love life is just one part of it. Throughout my life I
have talked with many brave and fabulous Romani women and I love the
strength that women possess when they become aware of personal achieve-
ments despite different obstacles. That is one reason why our friendships are
so important, and there are many more reasons.
Thank you for your friendship!
Love,
V
Dear Vera,
Not many men, Roma or non-Roma, would like to be with an edu-
cated, independent, and strong woman, such as your friend since they know
their performed authority is at risk. One of my Roma friends who is mar-
ried to a less professionally successful non-Roma man told me that she
sometimes consciously performs her husband’s authority even at the expense
of her professional success (a little one, like postponing or skipping a
meeting because her husband has an important thing to do). This was very
interesting for me as she put it as a reason (not the biggest one of course,
but one of the reasons) why their marriage works well. This was part of her
reflection while she was giving me advice on how to find a boyfriend/
husband. Also, I believe that most non-Romani men do not want to be
with a Romani woman. It happened to me that a guy – who I was not
even interested in – said that he was worried about his parents’ reactions ‘if
he married a Gypsy.’ Your parents were mostly right. I did not get this
advice because I am from a mixed marriage. You know my father experi-
enced discrimination, but he never talked about it. Most of the things I
found out by asking my mom after he died. Ethnicity mattered for my
parents’ families, even though nobody ever talked about this. Now, when I
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finally have more capacity and support to talk about it, sometimes publicly,
I feel the responsibility to do this constantly, because of myself and others
who have been and will be facing the same or similar situations. I never
could accept silence.
It is incredibly important to think about the ways in which injustices affect
our intimate relationships. It is good that [your friend] does not accept the
people who do not accept her completely. The choice is limited. But not all
Romani men are patriarchs and not all non-Romani men are racists. We
should not accept anything less than an anti-racist and a (pro)feminist partner.
Let’s keep believing in exceptional people. And that we are lucky enough to
fall in love with them. Your friend is aware of the visibility of at least one
dimension of her identity, but she maybe also internalized prejudices and because
of that, she does not want to take a risk sometimes. Maybe it is too difficult for
her to be open and talk about these issues with men. It might be impossible
sometimes, or actually, most of the time, sure. This is why we often decide to
stay silent. But silence is killing relationships in the long run. It is our biggest
enemy. It kills our kids too, if we decide to raise them in this world. Why we
are not talking about this? Why is this not a ‘Romani women’s issue?’ Why is
somebody else constantly teaching us to limit ‘Romani women’s issues’ to early
marriages, trafficking, violence, and access to education? Of course these are
important, but what about other dimensions of our life? What about political
participation and access to employment? What about Romani women who are
forced to bribe doctors when going for abortions because of their justified fear of
being sterilized?
Our identities and experiences are very complex. My problem is that we fre-
quently internalize the established understanding of what it means to be a Roma.
I recently thought to ask some people who organize the Roma Access Pro-
gram10 at the university whether I can take part in the Romani language classes
they started organizing. The idea to start learning Romani appears from time to
time, but I am not sure if this is what I really want or whether it is somehow
imposed on me. We have already talked about our experiences and what to be a
Roma means when you come from an assimilated environment. You will
understand why I am writing to you about this. It was interesting to me how
excited I was while listening to you and your friend when you were preparing
for the exam. I do have a feeling that this is problematic because some people
understand language as an inseparable part of one’s ethnic identity. They do
not see you as a ‘real Roma’ because you do not speak the language. It is not
simply ‘ethnic’ identity that is imposed. The meaning is imposed. We know
that the meanings or interpretations of the concept are many. I think we both
understand ‘ethnicity’ as a socially constructed category. However, the fact that
someone put us in a box and marked it does not mean that we can or should
peel off the label.
On the other hand, even if I learn some basics, I am not sure I would manage
to convince some people that I am a Roma. Seems funny. This motivation
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would be wrong. I am really excited about the thought that I could speak
Romani one day. I would be proud, whatever people think. Maybe there
could be a need for confronting those non-Romani people who wonder how
it is possible that I speak Serbian so well after I tell them that I am a Roma.
They talk to me as if I were one of the world’s wonders. To ignore these dis-
courses is not helpful. I think that knowing the language may function in the
same way as the colorful top I wore at the wedding of your cousin we went to
together. You remember? I bought this top for political reasons, not because I
like to wear colorful clothes. Before, I was not even sure if I really liked it.
Does this sound like a paradox to you? Strengthening your ethnic identity with
the expected markers which you constantly question.
Sleep well!
From my heart,
JJ
Email Exchange 5
My dear,
Your sentence about how someone once put us in a box and marked us
doesn’t mean that we can or should peel off the label made me think. I am
aware that it is difficult, in fact impossible to strip off labels, but I do not know
what to think about the idea that we shouldn’t. In fact, I am wondering which
direction my activist way goes in, as well as the activism of each of us, whether
we peel off or just change those labels. This is something that society wants to
make us obey, because we Roma women feminists are just seen as those who
destroy existing forms and patterns which are based on the labels.
Why not want to peel away all the labels that we were stuck with at birth?
People change their sex and gender, the expected sexual orientation, their
speech, therefore, their bodies themselves, the matrix of behavior and thinking.
When we are concerned with ethnicity, if, for example, Roma women do not
want to be Roma; whether I have the right to think she does that because of
her weakness and wish to assimilate? Or she does that because of something
else? I know so many Serbian men and women who do not want to identify
themselves as Serbs, and I fully understand them because we live in a country
which oppresses in the name of the Serbian core, with the history of wars and
crimes that were never publicly recognized. Why do I have more rights to feel
as a Roma woman and all my friends who are not of Roma origin refused to
identify themselves according to ethnic background? ‘Solidarity on affinity
rather than on identity,’ as Donna Haraway said, and that is the point.
It is so clear to me that out of spite I not only became an activist for the
rights of Roma women and Roma in general, but I probably just for that
reason even become Roma! There is little sentiment, the feeling of belonging
to the family, and probably the need to be a little bit different. But yes, defi-
ance is the feeling that I always have when I speak about my nationality,
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because I saw the injustice toward Roma people, and lot of that I felt on my
own skin. My labels make me strong because I explained to myself that racism,
sexism, homophobia, classism and whatever else I was faced with, do not exist
because I am not good enough, but because there is something seriously wrong
with the world. I embraced my labels but I can also let them go if, hypotheti-
cally, they lost their implications because nobody would care about them.
But, still, there is something else. Some women before us have started to
question what should be kept: origin-race, class, patriarchy itself, and capitalism.
‘Not in my name’ said Virginia Woolf. With Women in Black, I take part in
protests in which we say that in the name of Serbia, terrible crimes occurred in
Bosnia and Kosovo, and, although I’m not a Serb, I admit that we all have the
responsibility because something like that has been permitted, because the
silence… How Roma men and women just voted for the regime that we are
suffering under at this moment! How much injustice we get from the past and
present regimes in Serbia!
I have a responsibility to reveal. The fact that I belong to some nation
doesn’t mean that I think the same as those who represent that nation. If I’m
aware of that, then I have a duty to point out what we are going through as a
minority, but I also have an obligation to say what we are doing among our-
selves! If violence against women is tolerated in my community I have to say it
publicly, even at the price that the majority may start to link some negative
social norms with the minority, as some Roma men and women activists
command us when we raise our voices on violence against Roma women and
girls. The possibility that non-Roma will begin to look at violence against
Roma women as ‘Gypsy business’ is not a problem either of Roma women or
the Roma community, but just the problem of the majority who do not want
to see that this is happening everywhere. There is a limit of responsibility of the
Roma community, it is not a response to stop violence against women in the
entire society, but has a great responsibility to deal with the prevention of
violence within itself.
And I, as a Roma woman, have an obligation to point out the lyrics of
misogynist songs of the band Kal from Serbia, the band that my non-Roma
friends listen to. They like their music, as well as the idea that this Roma band
is not a ‘typical’ one. But my friends do not understand the words of songs or
the cheerful hum ‘Ka pagava tu kokala’ (I will break your bones), because the
singer smiles while singing this love song.
As a feminist, a conflict is imposed on me, with my being Roma in this
region and at this time, and being a woman. This is how Black women must
have felt as well, during the birth of Black Power, the burden of loyalty and a
duty. ‘Always disobedient’ is for me the motto of true feminism and I con-
stantly work on allowing to myself to reject a loyalty that is expected from me.
If we do not speak and rethink our duties and loyalties, and if we do not
give ourselves space and time for discussion, then we won’t have a movement.
You know, it is really important to me that we talk like this, I would like to
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exchange thoughts like this with more of my friends from Roma women’s
activism.
Hope that our sisters will join us in discussion,
Always disobedient
V
Dear Vera,
Embracing our labels is what I wanted to argue for, as long as we are part of
the societal system full of borders. But if we are to embrace them, we have to
redefine them, if we are to stay honest to ourselves and to disturb the existing
power relations. This is why Romanipen is important for me, but it is a
Romanipen that I am going to define by myself, while the definition of course
reflects the collective experience of the group. You said ‘hypothetically.’
Exactly. As long as we can only have a hypothesis, we have no privilege to peel
off the labels. And I agree with you, we must not judge people who do peel
them off, but honestly, I am not sure that they truly do so, or it is yet another
mechanism of protection and maybe also a political decision. I do not think we
can compare this situation to the situation of Serbs who do not want to identify
with the ethnic category. In any case, I do not see this as a solution. All my
experiences are telling me that there is no such a thing like ‘citizen of the
world,’ just like there is no such a thing as ‘European.’
I think we do not have to identify with the regimes while we can still
identify with a group of people, a city, or a country. I think feminists are the
biggest patriots, because we expose all forms of violence and we fight against it.
As for Donna Haraway, as long as a group of people defined by an identity
category is facing a lack of solidarity, I cannot avoid practicing my solidarity
towards this particular group. Practicing solidarity, I believe, also means talking
about violence and all the other things that people call ‘sensitive’ things, in a way
that does not harm an imagined community. It is actually quite easy to do, what
is not easy is to explain to people that they should stop imagining a community,
or more specifically in this context, that they should stop imagining a ‘gypsy
business’ and start listening.
As long as there is a need, I hope that Roma will keep becoming Roma. I
liked that you mentioned that you became a Roma for a reason. I feel and
think in the same way. I became one for the cause. But also, not to repeat
that personal is political, the cause is giving back so much to my mental
health. It helped me start loving myself, as I am or as I could be. For example,
I wish I could say that ‘always disobedient’ is my motto too, but I am not
always disobedient. I am moderately disobedient, and I believe this is also a
survival mechanism or even a political strategy. This is why I do not believe
that the Roma women’s movement exists, we have no conditions to com-
pletely disobey. But let me tell you that we do not have to have any formal
movement structures to support each other. In case ‘Roma women,’ as an
issue, returns to the political agenda, which is not going to happen because of
the processes of prioritizing the issues of people in the political sphere, we
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will make what people call a movement. Until then, let us build our
friendships.
More soon and thank you for sharing,
Jelena
Notes
1 The quote is taken from Gill Plummer, Kerry Newman & Richard Winter (1993),
‘‘Exchanging Letters: A format for collaborative action research?’’ Educational Action
Research, Vol. 1, No. 2, 305–314, and slightly edited by the authors.
2 To understand more about the intersection of public and personal, see the 1959
book The Sociological Imagination by C. Wright Mills or Claudia Jones’s 1949 essay
‘‘An End to the Neglect of the Problems of Negro Women.’’
3 Svenka Savić is a feminist and Serbian linguist and professor emeritus at the Faculty
of Philosophy at the University of Novi Sad, retired since 2007. She is a professor of
Psycholinguistics and she has published a large number of books and scientific papers
on the use of languages in groups that have less power in society. Her support to
Roma female and male students is very important.
4 Angéla Kóczé is our friend and colleague, a Roma feminist activist and scholar from
Hungary, currently teaching at the Roma Studies Program at Central European
University in Budapest.
5 Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw is an American civil rights advocate and a leading
scholar of critical race theory. She coined the term intersectionality in 1989 to create a
frame for studying the experiences of women of color, where social categories such as
gender, race, sexuality, and class interact and create complex systems of oppression.
6 Central European University (CEU) is a graduate university located in Budapest,
Hungary, where Jelena studied and worked for six years.
7 Danica Jovanović is an activist of the NGO Roma Association Novi Bečej, one of very
few Roma women who speaks in public about her experience of forced marriage.
8 Refika Mustafić (1970–2012) was a philologist for Serbian language and literature.
She founded a school for support to education of Roma children in Niš and worked
as a Human Rights Education Coordinator at the ERRC in Budapest.
9 Women Space is an association that empowers women from socially marginalized
groups. It strives for a just society and equality for all. Their main activities include
supporting women and minority activism, promoting feminist and anti-fascist values,
and influencing the public through combating prejudices and stereotypes. Women
Space works intensively on initiating systemic solutions to problems of marginalized
groups, especially Roma women. For more information, see their website at http://
www.zenskiprostor.org/en/.
10 Roma Access Program of the Central European University is now called Roma
Graduate Preparation Program. It is an intensive academic program that helps Roma
with undergraduate degrees prepare for further studies in English.
Bibliography
Ćoralić, R. 2014. “Male neveste za 1000 evra” [Little Brides for 1000 euros]. ALO.RS,
October 24, 2014. Accessed January 30, 2018. http://arhiva.alo.rs/vesti/aktuelno/ma
le-neveste-za-1-000-evra/72045.
Dražić, Silvia, and Relja Dražić. 2016. “Mala istorija jednog oduševljenja: Mentorski rad
Svenke Savić sa romskim studentkinjama: Dnevnik” [Little History of an Excitement:
9781138485099_text.3d;

Mentoring work of Svenka Savić with Roma female students]. In Kako je muški rod od
devica? Visokoobrazovana romska ženska elita u Vojvodini u 21. Veku [What is the word
for male virgin? Highly-educated Romani women’s elite in Vojvodina in 21st cen-
tury], edited by Svenka Savić, 448–450. Novi Sad: Futura Publikacije i Ženske studije
i istraživanja. Accessed January 20, 2018. http://www.zenskestudije.org.rs/knjige/ka
ko_je_muski_rod_od_devica.pdf.
Finci, Predrag. 2011. “Autobiography and the Question of Identity.” Filozofska istraži-
vanja 04/124, 707–718.
Haraway, Donna. 1991. “A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-
Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century.” In Simians, Cyborgs and Women: The
Reinvention of Nature, 49–181. New York: Routledge.
Jovanović, Biljana, Rada Iveković, Maruša Krese, and Radmila Lazić. 1994. Vjetar ide na
jug i obrće se na sjever [The Wind Goes to the South and Veers to the North]. Belgrade:
Radio B92.
Mlađenović, Lepa, and Igballe Rogova. 2012. “Love beyond Borders.” Sinister Wisdom
94: Lesbian and Exile. Accessed January 30, 2018. http://www.sinisterwisdom.org/
SW94.
Plummer, Gill, Kerry Newman, and Richard Winter. 1993. “Exchanging Letters: A format
for collaborative action research?.” Educational Action Research, Vol. 1, No. 2, 305–314.
Savić, Svenka, ed. 2016. Kako je muški rod od devica? Visokoobrazovana romska ženska elita
u Vojvodini u 21. Veku [What is the word for male virgin? Highly-educated Romani
women’s elite in Vojvodina in 21st century]. Novi Sad: Futura Publikacije i Ženske
studije i istraživanja. Accessed January 20, 2018. http://www.zenskestudije.org.rs/
knjige/kako_je_muski_rod_od_devica.pdf.
Woolf, Virginia. 1989. A Room of One’s Own, 72. New York: Harcourt Brace & Co.
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Chapter 7
Untapped Potential of Romani

Women’s Activism in
Contemporary Europe: Czech
Republic
Jamen Gabriela Hrabaňová and Gwendolyn Albert
“Without truthfully revealing the seriousness of the problem, without basic leg-
islation, and without genuine participation by Romani people themselves in
deciding about matters that involve them, any attempts to resolve Romani
questions in our country are illusory. This question is not just one of the econ-
omy, of this minority, or of social policy, but is becoming more and more a
question about the conscience of our entire society.” Charter 771
(Romea 2012)
This co-authorship is just part of a shining example of cooperation between

two activists contributing to the development of democratic society in the
Czech Republic, fighting for human rights, and highlighting the Roma and in
particular Romani women’s perspective. Jamen is describing her own story as
the process of her growth and empowerment, while Gwen is focusing on the
activities she has significantly supported in order to have an impact on the
Roma and on society at large.
When the mobilization of the Romani community in the wake of Central
and Eastern Europe’s transition towards democracy in 1989 first brought viola-
tions of their human rights to the attention of the European Community, I was a
little girl. I had grown up in a mixed Czech-Roma family, facing the normal-
ization2 of the 1980s as a part of the Czech underground resistance. My family
was keeping the flame of important moral and human values alive, not losing
their dignity, but feeding our courage and that of others to object to the dehu-
manizing Communist regime. Although I was a little girl, the underground cul-
ture that my family was part of had a great impact on me, especially the
momentum of the non-violent transition of power, when small communities of
individuals linked by a common cause, such as Charter 77,3 won over the
regime. The legacy of Vaclav Havel to empower individuals in even the most
oppressive of circumstances, to tap the “power of the powerless,” become a
crucial concept for me, as did the concept of “living within truth.”
The crux of this empowerment is the awareness that it is always the acquies-
cence of the individual members of any group of people – from a couple to a
government or state – that generates the power to be wielded by the group. This
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160 Jamen Gabriela Hrabaňová and Gwendolyn Albert
is true of states under authoritarian rule and it is true in democracies. Even in the
most oppressive regime, legitimacy remains the currency of power, and author-
itarian regimes that rule through fear seek conformity and the fake, forced
applause, or the ballots of the ruled, precisely because, in their heart of hearts,
they can feel they are illegitimate. Any and every act through which the pow-
erless rescind their acquiescence to the larger group is important, no matter how
small the group or how small the act. The measure of legitimacy is when such
action is authentically motivated – not the product of social pressure, but
undertaken freely and individually.
The people involved in Charter 77 tapped their inner freedom, the parts of
their hearts and minds that could never be controlled by anybody else, and used
that energy, in a disciplined and non-violent way, to speak the language of
human rights and to seek the return of Czechoslovakia to Europe. Geopolitical
circumstances created the opportunity, and suddenly those who had articulated
that principled stance found themselves bearing the authenticity and legitimacy
that is the currency of power. They began to attempt to exercise power in
democratic structures – despite most of them never having had any personal
experience of such arrangements – with varying degrees of success. This is
something that has always been part of my life: shouldering responsibilities,
speaking up for those who are oppressed – not to my own credit, but for the
good that I believe in. I have always had to take action somehow, to prove that I
am here – I have to act, to take the risk, even if there might be personal costs.
This personal tendency of mine was nourished not only by growing up under
communism and always seeing my family and others act like that, but also
because I was given all the freedom I needed to grow up and take on my own
responsibilities. Sometimes I was given more than I needed: as the older sister of
four, I was always there for my siblings, loving and caring for them.
The dissident ethos that arose from the underground is one that respects
individual freedom to rescind involvement at any time. One must never take
others’ contribution to or participation in any effort for granted. It is authentic
desire that confers legitimacy, not numbers or other superficial indicators. The
principles enshrined in international human rights language are considered to
exist at a higher level, to be universally true, and respect for human rights is not
something that can be forced. The truth of such principles must simply be
reiterated again and again until others authentically and freely resonate with
them. During the last 40 years, these principles have achieved resonance of
surprising proportions and have also been countered by efforts to dampen
them. The story of Romani women’s activism in the Czech Republic has
developed within this larger context.
The Roma Nation as Political Actors

Romani people were active participants during the changes of the 1989 civic
awakening. Two days after police attacked protesting students in Prague on
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Romani Women’s Activism in the Czech Republic 161
Narodni trida,4 a number of Romani men, such as Emil Ščuka, Jan Rusenko,
and Vojtech Ziga, established the preparatory committee for the political party
called Roma Civic Initiative (ROI). This initiative joined Vaclav Havel’s
Občanské fórum (Civic Forum, OF), which did not, however, profile itself as
an institution. While a number of political parties did arise from it, when its
moment had passed, OF was over. On November 21, 1989, ROI issued a
statement distributed in the form of flyers:
Romani brothers and sisters! Wake up! The day has come that our forebears
have waited many long years for. That day is here. The Romani people
living in this country can, for the first time, take their fate into their own
hands. Now it depends on us how we reach agreement among ourselves,
how we will stick together, and what we will do for our children. Let’s join
forces with people who are willing to listen to us. Those people are in the
Civic Forum (OF). OF recognizes the ROI. OF and ROI are standing for
all Romani people in our country. Let’s bring our Romani world to a better
life. Let’s not forget the truth spoken by our fathers: Give respect and you
shall receive it! – Signed by Emil Ščuka and Jan Rusenko.5
(Pečínka 2003)
This initiative resulted in the creation of a general recognition of the Romani

people and established the basis for Romani political activism in the Czech
Republic. After the June 1990 elections, eight ROI representatives (one non-
Roma and seven Roma) became part of the political representation, both in
the Federal Czechoslovak Parliament and in the national parliaments. Two of
them were women, and one of the women was a non-Roma representative
with a Romani life partner and connections to the community. To this day,
1990 remains the best result in terms of numbers that Romani people have ever
achieved when it comes to political representation at the national level. They
were part of the governing coalition and they could still tap into the euphoria
and hope of the minority they wanted to represent. (Pečínka 2003)
This electoral success was based on specific provisions for the small political
parties that were candidates on the larger Civic Forum candidate list. Con-
sidering the five percent threshold for election to Parliament, and the fact that
only approximately two percent of the population of the Czech Republic was
Romani, any political party based just on Romani ethnicity could never be
successful, and this was proved in the next elections in 1992, when the ROI
won no more than 0.26 percent of the ballots cast. The party thereby lost its
legitimacy.
By 1993, Czechoslovakia no longer existed, as a result of the ‘Velvet
Divorce,’ which created the two new countries of the Czech Republic and
Slovakia, a separation achieved non-violently even as Yugoslavia was embroiled
in its own, much more violent, disintegration. Complications arose dis-
proportionately for Romani people – many of whom had been born in
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Slovakia – in the form of the Czech law on citizenship, which did not grant
citizenship equally to all former Czechoslovak citizens.
Towards the end of the 1990s, Romani community trust in all civic and
political representatives began decreasing as violence and hatred against
Roma generally increased. Most Roma lost their trust in the mostly male,
Romani, self-proclaimed leaders, civil and political. It seemed nobody from
the next generation was going to attempt to take their place or try to do
things differently. Those Roma with the greatest potential for political
participation exercised their freedom of movement, rescinded their
acquiescence to the persecution they were experiencing as a community,
and moved to Canada, an exodus that was reminiscent in many ways of the
dissident emigrations fleeing persecution under communism. This exodus
was celebrated by antigypsyist members of Czech society, including politi-
cians. The next Roma member elected to the Czech Parliament (and at the
time of writing, the last) was Monika Horakova (today Mihalickova), who
was a candidate in 1998 for the Freedom Union party. She had not been
connected with the de-legitimized ROI, and remained an active politician
till 2002. By the time of her election, only a few Roma with the capacity
for activism remained in the Czech Republic, most of whom were not
moved to fight. Monika Horakova was different: her authenticity and
legitimacy were intact, and she really wanted to do things differently than
other Romani politicians had done. She built her work on intellectual concepts
and philosophies, not on exercising power within the Romani community
itself. While in office she managed to convince the Czech Trade Inspection
Authority to hire three Romani staffers, and made contributions to the adop-
tion of an amendment to education legislation that ended discrimination against
graduates of ‘special schools,’ which were disproportionately attended by
Roma. Before this amendment was passed, graduates of the ‘special schools’
were not allowed to continue on to higher education, in particular to uni-
versity. She also built up a network of Romani high school and university
students called Athinganoi. (Pecinka 2009)
Athinganoi, the Roma Students’ Initiative

The historical first meeting of Romani high school and university students in
the Czech Republic was attended by about 30 young people from all over the
country and was organized by Horakova at the Czech Parliament in 1998. It
was an enormously powerful experience. So many Romani people with great
potential were there, and I was there as well. Horakova accessed the contact list
for recipients of the Open Society Institute’s Roma Memorial Scholarship
Program in order to call the meeting. In fact, I was one of the first Romani
students who received this scholarship. I received it because my mother, who
was one of the first Romani teaching assistants in the Czech Republic, found
out about the opportunity and encouraged me to apply.
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Many of us were the only students of Romani origin at our schools, and we
could not find a place where we belonged. We were somewhere in between
the non-Romani and Romani worlds. At home, we are seen as those gadje,
who are becoming “too smart” and “too white” to be real Roma, and in
school we always remained “those Roma,” with the full background of pre-
judices attached to us, or we were seen as exceptions.
The meeting in Parliament was just the beginning. The “Summer Schools”
or ‘kocovani’ (travelling) organized by Horakova were the best exchanges and
source of empowerment for those young people. We created our new identity,
we were proud Roma, proud and educated Roma. As a result, in 1999, we
created a new organization called Athinganoi, a Roma student organization
aiming to bring together Romani students from high schools and universities to
work on breaking down the prejudice of the larger society, and to show that
Roma can also become teachers, lawyers, or whatever else. The organization
was also a clear signal to prove that there was a young Romani spirit in the
Czech Republic, a free group of Roma who were open to debating and pro-
posing solutions for the problems in their own lives, and who could do so
without being accused of corruption or running a ‘family business,’ character-
izations that applied to some members of the older generation, who had
thereby lost legitimacy. Athinganoi organized a series of meetings, trainings and
other activities for young people, and starting in 2001 also organized a regular
public celebration of International Roma Day (April 8). I started my engage-
ment there as a regular member, but later I become the chairwoman of the
Board and then also the Director.
Athanganoi’s main goal was to support Roma to go further with their edu-
cation, but one of its first projects in 2000 also showed how crucial political
participation was to its aims. The group organized another Young Roma Lea-
dership Program in 2001, perfectly designed for students to learn about the
subject from different perspectives. On each topic, non-Roma and Roma from
civil society, official institutions, experts, and politicians came to present their
views, an approach stemming from my experience of such exchanges during
my childhood in the dissident movement. In this way, the participants received
a full picture of the problem of leadership and understood what different peo-
ple’s agendas were. Each participant was also expected to do an internship
related to politics. Many decided to step into electoral politics, while others
used the knowledge in their daily work, mostly in civil society organizations all
over the country.
At the time, social work with Roma become popularized and professio-
nalized, often run by non-Roma organizations. Only those who had fin-
ished their university degrees could perform this work, according to new
state criteria. Many Roma were social workers prior to the new require-
ments, but after their adoption, those without the proper education were
considered unqualified and often worked as community workers, doing the
same job for less pay. Athinganoi was one of the few Roma-related
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organizations not delivering ‘services,’ although some Romani women

participants from the Political Training were also social workers, while
others were engaged in bigger organizations, mostly in the field of educa-
tion, and some were also teachers’ assistants. Generally, Roma civil society
in the Czech Republic was limited at the time to Roma cultural activities,
and Roma organizations were organizing dancing classes, after-school
informal education, and eventually local cultural festivals. This changed
with the Czech Republic’s accession to the European Union and the need
for professionalization of the sector in order to absorb the EU Social Funds
available for social work. That adjustment introduced fewer financial
opportunities for supporting activities for Roma empowerment and personal
development, which was the core of Athinganoi’s work, and the organiza-
tion eventually ceased to exist.
Beyond Institutional Politics – Local Political Engagement for

Change
Highly motivated after the Roma Political Leadership Program, I decided to
run for the Prague municipal elections in 2002. My ‘lucky’ number on the
candidate list of the European Democrats Party was ten. I was offered a spot
after my internship in the office of the Mayor of Prague, Jan Kasl. Although I
was not elected, running in the election was a great experience: being part of
the campaign, talking to people on the streets, and importantly, not being
presented by the party as a token Roma supporting ‘minority issues,’ but going
beyond that to discuss issues facing the entire population, and especially bring-
ing up the issues of young people. Above all, Jan Kasl was a person whom I
really trusted, and who wanted to bring about change for Romani people. He
was already experienced in local politics and his new political party brought
together many interesting people, including other Roma and non-Roma with
whom I had previously worked.
I also believe that Jan Kasl and his political party were not making just a
token reference to ‘the Roma issue’ in their programs, but they really talked
to people about their needs and recommendations, and they invited us –
Roma people – to become candidates or even party members. I also strongly
believe that Roma – and especially Roma women – must be more repre-
sented in national public life, including within the institutions that ostensibly
deal with ‘our’ issues. When I received the offer, I had to comply with my
own values and use the opportunity to challenge the often-used argument
that Roma are missing from politics because Roma educational attainment is
poor and they are, therefore, unprepared for jobs in the government (or in
NGOs). I wanted to prove and make the fact more visible that there are
many Roma women with higher education and the qualifications necessary
to work in higher positions in public life. Even though I did not win the
election, it remains very important to motivate Roma women to take an
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active role in developing their professional skills, and it is also necessary to

provide them with the background and training they need to serve as credible
candidates for elected office.
Basically, that was my main reason for running an interactive political train-
ing for Romani Women in 2006 as a project, financially supported by the
German Green Party’s foundation, the Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung, in order to
increase the involvement of Roma women in politics. I coordinated the project
together with Martina Horvathova from Manushe. During the political train-
ing, the participants made important personal contacts and developed useful
forms of cooperation, for example, with the “50% Forum,” which deals with
the promotion of women in Czech political life.
Three alumnae of that training ran as candidates in the municipal elections,
offering expertise to all political parties on solutions to Roma issues and voting
potential within the Roma population. Amálie Berkyová and Denisa Ber-
ousková ran for the SNK-ED party, and Amálie was elected. I also stood in the
elections for the Prague 5 precinct on the Green candidate list. Lucie Hor-
váthová became a member of the Green Party and led the candidate list in the
Pardubice Region; she remains a leading activist figure in the Czech Republic
with a great deal of experience working at the Government Council for Roma,
for the Czech Government’s EU Presidency, and in international organizations.
To sum up, Roma men and women have successfully run for local office in
the Czech Republic with single-digit results. Some have run on the tickets of
mainstream political parties, but only a few have become members of munici-
pal councils: in 1998 two Roma men, in 2002 three Roma men, in 2006
Roma five men and two Roma women, in 2010 three Roma men, and in
2014 four Roma men and one Roma woman (Pečínka 2009).
There is, however, a general lack of interest among both Czech and Roma
women in pursuing political careers. In the case of Romani women, there is
not much information available to them that might guide their interest. Gen-
erally, local Roma organizations do not have women who know English and
thus have access to information about possible personal development at the
international level.6 Further, the local political scene hardly connects to Roma
political development on the national level. Moreover, the Roma political
scene in the Czech Republic is resistant to generational change. The popular,
visible Romani candidates are still the same as those active from the 1990s,
mostly men around 50 years old. We also witness classic gender stereotypes that
also apply to the wider society, but when it comes to Roma candidates, the
stereotyping is even more visible. In general, younger candidates with educa-
tion, knowledge about their environments and regional policy, and with
experience in public life are taking up positions slowly; just a few exceptional
individuals. (Herakova 2014) Nevertheless, it is clear that the best way to
integrate Romani into society is to facilitate their participation in political life at
every level, as active citizens of the country, as voters, and as members of
political parties.
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Czech Government Strategy for Roma Inclusion

In 1997, the Czech Government adopted the comprehensive Report on the
Status of Roma in the Czech Republic, the so-called Bratinka Report (The
Government of the Czech Republic 1997). This marked the creation of a
proactive state policy for Roma integration and resulted in the adoption of
the first Roma Integration Concept, which reflected the increasing numbers
of violent attacks on Roma in the late 1990s that had resulted in the
migration of Roma to the West. The trend in the rise of antigypsyist sen-
timent in the Czech Republic at that time was clearly defined, not only by
the degradation of the Czech mainstream political spectrum, but also by the
growing material and psychological deprivation of Roma, their increasing
dependency on the social welfare system, and the increasing incidence of
Romani migration to the West, specifically to Canada.
From 1997 onwards, a noticeably positive growth in ideas, institutions, laws,
and state financing of programs and projects for Roma has been clearly
observed, as is the creation of specific support measures for Roma at the local
level. Measures to support the full inclusion of Romani people were designed,
but their implementation lagged, especially at the local level, where such
inclusion was rarely ensured by political support. One practical problem was
that the laws on self-administered territorial units did not define the content of
the tasks such units could lawfully undertake, which meant local governments
were able to devote different levels of attention to Roma minority issues
without any way to hold them accountable. This situation was exploited by a
number of municipalities to pay only marginal attention to Roma issues. Other
municipalities resorted to the use of repressive interventions against socially
excluded Roma – such as establishing police stations in Roma localities – rather
than focusing on preventive measures, such as the provision of social work.
How the International Romani Movement Impacted Activism

in the Czech Republic
The early 2000s involved new hope at the international level that Romani
people and other minorities would win over the prevailing discrimination
and hatred in society. The power of young people and decreasing support
for old leaders was in the air. This was escalated through an idea of George
Soros and James Wolferson (President of the World Bank) to organize a
Young Roma Leaders project. Recruited from ten countries in CEE, a
delegation of Young Roma Leaders represented each country and debated
the future, based on the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals.
The Soros Network was using its financial support to push the Roma to
move from working at the level of civil society projects to gaining a foot-
hold in electoral politics. Romani women had a place in this approach and
organized a whole conference day to the upcoming Decade of Roma
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Inclusion called ‘Roma in an Expanding Europe – Roma Women at the

Policy Table’ in 2003. Due to Romani women raising their voices, gender
become one of the Decade’s cross-cutting priorities.
In the Czech Republic, the delegation involved with this opportunity was
not particularly young,7 so even the name of the project caused some internal
tension t. At the time, I was also part of an international Roma Information
Project (RIP) run by the Advocacy Project.8 Its main aim was to increase the
information processing and communications capacity of leading Roma orga-
nizations through a team of information technology experts, so-called eRi-
ders. Because the eRiders were also playing a crucial role in exchanging
information across European borders, I had access, through participation at
international conferences and seminars, to information about best practices
and news from the international Roma Rights Movement. Sharing this
information further, I provided other Romani organizations with more
potential for developing their strategies and building the capacity of their
programs in order to access financial support from the European Union and
international donors.
The Decade of Roma Inclusion also brought fresh air into organizing civil
society, representing not just another international initiative, but political
commitment in particular. Support from the Open Society Institute–Roma
Initiatives Office allowed several NGOs to act almost like think tanks and
build, together with other partners, the so-called Decade Watch. There was an
opportunity for Roma NGOs to meet each other at large national meetings
which had a strictly human rights agenda. These were far from political nego-
tiations, but rather focused on exchanging good practices and reporting to the
Government about the situation on the ground and providing solutions for it.
The National Action Plans generated within this process did not bring about
visible results and often remained just on paper. In the Czech Republic, the
existence of such a plan pre-dated the Decade, but the lack of action on the
plan has persisted. It may take several more decades for the approach of the
authorities to change in this respect.
At this time, I was working very closely with Ivan Vesely from the Dzeno
organization in the Czech Republic; he had personal political ambitions, but
also strongly believed in engaging on the civic level. The intergenerational
work with Ivan was challenging and at the same time enriching for me. Initi-
ally, I had to prove my professionality and skills to him, but as I was able to
contextualize internationally what was happening in the Czech Republic for
Dzeno, I proved to be a good ally for him. On the other hand, Ivan was able
to put me in contact with Romani community members who trusted him. At
that time, Athinganoi was still active and producing the magazine Jehketane
(Together) as part of the Decade of Roma Inclusion, and for two years,
Athinganoi and Dzeno organized a number of regional and national meetings
where information was shared and recommendations collected for the Decade
process. We also set up our think tank to more deeply analyze and promote
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our policy concepts. I had a great opportunity to participate in the Roma

Diplomacy program organized in 2006 by Valeriu Nicolae, developing my first
paper on antigypsyism there, and organizing a hearing at the European Parlia-
ment as part of my internship in the Diplo program.
My engagement at the policy level led to my being invited to become a civil
society member of an advisory body to the Czech Government, the Inter-
Ministerial Commission on Romani Community Affairs (Roma Council), and
later an employee of the Office of the Government. At that time, not many
Romani people were putting strategic recommendations on the table, either
ones fitting the existing strategies or breaking ground for new ones. Once those
people appear, they are wanted by the system, and because we are calling for
Roma participation, we need to take our role seriously and be part of creating
these strategies as well as politically supporting them.
Ten Common Basic Principles: EU Getting More Serious

When it Comes to Roma
When I was hired to work for the Roma Office at the Czech Government,
one of my tasks was to organize Roma-related activities under the Czech
Presidency of the European Union in 2009. There was an increasing need for
the European Union to play a role with respect to Roma in the light of
accommodating the newly-accessing countries, increased migration among
EU Member States, and especially the need to build on initiatives like the
Decade of Roma Inclusion. At that time, the European Commission was
already showing increased activity in the field of Romani inclusion, thanks to
the influence of “the effective and targeted civil society advocacy by the EU
Roma Policy Coalition and others, combined with prompting from govern-
ments participating in the Decade of Roma Inclusion.” (Rorke 2009)
The pro-active position of the European Commission was proven through
the organization of the first-ever EU Roma Summit in 2008, where Com-
mission President Barroso declared that “the Commission strongly rejects any
stigmatization of Roma. In the European Union every man, woman and child
has the right to live a life free from discrimination and persecution. This is an
issue of European and universal values, as well as an issue of fairness, social
solidarity and democracy.” (Barroso 2008) This was ground for the Czech EU
Presidency to build on. Since I had broad knowledge on the actors in the field,
I organized a meeting of them in Prague to analyze the current situation, draw
conclusions, and make recommendations. About 25 people laid the foundations
for what became today’s EU Roma Platform and the “10 Common Basic
Principles for Roma Inclusion.” The exciting work began with the great sup-
port of Employment Commissioner Spidla, who was of Czech origin and had a
great human rights and Roma supporter in his cabinet, Jan Jarab.
The establishment of the integrated EU Roma Platform marked an unpre-
cedented effort to grapple with Roma issues at the European level. Its first
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meeting was organized during the Czech Presidency to the EU in Prague in

April 2009 and aimed for the successful implementation of Roma inclusion
policies, as well finding solutions to align them with mainstream policies
on education, employment, social inclusion, public health, and infrastructure.
The “10 Common Basic Principles on Roma Inclusion” was the main out-
come of the meeting, and those principles were annexed to the Council of the
European Union’s Conclusions on Inclusion of Roma in June 2009 at the
Employment, Social Policy, Health, and Consumer Affairs (EPSCO) meeting.
It had not been generally anticipated that the Czech EU Presidency would
play such a role in the inclusion of Roma in the EU. At the time, none of the
international parties involved was actually taking their commitments to Roma
inclusion seriously, and the Council of the EU’s Conclusions from December
2008 never mentioned a specific role for the EU Presidency in this area.
Nonetheless, through my expertise, the government of the Czech Republic
took a proactive approach. The Czech Government Office of the Council for
Roma Community Affairs had my knowledge of the international scene, the
issues and the players. This created a great opportunity to use the special posi-
tion of the Czech EU Presidency to negotiate serious outcomes.
It was due to all those factors discussed above that the Czech Republic suc-
ceeded in presenting the EPSCO Conclusions and, together with the European
Commission, opened a pathway toward Roma integration policy design at the
broader European level. The fact that Roma live in almost all EU Member
States makes Romani activists eventually seek support at the international level,
and in particular at the level of the EU. This was part of the motivation of the
Czech Government Office for the Council for Romani Affairs. It was believed
that the EU could play a significant role in backing national proposals, espe-
cially if they were in line with those on the EU stage. Obviously, the Common
Basic Principles accompanying the EPSCO conclusions were derived from the
main ideological approach taken toward the integration of Roma in the Czech
Republic at the time.
Specifically Romani Women’s Activism in the Czech

Republic: Manushe
The Romani women’s group Manushe, established in 2000, deserves special
focus in the history of Roma activism in the Czech Republic. It was convened
by Marta Hudeckova, a Romani woman from Brno who also participated in
developing Athinganoi. Today, Manushe is a group of about 200 mostly female
members around the country. Its organizational program targets mainly educa-
tion, emancipation, and increasing the self-esteem of its members. The NGO
Slovo 21 is a support organization for Manushe, which is an informal women’s
group. When I was part of its Roma Information Project, I was focusing on
strengthening the local offices of Manushe and training the women in com-
puter skills so they could work in NGOs or further build their political careers.
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Manushe does a great job of organizing Romani women across three genera-
tions to exchange their experiences and views on life. Martina Horvathova is
another important leader in Manushe. Due to her initiative, Manushe has
developed a number of very interesting projects; together with her, we (as part
of Athinganoi) organized the above-mentioned political trainings for Romani
women, and she followed those up with the production of a documentary film
about Romani women in politics called “ŽENYvPOLI” (“Women in the
Field”), and a very successful music video by young Romani rappers, “Nebuď
dilino!”9 (Slovo 21, 2013), which encouraged Romani parents not to enroll
their children into the segregated ‘practical primary schools’ designed to offer
limited curricula for children with ‘mild mental disability.’ Manushe also
represents Romani women as part of the Czech Women’s Lobby, the Eur-
opean Women’s Lobby, and Phenjalipe, the Romani women’s group sup-
ported by the Council of Europe.
Romani Women’s Activism Seeking Redress for Forced

Sterilizations
During the 20th century in Czechoslovakia and into the 21st century in both
the Czech Republic and Slovakia, human rights have been extremely infringed
in health care settings and in the name of public health in numerous ways. The
coerced, forced, and involuntary sterilization of Romani women is the main
example of this.10 During communism, Czechoslovak social workers were
legally able to offer financial inducements to women to undergo sterilization, a
policy that ended shortly after the 1989 transition. Both before and after 1989,
health care providers also forcibly sterilized Romani women on an ad hoc,
opportunistic basis while providing them other obstetrical or gynaecological
services. While the official policy to incentivize sterilization ended in 1991,
there have also been reports of social workers coercing Romani women into
sterilization through threats, even after the official policy to promote steriliza-
tion was rescinded.
The first advocacy against these abuses was undertaken by the Czecho-
slovak dissident movement. In 1978, the Charter 77 group published its
Document 23 on the situation of ‘Gypsies,’ which reported in part that
Romani women’s consent to sterilization was being obtained by ‘suspicious’
means, while also noting that the job performance of some municipal social
workers was being judged according to how many Romani women they
coerced into sterilization. “If the constant failures of this policy will not lead
to a re-evaluation of the whole concept of how to integrate, the Czecho-
slovak institutions will soon have to answer charges that they are commit-
ting genocide…” said Document 23. (Ibid., 44)
Since 1989, at least 300 Romani women have complained to various
authorities, including the courts, that doctors coercively or forcibly sterilized
them. (Cahn 2013, 44) By 1993, when the division of Czechoslovakia
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occurred, the preponderance of the evidence was that both a general eugenic
motivation – attempting to promote the birth of as few disabled children as
possible – and a racist eugenic motivation in the case of the Roma specifically
had fueled the targeting of those two populations, persons living with dis-
abilities and Roma, for coerced, forced, or involuntary sterilization (Ibid., 47).
The first lawsuits over forced sterilizations were filed at this time, with varying
success (Ibid., 78). The public discussion of these abuses in the 21st century has
involved the Romani women survivors of such abuses speaking out about them
locally, nationally, and internationally.
In 2003, the European Roma Rights Centre (ERRC), an international
human rights organization, approached Czech human rights authorities about
the issue. (Ibid., 59) The Ombudsman asked the Health Ministry to set up
an expert commission to review the medical records of the persons com-
plaining of such treatment. (Ibid., 61) The Ombudsman published its Final
Statement on the matter in 200511 (Motejl 2005), presenting the Ministry’s
analysis of each case, side-by-side with the Ombudsman’s analysis. In most
cases, the Ombudsman found that the Ministry’s analysis of the information
was legally incorrect; in other words, the Ministry saw valid consent where
the Ombudsman said the consent was invalid, and the procedures were
therefore illegal. All the complaints did constitute either coerced or forced
sterilization in the Ombudsman’s view (Cahn 2013, 70).
In 2006, Elena Gorolová, a Romani survivor of forced sterilization, was
accompanied by Gwendolyn Albert as her interpreter to the regular periodic
review of the Czech Republic before the UN Committee on the Elimination
of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), the beginning of an activist
collaboration that has continued to this day and has involved Ms. Gorolová
testifying to the Council of Europe, the OSCE-ODIHR (most recently in
2012 with my assistance), other United Nations gatherings, and many other
women’s gatherings, most of them abroad. In 2006, CEDAW noted the
Ombudsman’s Final Statement and recommended the state take “urgent
action” to compensate the victims (United Nations Digital Library 2006).12
In addition to the international work, this was the start of important activism
domestically within the Czech Republic by the Romani women survivors of
forced sterilization demanding justice, who simultaneously demonstrated out-
side a hospital where many of the abuses had occurred in Ostrava, while Ms.
Gorolova was in New York and received a great deal of domestic media
attention. Many of the most vocal of these survivors are women who are
unable to sue and who are relying upon their government for redress. In gen-
eral, however, it has been extremely difficult for them to drum up any kind of
domestic public support, including among other Romani women and other
women in general.
In November 2009, the Czech Government adopted a resolution expressing
regret “over the instances of errors found to have occurred in the performance
of sterilizations,” and committing to prevent their recurrence. This was a
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personal effort by the Minister for Human Rights to propose expressing regret
as a first move, with the idea that other steps by the Government would then
follow, including compensation.
In 2012, the Czech Government Human Rights Council, an advisory
body, recommended a comprehensive remedy mechanism be established for
“all female victims of these practices.” In 2013, the Czech Helsinki Com-
mittee convened a roundtable workshop including the Czech Government
Human Rights Commissioner and a representative of the Office of the UN
High Commissioner for Human Rights to discuss drafting the law through
which such a mechanism would be enacted.13 Its draft law was submitted to
the Czech Government Human Rights Minister, whose team used it as the
basis for the Minister’s own version of the law, which was submitted to the
Government in 2015. The Government rejected the proposal, claiming that
it believes even those whose cases are statute-barred should pursue com-
pensation through litigation only. The Czech Prime Minister engaged in an
exchange of letters with the Commissioner of Human Rights of the
Council of Europe on the issue. The fight for unconditionally compensat-
ing women for forced sterilization continues.
Seeking justice for herself and others has been extremely empowering for
Elena Gorolová personally. Her activism has inspired her to complete her
education, to work for NGOs both internationally and locally, and to prepare
to formally establish her own NGO to address Romani women’s health issues.
In 2013, she also ran for Parliament as a member of the Equal Opportunities
Party on the Green Party candidate list. While she was not elected, she and
other Romani candidates did receive some preferential votes on that ticket: she
received the third-highest preferential vote tally, 131 out of a total of 1,370
preferential votes cast for the seven EOP members on the list (Ryšavý 2013).
Romani Women’s Activism in Implementing the D.H.

Judgment
In 2007, the European Court of Human Rights (EctHR) found that the
Czech Republic had indirectly discriminated against Romani children in their
access to education in the matter of D.H. and Others vs. The Czech Republic.
Gwendolyn Albert organized a round table of Romani NGOs in 2007 in
Prague to push for NGO action to implement the judgment. The first to rise
to the challenge was the Romani human rights activist Edita Stejskalová and
her colleagues in the organization Z§vu°le práva, who organized the ‘Toge-
ther to School’ coalition. For about four years, various stakeholders pushed
for desegregation through that platform.
Several official efforts now underway are largely due to this NGO work,
namely the increased activity of the Czech School Inspectorate in reviewing
ethnic discrimination in schools, and the collection of ‘qualified estimates’ of
Romani children in compulsory education to track ethnic segregation in Czech
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education. The societal backlash against desegregation and inclusive education

has been intense, however, and there is justified criticism of the education
sector as insufficiently prepared to manage diversity in the schools. Romani
children remain overrepresented in instruction for children considered disabled.
Edita Stejskalová continued this work with Magdalena Karvayová, Miroslav
Klempar, and Jolana Šmarhovyčová, as a fellow of the Open Society Founda-
tions, helping local Romani parents in Ostrava to desegregate education there
by exercising their rights to enroll their children in the primary schools of their
choice, effectively boycotting several schools that had previously been all or
mostly Romani. She also encouraged Romani children to come forward and
share their stories of bullying and harassment in the schools, not just at the
hands of their non-Romani classmates, but at the hands of non-Romani edu-
cators and even non-Romani parents, creating a video of their testimonies for
dissemination online.
Reaching Out to the Roma Grassroots of Europe

My next stop was Brussels and the European Roma Grassroots Organizations
network, which builds on active citizenship, shared responsibility, and grass-
roots empowerment. ERGO Network members aim to convince policy
makers that positive change for Roma is possible when antigypsyism is recog-
nized and tackled as the root cause of the inequality they face, and when the
preconditions are in place for Roma to take part in civic life as equal stake-
holders.14 Working in ERGO gives me the opportunity to return to my own
roots, to support Romani actors in more than 20 countries in Europe working
from below. Their work is very often not based on political aspirations, but
rather inspired by the possibility to make a change in the environment where
they live. “Roma have to become agents of their own lives” is the statement
that lies behind the work of ERGO.
Two ERGO projects, Young Roma Civic Journalists and Young Roma
Civic Advocates, have enabled Roma to participate in various low-threshold
advocacy events where the Roma themselves take initiative and ownership.
The youngsters learned about core values like intercultural dialogue, and
tolerance and mutual understanding between Roma and non-Roma and
then formulated concrete advocacy plans based on local test cases. In the
Czech Republic, Ivanka Mariposa Conkova, a participant of the project
gained support through an organization called Konexe as well as through
her individual initiatives. Konexe lead the “We Blockade” initiative, a
response to the violence spreading in the Czech Republic in the form of
open anti-Roma demonstrations by neo-Nazis and local non-Roma. Des-
pair about the effects of the economic crisis led to the scapegoating of
Roma as ‘deviant’ citizens. Extremist groups expressed their anti-Roma
sentiment openly during demonstrations and events. Ostrava was one of the
roughest towns of all when it came to the aggression of the extreme right
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at demonstrations. ERGO member Konexe reacted to the demonstrations

with a number of events, such as interactive workshops with children and
cultural assemblies featuring music performances and exhibitions. Ivanka
strongly believed that the energy of these situations has to be transformed.
She helped to create an oasis where non-Roma and Roma could declare
that we can all live together joyfully and without fear. The major source of
strength of this Czech movement against antigypsyism shall be seen in its
community work and the activation of local Romani communities. Advo-
cates would travel to the Romani community one or two days in advance
of an event and actively discuss the possible options for demonstration and
the protection of local residents. Roma communities are involved in hand-
ling or preventing crisis situations. This approach is unique and largely dif-
fers from that of the authorities or established organizations in the field,
such as the Czech Government Agency for Social Inclusion or the NGO
People in Need. These actors would encourage Roma people to stay at
home for their own safety during these antigypsyist events. Only those
working very closely with the Roma trapped in such situations could assess
the effect of the isolation and increased fear resulting from this aggression
and its negative influences on the Romani children who saw their teachers,
shopkeepers, and neighbors throwing stones at their houses.
Through ERGO, investment in Romani civil society capacity remained my
priority. The EU Roma Platform was reformed with greater participation of
Roma in the process. We use the Participatory Leadership Method during the
meetings, which scales up from the personal to the systemic using personal
practice, dialogue, facilitation, and co-creation. This method yields to more effi-
cient and effective capacity building, and greater abilities to quickly respond to
opportunities, challenges, and changes (Art of Hosting 2017). This has become a
major source of inspiration in the ERGO Network. Now we are successfully
using it during ERGO’s Annual Members Meeting and Summer Academy. I am
also motivating our members to use this method in their further networking and
outreach work on the ground, especially in building their cooperation with other
Roma and pro-Roma civil society organizations when building coalitions and
reaching out to the grassroots. ERGO plays an important role in breaking
ground for such cooperation, and I am grateful that now, as Director of the
ERGO Network, I can put all my beliefs about activism into motion.
Conclusion
In 2011, the anthropologist Natasha Beranek published an ethnography of two
Czech Romani women (Beranek 2011) that provides a very fine-grained ana-
lysis of their world view. For both, the personal investment of energy into their
children was found to be a crucial avenue for their personal agency, and the
primacy of the family as a concept in Romani social life, past and present,
emerges from Beranek’s interviews.
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Today, it is no exaggeration to say that if a Romani woman is genuinely free

to invest energy in her children, it is a victory in and of itself. At this particular
juncture, a great deal of Romani potential in the Czech Republic is not just
going ‘untapped,’ it is being thwarted by the exploitation that has accompanied
the creation of poverty in the Czech economy. The social supports available to
help parents have enough energy to invest into their children are at risk, as are
basic human rights. Many Romani children in Czech society have been raised,
during both the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, in institutions instead of
in families, rejected even as candidates for adoption or foster care. The psy-
chological impact of this on the Romani community has been and still is
profound.
While we have said that this chapter is about ‘untapped’ potential, it is clear
that in the Czech case, some of the strongest Romani civil society actors,
including those who have participated in formal political representation, have
in fact been women. Their approach to creating opportunities for change and
cultivating talent has been a nurturing one of collaboration and cooperation,
derived from the non-violent tactics that ultimately made the peaceful transi-
tion of power in 1989 and 1993 possible. Those tactics are an authentic, free
association, where each individual acts in his or her own time, according to his
or her own rhythm, and sometimes in concert. It is the creation, in the land-
scape of political action, of temporary homes where the like-minded can dream
together.
All the Romani aunties, daughters-in-law, grandmothers, and mothers who
are determined to nurture Romani children during their journeys of unne-
cessarily harsh socialization into the societies around them deserve our
acknowledgement and respect. It is our dream that this cherished feeling of
belonging, of being at home, and at peace, will one day be experienced by
everybody in the world.
Notes
1 “Bez pravdivého odhalení závažnosti problému, bez zásadní právní úpravy a bez skutečné
účasti Romu° samých na rozhodování o věcech, které se jich týkají, jsou pokusy o řešení romské
otázky u nás iluzorní. Tato otázka není pouze otázkou menšinovou, ekonomickou nebo
sociální, ale čím dál více se stává otázkou svědomí celé společnosti.”
2 In Czechoslovak history, “normalization” is the term used for the time between
1969 and 1987 when the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia tightened its grip on
power in the wake of the Warsaw Pact invasion of August 1968.
3 The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights was ratified by Czecho-
slovakia in 1975 and seized upon by the dissident movement as a legitimate tool to
monitor adherence to those human rights commitments and seek political change.
The Charter 77 organization was created as a result.
4 November 17, 1989, now the Czech state holiday called “Struggle for Freedom and
Democracy Day.” Co-author Gwendolyn Albert was a visiting Fulbright student
who attended that demonstration and participated in the Velvet Revolution as part
of the translation team for Civic Forum.
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5 “Bratři a sestry Romové! Probuďte se! Přišel den, na který naši předkové dlouhé roky čekali.
Ten den je zde. Romové, kteří žijí v této zemi, mohou poprvé vzít svu°j osud do vlastních
rukou. Teď záleží na nás, jak se dohodneme, jak budeme držet spolu a co uděláme pro naše
děti. Spojme se s lidmi, kteří jsou ochotni nám naslouchat. Jedná se o Občanské fórum. OF
uznává ROI. OF a ROI stojí za všemi Romy v naší zemi. Přiveďme naše romství k lep-
šímu životu. Nezapomeňme pravdu našich otcu°: Dej úctu a úcty se ti dostane!”
6 Many Romani people have emigrated to English-speaking countries such as
Canada, Ireland, and the United Kingdom, but even though communications and
travel between those countries and the Czech Republic is easier today than it has
ever been, emigres tend to focus on their new lives elsewhere and not to foster ties
with communities back home.
7 The Decade delegation for the Czech Republic was: Jamen Gabriela Hrabanova
(born 1979), Emilie Zigova (born 1980), the more senior Romani community
members Bozena Danihelova, Ivan Vesely, Marta Hudeckova, and Iveta Demeter-
ova, and Jarmila Balazova as a journalist.
8 The Advocacy Project was formed in 1998 to serve the needs of civil society, par-
ticularly community-based advocates for peace and human rights. It helps new
networks become self-sufficient in the use of information and communications
technologies. For more information see: www.advocacynet.org.
9 “Don’t be dilino!” which is the Romanes language term for “stupid” in the dialect
spoken in the Czech Republic.
10 The World Health Organization and other international expert bodies have con-
cluded that the elective and permanent nature of contraceptive sterilization means the
decision to undergo it should be made by a woman voluntarily, based on her
informed choice, and without her being subjected to duress. Coerced sterilization
involves pressure by a third party to induce someone to consent to undergoing ster-
ilization, either in exchange for some kind of benefit, or in response to a threat.
Forced sterilization involves performing sterilization without even seeking the
woman’s consent. Involuntary sterilization involves consent to sterilization being given
by a third party due to a patient’s legal incapacity and is also unethical. Laws that
permit any of these circumstances to arise open the door to human rights abuses.
11 One complaint was brought by a man who said he had been sterilized against his will
in 1998 and that his wife, now deceased, had also been sterilized against her will.
12 The author was involved in drafting and orally presenting information on this issue
to the Committee. The Convention itself was drafted in the 1970s at a time when
reports of coercive, forced, and involuntary sterilization were arising worldwide.
CEDAW’s General Recommendation 24, adopted in 1999, includes provisions
against coercive measures, including sterilization. The coercive sterilization of a
Romani woman in Hungary was examined under the Optional Protocol to the
Convention in 2008 (A. Sz. v. Hungary).
13 Gwendolyn Albert was involved in these efforts and present. Claude Cahn was the
OHCHR representative.
14 www.ergonetwork.org
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9781138485099_text.3d;

Chapter 8
Roma Gender Politics in Hungary

and Feminist Alliances in
Practice
Lídia Balogh
The objective of this chapter is to map the instances of cooperation

between civil society actors relevant to Roma women’s rights in Hungary,
and to provide the context to these initiatives, using the concept of political
intersectionality as an analytical tool; the purpose is to identify the conflict
zones and points of connection. The underlying idea is that “feminism and
alliances with non-Romani feminists have been proven as useful for all
Roma” (Jovanović, Kóczé, and Balogh 2015, 16), whether the alliance
means long-term cooperation or just an initiative in the name of “strategic
sisterhood” (Nyhagen Predelli and Halsaa 2012), that is, a coordinated
action addressing a specific women’s rights issue.
The author of the chapter gained insight into the women’s movements in
Hungary and elsewhere not just as a researcher, but also through practical and
strategic work with numerous women’s and human rights organizations on
both national and European levels, in various positions. The amount of avail-
able research results or any kind of written sources on the history of the Roma
women’s movement in Hungary is limited, thus the author decided to include
her own undocumented experiences in order to fill some gaps, and to draw a
more complete picture of the topic. For the same reasons, the chapter focuses
on the last decade, given that the author has been involved in Hungarian civil
society and social movements from the mid-2000s.
Theoretical Framework
Before turning to the analysis of Roma gender politics in Hungary, a closer look
should be taken at a plausible analytical tool, that is, the concept of intersectionality.
This concept (and term) is attributed to Kimberlé Crenshaw (Crenshaw 1995),
who elaborated it in the context of Black Feminism in the US. According to
Crenshaw, intersectionality may be manifested as “structural intersectionality,”
whereby some people’s situation is defined by a trap of the interplay between dif-
ferent factors (disadvantages); while the other significant manifestation is “political
intersectionality,” when the voice of those affected by intersectionality is muted by
the conflicting interests of different political movements.
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Contentious Roma Gender Politics in Hungary 179
The concept of intersectionality has been used with regards to European

phenomena from the early 2000s (Yuval-Davis 2006; Verloo 2006); more
specifically, it has been applied to Roma equality issues as well (Oprea 2005),
both by scholars and human rights activists. It should be noted, however, that
Roma ethnicity correlates significantly with social exclusion in many European
countries, and while it is by and large agreed that while Crenshaw’s model is
able to accommodate issues including aspects of poverty and socio-economic
disadvantages, her framework serves principally to aid the understanding of the
intersection of gender and race/ethnicity.
The ‘classic’ example of the phenomenon of structural intersectionality
affecting Roma women in the Central and Eastern European (CEE) region is
forced sterilization (Curran 2016): it only ‘happens’ to Roma women, but not
to non-Roma women or Roma men. As for political intersectionality, the
tensions between the interests of the mainstream/mono-focal feminist move-
ments and the mainstream/mono-focal Roma rights movements should be
taken into account: “Romani feminists grapple with the dual task of criticizing
internal patriarchal structures while trying to avoid reinforcing negative stereo-
types about the community” (Oprea 2009, 21).
Apparently, there would be still space to extend the use of inter-
sectionality as a critical concept. Kóczé’s analysis from 2009, entitled
“Missing intersectionality,” reveals that with regards to Roma women’s
issues, intersectionality is largely overlooked in the research and policy
agendas (Kóczé 2009). Six years later, Jovanović and Daróczi, in their paper
“Still Missing Intersectionality,” claim that: “[If] Romani political actors do
not employ a stronger and more inclusive discourse on intersectionality (and
not only including gender and ethnicity in the story), Romani political dis-
course is in danger of continuing to produce misunderstandings among
people who in fact have the same goals” (Jovanović and Daróczi 2015, 82).
Vincze calls on leftist feminists to introduce class among the factors of
intersectionality, in order to demolish the boundaries between the Roma
and non-Roma women’s movements, and to join forces to fight for social
justice (Vincze 2014).
Background: Roma in Hungary
Demographic Context
The estimated number of Roma in Hungary is 750,000 (Council of Europe
2012), however, the last population census in Hungary, in 2011, showed only
308,957 Roma people, according to the self-declaration concerning ethnic
affiliation. The Roma population is significantly younger in comparison to the
overall Hungarian population, due to lower life expectancy (the average life
expectancy of a Roma is approximately ten years lower than the mainstream
average, owing to health problems closely related to low socioeconomic status),
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180 Lídia Balogh
as well as the fertility rates of Roma being higher than those of the general
population in Hungary (Kemény 2004). Compared to the current ratio of the
Roma population in general, the proportion of Roma children is significantly
higher: while in the mid-1960s, six percent of newborn babies in Hungary
were of Roma origin, this proportion increased to ten percent in the 1990s
and, according to reliable estimates, in 2002, the share of Roma among all
newborns in Hungary was 15 percent (Kemény and Janky 2005).
In present-day Hungary, primarily two groups face the risk of – or
already live in – poverty: the elderly (those without relatives or significant
social networks), and the Roma, independent of age. Indeed, ethnicity plays
a crucial role in perpetuating poverty in Hungary, as Roma are heavily
over-represented among poor people, and a significant proportion of poor
Roma families, especially large families with young children, are living in
deep, multidimensional poverty.
Hostility Towards Roma Women in Mainstream Society

The relatively high fertility rates of Roma women are usually interpreted by
Hungarian mainstream society as a ‘strategy.’ Márta Gyenei, a social science
researcher, was the first to use the term ‘strategic child’ (a child presumed born
to contribute to the income of his/her family through child-specific welfare
benefits) in the 1990s, when examining the economic survival strategies of
poor Roma and non-Roma families affected by chronic unemployment. When
Gyenei published a column in one of the leading Hungarian daily newspapers
about her research results and conclusions (Gyenei 1998), her approach stirred
some critical reactions from fellow social scientists. One critic claimed that the
way Gyenei spoke about the “alleged ‘strategic child’ phenomenon” was
“somewhat simplifying and open to misinterpretation” (Janky 2005). However,
the term has survived in political rhetoric, and moreover, when it comes to
Roma, anti-Roma extremists tend to use the term “offensive” instead of
“strategic,” as they interpret high fertility rates as an ambitious project of the
Roma minority to outnumber ‘Hungarians’ in Hungary.
In a number of European countries, involuntary/forced sterilization was used
as a (supposedly systematic) tool to control Roma women’s fertility during the
second half of the twentieth century, and even in the 2000s. In Hungary, sev-
eral human rights NGOs initiated strategic litigation regarding this issue. In
2006, the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination
against Women (UN CEDAW Committee) found that the Hungarian gov-
ernment had violated the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of
Discrimination against Women in a case concerning the sterilization of a Roma
woman, Ms. A.S., in the absence of her fully informed consent (UN CEDAW
Committee 2006). Eventually, the Hungarian government paid financial com-
pensation to the victim in 2009 (ERRC 2009). However, according to the
assessment of human rights organizations (the Hungarian Women’s Lobby, and
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European Roma Rights Centre 2013), Hungary has failed to fully implement
the recommendations provided by the CEDAW Committee’s decision from
2016: the legal provisions regulating sterilization still do not comply with
international standards (ERRC 2011).
The fertility of Roma women was again at the center of an infamous case
from 2009, when at a local council meeting of Edelény (North-Eastern Hun-
gary, in Borsod-Abaúj-Zemplén County), the town’s mayor, Oszkár Molnár,
made the following statement:
[I]n the neighboring settlements, in settlements with a Gypsy majority,

for instance in Lak, for instance in Szendrőlád, pregnant Roma women
take medication so that they give birth to demented children, so that
they would be entitled to increased family allowance. Women during
their pregnancy – I looked into this and it is true – keep hitting their
bellies with rubber hammers so that they give birth to disabled
children.
(Kádár 2011, 1)
The Equal Treatment Authority established that the mayor’s statement

amounted to harassment under the Equal Treatment Act. The mayor filed
for a judicial review, but the Metropolitan Court upheld the Authority’s
decision; the mayor then filed for review by the Supreme Court. Even-
tually, in its 2011 decision, the Supreme Court quashed the decisions by the
Equal Treatment Authority and the Metropolitan Court, and terminated the
case (Kádár 2011).
In January 2017 the Hungarian Equal Treatment Authority published its
decision (No. EBH 349/2016), ruling in favor of a Roma woman who was
harassed by medical staff while giving birth in the Borsod-Abaúj-Zemplén
County Hospital, in the city of Miskolc (Balogh 2017). The complainant,
who was alone (unaccompanied by a family member or relative) in the
labor room when she gave birth to her second child in February 2016,
claimed that she was subjected to verbal harassment and racist remarks,
including “you Gypsies give birth only for the money!” The complainant
brought the case to the local office of the Equal Treatment Authority on
her own; she was provided with an attorney by the European Roma Rights
Centre (ERRC) only later, before the first hearing in her case. The ERRC
press release referred to its recent field research findings, claiming that “this
is not a one-off story. There have been several other cases of similar abuses
of the reproductive rights and dignity of Romani women not only in
Hungary, but throughout the region” (ERRC 2017). As for the purpose of
this kind of mistreatment, it may be understood as a way to discourage
Roma women from giving birth again: a contemporary and milder attempt
to limit Roma women’s fertility, compared with the (supposedly dis-
appearing) practice of forced sterilization.
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182 Lídia Balogh
Governmental Initiatives Towards Roma Women

As an EU Member State, and under the Framework Strategy for National
Roma Integration Strategies, Hungary is obliged to promote the situation of the
Roma with comprehensive social inclusion measures. The situation analysis
chapter of the Hungarian Social Inclusion Strategy, considered to be the national
Roma integration strategy (both the first version by the Ministry of Public
Administration and Justice 2011, and the updated version by the Ministry of
Human Resources 2014), includes a detailed analysis of the disadvantageous
situation of Roma women and girls regarding education, Roma women’s access
to labor market, and the health status of Roma women.
Within the framework of this National Strategy, the first high-profile mea-
sure targeting Roma women was a training and labor market integration pro-
gram, implemented in cooperation by the National Roma Self-Government1
in 2012–2015, with the title “Growing Opportunity! – Training Program for
1,000 Roma Women in the Fields of Social Services and Health Care.” The
direct target group were Roma women who were seeking employment, while
facing disadvantages in the labor market because of the lack of up-to-date,
marketable vocational training. According to the concept of the program, the
participants would serve as bridges between social service providers and thou-
sands of marginalized families, in order to build mutual trust and better coop-
eration. As for the visibility of the program, numerous local media outlets
reported on the recruiting event throughout the country, and news about the
program were frequently published on governmental websites. One of the
articles, published on a governmental agency’s site, cited a senior (male) repre-
sentatives of the National Roma Self-Government, who explicitly welcomed
the initiative from its gender equality aspect: “traditionally, only boys were
provided with education in Roma communities. Now women have training
opportunities” (TKKI 2013).
In June 2016, an international conference was held in the Palace of Arts
concert hall in Budapest, organized and funded by the Hungarian government,
to celebrate the fifth anniversary of EU’s Framework Strategy for Roma
Inclusion, launched under Hungary’s EU presidency in 2011, and promoted by
a Hungarian MEP, Lívia Járóka, a Roma woman herself who was present and
served as one of the keynote speakers at the conference. One of the most visible
features of this (apparently expensive) event was the presence of two Roma
women’s social enterprises: the outfit and accessories of the hostesses and hosts
were provided by the Romani Design fashion company (run by two sisters; the
style of their products is based on traditional Roma folk costume elements and
ornaments); moreover, the catering was partly provided by Romani Gastro (run
by two young Roma women; based on the concept of reinterpreting the tradi-
tions of Roma cuisine). These arrangements gave the impression that, at least on
the surface, Roma women’s contribution is highly celebrated by the Hungarian
government, while this high-profile event was shadowed by ongoing scandals
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concerning alleged corruption, fraud, and misuse of huge amounts of EU money

for Roma inclusion in Hungary. As for the impact of the promotion of some
Roma women’s initiatives by the government, this may be seen as a benevolent
attempt by the government to enhance the image of the Roma in the eyes of
the mainstream society. In general, recognition (Fraser 1995) is a vital element of
successful social inclusion strategies, but not without a strong focus at the same
time on redistribution aspects, not to mention an honest commitment to human
rights, including women’s rights.
Recent Initiatives by Civil Society in the Field of Roma

Women’s Issues
Roma Women’s NGOs in Hungary

The lack of a strong mainstream feminist movement – due to the historical
background in Hungary – is an important element in the background of the
Roma women’s movement. As for the gender politics in the era of state soci-
alism (1949–1989), Kristeva’s claim may be cited: “[A]s put into practice in
Eastern Europe, socialist ideology, based on a conception of the human being
as determined by its place in production and the relations of production, did
not take into consideration this same human being according to its place in
reproduction, on the one hand, or in the symbolic order, on the other” (Kris-
teva 1981, 20–21). Thus, despite the project of ‘state-enforced emancipation,’
women’s inclusion was never complete during this period (Fodor 2003, 75).
While feminism was stigmatized as a decadent Western ideology by the socialist
state, additionally, as Acsády (2016) found in interview-based qualitative
research, the issue of women’s rights was missing from the agenda of the
democratic opposition as well, and the feminist claims of some female mem-
bers of these circles were muted or even ridiculed by fellow oppositional
leaders. After the democratic change in 1989–1990, the rise of neo-con-
servative tendencies hindered the development of a strong feminist move-
ment or women’s increased participation in public life. According to Fábián
(2009, 185), the “[m]eaningful representation of Roma women in Hungarian
politics has been especially difficult, exacerbated in their ethnic community
during the postcommunist period.”
In obvious relation to all these factors mentioned above, the list of Roma
women’s NGOs in Hungary is not long, especially when it comes to those that
include gender perspectives in their actions, or work on a human-rights-based
approach.
One of the current major actors of the Roma women’s movement is the
Közéleti Roma Nők Egyesülete (Association of Roma Women in Public Life) in
Budapest, established in 1995 (Asztalos 2016). Its chair and founder, Ms.
Blanka Kozma, participated previously in a study visit organized by the
League of Women Voters2 in the US on the topic of building citizen
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184 Lídia Balogh
participation (Diósi 1999, 97). This organization, claims Fábián (2009, 186),
was “crucial for drawing in external forces, especially the EU, to focus on this
problem,” that is, the social status and political participation of Roma
women.
The Association of Roma Women in Public Life is connected to a network
of similar local Roma NGOs, among them the Bódva-völgyi Közéleti Roma Nők
Egyesülete (Association of Roma Women in Public Life in Bódva Valley),
operating in a town near Miskolc in Borsod-Abaúj-Zemplén County in the
north-eastern region, an area of Hungary with a high Roma population. These
associations run projects on various issues, far beyond the field of Roma
women’s political participation, including charity projects (clothing and food
drives), community events and festivities (such as Santa Claus parties), summer
camps for disadvantaged children, assisting vulnerable Roma families in housing
and welfare issues, and so on.
The Szikszói Roma Nők Egyesülete – SziRom (Association of Roma
Women in Szikszó), established in 2010 with the support of the Open
Society Foundations, also used to operate in the north-eastern region, with
the aim of improving the quality of life of the local Roma community
(especially women and children); however, this NGO became inactive after
a couple of years of project-based work.
In the south-western part of Hungary, the leading actor in Roma
women’s issues is the Színes Gyöngyök Egyesület (Colorful Pearls Association)
in Pécs. The organization’s activities include women’s health care programs
(such as breast cancer screening), crime prevention projects concerning
violence against women and children, labor market inclusion programs, and
community building. A high-profile project of theirs is a home restaurant in
Pécs – called Kóstolda (Taste it!), based on an earlier initiative of the asso-
ciations, a mother’s center for Roma mothers and children in a segregated
neighborhood of Pécs – which operated within the framework of a social
enterprise.
Fábián mentions in her monograph a few other Roma women’s organiza-
tions (Fábián 2009, 303): the Magyarországi Cigányanyák Egyesülete (Associa-
tion of Gypsy3 Mothers in Hungary) and the Borsod-Abaúj-Zemplén Megyei
Cigányanyák Érdekvédelmi Szervezete (Lobby Organization of Gypsy Mothers
in Borsod-Abaúj-Zemplén County), which have apparently since ceased
operations; and the Országos Roma Nővédelmi Közhasznú Egyesület (National
Public Interest Association for Protecting Roma Women).
Currently, in the second half of the 2010s, the world of Roma women’s
organizations in Hungary is still a small realm. Practically all the actors,
including the pro-Roma feminist activists and experts of mainstream women’s
and human rights organizations, know each other personally, but capacities
for networking and cooperation are apparently limited, and depend on the
availability of funds or the preferences of donors. The latest national network-
building initiative in this field is from 2014, when the Colorful Pearls
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Association hosted the founding meeting of the Roma Női Aktivisták Háló-
zata – RONAH (Network of Roma Women Activists), supported by the
Open Society Foundations.
Examples of Joint Civil Society Initiatives of Roma and Pro-Roma

Women’s Rights Actors from the 2010s
A high-profile example of a joint (one-off) action between Roma and non-
Roma feminist activists was a silent vigil in July 2012 for a crime victim, a
25-year-old non-Roma woman, a psychologist working for the police in
Pécs, who had been missing for a couple of days when it transpired that
she had been raped and murdered by a young Roma man (Munk 2012). The
public vigil, held in the center of Budapest, aimed to raise awareness about the
risks of misrepresentation of the case by the media and in public discourse,
which may contribute to the increase of already existing ethnic tensions in
Hungary, and draw the focus away from the overarching issue of gender-based
violence.
When assessing organizational cooperation between the mainstream
women’s movement and the Roma women’s movement, it should be taken
into account that the fragile situation of human rights NGOs in Hungary,
especially in the political climate created after the general elections in 2010,
may hinder long-term planning and the creation of alliances. However, the
role of the Magyar Női Érdekérvényesítő Szövetség (Hungarian Women’s Lobby,
the national platform of the Brussels-based European Women’s Lobby, an
umbrella organization of around 20 mainstream women’s NGOs and Roma
women’s organizations) should be highlighted. The first high-profile Roma-
related initiative of the HWL was an international conference in 2011 entitled
‘Roma Women in Focus’ (Balogh and Kóczé 2011). Gender-based violence
is a major topic of member organizations’ joint actions, such as events
within the framework of the annual campaign ‘16 Days of Activism Against
Violence Against Women,’ or awareness-raising connected to the ‘One
Billion Rising’ flash-mobs. As for lobbying activities, the Hungarian
Women’s Lobby is involved in the UN CEDAW country reporting
mechanism that allows local and international NGOs to submit alternative
reports (shadow reports) in addition to the state versions, in which they
may include their own data or research findings to illustrate the lack of or
inadequacy of governmental measures.
Concerning the situation of Romani women in the CEE Region, the Eur-
opean Roma Rights Centre is the flagship organization in shadow reporting
and commenting on the CEDAW state reports throughout Europe. In 2013,
the Hungarian Women’s Lobby and the ERRC prepared for the first time a
joint submission (HWL and ERRC 2013) for the UN CEDAW, paying special
attention to the situation of Roma women in Hungary. The governmental
report of Hungary,4 to which this NGO submission was meant to serve as a
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186 Lídia Balogh
shadow report, included a separate section on Roma women, but this was
rather a situation analysis with some references to the relevant commitments,
and to a mainstream adult education measure.
Alliances and manifestations of solidarity are formed on local levels as well. A
mainstream women’s NGO in Miskolc, the Regina Alapítvány Miskolc (Regina
Foundation), has been cooperating with grassroots Roma organizations in
neighboring settlements in the field of community building, and promoting
women’s access to reproductive rights and health care. Within the framework
of a remarkable project in 2015–2016, and in co-operation with the Hungarian
Association of Doulas, training was provided for women from disadvantaged
Roma communities who were interested in acting as doulas; the training project
included sessions on reproductive health and patients’ rights as well. Through
its network of local Roma women activists and community workers, the
Regina Foundation has been contributing to the human rights fact-finding
initiatives of the European Roma Rights Centre in the field of reproductive
rights of Roma women, and also implemented a fund-raising campaign, raising
awareness on the vulnerability of Roma and disadvantaged women in mater-
nity care.
Roma Gender Politics and the Concept of Intersectionality

Regarding the approaches and claims, there are some perceptible divergences
between the mainstream and the Roma women’s movement in Hungary. A
distinctive feature of the latter is the tendency to avoid confrontational actions
or to fundamentally challenge gender roles in the community or in the broader
society. At the same time, men may play relatively active roles in Roma
women’s NGOs or initiatives; for instance, the involvement and support of
male members of the community is especially visible in the case of the One
Billion Rising flash-mobs, organized by Roma women’s groups. This feature of
the Roma women’s movement in Hungary, namely the openness to men,
resembles a characteristic of the Gitanas movement in Spain, namely the con-
cept of ‘dialogical feminism’ that concerns inviting male members of the com-
munity to get involved in women’s rights activism.5 Asztalos Morell (2015b)
discusses the role of ‘maternalism’ as a ‘counterhegemonic perspective’ for
Roma women when assessing the strategies of a prominent Roma women’s
NGO in Hungary, the afore-mentioned Colorful Pearls Association. However,
at least in the Hungarian context, it is questionable whether this organization’s
strategy to run women-led projects serving the whole local community may be
considered as ‘maternalism,’ that is, a form of female domination, or whether it
is rather a coping strategy in an environment where the majority society’s anti-
Roma sentiments are stronger against Roma men compared with Roma
women.
Representatives of Hungarian Roma women’s NGOs tend to emphasize that
they work directly for the whole community, not just for women and girls,
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and this resonates with the findings of Izsák regarding the European women’s
movement (Izsák 2008). Moreover, Roma women’s organizations typically
tend to focus on redistribution issues (such as promoting access to health care
services or to the labor market) sometimes instead of, or at least at the expense
of recognition issues (e.g. combating sexism), antidiscrimination issues, and
gender-based violence issues. Again, this phenomenon, the marginality of the
rights-based discourse in Romani women’s activism, is perceptible not just in
Hungary, but in other contexts as well, as described by Kóczé (2010).
This feature resonates in an interview with the chair of the Roma Women in
Public Life from the late 1990s: according to the memories of Ms. Kozma,
when the organization launched a legal aid program for Roma women, most of
the clients came with “crazy issues” (Diósi 1999, 97). With the term ‘crazy,’ she
referred both to extremely difficult cases and also to complaints that were not
about typical women’s rights issues, but rather various difficulties affecting the
clients’ families.
A prominent figure of the Roma women’s movement in Hungary recalled
an anecdote from the early 2000s when a senior male member of the National
Roma Self-Government opposed the establishment of a women’s committee
within by using a right-wing argumentation, namely that the interests of Roma
families (based on traditional gender roles) should be protected and not the
interests of Roma women; moreover, he envisioned a Roma women’s move-
ment in Hungary led by local “long-skirted Roma matrons” and not by fem-
inist activists “supported by American lesbians.”6
Supposedly, this reference targeted directly certain Western feminist acti-
vists, among them openly gay women who were involved personally in the
Hungarian women’s movement in the 1990s, and promoted the establishment
of a prominent mainstream Hungarian women’s rights NGO called Nők a
Nőkért Együtt az Erőszak Ellen – NaNE (Association of Women for Women
Together against Violence) in the 1990s. Later, in the mid-2010s, NaNE
launched a flagship project to support the capacity building of rural and/or
Roma women’s organizations in combating gender-based violence. Accord-
ing to the analysis provided by Asztalos Morell (2015a, 42), intimate part-
nership violence is perceived by NaNE as a phenomenon “which does
not have race or class,” thus “they do not see that family violence would be
more frequent among the Roma than among other groups.” They highlight
the aspect that “those with more resources have better means to hide it,”
while Roma families are “more visible,” thus, domestic violence is “more
observable in a minority burdened by prejudices.” Thus, the NaNE project
aimed at supporting Roma women’s NGOs to address the issue of intimate part-
nership violence was not based on presumptions about higher prevalence within
Roma communities. However, according to the perception of the volunteers
working for NaNE’s anonymous hotline, which aimed to provide counselling and
support to abused women and children, Roma women were significantly under-
represented among the clients of the service, supposedly for intersectional reasons.
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188 Lídia Balogh
This experience constituted the background of NaNE’s outreach project to

Roma communities.
Conclusions
With regards to Roma women’s issues in Hungary, both the socio-economic
exclusion of Roma and deeply rooted anti-Roma sentiments of the mainstream
society should be taken into account. Hostility towards Roma women is
strongly connected to demographic issues, first of all the relatively high fertility
rates of Roma women with low levels of education, and is often manifested in
the violation of the reproductive rights of Roma women, or in harassment
against women/mothers of Roma origin.
From the beginning of the 2010s, the situation of women’s rights and
Roma rights organizations has been characterized more and more by scarcity
of resources and a hostile political environment. However, a new govern-
mental tendency has emerged recently in Hungary: the celebration of certain
prominent Roma women and promoting some high-profile projects carried
out by Roma women’s NGOs or social enterprises, especially ‘feminine’ ones
such as those in the fields of fashion design or gastronomy. This approach
includes a reluctance to challenge traditional gender roles that is somewhat
analogous with the non-confrontational approach of several actors in the
Roma women’s movement.
As for the initiatives of the Hungarian government in the field of Roma
women’s social inclusion, apparently, some principles of international develop-
ment initiatives have been applied. Roma women are perceived as mediators
(‘bridges’) between minority and majority communities; moreover, as (hidden)
resources for the whole society. Implicitly or explicitly, the governmental
measures – or at least governmental rhetoric – are based on the presump-
tion that promoting the situation of Roma women is an effective way to
help the whole Roma community. Actually, this resonates with one of the
dominant argumentations used by Roma women’s NGOs, especially when
it comes to local initiatives.
In the field of political intersectionality; firstly, there is a sensible avoidance
on behalf of the Roma women’s movement to apply confrontational approa-
ches towards gender inequalities within Roma communities. This may be
interpreted as an attempt to minimize the risk of fragmentation within the
movement at the cost of not putting intersectional issues high on the agenda.
Secondly, the overwhelming relevance of class in defining the situation of
Roma women is unmistakably reflected in the claims of the Roma women’s
movement, that is, in the prioritization of redistribution issues, sometimes at
the cost of abandoning issues related to sexism and patriarchal oppression.
This may be an element distinct from the agenda of the mainstream women’s
movement, especially the agenda of ‘liberal’ feminists focusing on issues like
the ‘glass ceiling,’ the role of gender bias in professional life, or the cultural
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representation of women. Rare examples of solidarity-based initiatives from

middle-class mainstream women’s organizations, aimed at working with dis-
advantaged and/or Roma women, however, are to be found. Notwithstand-
ing, some joint monitoring and lobbying activities of Roma and pro-Roma
organizations may be seen as ‘strategic sisterhood’ initiatives. Apparently, the
UN CEDAW reporting mechanism is the major driving force to initiate
cooperation between Roma and mainstream women’s rights actors in Hun-
gary. This is already a significant development, given that shadow reports and
related submissions, prepared by NGO coalitions, may be much more than
expert evaluations of the legislation or the government’s policies; these
documents can be seen as manifestos of an inclusive and integrated women’s
rights movement.
The author’s insider position and own professional experience may be con-
sidered as an asset when considering the dynamics and interactions and between
the mainstream women’s rights movement and the Roma rights movement in
Hungary. However, more thorough empirical research is essential to under-
stand the relevant tendencies in these movement interactions. Moreover, the
findings should be placed not just in a European, but also in a global context,
taking into account the latest challenges affecting the Western human rights
consensus and social emancipation movements.
Notes
1 The system of minority self-governments (not just for the Roma but for other
“historical” minority communities as well) is a unique Hungarian feature provided
by the Minority Rights Act; see the assessment report of the National Democratic
Institution (2007).
2 A civil society organization in the US, established in 1920.
3 The Hungarian term “cigány” (to be translated as “Gypsy”) was used widely
until approximately the beginning of the 2010s in Hungarian public discourse, in
legal texts and official documents, and moreover as a self-reference by Roma
communities.
4 Consideration of reports submitted by States parties under article 18 of the Con-
vention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women.
Combined seventh and eighth periodic reports of States parties, Hungary
(CEDAW/C/HUN/7–8, 11 August 2011).
5 See the chapter of the present volume, authored by Anna Mirga-Kruszelnicka, “Silk
Revolution,” tracing the genealogy of Gitanas activism in Spain and its influences on
international Romani women’s movement.
6 Source: an interview conducted by the author, in August 2016, with two prominent
figures of the Roma women’s movement in Hungary.
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Women’s Studies 13(3), 193–209.
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Chapter 9
The Dilemmas of the Romani

Women’s Movement in Bulgaria
From Assimilation to Empowerment?
Teodora Krumova
This chapter focuses on the context in which the Romani women’s movement
is shaping up in Bulgarian society before and after the fall of Communism. A
guiding question is how Romani women become the objects of state policies
and how actively these women can form their positions and agendas in this
context.
Gender Perceptions in the Roma Community1

One of the most important factors that has affected changing gender percep-
tions is the level of modernization and frequency of contacts with the macro-
society.2 At the same time, one basic factor to be taken into consideration is the
diversity within the Roma community, in terms of the different perceptions,
relations, and practices among the various Roma groups and subgroups. In that
sense, concepts among different Roma groups are different because their inte-
gration levels are also different.3 For example, among the Rudari,4 women’s
emancipation is stronger than in the other groups. In more traditional and
closed communities, emancipation is very low, such as in the Kaldarashi and
Burgudzhii.
Gender perceptions in the Roma family are subordinated to the patriarchal
understanding of male leadership. In general, and across all groups, the family
still accepts the boy as the person who carries the family potential. It is no
accident that having a boy is very important in a Kaldarashi family. There are
many cases of boys being adopted by families that have only girls, because of
the enduring tradition that ‘the boy will take care of the parents.’ In the Kal-
darashi tradition, the youngest boy who will take care of the parents remains in
the parents’ house. As mentioned above, this is not a concept restricted only to
the Kaldarashi community. A similar belief was shared in a focus group with
Rudari women who are much more modernized; their characteristics are closer
to those of the macro-society, and they have more developed processes of
women’s emancipation. “It is better for you to have a boy, because the boy
always thinks about his mother – maybe he will bring less money, but he will,
while the daughter will bring it to her husband” (a woman from the Rudari
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194 Teodora Krumova
group, focus group, a town in central Bulgaria). Nevertheless, this concept has
changed to a great extent among the Dassikane Roma from north-west Bul-
garia. The status of women there significantly differs from that of Muslim
Romani women in the same region, for example. Existing perceptions on the
position and role of women in different Roma groups are, to a large extent,
defined by the difference in socialization between boys and girls, and men and
women in the family. While men have more and intensive contacts with
institutions and macro-society in general, they are more adaptive and open to
change, even if they do not realize it. At the expense of that, women who have
fewer contacts outside the family and community very often want a change,
but do not know what kind of change or how to achieve it.
According to a research article titled ‘Breaking the Barriers’ (2007) one of the
traditional responsibilities assigned to women in the Roma family is childcare:
“The job of the woman is to take care of the children” (22-year-old woman,
Kaldarashi, engaged). However, this statement cannot be generalized, since it
differs according to different indicators: group differences, socio-economic
status, education, and place of residence.5 While for the Muslim Roma female-
ascribed labor occupies a comparatively high place in the scale of women’s
responsibilities, for Christian Romani women from north-west Bulgaria, this
job is much lower on the scale: it is not even placed in the first ten domestic
occupations for women. At the same time, this perception is shared more by
village Roma (39.9 percent), where the traditions are stronger. Women with
higher levels of education tend to disagree more that the raising of children is a
criterion for the qualities of a wife: 54.4 percent of the women questioned
during the research who felt childcare was one of the characteristics of a good
wife had either primary or incomplete primary education. In addition, the
answer to this question presents women between 30 and 39 years old as the
most conservative group: almost 93 percent of them chose this characteristic as
typical for a good wife.
At the same time, research carried out by the Bulgarian Fund for Women
shows that the highest positive attitude from Roma families concerns a distribu-
tion model of family roles where the man and the woman both work and divide
the childcare between themselves. The same research showed that the scenario
“the man works and the woman takes care of the children” enjoyed higher
support among Romani women than among Romani men. The difference
between the two groups is too small, however, to draw general conclusions:
51.1 percent compared to 48.9 percent respectively (Galabov 2007, 35–36). The
data from the research carried out by Center Amalipe gives sufficient grounds to
say that women are more conservative towards changing traditions and introdu-
cing change in general. Even among the Kaldarash, the most patriarchal-oriented
community, women are more reluctant to change than men.
Generally speaking, and in contrast to the wider society, the Roma com-
munity views childcare as the mother’s responsibility, although the fathers have
more rights over the children. In certain groups, the potestarian forms (such as
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From Assimilation to Empowerment in Bulgaria 195
the Romani Kris of the Kaldarashi) might determine the custody of children. In
a case in Dryanovo of the Gabrovo region, for example, the meshere awarded
the children to the mother who had stayed to live with her parents-in-law,
while her husband was found guilty and responsible for the break-up of the
marriage (moreover, the Romani Kris in this case was presided over by father
of the husband, a 69-year old Kaldarashi man). Neither is it rare to leave the
children with the grandparents, especially when the mother and the father have
new families. These customs, however, are respected only in particular Roma
communities and do not pertain to marginalized groups in the Roma ghettos.
According to recent research, women are much more disposed towards paid
employment than men, which could be a genuine way for their quicker sociali-
zation and integration. Last year, Burgudjii women from Gorna Oryahovitza
started to work in a nearby factory that employs women. A sheer paternalistic
reason is behind this: some of the men are involved in illegal business and often
have to prove income to the prosecutor. To this end, they let their women go to
work. Ironically, this pressure helped Burgudjii women get access to mainstream
society and start changing their own perceptions about their role and rights.6
The Communist Period

During the last couple of years, a number of studies have been published on
Romani women’s emancipation in Western and Central Europe. Nevertheless,
Bulgaria remains outside this trend and the Bulgarian Romani women’s
movement, as well as the gender aspect of the Bulgarian Roma community,
remains understudied in the scholarly and activist literature. The few studies
available on Roma communities in general also skip the gender aspect apart
from a pure social perspective, such as everyday life, customs and traditions,
wedding customs, and early marriages.7 The political aspect of Romani
women’s emancipation in Bulgaria still needs to be thoroughly studied and
made public.
Looking through the history of Romani women’s emancipation, we might
state that no matter the change of policy regimes, the global political currents, the
development of civil society, and the Romani community, Romani women’s
situation has followed the same narrow path throughout the last 70 years. Gen-
erally, the communist period and the policy of the Bulgarian Communist Party
towards Roma/Gypsies8 can be divided into two sub-periods. The first was
rather short. It did not last more than a decade, until the mid-1950s. During this
period, the approach towards Roma was from a minority and ethnic-cultural
perspective that followed the Soviet model, providing a kind of cultural auton-
omy in order to activate the groups for active participation in ‘building our
common bright communist future.’ Roma were encouraged to strengthen their
identity and organize themselves around communist ideology: the establishment
of Roma cultural centers, Roma theater, and Roma newspapers were supported
by the official authorities. The first Cultural and Educational Organization of the
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196 Teodora Krumova
Gypsies in Bulgaria (Културнë-прëсветна ëрганизация на циганите в

България) was established in 1946 by the Roma communist activist and MP
Shakir Pashov. This ‘in-favor’ policy, however, did not last long. Only five years
later, all these elements were disbanded: the theater was closed, the organization
was absorbed into the Fatherland Front, and Shakir Pashov was deported to the
labor camp in Belene (Kolev 2010, 52–56). Between 1951 and 1952 and in
1989, the policy of the Bulgarian Communist Party sharply shifted towards
imposing the class values of the Communist regime, and towards the assimilation
and acculturation of the Roma (and the Turkish) minorities. Part of this policy
was the theoretical approach towards the equality of women as a part of the
general social issue (Stoichkova, 2009).
The development of attitudes towards Romani women followed the trends
and patterns towards Bulgarian women in the socialist/communist regimes.
Furthermore, although the official mantra of the Communist regime was the
emancipation and empowerment of women, this remained only in theoretical
and public discourse, in popular culture, and art. In practice, in everyday life,
women stayed trapped within patriarchal norms (both of family role and rela-
tions, and in societal roles and relations). Professions continued to be strongly
gender profiled, with all the concomitant consequences. Nevertheless, the
political apparatus and Communist ideology created a whole complex of
images including: what a woman should be; what is expected from her; and
what her role in family and society is (Stoichkova, 2009). The same approach
was applied also to Romani women once the Party brought them into focus.
The Communist Party combined stereotypical thinking about women and
their roles, and about Roma and their role in society. As described above, in
public discourses, the socialist woman was supposed to be strong, indepen-
dent, and emancipated while in practice, her role and position strengthened
and reconfirmed the strongest patriarchal stereotypes about women: as
mothers (the mother–heroine with at least three children, and so on), good
housewives, and professionals in certain female-oriented professions. On the
other hand, measures towards Roma integration were always compensatory
concerning disadvantages in major social fields and never led to real empow-
erment, neither of Roma in general, nor of Romani women in particular.
Studying the documents from that period, we might even go further and say
that any attempt at political or public emancipation was quickly rejected. This
is supported by the fact that from 1945 until 1989, there were only three
Roma MPs: Shakir Pashov was elected in 1946, Petko Kostov in 1953, and a
woman, Radka Ruseva, in 1963. None was nominated after the beginning of
the 1970s. In addition, when the question of nomination was posted to the
Politburo in 1976, the argument in response was “there were no prepared
people,” which summarizes the tendency in the policy of the ruling party
towards the ‘Gypsy question’ (Kolev 2010, 116–120).
For the Communist regimes, the idea of the woman, i.e. a mother, a major
pillar of the family institution, the one who organizes domestic order, perfectly
9781138485099_text.3d;

fitted into the traditional Roma concept of the woman. By the initiative of the
Communist party, sections of the Bulgarian Women People’s Union were
established in most towns and Roma neighborhoods. Their activities included
increasing the knowledge and awareness of mothers on child-rearing, and how
to change the life-styles and everyday visions of communities. In addition,
schools were established for elevating the general and everyday culture of
Gypsy women. The first such school was opened in 1961 in Asenovgrad. It
held a 45-day course attended by around 30 young women and mothers from
all over the country. Until 1989, the network of such schools included
14 training centers spread throughout Bulgaria. The women trained by these
centers were taught how to use modern equipment, how to behave, and how
to raise their children, that is, how to be ‘modern socialist women.’ Of course,
one of the goals of the training centers was also ideological influence and
manipulation. Therefore, at the end of the training the participants were taken
for a two-week excursion to the Soviet Union (Kolev 2010, 42–47).
As argued above, the documents and oral history from this period do not
give us enough ground to state that there was a straightforward, well-designed
policy for the empowerment of Romani women. Rather, she was perceived as
part of the general Roma (Gypsy) community with no potential to be strate-
gically invested on broader ground. The activities directed at Romani/Gypsy
women were instead used as a compensatory mechanism for overcoming the
large gap between Roma and the majority.
The Romani Women’s Movement in Bulgaria After 1989

In the period after 1989, the Romani women’s movement in Bulgaria has been
influenced by several trends and factors: 1. international organizations in shaping
and fostering Romani women’s movement in Bulgaria; 2. state policies towards
Roma; 3. state policies towards Romani women; 4. mainstream gender policies
and processes; and 5. internal practices within the Romani women’s movement
in Bulgaria. Despite the influence of the first four factors pointed out above,
the Romani women’s movement in Bulgaria followed its own direction of
development. This direction was practically oriented, giving preference to the
problems of Romani women on the ground, nurturing and fostering the
development of strong Romani women leaders without being shaped into a
purely feminist perspective. In this respect, the development of the move-
ment in Bulgaria followed its own path, different from that of Western Eur-
opean countries, as well as that of the neighboring countries with numerous
Roma populations, such as Romania and Macedonia.
Mainstream Gender Policies

In February 2003, a Consultative Commission on Equal Opportunities was set
up within the Ministry of Labor and Social Policy. In 2004, a new national
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198 Teodora Krumova
coordination structure was established: the National Council for Equal

Opportunities of Women and Men at the Council of Ministers. Although
more than a decade has passed since its establishment, it remains isolated from
Romani women’s issues: no Romani women’s organizations participate in it.
Romani women’s issues and the specific barriers Romani women face are not
even mentioned in the National Strategy for Fostering Equality Between Men and
Women, or other documents regarding the council and gender equality issue in
general.9
For more than 15 years, gender organizations in Bulgaria have been working
and advocating for elaborating and adopting a Law on gender equality. The
draft law has been rejected by the Bulgarian Parliament several times. Finally,
the Law was adopted on April 14, 2016. The Law, however, covers equality
between women and men in general, and does not touch upon gender equality
for other vulnerable women groups, such as Roma. This suggests that the general
gender policies and bodies remain indifferent towards Romani women’s issues,
and are not sensitive towards Romani women’s emancipation, or overcoming
gaps and barriers. Although gender issues have gradually entered the national
policy agenda, the gender equality machinery is still weak. In this respect, chan-
ges in the status quo appear not because of the functioning of gender-oriented
institutions, but due to external pressure, mainly from the European Commis-
sion. The same is true for minority issues. As a result, minority gender issues are
in an even weaker position, due to a general lack of both gender and minority-
oriented institutions to put them on the agenda.
Within the process of EU accession, new policies have been developed. An
opportunity exists, therefore, to enhance significantly the implementation of
Roma strategies, and to devote significant attention to Romani women’s issues.
As a member of the EU, the Bulgarian authorities had to sign a set of strategic
documents related to Bulgarian membership. This included the National Stra-
tegic Reference Framework (NSRF) guiding the planning and allocation of the
European Structural Funds and the thematic Operational Programs (OP). One
of the strict European Commission requirements is to have a horizontal gender
policy in each document. Therefore, this has been an opportunity to main-
stream major issues concerning Romani women within the gender sections in
each OP/NSRF, and throughout the programs (through proper operations,
activities, and indicators), which could provide the respective necessary
administrative engagement and financing for the next seven years. The five
major Operational Programs where Romani women’s issues should be main-
streamed are: Human Resources Development; Science and Education for
Smart Growth; Good Governance; Regions in Growth; and the National Plan
for Rural Area Development. After the long process of Roma advocacy during
the last ten years, significant achievements have been made to include Roma
issues into the EU strategic documents, which preconditions the use of Struc-
tural Funds. In addition, in the Human Resource Development (HRD)
Operational Program, Roma are defined as specific target groups and, at the
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same time, Roma issues are mainstreamed throughout the documents. The
Human Resources Development and Science and Education for Smart Growth
Operational Programs pay special attention to the problems Romani women
face in the fields of education, employment, health, and early marriages. Fur-
thermore, concrete measurable indicators have been included in the HRD OP,
where gender is also a horizontal criterion. This would allow for measuring the
advance (or lack of advance) in the situation of Romani women in Bulgaria on
the labor market and in education and health care.10
Roma Integration Policies

The following section provides an overview of the way targeted Roma inclu-
sion policies handled gender equality aspects. The first such document was the
Framework Program for Equal Integration of Roma into Bulgarian Society
(FP), and the Action Plan for the FP’s implementation (1999). Just one small
section at the end of the Framework Program is devoted to the problems of
Romani women. However, they are presented nominally rather than practi-
cally. In addition, the measures envisaged for equal integration of Romani
women do not address emancipation: political participation and participation in
public life. Furthermore, the gender perspective is generally lacking in the
Framework Program. While Romani women’s issues are merely nominally
present, their problems have nonetheless been introduced as an issue. As a
result, several local strategies for Roma integration devote a special part to the
problems of Romani women.11
The National Action Plan for the Decade of Roma Inclusion (2005) was the
other major Roma inclusion policy strategy. Although Romani women are
mentioned as a cross-cutting issue, the Plan envisaged measures directed at
Romani women only in the field of health care: breast cancer prevention, care
for pregnant women, prevention of the early marriages, and family planning. In
all other priorities, actions directed at Romani women were not envisaged. At
the same time, the measures and actions in these spheres did not take into
account specific ways to reach Romani women (Krumova and Kolev 2013).
On December 21, 2011, the Bulgarian government approved the National
Strategy of the Republic of Bulgaria for Roma Integration (NRIS) in response
to the request of the EU Framework for National Roma Integration Strategies.
Later, the Strategy was approved by the parliament on March 1, 2012.12 In this
way, the NRIS became the first Roma integration document in Bulgaria
approved by the National Assembly (all previous documents were approved by
decisions of the Council of Ministers). In this way, the Strategy could oblige
and engage a broader set of institutions in its implementation, such as munici-
palities, and so on. The important weakness of the NRIS is the lack of sensi-
tivity to the specific challenges of the integration of Romani women. The
Strategy lacks a gender perspective: it is not articulated as a specific chapter,13
nor is it mainstreamed in other chapters. This is a significant step backwards
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200 Teodora Krumova
from the first Framework Program for Equal Integration of Roma into Bul-
garian Society, where Romani women’s issues received a separate, albeit still
very modest, focus.
Mobilization Within the Romani Women’s Movement

One of the biggest fears of the Communist regime before 1989 was that Roma
could become internationalized. There are a number of documents and pieces of
evidence quoting the Communist state leader Todor Zhivkov that “the Gypsy
question is our internal question and we should not let it become international.”
After the fall of the iron curtain in 1989, Roma issues also became part of the
overall European Roma agenda, as well as the development of the former
communist countries. Therefore, the development of the Romani women’s
movement was also influenced by the international movement.
A comparison with the development of the Roma movement in neighbor-
ing countries shows that in Macedonia, Serbia, and Romania, a core group of
active Roma women gradually emerged around a strong feminist perspective
after 1989. At the same time, the participation of Romani women in public life
and in the Roma movement in Bulgaria remained low-key. The dynamic of
the Romani women’s movement increased at the end of the 1990s. Bulgarian
Romani women (such as Sali Ibrahim, Fani Hristova, and others) participated
in the first international meetings of Romani women at the European level.
The Romani women’s movement in Bulgaria at that time was further activated
by Lili Kovacheva, Antoaneta Parusheva, Maria Stoimenova, and others. The
number of Romani women’s NGOs, although still limited, sharply increased
after 2001–2002. This could be related to two pro-active programs at the time
of the Open Society Institute, Sofia: the Roma program and the Women’s
Program, backed by the Roma Participation Program of the Open Society
Institute, Budapest. As a result, several Romani women’s NGOs were created,
many as very grassroots level organizations (including the Good Mother
Women’s Roma Association – Vardun village, the Nadezhda Roma Women
and Children’s Association in Vidin, the Development and Help for Roma
Women and Children Association in Lom, the Association of Romani Women
and Children in Stolipinovo, Plovdiv, and so on), which never ventured to
broaden their expertise, activities, or advocacy work (with a few exceptions) to
the national level. None of these organizations developed a feminist frame-
work, but rather focused on women-oriented activities. At the same time,
some of these organizations have proved to be very good and effective at the
grassroots level, filling a basic niche of needs at that time. One such example
was the Good Mother Women’s Roma Association – Vardun village. The
organization trained Romani women to acquire professional qualification as
cooks and hairdressers. Another of the organization’s projects trained six health
mediators to work with local women to improve their health. The organiza-
tion also directed efforts at community development.
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Over the next couple of years, there was a slow change in the work of
Romani women’s organizations, and a tendency developed for getting Romani
women’s NGOs and activists more active at the national level, and especially
towards placing Romani women’s issues on the national policy agendas. This
was mainly due to the support of the Romani Women’s Initiative of the Open
Society Institute, Budapest. On July 24–25, 2004, a national Romani women’s
meeting was held in Sofia within the framework of the Decade of Roma
Inclusion. The aim of the meeting was to prepare suggestions for including
Romani women’s issues in the Decade Action Plan, and to foster the estab-
lishment of a Romani women’s network in Bulgaria. In this regard, in Bulgaria
as well as in several European countries, a National Focal Point on Romani
Issues existed from 2006 to 2008. Following this development, the Open
Society Institute, Sofia reorganized its human resource management policy
towards employing more Roma. As a result, Maria Metodieva was appointed
director of the Roma program of OSI, Sofia, and two other Roma experts also
started working in different programs of the Institute. This had a temporary
effect while the programs existed, but had no sustainable impact on Roma and
gender-oriented policies.
Bulgaria’s accession to the EU has provided further opportunities for gender
equality polity development. Two Roma NGOs (the Good Mother Women’s
Roma Association – Vardun village and Center Amalipe) became members of
the Bulgarian platform of the European women’s lobby. In addition, over the
last decade, Center Amalipe has invested much effort in placing Roma issues
on the agenda of the strategic documents signed by Bulgarian government
during the EU accession process, and afterwards as a member state, including
documents regulating the implementation of structural funds. This represented
a good opportunity for a targeted approach towards some of the most aching
problems of Romani women, in education, employment, and participation. A
special section, Areas of Assistance with Regard to Disadvantaged Groups: Roma and
People with Disabilities, was proposed by Center Amalipe and supported by
31 other Roma organizations within the Administrative Capacity Operational
Program of the national developmental machinery. Gender policy has been a
horizontal policy: cross-cutting policies which do not fit only one specific
policy area. In the Programs, this approach automatically requires indicators
broken down by gender for achievements regarding minority participation in
administration. This means special activities for overcoming the under-
representation of Romani women in comparison with both Roma men and
majority women.
Although more than 25 years have passed since the Romani women’s
movement intensified at the international level, in Bulgaria a misconception
guides the gender concept in the wider Roma inclusion agenda. Unfortunately,
this misconception is widespread and shared by both Romani men and
women. Accordingly, Romani women’s problems do not differ from the gen-
eral problems of the Roma community, and their separation is artificial; it is a
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202 Teodora Krumova
response to donors’ requirements and fashion. For more than 15 years, Center
Amalipe has been one of the few Roma organizations trying to develop a
special gender focus in its work. Although not a specifically women’s orga-
nization, Amalipe has introduced the gender perspective as a horizontal con-
cept in its work. One of its major goals has been to provide equal chances
to Romani women, and to foster their active participation in public and
political life.
The Role of Non-Roma Civil Society Organizations

Analysis of their projects can provide a picture of donors’ priorities rather than
tracking policy changes on Romani women issues (a legal focus for 2003/2004,
health focus for 2006, and so on). For example, in response to a trend in the
OSI, Sofia’s legal program for 2003–2004, all types of organizations (human
rights, legal, educational) implemented several projects on legal assistance to
Romani women and children in vulnerable positions. In most cases, these
organizations had never worked with Roma before and furthermore, did not
include Roma in project implementation. This casts doubt on the efficiency
and real impact of these projects. In addition, it is not rare for such projects to
deepen stereotypes and harden prejudices that already exist concerning the
Roma community.
Another field of interest for organizations is providing basic training skills for
Romani women, mainly in tailoring, cooking, and hairdressing. These projects
rarely focus on the real empowerment of Romani women. Another field
where non-Roma organizations have been very active is domestic violence in
Roma families. Some of these projects, unaware of Roma culture, often tended
to present violence as ‘traditional’ for Roma families and ascribed it to the entire
Roma community. One attempt to conduct thorough research on the topic was
the project ‘The Romani Women and Domestic Violence’ implemented by the
Tomorrow Foundation, Sofia.14 The project’s main goal, as stated by the
authors, was to find out whether “anything can be done to reduce violence in
Romani families and if so, what can that be, who can do it and how.” As a
result of the project, a book and a documentary were produced. The project
promised to take the Roma point of view into consideration and not to impose
stereotypes. But once again, Romani women were not included in managing
positions, they mainly served as informants.
Several projects have been aimed at raising Romani women’s participation
either at national or local level. For example, a large-scale project was devel-
oped by the Gender Foundation, Bulgaria in two rounds (2003 and 2006)
within the broader initiative of the Stability Pact Gender Task Force. The
project ‘Roma Women Can Do It I and II’ hardly reached its long-term goals
to mainstream gender into the priorities, programs, and organizational schemes
of existing Roma political parties and to increase participation of Roma
women as members, activists and candidates of political parties, or as elected
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and appointed civil servants. Two elections followed the first round of the
project (local elections in 2003 and national elections in 2005), but we can
hardly connect the results Romani women achieved at these elections with the
project’s implementation. In addition, the organization used a rather paterna-
listic approach, thus Romani women did not have a feeling of ownership over
project implementation or results.
Gender Project in Bulgaria Foundation was the only gender organization
that developed a long-term program directed at Romani women. In 2006, the
Bulgarian Women’s Fund, managed by Gender Project with financial support
from the Democracy Commission Small Grants Program of the US Embassy
in Bulgaria, financed ten local projects of Romani women’s NGOs. A brief
overview of these projects showed a discrepancy between the stated goal of
the program, that is ‘Romani women NGOs as active members of civil
society in Bulgaria,’ and the local project results. Most of these projects were
oriented towards basic service provision: reproductive and sexual health training,
breast cancer prevention, training for cooks and hairdressers. The Gender Project
was quite active in supporting Romani women during the 2000s by orga-
nizing training courses and seminars, and service provision; little has been
done to improve and raise the genuine political and social participation of
Romani women.
On March 10, 2006, the national annual meeting of organizations dealing
with gender issues took place in Sofia. The problems faced by Romani women
remained segregated on the agenda of the mainstream gender movement. Most
organizations that provide shelter and support for the victims of trafficking and
violence stated that they had only a few victims of Roma origin. At the same
time, according to a presentation by Tsvetina Arsova15, 33.5 percent of women
subjected to trafficking and prostitution were Romani. Mainstream gender
organizations did not respond to this finding. The widespread opinion sug-
gested that Romani women’s problems are framed within the Roma culture:
“We cannot help them [Romani women]: they do not come to us so it is their
problem, a problem of their community,” reported one NGO activist with
significant experience in the sector at the meeting on March 10, 2006. Pro-
blems that affect both Roma and non-Roma women, such as trafficking and
prostitution were explained, in the first instance, as cultural characteristics, and
in the second, as an acute social issue. Some organizations went even further by
declaring that special measures should be taken to prevent Roma children from
“being exposed to the traditional violence in Roma families.” This is how a
representative of the Face to Face Foundation justified sending Roma children
to orphanages and social houses from an early age.
After joining the EU, most donors active in Bulgaria gradually pulled back,
including various programs of the Open Society Institute. After 2007, most of
the funding has been provided by different direct EU programs and the Struc-
tural Funds. In general, the distribution of the latter funds in Bulgaria lacks a
targeted approach to Romani women. At the same time, several European
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204 Teodora Krumova
Commission programs, mainly the Daphne III program, announced several calls
directed at overcoming violence against women, harmful traditional practices,
and rights of children, with a special focus on Romani women. This gave a
new impulse to a number of (mainly non-Roma) women’s organizations to
design and implement projects focusing on early marriages, and overcoming
violence against women in Roma community. Their approach, however, did
not differ much from that of non-Roma organizations prior to 2007, as
described above.
Conclusion
There are a number of disadvantages that Romani women face compared to
both majority women and Roma men. Depending on the historical legacies
and the local contexts, there could be two strategies for overcoming these
disadvantages. The protection of Romani women’s rights and the empower-
ment of Romani women could be addressed either in a targeted way,
through establishing and fostering a strong feminist perspective and develop-
ing specific gender-oriented Roma NGOs. Alternatively, certain mainstream
topics can be addressed that are of special importance for Romani women
(e.g. partnership relations with an eye on early marriage as well). The targeted
way is more likely to be applied in countries where Roma have collective
rights, such as quota representation in educational and public institutions. The
second approach seems to work better in countries that rely mostly on indi-
vidual rights. Most pro-Roma donors apply models from the former Yugo-
slavia, Romania, or other countries with recognized collective minority
rights. The targeted approach in general is automatically transferred to
Romani women’s issues.
The Bulgarian constitution has never articulated the concept of national mino-
rities in spite of the fact that Bulgarian society is of a multi-ethnic nature. It is not
by chance that the Communist Party initiated a number of activities to overcome
illiteracy among Romani women, developing certain skills, improving living
conditions, and health. But this was never coupled with the idea of establishing a
Roma women’s union, despite the fact that a Bulgarian women’s union was
established. Following the fall of the Communist system, pro-gender actions are
intensified from time to time, depending on the activation of international donors,
but in general, the Romani women’s movement in Bulgaria remains problem-
oriented. This contextual background is probably one of the reasons why a strong
Roma feminist movement has never found ground in Bulgaria.
Notes
1 This part of the study is based on a number of surveys and studies written by the
author and published by Center Amalipe over the last decade, as well as a series of
focus groups and interviews organized periodically by representatives of different
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Roma groups over the last 10 years. All the information can be found at http://amalipe.
com/index.php?nav=publications&lang=2.
2 The concept of modernization is critiqued by post-developmental theorists as a
Western phenomenon to mirror the ‘civilized’ society and close the gap between
the developed and underdeveloped countries and populations (see, for example,
Escobar 1995). However, in a Bulgarian context modernization theory was still used
to contrast the level of development between the so-called developed and under-
developed population.
3 For a detailed picture and overview of the Roma community in Bulgaria, see
Krumova and Kolev, 2013.
4 Romanian-speaking Roma who came from Wallachia and Moldova after the abo-
lition of slavery in mid-19th century. They number around 70,000 in Bulgaria
(Krumova and Kolev, 2013).
5 The data below is from a research ‘Breaking the Barriers: The Status of Romani
Women in Bulgaria’ carried out by Center Amalipe in 2007. The research was
completed by Center Amalipe with the support and cooperation of partnering local
Roma organizations all over the country: World without Borders Association (Stara
Zagora), Future Foundation (Rakitovo), District Romani Union (Burgas), Alter-
native (Byala Slatina), Youth Network for Development (Simitli), Neve Droma
(Shumen) and a number of Roma experts. The research was financed by the Roma
Participation Program and the Public Health Program of Open Society Institute,
Budapest (Krumova & Ilieva, 2008).
6 The information is based on the fieldwork of the author among Burgudjii Roma
from Gorna Oryahovitza.
7 There are very few publications concerning explicitly Romani women’s issues.
A study published in 2013 has the demanding title ‘Gypsies/ Roma in Bulgaria:
gender relations’ (Ivanova & Krastev 2013). It focuses rather on the ethnologi-
cal aspects of customs and tradition that can be referred to the women’s cultural
spaces rather than Romani women’s emancipation. Only a few pages (based
explicitly on the memories of Gospodin Kolev, the only Roma in the Central
Committee of the Bulgarian Communist Party) are devoted on the policy of
the Communist party towards Romani women before 1989 (Kolev 2010,
pp. 42–47).
8 In the text concerning the Communist period, the term ‘Gypsy’ is deliberately used
since this is the term applied to Roma by the Communist party and all institutions
(even by the few Roma representatives in them), and is indicative of the attitude
and policies towards Roma in this period.
9 Updated information on the structure and legislation acts concerning the Council
can be found at http://www.saveti.government.bg/web/cc_19/1.
10 For the Operational Programs, see: www.eufunds.bg. For detailed analyses on
Roma integration issues in the Strategic documents, see the reports by Center
Amalipe, available at http://amalipe.com/index.php?nav=publications&lang=2.
11 In 2004, within a Phare project directed at Roma education, more than 160
municipalities in Bulgaria submitted applications. A huge number of them prepared
their own municipal strategies for integration, mainly following the Framework
program. It is difficult to judge how realistic and practically oriented these strategies
are. However, some municipalities also included a part dedicated to Romani
women.
12 For more information, see: http://www.amalipe.com/index.php?nav=news&id=
1101&lang=2.
13 Such a chapter existed in the Framework Program for Equal Integration of Roma
(1999).
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206 Teodora Krumova
14 See http://www.free.bol.bg/Romaniwoman/index1.html (in Bulgarian) and http://

www.free.bol.bg/Romaniwoman/index2.html (in English). The site was last upda-
ted in April 2008. It is no longer available, and neither are any results from the
project.
15 Tsvetina Arsova statement at the conference on March 10, 2006.
Bibliography
Escobar, Arturo. 1995. Encountering Development: The Making and Unmaking of the Third
World. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Galabov, Antoniy. 2007. Identification of the Inner Gender Resources of the Roma Community
for Enhancing their Integration in the Bulgarian Society. Sofia: Bulgarian Fund for Women.
Ilieva, Gergana, and Magdanela Delinesheva. 2005. Ravni văzmožnosti za ženite i măžete:
Monitoring na zakonodatelstvoto i praktikata v novite strani-členki i kandidat-členkite na
Evropejskija săjuz: Doklad Bălgarija [Equal Opportunities for Women and Men:
Monitoring law and practice in Bulgaria]. Sofia: Center of Women’s Studies and
Policies. http://www.cwsp.bg/upload/docs/Monitoring_Report_2005.pdf.
Ivanova, Evgenia, and Velcho Krastev. 2013. Tziganite/Romite v Bulgaria: Gender Otnosh-
enia [Gypsies/Roma in Bulgaria – Gender Relations]. Stara Zagora: Litera Print PLC.
Kolev, Deyan, Teodora Krumova, Maria Metodieva, Georgi Bogdanov and Boyan
Zahariev. 2007. Annual Report about the Implementation of the Policies for Roma Integration in
Bulgaria for 2006. Veliko Tarnovo: Amalipe. http://amalipe.com/files/publications/
070208_Doklad-eng.pdf.
Kolev, Gospodin. 2010. Bȃlgarskata Komunisticheska Partija i cignaite prez perioda 1944–1989.
[Bulgarian Communist Party and Gypsies 1944–1989]. Sofia: Centȃr za publichni
politiki.
Krumova, Teodora, and Deyan Kolev. 2013. “Manual on Roma History and Culture.”
Sofia: Amalipe. http://amalipe.com/files/publications/ManualFINAL.pdf.
Krumova, Teodora, and Milena Ilieva. 2008. The Health Status of Romani Women in
Bulgaria. Veliko Turnovo: Amalipe. http://amalipe.com/files/publications/Health%
20report_AMALIPE_last.pdf.
National Council for Cooperation on Ethnic and Demographic Issues (NCCEDI).
2007. “Report for the implementation of the Action Plan 2006 of the Framework
Program for Equal Integration of Roma in the Bulgarian Society.” Sofia: NCCEDI.
Stoichkova, Tatiana. 2009. ‘Ženite v socialističeska Bălgarija – obrazi i politika’ [Women
in Socialist Bulgaria: Images and Policies]. NotaBene, no. 12. http://notabene-bg.org/
read.php?id=124.
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Part III
Transnational Inspirations
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Chapter 10
‘The Silk Revolution’ – Tracing

the Genealogy of Gitanas
Activism in Spain and its
Influences on the International
Romani Women’s Movement
Anna Mirga-Kruszelnicka
Introduction
The Gitanas 1 movement – Spanish Romani women’s activism – emerged
in 1990 and developed dynamically throughout the decade, building up a
strong identity as a distinct movement of its own: one which distinguished
itself from the male-driven Romani movement as well as from the main-
stream women’s movement in Spain. Gitanas activism articulated intersec-
tional interests – as women and as members of an ethnic minority –
dealing simultaneously with machismo and patriarchy, deeply engrained into
Spanish majority society, and with racism, or more specifically, historically
rooted anti-Gypsyism, which the Gitano community has been facing for
centuries.
The emergence of Romani women’s organizations in Spain and their
dynamic development was a novelty for its time. Indeed, Gitanas were pio-
neers of Romani women’s activism in Europe: the first Romani women’s
organization as well as the first national Romani women’s federation were
created in Spain. Why and how did the first Gitanas organizations emerge?
What is the logic behind their actions? In what way was the dynamic devel-
opment of Gitanas activism influential for the gradual emergence of Romani
women’s activism in Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries, and the
articulation of a gender-sensitive agenda within the international Romani
movement?
In this chapter2 I discuss the emergence of the Gitanas movement in Spain
and its influence over the evolution of the Romani women’s agenda, especially
in the early 1990s. Tracing the history of Gitanas activism, I point to the
underlying rationale of their collective struggle, describing the discourses and
frames of Romani feminism. In the last part, I discuss the development of
Romani women’s feminisms in Spain and CEE countries as parallel genealo-
gies, and trace the diverse attempts at bridging over ‘East and West’ under a
joint international Romani women’s agenda.
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210 Anna Mirga-Kruszelnicka
The Birth of the Gitanas Movement in Spain

By the end of the 1980s, the situation of Gitano communities in Spain gained
increasing visibility and political relevance. Since the transition to democracy
with the adoption of the 1978 Constitution, Gitano associations began to
emerge across the country, encouraged by the presence of Juan de Dios
Ramírez Heredia, the first Gitano member of the Spanish Parliament (and,
from 1986, the first Roma Member of European Parliament). In the 1980s, the
first policies for Roma were approved and initiated (most notably, the National
Plan for Roma Development, approved in 1985), and the first advisory bodies
were established, the first one being the Municipal Council for Roma in Sevilla, in
1984. In that period, the Spanish Gitano community also underwent important
changes: the process of democratization; the benefits stemming from EU acces-
sion; improved, expanded, and targeted welfare programs on the national, regio-
nal, and local levels; and the growing Gitano and pro-Gitano civil society sector all
contributed to relative progress in the socio-economic situation of Gitano com-
munities (Fresno 2010). Other factors, such as demographic changes or the eco-
nomic boom between the late 1990s and 2006, were also relevant (Bereményi &
Mirga 2012; Mirga & Maya 2014; Santiago 2012). Despite these advancements,
however, the Gitanos in Spain continued to lag behind the non-Roma population
in all the key areas: housing, education, health, political participation, and
employment. Gitana women experienced even greater disadvantage, not only in
comparison to non-Gitana women, but also to Gitano men. Despite this, in the
1980s, the explicit issues of Gitanas – their interests, specific needs, or demands –
were not articulated, and were not reflected in the discourses of Gitano leaders, or
in public policies and interventions. That began to change at the turn of the
decade with the appearance of the first Gitana women activists advocating for the
recognition and inclusion of a gender dimension.
The Gitanas movement emerged in the early 1990s as a response to the
perceived lack of representation, in the search for a voice that would articulate
the collective needs and interests of Romani women in Spain. Up to that
point, Gitanas had no such space or platform at their disposal.
On the one hand, the Gitano associative movement, which emerged in the
late 1970s and developed dynamically after the transition to democracy, was
generally not sensitive to specific issues of Gitanas. The Gitano movement was
(and in fact, continues to be) heavily dominated by Gitano men and, as such, it
did not provide the necessary space for dialogue, involvement, and collabora-
tion with Romani women. By the early 1990s, there were already numerous
Gitano associations3 across Spain, including various regional federations (the
first ones were created in Andalucía in 1988 and in Catalonia in 1991), and
they were founded and managed by men, while participation by Gitana
women was anecdotal and sporadic, if it took place at all.
On the other hand, the feminist movements developed in Spain relatively
late compared to other European countries: women’s organizations started to
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The Silk Revolution 211
emerge in the 1960s and the feminist movement began to consolidate with the
transition to democracy. Interviews with Gitanas activists reveal, however, that
the feminist agendas of mainstream women’s movement(s) did not include the
perspective of Gitanas specifically (Fernández Fernández 2005; Maya Ovalle
2007a; 2007b). For example, María Dolores Fernández Fernández, the pre-
sident of the first Gitano women’s association recalls:
At this time, the feminist movements did not take into account the pro-
blems of Roma women, we knew that for us, the change had to come
from us, according to our traditions, without losing our identity, charting
our own path.4
Indeed, Méndez López rightfully notes that in the late 1980s, “the situation of
Gitana women was at an important moment of change, in a constant debate
about their disadvantaged situation in comparison to men and other non-Roma
women, alienated from the areas of knowledge/education, and neither repre-
sented by the general Romani movement nor by the women’s movement.
They were not taken into consideration by the former, and were unknown to
the latter” (Méndez 2005, 84).
It is in this context that Gitana women themselves gradually began to forge a
movement of their own, in order to attend to the specific needs of Romani
women, and to create a safe space for empowerment and self-organization.
Although there were individual women involved in Gitano associations or in
other spheres of civic and political life since the 1970s (Gervás 2011), including
relevant personalities of Gitano movement such as Rosa Vázquez or Adelina
Jímenez (Giménez Adelantado 2008), it was not until 1990 that the first
Spanish Romani women’s association was created, the Asociación de Mujeres
Gitanas Romí (Association of Gitana Women Romí), established in Granada; this
was the first Romani women’s organization in Europe and has worked con-
tinuously ever since. The birth of Romí marks the beginning of the Gitanas
movement – a genuinely Roma- and women-driven activism that focused
specifically on the collective interests and aims of Gitanas. Although Romí was
created by a group of Romani women with higher education, from the
beginning, it was conceived as a space for all Gitanas, disregarding levels of
education, class, profession, marital status, or age.
In June 1990, Romí organized the first seminar dedicated to the situation of
Gitana women in Spain. Ana Giménez Adelantado, the first Gitana women
professor in Spain and a participant in this seminar, recalls:
[In it] some two hundred women participated, the majority were from
Andalusia but also with a smaller number from other places in Spain. […]
Although most women who participated had very basic or practically no
level of education, there was also a group of educated women, a smaller
number of students, and some with stable professional activity, housewives
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or peddler sellers. It was a diverse group and with different levels of com-
mitment. […] This seminar, which was attended by a significant number
of Gitana women, marked a point inflection in the Gitano associative
movement in Spain.
(Giménez Adelantado 2008, 47–48)
That meeting was the first time when Gitanas felt that they were at the center
of attention, that they were the main protagonists and agents. Giménez
Adelantado argues that this first seminar in the summer of 1990 created a
“special atmosphere of solidarity, collaboration, and empathy among women.
To talk about women’s issues among women was an unusual experience for
the group, and at the same time it was very gratifying” (Ibid.). In that
instance, they felt liberated from the paternalism and control of Gitano men;
it was empowering to become self-aware of Gitanas’ agency and potential.
Indeed, the founder and president of Romí, María Dolores Fernández Fer-
nández, recalls that the association was born ”with strength but also with fear
of the attitude of men, who finally accepted and came to comprehend what
drove Romani women activists,” to emancipate Romani women leaders
(Fernández Fernández 2015).
From that moment on, the Gitanas movement grew and proliferated rapidly
across the country. The birth of the first Gitanas association and the 1990
seminar gave way to a process of dynamic expansion of Gitanas activism in the
country: in the following years, many other Gitanas associations were created,
and other seminars took place which served as informal networks across orga-
nizations, and helped to consolidate the Gitanas agenda internally. The infor-
mal networks among Romani women, not uncommon through kinship ties,
helped them to organize and disseminate the idea of their active involvement.
In an interview, one older Romani women activist explained:
The association was born in 1991. It was a group of young Gitanas. These
women already lived the Gitano movement from the inside. And they
wanted to create an association and do something for the Roma people, to
do projects and activities. And this is how it started. They told me about
their idea, their initiative. And I joined.
(Mirga-Kruszelnicka 2016, 160)
Romí undertook a leading role in those first years of this process by organizing
annual Romani Women’s Seminars in Granada from 1991 onwards, which
gathered large numbers of Romani men and women to discuss collective work
towards the improvement and empowerment of Romani women. These
meetings resulted in the creation of other Gitanas organizations in different
localities across Spain (Gervás n.d.; Fernández Fernández 2005; Maya Ovalle
2007a; 2007b). By 2003, according to Carmen Carrillo, the first Romani
municipal councilor was elected in Andalucía, and there were already
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24 Romani women’s association in Spain, 16 of which were founded in

Andalucía,5 the birthplace of the Gitanas movement (Carrillo Losada 2003).
The rapid expansion and proliferation of Gitanas associations was a novelty
for its time, not only in Spain but also across Europe. It was also a surprising
development to many Gitano male leaders, who dominated Roma activism in
Spain. In early 1990s, Romani women were rarely engaged beyond the life of
their extended families and communities, and Romani women students or
professionals were still quite rare. In the words of Carmen Carrillo, a politi-
cian and Romani women’s activist since the early 1990s: “until very recently,
the Gitanas moved in a world of silence, anonymity, and indifference”
(Carrillo Losada 2003, 95). The emergence of a group of Romani women in
the associative world, and with it the birth of Gitanas movement, was a
novelty which challenged the status quo of Romani politics of the time.
Fernández argues that “on the one hand, we had to confront our own cul-
ture, and on the other, we had to participate in the social and political life
outside of our culture” (Ma Dolores Fernández Fernández 2005, 74). The
early engagement of individual Gitanas in the associative world was not
always easy; in an interview, a Gitana woman activist recounted:
Now, in truth, the decision to devote myself to this was mine, and it cost
me. Because, for example, in my family, those who spoke about the sub-
ject were always men. No-one ever linked me to the associative move-
ment. And the surprise was when I joined up with the associative world.
The involvement and active participation of senior Gitana women in the first
years of Romani women activism was decisive for its development and gaining
acceptance from male leaders. In fact, the emergence of Gitanas activism was
not without internal tensions and difficulties within the Romani associative
world, which was heavily dominated by men. Fernández Fernández, president
of Romi, argued that: “Initially we had some problems, as many men, hus-
bands, and relatives did not support us, our ideas were very advanced with
respect to the traditions of the movement” (Fernández Fernández 2015). She
adds that the participation of older women was decisive in winning the support
of male leaders. And it was the support of older women that “became a motor
for Romi to propose more daring and revolutionary challenges, such as family
planning, delaying the age for girls to get married, or education” (Ibid.).
Today, the Gitanas movement continues to flourish. Although there is no
available data regarding the number of Gitanas women’s organizations in Spain,
the pace of growth is visible through the expansion of Romani women’s fed-
erations. Despite these positive developments, the undeniable recognition of
the Romani women’s agenda, and Gitana women’s increasing presence and
visibility in social, civic, and political spheres, the panorama of leadership within
the Romani associative movement continues to be dominated by men,
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although, according to Laparra, the gender differences in participation levels are

minimal (Laparra 2007, 2011).6 In numerical terms, the participation of
Romani women has increased, in both general Romani associations (that is, not
ones dedicated exclusively to Romani women), and as board members, staff, or
collaborators. However, there is rarely gender balance in such structures; rather,
individual women form part of the boards, which are dominated heavily by
men. Their participation is valuable, as they provide a women’s point of view
and introduce a gender dimension to organizational debates and decisions, but
it should also be noted that the weight of assigned cultural gender roles is sig-
nificant (Maya Ovalle 2007b).
The Rationale of ‘Gitanas Feminism’

Gitanas activism emerged to give a voice to Romani women in Spain in
response to the perceived lack of representation of the specific interests of
Romani women. In fact, Saray Borja, a Gitana activist argues that:
Gitana feminism was born 20 years ago with the first association of Gitana
women, in response to a feminism that advanced, leaving behind women
of different ethnicities who did not advance equally.
(Borja 2012)
There was a strong conviction for the need to represent and articulate the
collective interests and problems of Gitanas, which previously had not been
taken into consideration. The discourse promoted by the first Gitanas leaders
resonated effectively among Romani women, leading to the rapid expansion of
the Gitanas movement, and its relative success.
On the one hand, there is arguably a joint consciousness that Gitanas acti-
vism evoked, that of a pre-existing collective identity as women and as Roma,
and the self-awareness of their disadvantaged situation and multiple challenges
they face as women as members of a stigmatized minority. This self-awareness
was not limited to Gitanas with higher education. On the contrary, irrespective
of class, socio-economic situation, age, or levels of formal education, numerous
Gitana women identified with the discourse of Gitanas activists. Carmen
Mendez argues that “many women who have not passed through the educa-
tion system are also strongly betting on the change of roles, a change that
promotes equality in difference” (Méndez López 2005, 85). Likewise, the
Gitana activists who engaged actively in the struggle for gender equality aimed
at reaching out to all Gitanas, irrespective of levels of education or class. Since
the emergence of Gitanas activism, it has been seen as a tool of women’s self-
empowerment, and as a one-of-a-kind path towards the social and cultural
transformation of the entire Gitano community. Saray Borja, for example,
argued that: “I think that our struggle begins by becoming visible to ourselves
as capable and independent women first, and then to the Gitano people in
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particular, in order to finally make us stand out in the whole society” (Borja
2012). By reaching out indiscriminately to all Gitana women, the emerging
discourse of ‘Romani feminism’ challenged the classism of the mainstream
feminist movement. For example, during the 2002 roundtable ‘Romani
Women: A Space for Participation,’ it was argued that:
[I]n general, in our society, most women do not have qualifications and
there are even fewer university graduates. This means that up to now,
most women did not identify with feminism, since the model that it
represents of the liberated woman and feminist is linked to a high aca-
demic level and with liberal work; they are the so-called academic
women.
(FSGG 2002)
The same document later argued that the contribution of Gitana feminism was
that it represents a struggle “of all [women] for all [women]”: “Respect for
people means that success is not linked to a level of education, but a life lived
according to the rules [la vida de ley] that the person has developed. Therefore,
well-being will not be for a few but for all” (Ibid.). This argument continues to
be one of the principal values of Gitanas activism. For example, María José
Giménez, a Romani women’s leader and politician, argued in a recent inter-
view that:
What is clear is that feminist Gitanas do not want to create an elite feminist
movement, but a grassroots [one], a feminist movement that caters to the
needs of all Roma women, not just those women who have access to
greater participation in society.7
On the other hand, the Gitanas movement in Spain was born through the
acknowledgement of the diversity and plurality of Romani communities, and
the need to reflect this diversity in the agendas of organizations that work for
Roma or aim to represent interests of the community. As argued by Trinidad
Muñoz, a Gitana anthropologist and activist, the idea of diversity ‘has been
useful to discover a different and compatible model to live Gypsyhood as
women committed to our times, to the circumstances surrounding us, and to
the fight to give value to our image and identity inside and outside our ethnic
group’ (Muñoz 2014, 82). In fact, as noted by Ana Giménez:
Romani women organizations are ‘at the edge of various knives’: at the
same time in the cultural, social, political, and probably other spheres. […]
On the one hand, they move between two cultures: the Roma and the
non-Roma. This situation generates a constant reflection and reinvention
of culture, and of all the types of values and strategies which they manage.
Their agility, capacity for synthesis, and capacity for metamorphosis
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depends on their capacity to generate new models of the meaning of being

a ‘good Romani woman’.
(Giménez Adelantado 2008, 14)
Gitanas thus aim to challenge the monolithic and homogenizing narratives and
representation – both self-made by the Romani associative movement and
those imposed – of Romani-hood.
The rationale of this struggle, at the intersection of gender equality and
anti-racist agendas, led to the crystallization of a well-articulated collective
frame of Gitana women’s activism. The Gitanas women’s organizations and
leaders embraced the concept of feminism as a rationale for their own
emancipation and self-fulfillment, but embraced it critically, adapting the
‘white feminist’ approach to the values and traditions of Romani commu-
nities, giving way to the establishment of Romani feminism. Trinidad Muñoz
argues that:
[W]e were always crossed out as not feminist or partisans, but it’s just that
it works differently with Gitanas, and for any Gitana, group belonging is
very important, to feel well and feel part of the group, without renouncing
this [gender] progress.
(quoted in Méndez López 2005, 88).
Rather than a revolution, this process is more of a gradual consciousness-

building, both among women and men. Muñoz argues elsewhere that “we
Gitana women have decided to lead a silent fight for an improved quality
of life, a silk revolution – not a loud one, but a respectful and considerate
one – thus fitting it into a rhythm compatible with intragroup relations”
(Muñoz 2014, 83). Some Gitanas also argue that their feminism is a ‘dia-
logical feminism’, and that it “consolidates itself as an inclusive movement
where all of us have a place. It is a feminism that seeks equality from their
own identity, equality of differences” (“Conclusions about the Dream”
2010).
In one interview with a Gitana activist, she argued:
Romani feminism is different from non-Roma feminism. The approach to

gender equality is different, from the standpoint of the Romani way of
thinking, it’s not like the non-Roma feminism. For example, we do not
agree with the method of working of some organizations […] to exclude
men. We want to include the men.
(Mirga-Kruszelnicka 2016, 162).
In fact, the uniqueness of ‘Gitano feminism’ lies in its openness to men: it is

framed as a joint struggle for the improvement and development of the
Romani communities. One experienced Gitana activist argued:
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I think that the improvement in the situation of the Romani community

has been greatly activated by the women. But I also believe that men and
women should advance together, because if not, the men are going to lag
behind. The transformation of a people has to go together. […] I wish that
Roma men and women could dialogue in equality about, for example, the
education of their children.
(Ibid., 164)
In this context, however, is important to emphasize the fact that not all Gitana
women self-identify or self-describe as feminists, and tend to use rather less
ideologically-charged terms, such as the movimiento de mujeres Gitanas (move-
ment of Romani women). Arguably, the introduction of feminist ascriptions
comes from Gitanas with higher education, and also indicates the participation
and influence of non-Romani women who joined and assisted Romani
women’s associations. Importantly, irrespective of whether Gitanas self-describe
as feminists or women activists, the rationale of their struggle remains the same:
it assumes the need to include a gender-sensitive approach, reflecting the spe-
cific needs and interests of Gitana women, as a tool for self-empowerment but
also for community development.
Likewise, the way in which ‘Gitano feminism is defined is not always
coherent: there are also competing narratives regarding what Roma feminism
actually is, to what extent it should draw from non-Roma feminism, and in
particular, to what extent men should be involved in the Romani women’s
agenda (Vacas 2005). There are also entities engaged in building exclusive
spaces where Romani women can speak openly about issues important to
them, without having to deal with roles and modes of conduct they feel the
majority and minority patriarchal structures assign to them.
In Spain, recurrent claims and criticism have been made since the appear-
ance of Gitanas activism regarding the alleged fragmentation of Romani asso-
ciative structures along gender lines, referring to those initiatives which tend to
exclude men from participating. This criticism of alleged fragmentation con-
tinues to resonate well with similar discussions taking place in different set-
tings, both in the context of national Romani ‘movements’ as well as
internationally (Maya Ovalle 2007a; Guy 2013). For example, Carmen
Gheorghe, a Romanian Roma feminist, argues that: “We are often urged by
male Roma activists to choose the fight against racism over the one against
sexism, so as to not ‘fragment’ the movement” (Gheorghe 2016). Gitanas
activists, however, reject such claims. One of my Gitana informants empha-
sized that:
[W]e have never believed, and still do not believe, in the movement
divided by gender. I mean the Roma associations and the Roma women’s
associations. I think that is one of the biggest errors.
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For them, the Romani women’s movement is an integral part of the collective
struggle for realizing Roma rights, with joint benefits for all the community,
irrespective of gender.
The Impact of the Gitanas Movement and the Emergence of
a Gender-Sensitive Agenda
The emergence of Romani women’s organizations in Spain and their
dynamic development was a novelty for its time. In fact, the first Romani
women organizations were also pioneers on the European level: for example,
Romi, the first Romani women’s association created in 1990, or Kamira, the
first national Federation of Romani Women’s Organizations in Spain founded
in 1999, were also the first such organizations in Europe (Open Society
Institute 2002, 356). Indeed, in the international arena, there were several
Romani women who were active and fought for visualizing the specific
struggles of Romani women, and who were important personalities of the
Romani movement, such as Ágnes Daróczi in Hungary or Katarina Taikon in
Sweden. However, Romani women’s organizations, with specific women’s
agendas and discourse, did not appear until late 1990s. There were a few
exceptions, such as the Gypsy Mothers’ Association, formed in 1991 in
Budapest, Hungary. In Spain on the other hand, the Gitanas women’s
movement emerged earlier and with more energy than in other European
countries.
Arguably, the dynamic development of the Gitanas women’s movement, and
the gradual emergence of a gender-sensitive agenda and discourse also con-
tributed to greater visibility of Romani women’s issues and influenced the
growth of Romani women’s movement elsewhere. International events, which
brought together Roma men and women activists from across Europe, played
an important role in galvanizing Romani women’s activism.
One such event – a milestone for Romani women’s activism – was in 1994
(May 18–21), during the Primer Congreso Gitano de la Unión Europea (First
Romani Congress of the European Union), which took place in Seville and,
among other things, highlighted the need to attend specifically to Romani
women’s needs and interests (Wilson 1995; Bitu 2009; Giménez Adelantado
2008). The Seville Congress marked “a before and after in Roma history,” as
argued by Juan de Dios Ramírez Heredia, one of the initiators of the meeting,
and the question of gender equality in the Roma context was signaled for the
first time.8 On that occasion, a group of 29 Romani women from seven
countries issued a joint conclusion – “A Manifesto of Roma/Gypsy Women” –
regarding the specific problems of Romani women, as well as their possible
solutions (FSGG 2002; Bitu 2009; Giménez Adelantado 2008). What is indi-
cative and significant in this context is that the manifesto was excluded from
the official final report of the Congress, published as a book (Bitu 2009;
Giménez Adelantado 2008). Nicoleta Bitu, a participant of the Congress,
argues that:
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‘A Manifesto of Roma/Gypsy women’ is unique in that it refers to the

situation of Roma/Gypsy women from the European Union, and it is
the only existing document with such a specific reference to Western
European Roma women. […] Emphasis is placed on education and
social policies. Nevertheless, the Manifesto is a sensitive provocation to
cultural values.
(Bitu 2009, 225)
It also made an explicit, although subtle, reference to the lack of self-esteem

and the need for self-empowerment of Romani women:
One of the most serious problems plaguing us as Romani women is the

lack of self-esteem and it is urgent to reinforce the consciousness of our
worth and capacity to solve our own problems.9
These conclusions brought specific attention for the first time to the Romani
women’s agenda on the international level, and were influential both in the
Spanish context as well as for a European opening for Romani women’s issues.
In fact, the Council of Europe took note of the Manifesto and, in the follow-
ing year, organized ‘The Hearing of Roma/Gypsy women’ in Strasbourg on
September 29–30, 1995. Conclusions from the hearings echo those from 1994
in Seville, however, as argued by Bitu (2009), they are much more general.
Nonetheless, the conclusions show increasing gender awareness among Roma
stakeholders as well as institutions. It also brought attention to the specific
situation of Romani women as being at the crossroads “between traditional and
the modernity” (Bitu 2009, 226), and of the challenge to find a balance
between them. In the 1995 conclusions, it was argued that “the development
of Roma/Gypsy women should be in harmony with their more positive tra-
ditional cultural values and in accordance with their vision of life and of the
world” (Bitu 2009, 226). It remained a subtle way of expressing the intersec-
tional and often contradicting realities and roles of Romani women. None-
theless, the internal dynamics within the Romani communities, of gender
relationships and roles, and patriarchy and power, remained invisible as taboos.
In 1997, another important international event of the Romani movement
took place in Spain. The Primer Congreso Europeo de la Juventud Gitana (First
European Congress of Gypsy Youth), organized in Barcelona on November
6–9, brought together over 300 participants, mostly young Roma, from 30
countries. Envisioned as an international platform to discuss the future of Roma
in Europe, the Congress included for the first time a specific working group on
Romani women. The session on women included numerous Gitana women’s
activists who shaped the discussions. The group produced some conclusions,
which were included in the final report of the Congress, published as a book.
The Conclusions, similar in tone to those produced earlier in 1994 and 1995,
highlighted the need to acknowledge the specific problems of Romani girls and
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women, and urged the recognition of the important social and cultural role
played by women. Most of the conclusions referred to the need to promote the
educational development of women, and for institutional support for women’s
activities. Again, the references to internal dynamics, and especially the dis-
advantaged position of Romani women vis-à-vis men, remained silenced. In a
subtle way, Conclusion number 13 signaled this dimension by stating that:
The Romani woman contributes outstandingly with her work to the

maintenance of the family. We have to promote, within our own com-
munity, attitudes which favor the recognition of the decisive role of the
Romani woman with the aim of making her social appraisal easier. [trans-
lation from the Catalan version of the report]
(Unión Romani 1997, 355)
Nonetheless, during the debates, the question of gender equality within

Romani communities, and more specifically the consequences of the emer-
gence of Romani women’s activism were discussed. These discussions – in
which Spanish Gitanas, as those who at that time counted as the most
developed Romani women’s movement and had played the dominant role –
arguably shaped the narrative of Romani women’s activism and helped the
rationale behind ‘Gitano feminism spread further. For example, in an inter-
vention, one of the participants, a young Gitana from Spain, Juana Fernández
Fernández, argued convincingly:
I want to make a simple reflection. […] If the Roma community, the

Romani people is made up of men and women, and there are Roma
organizations, why were Roma women’s organizations set up? […] The
Roma organizations have to defend the interests of Romani people, not
just of Roma men. On the other hand, if Roma women’s organizations
have emerged, it is because at this moment, the men didn’t realize that the
women have other types of problems, other types of concerns. […]
Because many Gitanas, and I am conscious of it, have tried to enter Roma
organizations and it was very difficult. Because we cannot forget that the
Roma people are ruled by men, that is to say, that the women have a
secondary or tertiary role at the moment of speaking and deciding. With
this I want to say that […] your problems as men are our problems as
women.
(Ibid., 267)
The framework of the Congress provided a space in which Romani men and
women, most of them young people, could reflect together on a range of
issues regarding the future of the Roma in Europe. In fact, the question of
gender equality and women’s activism came up numerous times throughout
the Congress, in diverse contexts, and not only within the framework of the
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women’s session. In a number of interventions, women from other countries

expressed their admiration for the progress of Gitanas movement in Spain,
and underlined the need to work together and create a network across
countries (a demand which was included in the final Conclusions).
‘Romani Feminism’ in Spain and CEE Countries: Parallel
Paths?
Nonetheless, this networking and – eventually – international Romani
women’s activism developed in a different direction, predominantly due to
funding and institutional support frames. In 1998, the Roma Participation
Program (RPP) of the Open Society Institute organized the International
Conference of Romani Women in Budapest, concentrating predominantly on
the situation of Romani women in CEE countries, although three Gitanas
from Spain also participated (Bitu 2009). Following the conference, in 1999,
the Open Society Institute initiated the Roma Women’s Initiative (RWI), an
ambitious program which aimed at providing training and institutional support
to the gradually emerging Romani women’s organizations in CEE; Western
European countries were largely excluded from this program. The exclusion of
Western European countries from RWI reflected the scope of action of the
donor institution (now the Open Society Foundations, OSF), which con-
sidered its priority supporting the development of ‘open societies’ in the newly
emerging democracies in post-communist countries; Western European coun-
tries, which were considered consolidated democracies, remained largely out-
side of OSI’s scope of action as well as its funding scheme. Consequently, RWI
concentrated on promoting the “human rights of Romani women by
empowering Romani women activists in Central and Eastern Europe” (Net-
work Women’s Program 2003, 38), distancing the Gitanas movement from the
development of the Romani women’s agenda that followed.
RWI became an important framework that provided training and promoted
leadership of Romani women; it also enabled a degree of consolidation of the
European Romani women’s movement, at least those from CEE countries and
the Balkans. Furthermore, RWI also contributed to galvanizing attention
around Romani women’s issues from major intergovernmental organizations as
well as donors. As argued by Rita Izsák, RWI “greatly influenced the Roma
women’s rights agenda throughout Europe” (Izsák 2008, 5).
In 2002 in Vienna, during a joint meeting organized by the Council of
Europe, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE),
and the European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia (EUMC,
now FRA), a group of Romani women participants discussed the need to
create an international platform. Eventually, in 2003, a group of Romani
women from 18 European countries launched the International Romani
Women’s Network (IRWN). The Spanish Asociación Gitana de Mujeres Drom
Kotar Mestipen (Romani Association of Women) organization joined the
IRWN as the only Spanish member organization. However, as underlined by
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Rita Izsák, IRWN “was rather a group of individual Romani women activists
who have been working in different capacities and knew each other mainly
from their participation in international conferences” (Izsák 2008, 2). The
exclusion of Gitanas organizations and their limited participation in activities
promoted by RWI10 or IRWN resulted in the fact that Gitanas associations
were largely absent from these developments.
The limited participation of Spanish Gitanas associations is not unique in
women’s organizations but reflects a general trend within the Romani associa-
tive movement in Spain. In fact, although Spain has the second largest Romani
population in the EU, and the Spanish associative movement has been devel-
oping dynamically since the 1970s and now includes hundreds of associations,
their involvement in the international Romani movement is somewhat
restricted (Mirga-Kruszelnicka 2016). In the international arena, the situation of
Spanish Roma is often represented by large pro-Roma entities, such as the
Fundación Secretariado Gitano (FSG), while grassroots Romani organization
oftentimes lack the skills and opportunities to become more visible abroad.
Spain has also been excluded from many funding schemes that contributed to
the consolidation of a network of internationally active Romani activists,
including funding offered by private donors such as the Open Society Institute,
opportunities offered by the Roma Education Fund (between 2005–2016 not
one project was implemented in Spain11), or projects such as Pakiv. 12 At the
Central European University (CEU), the Roma Access Program (RAP), laun-
ched in 2004 and part-financed by REF, also initially excluded Romani appli-
cants from Spain; it was not until 2012 that Spanish Roma applicants were
included in its Roma English Language Program (RELP) and Roma Graduate
Preparation Program (RGPP).13 Furthermore, other factors in Spain such as
the language barrier (limited knowledge of English, but also a lack of knowledge
of Romani), the limited professionalization of Romani grassroots NGOs, and
narrow capacity to apply and implement EU projects, also contribute to this
situation.14
As a result, the Spanish associative movement, including Gitanas activism,
remained largely limited to the national scope of action, although the impact of
‘Gitano feminism’ and the work of Romani women’s organizations in Spain
remained an important point of reference and inspiration. Consequently,
‘feminismo gitano’ in Spain and ‘Romani feminism’ in CEE countries evolved
as parallel lineages, with limited direct interaction with each other, sustained
mostly by contacts between individual women activists. Although these
movements developed in parallel to each other they do, nonetheless, share a
similar rationale and principles.
Firstly, Romani women activists share the perception that the vulnerable
situation of Romani women is not inherent to ‘Romani culture,’ but rather
reproduces the social dynamics of the majority societies. In that context:
“Roma communities are an exact reflection of mainstream societies. […] As
in all patriarchal societies, changes are never easy.”15 The misogyny,
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patriarchy and sexism of majority societies transcends to Roma communities

as well.
Secondly, ‘Romani feminism’ is characterized by its intersectional character,
both in Spain and in CEE countries. As argued in an interview with the
Romani feminist theatre group Giuvlipen:
Our feminism is doubled by our constant fight against racism. Feminism

and anti-racism are not two separate struggles for us, but one and the same
issue because we feel and experience sexism and racism in a specific way,
which cannot be figured out unless one is a woman from a discriminated
ethnic group. Because of that, we think that ‘Romani feminism’ should be
used as a specific term by itself, not as a version of other feminisms or
Roma activism.16
Consequently, Romani women activists come up with their own discourses of

feminism, adapting ‘white feminism’ to language of values more in-tune with
the Roma/Gitano community. It is for this reason that ‘Roma feminism’ tends
to be more inclusive of men and is sensitive to promoting the self-empower-
ment of women in relation to and in accompaniment of the community. In
this sense, it is not perceived as an individualistic path, but rather as a tool for
collective advancement of the entire community.
Spanish Romani women oftentimes also look towards other minority
women’s struggles, and as in the case of CEE Romani women, they draw
inspiration from them. For example, María José Giménez, president of Gitanas
association Asociación Gitanas Feministas por la Diversidad (Association of Roma
Feminists for Diversity), argued in a recent interview:
Yes, our situation resembles those of the minority feminists in Latin

America, of indigenous women, or of Muslim women, of the black
movement. Yes, they can be compared to our movement, but ours is in
diapers with respect to them, because we are far below the social con-
sciousness they have; but the way forward is theirs.17
Finally, both in the case of Spain and CEE countries, the Romani women’s
movement is not monolithic: internally, it is heterogeneous, composed of
diverse actors and different approaches, from more conservative and ‘traditional’
to more progressive.
In recent years, the parallel development of the Romani women’s move-
ment in different European regions is being increasingly brought back together.
On the one hand, there are diverse institutional attempts, such as the ‘Interna-
tional Conference on Roma Women’ sponsored by the Council of Europe,
the first of which took place in 2007.18 On the other hand, Romani women’s
associations themselves organize international events which bring together large
numbers of Romani women activists from across Europe, such as during the
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2010 ‘International Congress of Romani Women: The Other Women’ orga-

nized in Barcelona. EU funding (as well as financial support from a wide range
of other public and private donor institutions) provides numerous opportunities
for promoting cross-national collaboration. Finally, the internet and especially
social media provide important tools which further facilitate the cooperation of
Romani women across countries.
Notes
1 The term ‘Roma’ (noun) or ‘Romani’ (adjective) is widely used as an all-encom-
passing term to refer to the diverse panorama of communities which self-define or
are identified as belonging to the same ethnic group. Throughout this text, as a
means of simplification, I use ‘Roma’ as a generic term. However, when referring
specifically to the Spanish Roma, in order to differentiate, I use the term ‘Gitano’
(masculine, singular), ‘Gitana’ (feminine, singular) or ‘Gitanas’ (Romani women,
plural). ‘Gitana,’ the Spanish for Gypsy, is a term which Romani women in Spain
generally use to refer to themselves. It should also be noted that term ‘Gitano’ car-
ries less pejorative connotation than in other languages and is widely used in policy-
making, scholarship, and as a self-denomination of Spanish Roma population.
2 This chapter draws from interviews included and discussed in the PhD thesis
(Mirga-Kruszelnicka 2016).
3 It is estimated that there were already around 200 Gitano associations in the mid-
1990s (Méndez López 2005).
4 http://mujeresgitanasromi.blogspot.com/2015/03/las-asociaciones-de-mujeres-gitanas.
html.
5 By 2005, there were more than 30 Gitanas associations in Spain (Méndez López
2005).
6 According to Laparra, Romani women and men participate (as members, or
attending meetings) to the same extent in ethnic and religious civil society struc-
tures, such as the Evangelical Church. However, when considering participation in
social organizations in absolute terms, Romani women lag behind Romani men;
(67.2 percent of Romani women declare they do not participate in any social
organization, compared to 58.7 percent of Romani men).
7 http://reviradafeminista.com/gitanas-feministas-construyendo-pensamiento-y-m
ovimiento-social-de-marta-casal-cacharron-y-paula-tome/.
8 In fact, a May 19, 1994 article in El País, a major Spanish newspaper, which covered
the Seville Congress, begins with the phrase: ‘The matus (Roma women) want to
develop, educate and be in this society.’
9 The first Congress of Roma from the European Union was organized with the
support of the European Commission in May 1994, in Seville, Spain. The outcome
of the meeting was a Manifesto of Roma/Gypsy Women.
10 For example, in 2006, RWI launched a project in 11 European countries to
‘enhance the grassroots networking of Roma women.’ Spain was not part of the
project.
11 http://www.romaeducationfund.hu/sites/default/files/documents/list_of_ref_approved_
grants_june_2016.pdf.
12 https://pakiveuropeanromafund.wordpress.com/about/.
13 https://rap.ceu.edu/milestones-romani-studies-program.
14 It should be emphasized that this is increasingly changing. A growing number of
Romani university students, the increasing professionalization of some Roma orga-
nizations, the more frequent participation of Spanish Romani NGOs in EU-funded
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projects, and their membership of international networks (notably of the youth,

such as the International Roma Youth Network ternYpe or the Forum of European
Roma Young People (FERYP)), works to reconnect the Spanish Romani associa-
tive movement with their international peers.
15 https://www.awid.org/news-and-analysis/feminist-roma-women-defending-their-
rights-spain.
16 http://www.hystericalfeminisms.com/voices1/2016/11/1/producing-roma-culture-
while-rejecting-the-concept-of-culturalism.
17 http://reviradafeminista.com/1269-2/
18 http://www.coe.int/en/web/portal/roma-women
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29998012/dona-gitana-un-espai-per-a-la-participacio-5-de-novembre-de-2002-fsgg-
barcelona.
Gervás, Jesús M.Aparicio. 2011. “Los Inicios Del Movimiento Social Gitano En Valla-
dolid: El Asociacionismo Gitano Femenino En Valladolid.” In Lugares, Tiempos,
Memorias. La Antropología Ibérica En El Siglo XXI, edited by L. Díaz, O. Álvarez, and
P. Tomé. León: Universidad de León.
Gheorghe, Camen. 2016. “Roma Feminists Navigate the Tricky Terrain of Ethnic
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Giménez Adelantado, Ana. 2008. “Metamorfosis: reflexiones sobre el asociacionismo de
las mujeres gitanas en la década de los 90.” I Tchatchipen: lil ada trin tchona rodipen
romani = revista trimestral de investigación Gitana, no. 61. Instituto Romanò de Servicios
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Cambio En La Comunidad Gitana. Una Primera Aproximación.” Madrid.
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(Romani Women’s Rights Movement). http://www.errc.org/cikk.php?cikk=2750.
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West.” Roma Rights Journal 4 (Romani Women’s Rights Movement). http://www.
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Méndez López, Carmen. 2005. “Por El Camino de La Participación. Una Aproxima-
ción Contrastada a Los Procesos de Integración Social Y Política de Los Gitanos Y
Las Gitanas.” Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona.
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dad?” In Vidas Gitanas. Lungo Drom, edited by Fundación Instituto de Cultura Gitana.
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tection. The Situation of Roma in Spain.”Budapest: OSI.
Santiago, Carmen. 2012. “Analisis and Valoración de Las Políticas de Integración Del
Pueblo Gitano En España: ¿ Qué Hemos Aprendido?”
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Unión Romani.
Vacas, Trinidad Muñoz. 2005. “Mujeres Gitanas: Una Identidad Dinámica Bajo Un
Proceso Inmutable.” In Memorias de Papel (1980–2005). Vol. 1, 2, 3, edited by Aso-
ciación de Enseñantes con Gitanos. Valencia: Asociación de Enseñantes con Gitanos.
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21st May 1994: A Report from the Gypsy Council for Education, Culture, Welfare and Civil
Rights. European & UK Central Office.
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Chapter 11
The Challenges of Kalí

NGOization after Francoism:
Rethinking Activism in and
Beyond Spain
Patricia Caro Maya and Sarah Werner Boada
Maidens, married women and widows, on the pretext of selling clothes or other
things, [shall] not be wandering aimlessly on the streets of this city or on other
posts, and instead [shall] maintain themselves in place in their houses and rooms
carrying out the labors and the ministry of their sex as are doing all other honest
women, under penalty of one month of imprisonment.
Orihuela City Council, 17631
Does the movement of Kalí2 NGOs in Spain respond to the needs of Kalís, and
can it be exported as a role model for the rest of Europe? Kalí NGOs, usually
referred to as asociaciones de mujeres gitanas at the Spanish institutional level, are
said to have had some positive influence on Romnja mobilizations in Central
and Eastern Europe, and are oftentimes promoted as exemplary in the region.
We would, however, like to nuance this argument by pointing at the chal-
lenges of institutionalization and how the State can use it to counter dissent and
perpetuate domination. Based on personal experience, field observations and
academic reflections, this chapter is meant as a warning against the risks of
romanticization. We hope our arguments and, notably, the emphasis on
representativeness, can be deepened in further critical work in the future, and
we are happy to know that some innovative research using Kalí categories of
knowledge is forthcoming.
To reflect on our own positioning, we are first reenacting the dialogue we
initiated as feminist activists (one Kalí, the other Gadji) after meeting at an
International Women’s Day protest in Madrid. It retraces how we got to know
each other over time, how we gradually decided to work together, and the
doubts and challenges this has implied.
Based on these exchanges, we decided to put our thoughts together, and
experiment in how feminist researchers who are members of Kalé and Gadje
institutions can co-produce critical knowledge. Hence in the rest of our essay,
we endeavor to review together the material and discursive obstacles that con-
front Kalí mobilizations within the current Spanish institutional framework,
and reflect on the conditions required to start addressing them as Romani
feminists and allies. We choose to refer to ourselves as Kalí and Gadji
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228 Patricia Caro Maya and Sarah Werner Boada
respectively, because we want to make explicit the social and historical power
relations between both groups, and prefer to use the term Kalé/Kalí/Kaló that
genuinely comes from the community (contrary to Gitanas/Gitanos).
Towards a Kalí-Gadji Partnership? Getting to Know Each

Other
Sarah: I am interested to hear about your own experience and engagement.
How did you become a women’s rights activist and researcher?
Patricia: From my young years on, up until today, I have lived and actively
participated in different Kalé communities, which means I have experienced
and witnessed millions of violations of women’s rights, as well as survival stra-
tegies. How could I not get involved? At some point, I started participating in
various organizations with the hope of working towards structural solutions to
the systematic demands the vast majority of us shared.
Unfortunately, what I found was that in general, organizations were para-
doxically being punished when the results of their interventions matched up
with their stated mission, as this compromised their compliance with the
interests of public authorities who granted subsidies. I was very surprised to see
how the larger organizations, which generally did not belong to the commu-
nity in which they were working, were reproducing projects based on mere
beliefs and opinions that had repeatedly failed, but were still being rewarded by
public institutions. Yet the organizations with fewer resources, made up of
people belonging to the community, were the ones whose actions had the
greatest impact.
All this made me realize that solutions could never come from outside or be
based on scientifically unsustainable schemes which systematically repeated
confirmation biases of political institutions, so I had to investigate in depth
what was happening. The situation I am working to address can be summed up
into a model of ‘gendered anti-Gypsyism,’ which I have developed shoulder to
shoulder in dialogue with Kalís from the grassroots communities. Definitely,
this work would not make sense if it were not translating it into practice, in the
form of activism.
This model compounds various aspects, but all of them rely upon the para-
digm of the Spanish paya (Gadji woman), clearly defined in growing and
mutually exclusive opposition to the prototypical “‘counterexample’ of the
gitana – so much so that the prototype of the paya cannot be constructed
without the prototype of the gitana. Naturally, we can see the products of this
“example-counterexample” mechanism in different policies and legislation at
both European and state level, and of course, it has consequences for the cul-
ture of the State, intergroup, and even intrapersonal relations. Certainly, this
process makes me understand myself even more as a researcher and activist – in
the sense that, as a Spanish Kalí, I feel I must contribute to avoid this great loss
of opportunity, when Spanish institutions do not comply with their
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Rethinking Activism Beyond the Spanish Model 229
responsibility to guarantee the fundamental rights of Kalé communities from a

gender perspective. In my opinion, both Gadji and Kalí institutions must
cooperate for the good of the State’s democratic health.
I think it is great that you want to look into the violence that we Kalís are
facing. But I would also like to ask you: Why do you want to study Kalí
women?
Sarah: This is something we should all ask ourselves – but while ‘native’
authors are equally caught up in power dynamics (e.g. Narayan 1993, 671–
686), we Gadje and white researchers especially tend to feel entitled to ‘study’
minority groups as though their very existence were there for us to observe or
use! It sounds blunt, but it is very much enshrined in our practices. I too have
internalized such norms, and reproduced dominating patterns in the context of
feminist organizing which, ironically, endeavored to ‘help’ or ‘empower’
minorities. It is so much easier to focus on allegedly ‘vulnerable’ groups and
their access to rights, than to reflect over our own system of thinking and
organizing. It took me years to become aware of systemic anti-Gypsyism in my
home country, France, and that it was profoundly interconnected with the
nationalistic Republican myth I had bathed in from an early age. Then, while
working on the Spanish 1/2004 law3 as a model for violence against women
legislation in the context of my previous job, I realized that the so-called
‘international standards’ and ‘good practices’ we were taking for granted did
not take into consideration the perspective of Spanish Kalís one bit, even
despite the timid moves towards intersectional methodology in Spanish aca-
demic and policy expertise. My doubts over what is considered exemplary,
how it is constructed as such, became too significant to ignore. I gradually
shifted from “we need to make sure all women can access the justice system” to
“what exactly is this system, why does it fail to protect, or even endangers,
socially marginalized groups of women, and why is its brutality so blatantly, and
indifferently, unaddressed?” The central question around which I want my
research to revolve is fundamentally self-reflexive. Rather than asking ourselves
what is the ‘problem’ with Kalé populations preventing Kalí survivors from
accessing conventional forms of justice, I think we, as members of the socially
privileged ethnic group, must address the dominant institutional framework we
largely benefit from, how it constructs Kalís and its bias in the way it responds
to the difficulties they are facing. This in turn can potentially deconstruct
broader intersecting power structures.
Patricia: We are quite tired of those researchers who, in the best-case sce-
nario, come to our communities (because very often people conduct their
research without even stepping onto the context they are studying!), meddle
with Kalí women’s deepest intimacies, make up their own interpretations, and
then get all the credit with absolutely nothing in return to the communities.
This is knowledge pillage, cultural appropriation and, in addition, when it is
exerted on women, it is an exercise of patriarchal domination, regardless of
whether the researcher is a man or a woman. I can tell from your questions and
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reflections that this is not part of your goals or your methodologies, but how
do you think you can provide support to those Kalís, who themselves are going
to contribute so importantly to your own academic development, to the same
extent as they are supporting you?
Sarah: That becomes a tricky question once you have come to terms with
the fact that the ‘savior’ position of Gadje and white researchers is a harmful
(and racist!) one. Yet I don’t think that the increasingly accepted argument that
minority women should be the subject of research projects that concern them
calls for indifference or inaction on the part of dominant groups either. As
much as Kalís in all their diversity should indeed be the protagonists of actions
and works which address their situations, and as much as I am skeptical of
notions of white or male champions (which are regularly put forward by
mainstream advocacy campaigns!), still I feel dominant groups have the
responsibility to join the movement to deconstruct the structures they benefit
from. Specifically, we cannot address male violence against women while
continuing to ignore the systemic violence that targets minority women, and
how it triggers and reinforces abuse within partnership. Also, on a more
practical level, the multicultural and multilingual environment I am privileged
to find myself in, in addition to my easier access to institutions, can be put to
better use and help find ways to dismantle systemic violence, when mobilized
in partnership with Kalís. I am researching institutional discourses and prac-
tices in both French and Spanish contexts with the hope of giving a more
comprehensive understanding of this specific type of violence, which is not
confined to one country’s borders. I also want to bring it to the attention of
researchers and professionals in French, Spanish, but also international envir-
onments, as I feel too little is known about gendered anti-Gypsyism in West
European countries and how powerfully intersectional methodology can
reveal it. Although I have regular doubts over which kind of legitimacy I
have and which kind of perspective I am adopting, the issue, I feel, is not so
much whether or not I should do it, but how and with whom. What do you
personally think about my possible contribution as a Gadji researcher, and also
as an ‘outsider’?
Patricia: Out of reciprocity as we were discussing, I think it is fair that, in all
of the decision-making spaces you access thanks to the work you have con-
ducted with Kalís, you support their needs based on their own voices, cate-
gories and self-representation. I ask you to contribute to open up spaces for
Kalís who are less likely to reach political decision-making, so that this doesn’t
end up being exclusively reduced to Gadjis and Romnja privileged by the
neoliberal system. And above all, once you have collected and analyzed your
data, I ask you to close your study with quality and ethics criteria as in any
other investigation, such as by returning to our communities to share the
knowledge that came out of our own raw material of knowledge, discussing it
with us and seeking together with us how to implement solutions to the con-
clusions you have reached.
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Sarah: Your remarks are an important reminder of what many of us forget:

that academic research has personal, social, and political implications, and isn’t
just a new line on a CV. With the ‘best’ of intentions we can do so much
harm, and miss opportunities for social change. From our first encounter
onwards, you have repeatedly insisted on the importance of building alliances,
and we both agreed on the painful, yet vital process of continuous self-critique
when doing so. Can I also ask you what has made you rethink your own
engagement over time?
Patricia: What has made me rethink my position over time has been to
observe, share, and investigate the organizational paths of the Kalís in the past
and present, which in my opinion are strongly connected. For me Kalé feminism
was born in the exercise of our natural rights as a fundamental component in our
identity. A key point in this exercise is our right to historical memory from a
gendered perspective, because it allows us to get in touch again with the genesis
of our Kalé and Spanish identity, again from a gendered perspective.
In this exercise we find that Kalé feminism as organized work is nothing new
for Kalí women. Rather, it constitutes a core component of our identity that
has been denied to the collective conscience, at the cost of anti-Gypsyist direct
violence, laws and orders on women. In this sense, we can find five centuries
of legislation aimed at prohibiting a clearly Kalé feminist economy, its genuine
categories, its informal networks, and so on, as well as exorbitant sanctions
against them for attempting to obtain their economic emancipation, and for
contributing to the group on equal terms. The ultimate goal was to make Kalís
vulnerable on the one hand, and to construct the counterexample of ‘Spanish
woman’ (paya) on the other.
Of course, the effect of this invisibility and the entire propagandistic institu-
tional apparatus used to this end has consequences, and maintains its imprint on
Kalí political participation in the 20th and 21st centuries, as well as on the
dilution of political responsibilities. On the one hand, it determines the process
of NGOization in which Kalís’ political participation is supposedly fostered,
and on the other, it denies the legitimacy of forms of intersectional resistance
initiated by the women made most vulnerable, such as women’s networks
within the Evangelical Iglesia de Filadelfia, or small community-based organiza-
tions that apply a gendered perspective on their actions in a brilliant way.
Unfortunately, the immediate consequence of these effects is the dilution of
responsibility of competent authorities with respect to Kalís’ human rights.
In my view, raising awareness on our historical memory together with its
construction mechanisms, while guaranteeing an intersectional perspective on
the democratic diffusion of this knowledge, may have a potential impact on
Kalí women’s self-expectations which affect the dominant modes in which
today’s Kalí movement is instrumentalized. This would enable us to get a step
closer to not only rebuilding and perfecting our own models in a genuine way,
but also, more generally, to unveiling the mirage of allegedly liberated and
liberating Spanish payas (Gadjis).
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Sarah: I concur and feel you are absolutely right to stress that recognizing
and paying tribute to Kalí women’s own ways of organizing both in the past
and in the present could dismantle the profoundly racist binary, according to
which imagined ‘real’ Spanish women, the payas (Gadjis), have successfully
fought for their rights and that the still ‘uncivilized’ (and ‘unintegrated’) gitanas
(Kalís) should hop on the Gadje emancipation train. This is a dominant dis-
course I constantly hear in my research, and I fear it is even shared by many
scholars and activists who identify as feminist, and not only in the Spanish
context. The critical social and historical work you and other Kalé researchers
are doing is so important to destabilize this deep-rooted imagery, and it is very
inspiring too. And what about the NGOization of Kalí mobilizations, that you
say prevents genuine political participation – how do you perceive it?
Patricia: If I had to define it with just one word, it would be a word I
designed to refer to Gadjo supremacist ideology: ‘Gadjo-centrism.’4 This his-
torically and politically-built ideology is represented in institutional discourse,
its structures and mechanisms, exercising domination over Romnja in particular
and on the whole community in general. It posits the Gadjo masculine per-
spective as the central point of view in issues concerning Kalés in general and
Kalí women in particular.
I think it is very important to understand the ‘Gadjo-centric’ system as a
strategy to dominate Kalé communities, using policies and NGOs to foster the
image of a progressive State, and establishing NGOs as the only legitimized
platforms for participation, bearing in mind that even these platforms do not
have significant space within decision-making bodies. To put it differently, we
can reflect over a question asked by Isaac Motos: to what extent can we call it
participation if there is no right to decide, and what are the consequences of
this participatory mirage?
Naming Gadjo-centrism unveils an institutional ideology and system which
includes policies and access to justice, and a specific culture that uses gender,
racism, age, and displacement ecology at the same time in order to exclude,
while presenting it as an integration process. From my point of view, we could
not understand the global and local domination over Kalé communities,
including gendered domination, without this concept, and it will be very
interesting in the future to analyze in more depth the relation between insti-
tutional gender violence against Kalís in Spain and other countries, such as
Bulgaria and Romania.
Institutional Obstacles to Building a Pluralized Kalí Feminist

Civil Society: Another Form of Gendered Violence?
To this day, the concept of ‘civil society’ still remains scientifically unclear, but
is widely used in institutionalized political spaces to refer to relationships
between the State and communities and their demands. Charles Taylor (1991)
defines civil society as a network working outside and independently from the
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State, which organizes citizens so as to enable them to influence public policy.

To Simone Chambers, civil society relies upon institutions representing life
(1996) and encompasses different types of pluralistic, voluntary and non-state
organizations, such as NGOs or religious groups, among others (2006). The term
NGO, specifically, is equally, if not even more disputed. It encompasses a wide
variety of entities from different socio-political contexts working according to
different logics. As Bernal and Grewal point out, it is defined as a “negative form
[…] by something that it is not: […] it is assumed to be not the State” (Bernal
and Grewal 2014, 7). However, NGOs do have a tendency to reproduce the
modern State’s bureaucratic logics of governance and to be marked by forms of
governmentality (Ibid.); for example, many of them are set up according to
governmental rules and conditions, deliver services in partnership with state
institutions, or rely on state-run project funding.
More and more NGOs, though not all of them, function as outsourced ser-
vices for the State, or as interest groups. They are particularly central in neo-
liberal politics, as “moving across what is included and excluded by the State
[makes them] key to neoliberal projects of privatization and state withdrawal”
(Ibid., 8). At the national as well as supranational level, civil society participa-
tion is hardly possible outside of the NGO form, both within ‘gender equality’5
and ‘Roma rights’ policy areas.
In the Spanish case, contrary to what is sometimes believed, the State has not
truly worked towards pluralizing Kalé civil society. It also does not promote a
democratic form of governance that would effectively guarantee Kalí women’s
human rights. Rather, it seems that an institutional framework has been
imposed on to Kalé civil society to (re)shape its organizing, silence its possible
dissent, and deny the existence of other forms of Kalí mobilizations. We argue
that better attention should be paid to the power relations that are at the foun-
dations of this system and, specifically, to the economic violence used to main-
tain the status quo. We also believe that the promotion of Spanish NGOs as
examples of good practice is not a misunderstanding, but a conscious strategy to
give the illusion that Kalé people’s and especially Kalí women’s rights are being
safeguarded, while their systemic marginalization actually persists. To distinguish
this phenomenon from the multiplicity of other organizations which identify as
non-governmental but are not recognized as interlocutors by the Spanish State in
the same conditions, we will refer to those NGOs whose functioning participates
in maintaining and reproducing the status quo as ‘pro-system NGOs.’ Our cri-
tique therefore concerns the functioning of just one part of the existing NGOs in
Spain, not all of them.
Taming
The development of Kalí women’s NGO networks in Spain is often inter-
preted as a process of visibilization of Kalí women’s needs and demands – and
even as the emergence of a Romani feminist movement. Yet in practice, this
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‘visibilization’ came about within an already confined and restricted civil society
space. Through its interactions with the Catholic Church and its move towards
neoliberal governance, the Spanish State defines the conditions under which
activism is acceptable. We view this process as taming, as activists are, directly or
indirectly, shown which form their movement and its functioning should take,
and hierarchies are established within Kalí civil society.
The Catholic Church has a long and brutal history of persecution of Kalé
people in Spain. The historian Antonio Gómez Alfaro (Alfaro 2010) describes
for example how, at the initiative of the Bishop of Oviedo, who was then
Governor of the Castile Council (the highest political institution after the
Monarch) (Pérez in Maya 2015), and with the support of the dioceses, the
Catholic Church participated in the genocide of Spanish Kalé communities in
1789 (Catala in Alfaro 2010, 8–9), known as the ‘Great Round-up’ (la Gran
Redada). The Bishop specifically argued for the targeting of women (Ibid.,
579), a demand which was seconded by Father Rávago, confessor of the King,
on the grounds that they were evil and practiced magic and prostitution
(Ibid.).6 During the genocide, many women were locked up in houses of cor-
rection which depended on the bishopric (Ibid., 580), such as the Casa de
Misericordia in Zaragoza. Isaac Motos Pérez explains that this was carried out
with a view to morally “reforming” Kalí women into “useful citizens” and
exploiting them as forced labor slaves (Maya 2015). Throughout history, the
Catholic Church progressively shifted from explicit persecution, extermination
and enslavement of Kalé people to paternalistic assimilationist programs which
nowadays shape the direction taken by Kalé and pro-Kalé civil society. One
can wonder what kind of interest the Church had in taking that shift, albeit
without ever recognizing having initiated the ethnic genocide that was the
Gran Redada.
The Fundación Secretariado Gitano (FSG), today one of the biggest pro-Roma
NGOs in Europe, was also founded by the Spanish Catholic Church. As
described by its former director José Manuel Fresno in an article he wrote in
2001, the FSG takes its roots in strictly Catholic institutions, the Secretariados
Gitanos, which were set up under the impulse of Pope Paul VI and the Vatican
II Council in 1965 during the dictatorship of Francisco Franco, and responded
to the Episcopal Commission on Immigration (Fresno 2002). The creation of
the Asociación Nacional de Apostolado Gitano in 1968 then finally led, at the end
of the dictatorship, to the establishment of the Asociación Secretariado General
Gitano (Alfaro 2010, 529) as a legally independent entity, whose mission how-
ever remained very much marked by that of the Catholic Church. Scholar Ana
Gimenez Adelantado affirms that “it was religious leaders who led the organi-
zations, together with a small group of Gitanos associated with the Church and
with a higher socioeconomic and education level than the average Gitano
population. […] Their ambition was to position themselves as mediators
between ecclesiastical groups and Gitano communities” (Gimenez Adelantado
1998, 45–53).
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After the death of Franco, a period of political transition led to the first
elections being held in 1977 and the Spanish Constitution being drafted in
1978. That same year, and for the first time in Spanish history, an organization
was set up by the State to deal with Kalé issues: the Comisión Interministerial para
el Estudio y Atención del Pueblo Gitano (Interministerial Commission for the
Study of and Attention to the Gitano People).7 It was headed by Tomás Calvo
Buezas, a Gadjo anthropology professor who, in an article he wrote for the
Romani Union, would later declare: “After the democratic transition, the first
President’s wife who took interest in the Gitano question was Doña Amparo
Illana, the wife of Adolfo Suárez.8 In 1978, she held a meeting at the Secretar-
iado Gitano’s headquarters in Madrid, which was attended by a couple of Gita-
nos and chaired by Father Alberto Ruiz from the Opus Dei – an institution
which Doña Amparo felt close to” (Calvo Buezas 2014). Although this is rarely
mentioned nowadays, the Spanish Catholic Church and, as we can see, even its
ultra-conservative fundamentalist branch Opus Dei, was deeply involved in the
first state programs targeting Kalé people – and this ‘philanthropic’ model of
governance has had major bearings on the development of Kalé civil society in
the country.
The FSG, whose management board is disproportionately made up of Gadje
men, receives the largest part of EU and national funding towards so-called
‘Roma inclusion’ programs in Spain, and is criticized by many Kalé human
rights defenders both for reproducing Gadje-Kalé hierarchies within the orga-
nization’s structures,9 and for adopting paternalistic stances in its work.10 A
recent interview (La Nueva Crónica 2015) with FSG President Pedro Puente, a
Gadjo Catholic priest, shows that the model being implemented in Spain and
promoted at the European level as an example of good practice for other
countries11 remains very much focused on the necessity for Kalé people to
assimilate into Gadje society. Particularly striking are his declarations on ‘mixed
marriages’ as an indication of social integration: “To this day we can count
about 100 mixed marriages. This is a decisive step towards integrity. Some of
those marriages are leaning more towards a payo [Gadje] way of life, and
some are closer to the gitano community.” This kind of statement reinforces
the white supremacist injunction for people of color and ethnic minorities to
marry white people and assimilate culturally and/or biologically, and by the
same token, the racist stereotype whereby Romani people ‘refuse to mingle’
unless urged to do so. In the same interview, he also reproduces sexist myths
about Kalí women’s achievements, such as: “The main change which has
occurred concerns the gitana woman, who has started to work,” without
taking into consideration historical documentation that shows how Kalí
women had joined the labor market with family conciliation measures cen-
turies before Gadji women, and that their economic emancipation had been
sanctioned by the ruling ecclesiastical authorities in Spain, forcing them to
stay at home like ‘good women’ (Alfaro 2010, 590).12 Note that such Gadjo-
centric patriarchal impositions nowadays taken another form, through the
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obligation to enter the neoliberal labor market and abide by its logics, as we
argue further down.
This institutional context shaped the conditions in which pro-system Kalí
NGOs were set up, as well as their functioning until today. Instead of opening
up spaces for a pluralistic Kalí civil society which would act as a partner in the
development of open democracies, the Spanish State, already in the aftermath
of the dictatorship, chose to grant legitimacy to just a minor part of them,
operating in a state-sponsored institutionalized manner. The system of state
(and EU) subventions in place supports this endeavor by basically rewarding
those organizations whose discourses and activities fit into the State’s Gadjo-
centric model of ‘integration’ while ‘passively punishing’ those that do not. The
conditions listed in the first ever funding scheme aimed at the NAP for Gita-
nos’ Development (Plan de Desarrollo Gitano),13 released in 1989, reflect this
endeavor. The State provided 500 million pesetas (approximately €3,005,062)
according to the following criteria: “Preference will be given to projects whose
activities focus on social problems within the framework of general policies and
avoid creating parallel networks of protection, under the principle of normal-
ization and social integration.”14 At the heart of those criteria was therefore not
the recognition, but the integration of minoritized Kalé civil society according to
Gadjo-centric standards. It was just a year later, in 1990, that the first Kalí
women’s association, Romi, was set up in Granada, giving impetus to the
proliferation of other Kalí NGOs. It led to the creation of national platforms
(Da Fonseca 2009), Kamira in 1999 and, more recently, Fakali, both of which
were established in Andalusia and gather Kalí NGOs from all over Spain which
are considered acceptable by state institutions. The creation of these organiza-
tions was therefore fostered by state subventions, contrary to the general belief
that they were set up as a reaction against institutional violence or sexism
within communities.
This use of subventions and State-NGOs partnerships to prevent dissent is
tightly linked to the neoliberal civil society model supported by the Spanish
State. On the one hand, neoliberal governance relies on a withdrawal of the
State’s social component (what Pierre Bourdieu called its ‘left arm,’ as opposed
to its punitive ‘right arm’) (Wacquant 2009), as has taken place in Spain, with
direct consequences for Kalí women and their opportunities for activism. Those
making up for cuts in social services tend to be women from marginalized
groups, either working on the margins for free, or within state-sponsored pro-
fessionalized NGOs, which are encouraged to construct beneficiaries according
to essentialist categories (Bernal and Grewal 2014, 17). In a powerful study on
minority women’s activism in France and the United Kingdom, Akwugo
Emejulu and Leah Bassel show how dominant discourses only tolerate social
movements organizing explicitly as women from ethnic minorities when it is
framed in terms of “social entrepreneurship” or “victimhood” (Emejulu and
Bassel 2015, 86–95). In our view, the former framing promotes an individua-
listic profit-oriented and self-sacrificing idea of activism to justify neoliberal
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power structures and the lack of equal state protection (you are responsible for
your own ‘failures’); while the latter, which echoes NGOs’ categories of
women beneficiaries and their racist or culturalist dimension (e.g. trafficking,
forced marriage, female genital mutilation/cutting), constructs minority women
as weaklings in need of being rescued from their allegedly backward culture,
and denies them agency. They both find strong parallels with Spanish Kalís and
the paternalistic and moralizing attitude of the Spanish State towards them, as is
reflected in the ‘responsibilizing’ discourse of some social workers that blames
Kalí women for failing to exit patriarchal cultural practices and for living off
social benefits.15
On the other hand, this state withdrawal and lack of accountability when it
comes to social marginalization is paralleled with strong control over civil
society through what some scholars and activists call the ‘Non-Profit Industrial
Complex’ (NPIC), as a means to prevent dissident voices (Incite! Women of
Color against Violence 2007). Complementary to the now well-documented
“Prison Industrial Complex,” which represses minority and deviant groups by
incarcerating them (Wacquant 2009; Wacquant 2005), the NPIC more impli-
citly controls dissent through a network of professionalized NGOs and foun-
dations working with (and in fact within) the state apparatus (Incite! Women of
Color against Violence 2007). While this concept was developed in the socio-
political context of the United States, which greatly relies on private philan-
thropic foundations, it has relevance at the global level and echoes with the
critique of neoliberal NGOization in African countries as developed by Issa
Shivji (Shivji 2007), or what novelist and human rights activist Arundhati Roy
refers to as the “NGOization of resistance” in the case of India (Roy 2004).
Similarly, this critique of non-profit networks whose activities are heavily (or
exclusively) funded by the State to reproduce exploitative patterns is very
relevant in neoliberal Spain, and notably with regard to the European Union’s
funding scheme model. As the feminist collective INCITE! Women of Color
against Violence points out based on their own experience with funding,
through its focus on careerism and competition for project funding, the NPIC
shifts the focus from transformative mass social movements to professionalized
short-term ‘niche projects’ which help maintain a status quo (Ibid.). One of the
collective’s members, Andrea Smith, puts it with very eloquently: “People of
color deserve individual relief but people of color organized to end white
supremacy become a menace to society” (Ibid., 8). In Smith’s words, the NPIC
“functions as an alibi:” under the guise of promoting freedom and democrati-
zation, supranational and national institutions get involved in civil society
organizing, once again with a view to taming dissent. In the Spanish case,
although perhaps contradictory at first sight, the well-established Catholic
Church and EU-supported neoliberal governance seem to work hand in hand
to this end.
As we have shown, the leadership of the FSG, embodied by its President
Pedro Puente, has been defending a paternalistic and assimilationist view of
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Kalé ‘integration,’ and holds a quasi-monopoly of EU funds and EU partici-

pation. At the same time, the pro-system Kalí NGOs, which were set up fol-
lowing the first state subventions in 1989, have to work within and for a
neoliberal model of social benefits and service provision. Dependent on state,
regional, or municipal funding, they must apply for projects in line with state
conditions, among which the so-called renta mínima program plays an important
role in many regions of Spain. Through this program, social services agree to
provide benefits (la renta mínima) to Kalí women living with little resources in
exchange for their participation in activities centered around principles such as
‘employability’ or ‘social abilities,’ understood within a neoliberal discourse.
These workshops are run by pro-system NGOs, but funded and controlled by
state/regional subventions. In this classist neoliberal mode of service provi-
sion, Kalí beneficiaries – because that is what they are – are ‘responsibilized,’
provided with social benefits on the condition that they develop ‘adequate’
employment skills, and at the same time infantilized through compulsory
attendance sheets. Attending protests or events also counts as compulsory
activities – which, if they fail to attend, might lead to the suspension of their
social benefits. While the social workers who are employed by these NGOs
may develop friendly ties with beneficiaries and show discretionary lenience,
they remain trapped in those neoliberal logics, working with relatively scarce
resources, which they will lose if they do not report back to state and regional
authorities and abide by their conditions. However dedicated, and sometimes
even politicized these employees may be, they identify as social workers, not as
feminist activists.16 This pro-system form of Kalí NGOs has little to do with the
grassroots anti-racist feminist social movement which external observers tend to
imagine: rather, it consists of outsourced service provision, carried out by hired
social workers. This service provision remains state-controlled, although to a
lesser extent than state social services, and while it can lead to superficial
achievements (e.g. supporting social housing or driving license applications),
over the longer term and at a more systemic level, it effectively prevents
subverting the social order and cools down the transformative potential of
Kalí mobilizations.
Silencing
A tool of this taming process is the attempt to silence voices that do not comply
with dominant norms, both socially and politically. The mainstream civil
society framework imposed by the Spanish State relies on and exacerbates what
we see as a double silencing: one the one hand, the institutionalization of cer-
tain Kalí NGOs as ‘pro-system’ controls their mode of operating and dis-
courses, and effectively dismisses Kalí beneficiaries’ voices and demands; on the
other, while pro-system NGOs are considered to be the only legitimate civil
society representatives, Kalí mobilizations which do not comply with neoliberal
and Gadjo-centric discourses are denied a part of Kalé civil society, notably
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through the lack of available funding or of a platform to engage with state

authorities. This then reinforces, rather than subverts, the entanglement of
patriarchal and racist attitudes among civil society actors that Kimberlé Cren-
shaw’s ever-quoted concept of ‘intersectionality’ helped unveil (Crenshaw
1991).17 For more alternative forms of organizing that do not meet dominant
standards, funding is hardly available and women are forced to work with low
resources. This further impedes visibility for groups whose discourses are
already unwelcome, and leads to a lack of hope and perspectives. This effective
marginalization of Kalí women’s voices and demands goes beyond the NGO
sphere and also extends to academia, where Kalí researchers experience similar
difficulties.
Within Gadje-dominated feminist movements, the violence targeting Kalí
women still remains largely unaddressed, or attempts towards visibilization fall
into culturalist clichés. Indeed, Gadje white feminism in Spain that mostly
took its roots in leftist anti-Franco resistance during the dictatorship, gradually
developed as state feminism after the democratic transition (Valiente 2003,
30–47) and, despite some significant achievements, fails to give voice to and
work with women from minorities (Nyhagen Predelli et al. 2012). This is
striking during the strong feminist mobilizations against patriarchal violence,
where the connections between white supremacy, remnants of colonialism,
and violence against women are still too often missing. Some Kalí feminists
(working outside of the pro-system Kalí NGO form) have started attending
those protests with their Romani flag and initiating a dialogue, but for now,
their voice remains very marginal.
Then when ‘intersectionality’ is taken into consideration at all, and notably
questions of racism start surfacing, it is interesting to note that rather than
reflecting upon the white supremacist and Gadjo-centric bias of institutional
mechanisms, an additional category of ‘minority women,’ often strictly refer-
ring to migrants, is merely mentioned in the margins. While migrant women,
especially when undocumented, can face appalling violence that urgently needs
to be combated, equating ‘race’ to ‘migration’ strikes us as another attempt to
obscure the deeper white supremacist persecution that still targets ethnic
minorities in the country, regardless of their citizenship or legal status. The
failure to deconstruct dominant norms, even with allegedly good intentions, is
manifested not only in the silence over violence against Kalí women, but also
in culturalist representations of the phenomenon. Indeed, the construction of
Kalís as ‘victims’ of their ‘backward culture’ we pointed at is equally present in
some Gadje feminist discourses. According to this culturalist framing, violence
against women is worse within Kalé communities, not because of broader
societal structures, but because of a fundamentally patriarchal Kalé culture with
intrinsically violent Kalé men and submissive Kalí women. This orientalist
cliché whereby the only way out of violence for Kalís is to get away from their
culture echoes Sherene Razack’s concept of “culturalized racism,” which she
defines as a new form of racism, often meant as benevolent, that constructs
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minority groups as a backward, monolithic Other (Razack 1998). It translates

into injunctions to ‘catch up’ with the ‘civilized’ dominant culture and abide by
its rules, or into cultural relativistic ideas that “they live differently, have dif-
ferent needs and don’t want our help anyway.” both of which are visible in
activist and institutional practices. A practical example of this framing would be
the events focusing on violence against Kalí women, organized in Madrid in
November 2016 to mark the International Day for the Elimination of All
Forms of Violence against Women, where beneficiaries of Kalí pro-system
NGOs, for whom attendance was compulsory as part of the renta mínima pro-
gram, were lectured by institutional actors about their harmful patriarchal tra-
ditions, while attempts to verbalize systemic anti-racism were dismissed.18
Another manifestation of this failure to self-reflect among Gadje feminists is
the fact that mainstream feminism is still, to some extent, constructed according
to the very positivistic norms that it criticizes in androcentric politics and
knowledge-production. The claim to objectivity and universality in law and sci-
ence, which feminist theory sees as a myth to impose masculinist norms on
women and legitimize control over them, is often reproduced by many feminists
themselves. Specifically, positing religious feminism as an oxymoron fails to
consider the feminist potential of other forms of organizing, such as Pentecostal
women’s groups. While all movements should be critically assessed and our call
for avoiding romanticization applies here too, feminist empowerment has been
documented within some Pentecostal communities in the world (e.g. Hallum
2003), and emerging research on the matter in the case of Spanish Kalís should
equally be supported (Amador forthcoming). A vast majority of Kalé Spaniards
are converted to the Evangelical Iglesia de Filadelfia, and Pentecostal women’s
networks within the Church have been very active, without any state funding.
Neglecting this form of organizing amounts to neglecting a large part, if not
perhaps the largest, of Kalí civil society.
Conclusion
There are various reasons why we feel that the perception – and promotion –
of pro-system Kalí NGOs in Spain as an anti-racist feminist grassroots move-
ment is problematic. First, while our understanding of what feminist activism is
and which forms it may take can be plural and flexible, the shortcut ‘women’s
group = feminist activism,’ however, is simplistic and depoliticizing. Where are
the indicators to measure up the impact of these NGOs’ work? How can we
label their work as feminist or anti-racist without being able to measure up
their impact within communities? Quite on the contrary, the pro-system
NGOs that, partly due to their alignment with state discourses, enjoy greater
resonance at the European level, rely on fundamentally patriarchal, Gadjo-
centric, neoliberal structures. Although our critique aims at addressing systemic
violence and is by no means a personal attack against those organizations’ staff,
who were hired to work with the limited tools they have, still, it is important
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to once again note that they identify as contracted social workers, not as fem-
inist activists. Far from a revolutionary social movement, pro-system NGOs
largely constitute an extension of state control, in the form of outsourced ser-
vice provision. Further, the lack of serious data on the impact of their work
paradoxically encourages a discourse according to which achievements in Kalé
people’s human rights would be due to the State’s efforts to ‘integrate’ them,
whereas remaining problems would be caused by Kalé culture’s failure to
‘evolve.’ This framing prevails in national action plans and reports at the
national or supranational level, without providing any scientifically reliable data
that could support such claims.
There is also a serious lack of representativeness among these structures.
Considering the institutional obstacles that Romani women’s mobilizations
tend to face in many countries, it is understandable that one should admire the
establishment of CSOs that are seemingly led by Kalís and recognized by the
State. Yet this hasty positive judgment masks the fact that the work carried out
by these organizations is far from tension-free or unanimous. They are politi-
cally (and financially) hegemonic, but represent a minority of views and inter-
ests, corresponding to a discourse they must comply with to continue getting
support from political institutions. Becoming aware of this paradox should
encourage us to push for a true pluralization of Kalí civil society, where alter-
natives to institutionalized discourses would be heard and acknowledged.
It should also encourage us to better take class power dynamics into con-
sideration: how is it that state-NGO partnerships, which rest upon bene-
ficiaries’ dependence upon social benefits, and then blame them for being
‘lazy’, ‘unwilling,’ or ‘submissive,’ end up being labelled as grassroots? How is it
that the model of ‘empowerment’ experts argue for does not take the per-
spectives of pauperized Kalís into account? Finally, to loop the loop, this takes
us back to the necessity of self-reflection as scholars/activists. Patricia first
reached out to pro-system Kalí NGOs to help the community, attempted to
improve practices from within when she became aware of their flaws, before
she finally chose to build up an alternative framework for activism. Sarah also
started her doctoral project with the assumption that these organizations pro-
vided an alternative empowering space for intimate partner violence survivors
at the grassroots level, only to find a different reality on the ground. Needless
to say, questioning our original hopes and ideas was not an easy process. But
can we ask ourselves: what makes us fail to see the domination patterns that
pro-system NGOs (willingly or not) partake in? Are we also, as feminist scho-
lars and activists, too caught up into hegemonic models of civil society? Yet
again, this is a reminder for all of us that there is no such thing as an external
observer.
An emerging scholarship, from various disciplines and involving both Kalé
and Gadje authors, is challenging the hegemonic discourse that opposes the
Spanish State’s stated achievements in ‘integrating’ Kalé people to the obstacles
that Kalé culture allegedly represents. Among them, we can think of calls for
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democratic dialogue as the basis for non-violent social transformation and the
dismantling of racist hatred, from a philosophy of peace perspective as in Ismael
Cortés’ work (Cortés 2016, 77–91). Although still a minority at the moment,
this scholarship is starting to gain ground, and gives us hope that more critical
perspectives are being taken into consideration.
From this common reflection, we drew some general principles that we feel
should be the basis for any critical feminist action or research. This chapter was
co-produced quite in the literal sense: we got frustrated, stressed, excited,
inspired together and by each other; juggled between languages, but also
between distinct subjective categories of understanding. We repeatedly had to
reconsider our respective positions and interests while engaging in respectful
and reciprocal dialogue. It undoubtedly drew us closer too, and made us come
to the realization that this work could not have been possible in different
writing conditions, without this partnership. We hope it can show that an
alliance between Kalís and Gadjis is possible and can reinforce our critical per-
spective on the various manifestations of gender oppression. We formulated
these principles with the hope of improving our own work and moving for-
ward together in our Kalí-Gadji collaboration.
Addressing power structures from an intersectional lens, by

acknowledging that power dynamics are exerted in complex ways every-
where, both between and within social groups, and that we are ourselves
caught within them. The intersectional perspective aims at visibilizing the
multiplicity and ever-changing forms of power, and is applicable to
everything and everyone. Encouraging the building of a movement that is
critical towards the Gadje neoliberal model of civil society (including
remaining self-critical about how it can benefit us on an individual level),
and trainings on gendered power dynamics with an intersectional methodology
for NGOs, which are nowadays lacking. Class politics and notably class
divides between NGO leaders and beneficiaries should also be seriously
taken into consideration.19
Reflecting over the representativeness and legitimacy of all civil
society actors, particularly those that benefit from higher political visibi-
lity. Avoiding essentialization and romanticization, both when it comes to
institutional organizations and community groups: one voice is not repre-
sentative of all, and is always subjective.
Working towards the pluralization of civil society and equality of
conditions for all, to generate truly democratic practices, between and
within all organizations. Building reciprocal and self-reflexive alliances by
asking ourselves: where am I and how did I get there? How am I posi-
tioning myself in relation to my co-researcher, research participant,
fellow activist, employee, beneficiary? What made me defend this posi-
tion? Can we find common grounds, despite our different trajectories,
sometimes hierarchies, and can we establish reciprocal relations? What
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can come out of this, and does it have potential to challenge the
status quo?
Demanding transparency of funding and monitoring, through the
establishment of an independent institution conducting quantitative and
qualitative studies over the impact of actions and programs, and through
requiring institutions (at all governance levels, including European) to
make all subventions and what they are used for public. Monitoring
reports and in-depth studies should be conducted with a view to genuinely
protecting the human rights of minorities, without subjecting them to
cultural assimilationist policies.
Encouraging and supporting ethical research conducted with differ-
ent scientific methods, and demanding that policies be evidence based. We
need fair policies developed on the basis of reliable data, not political
reports drafted to justify existing policies.
We came together to share our concerns over the power relations at play in
a civil society framework that is praised for its empowering potential, despite
the damage it is causing at the community level. It is a broader societal phe-
nomenon and we do not challenge the need for Kalí women-led organizations
per se, quite the contrary. Many women are investing a lot of energy in com-
mendable projects for social transformation. We are questioning hegemonic,
Gadjo-centric modes of governance, and the surreptitious ways in which they
are subverting Romani women’s claims for participation. The aim of this co-
writing experiment was to reflect on the conditions under which we can
mobilize in more democratic – and truly feminist – ways, in and across our
respective countries.
Notes
1 Quoted in: Gómez Alfaro 2010, 590.
2 Kalí (fem)/ Kaló (masc)/ Kalé (plural): group of Romani people mostly from Spain.
Kalís here refers to this specific group of Romani women in Spain, who are most
commonly called Gitanas (literally, “Gypsies”) by majority society.
3 The Ley orgánica 1/2004 de medidas de protección contra la violencia de género [Organic
Law 1/2004 of Measures of Protection against Gendered Violence], sometimes
shortened to ley integral, is a comprehensive law on intimate partner violence (IPV)
perpetrated by men against women. It includes a strong penal dimension, but also
prevention and protection chapters, and led to the creation of specialized institutions
such as IPV courts. Although it has been criticized by feminist activists for its poor
implementation, especially since the Conservative party is in power, it is also known
as an exemplary piece of legislation on intimate partner violence at the international
level.
4 ‘Gadjo-centrism’: Term introduced by Patricia Caro in a forthcoming research on
group relations, press articles, lectures and actions on social media, as for example
http://www.pikaramagazine.com/2016/05/resistencia-romani/ or https://www.
youtube.com/watch?v=1SLZ1_ybyEs. It presents a domination system on Kalís
based on Gadjo supremacy.
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5 See for example Sabine Lang’s study on the “Velvet Triangle” around European
Union institutions, in: Bernal and Grewal 2014, 219.
6 “Añado que tengo por más perniciosas a las mujeres gitanas que a los hombres, así
por lo que dice el obispo gobernador como porque muchas de ellas son hechiceras,
de quienes se valen algunos malos hombres para muchas maldades. Son también
rameras, que por las calles y casas provocan a muchos. Grande obsequio haría el rey
a Dios nuestro seńor si lograse extinguir esta gente.”
7 “Real Decreto 250/1979, de 11 de enero, por el que se crea la Comisión inter-
ministerial para el estudio de los problemas que afectan a la comunidad gitana” [Royal
Decree 250/1979, January 11th, by which is created the Interministerial Commission
for the Study of Problems Affecting the Gypsy Community]. Available at: https://
www.boe.es/diario_boe/txt.php?id=BOE-A-1979-4525; “Se crea la Comisión Inter-
ministerial de Estudio de los Problemas Gitanos.” [The Interministerial Commission
for the Study of Gypsy Problems is Created.] In El País, 12 January 1979. Available at:
http://elpais.com/diario/1979/01/12/sociedad/284943604_850215.html.
8 Adolfo Suárez was President of the Government from 1976 to 1981.
9 The President of the organisation is Gadjo, the 4 Subdirectors General are Gadje,
and only four people out of 15 in the territorial directions are Kalé. 26% of all FSG
employees only are Kalé, and the disproportionate majority of them (over 98%)
work in inferior positions. Sources: https://www.gitanos.org/quienes_somos/
estructura_organizativa.html;https://www.gitanos.org/quienes_somos/nuestra_pla
ntilla.html.
10 The discourses and organisational structures of the FSG should be researched in
more depth in order to shed light on the problems of representativeness in institu-
tionalised political spaces.
11 https://www.gitanos.org/actualidad/archivo/109879.html.es; https://www.gitanos.
org/quienes_somos/premios_menciones.html.
12 “A lo que parece, el problema del comercio ambulante de las mujeres tuvo especial
incidencia en aquella zona, pues, ya en 1763, el ayuntamiento de Orihuela aprueba
una providencia para que las mujeres doncellas, casadas o viudas, con el pretexto de
vender ropas ni otras cosas no anden divagando por las calles de esta ciudad ni otros
puestos, sino que se mantengan recogidas en sus casas y habitaciones haciendo las
labores y ministerio de su sexo como lo hacen todas las demás mujeres honestas,
bajo la pena de un mes de Cárcel a la contraventora.”
13 “Resolución de 22 de mayo de 1989, de la Subsecretaría, por la que se dispone la
publicación del Acuerdo por el que se determinan criterios objetivos de distribución
de varios créditos presupuestarios entre Comunidades Autónomas en concepto de
ayudas y subvenciones para la realización de programas de acción social y servicios
sociales.” [Resolution of May 22nd 1989, of the Undersecretariat, which provides for
the publication of the Agreement that determines objective criteria for the distribution
of various budgetary credits between Autonomous Communities in the form of grants
and subsidies for the realization of social action programs and social services.] Available
at: https://www.boe.es/buscar/doc.php?id=BOE-A-1989-12306.
14 “Tendrán preferencia los proyectos que profundicen en experiencias que favorezcan atención a
los problemas sociales en el marco de las políticas generales, evitando crear redes paralelas de
protección, en aplicación del principio de normalización e integración social”
15 Field observations and interviews conducted by Sarah Werner Boada.
16 Field observations and interviews conducted by Sarah Werner Boada.
17 For the application of the term by Romani feminist scholars see, for example: Kóczé,
A. (2009) “Missing Intersectionality: Race/Ethnicity, Gender, and Class in Current
Research and Policies on Romani Women in Europe” with contribution from
Raluca Maria Popa, Policy Papers, CEU Center for Policy Studies, CEU Press.
9781138485099_text.3d;

18 Events organised respectively by the Municipality of Madrid and the District of

Usera, attended by Sarah Werner Boada.
19 In the Spanish context, from the First Congress of Kali Women onwards, which
took place in Granada in 1990, organizations’ leaders have tended to be professio-
nalized and participants uneducated: see Adelantado Gimenez 1998, 47.
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Asociación de Enseñantes con Gitanos.
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gitana de León era analfabeta” [Pedro Puente: When I started working with them in
the 60s, the entire Gypsy population of León was illiterate]. La Nueva Crónica, August
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Concluding Remarks
Promises and Prospects of the Romani
Women’s Movement in Central and
Eastern Europe
Alexandra Oprea
Alexandra Oprea
The Roma have historically been denied the right to control their own image
and representations of themselves and their culture. Always being the gazed-
upon and never the gazer, the object and never the subject, Roma have seldom
been able to define who they are for whites. Rather, knowledge has been
produced about Roma by whites – as many in this volume point out – often
with no input from the affected communities.1 As the theory of inter-
sectionality (Crenshaw 1995) has gained more and more traction in Europe, in
policies, discourse and scholarship, this perverse phenomenon has extended to
the subcategory of Romani women, who are either completely excluded or
silenced in these spaces.
Fifteen years ago I described the erasure of Romani women (Oprea 2003),
which resulted from the failure to disaggregate race and gender data, because as
a student, I found it difficult to make the case for Romani women’s margin-
alization without the statistical evidence required by today’s institutions. There
was a lack of (formally documented) knowledge about how Romani women
fare in terms of all the major indicators (education, health, employment and so
on). This slowly began to change2 through the activism of Romani women in
Europe both at the grassroots and at the national and international level, nota-
bly through the Romani Women’s Initiative (Chapter 1), spearheaded by Biţu
and Schultz, the work of Kale feminists (Chapters 10–11), and other authors in
this volume, including the Romani feminist powerhouse that is Angéla Kóczé
and the trailblazer Margareta Matache.
The increased attention to intersectionality in data collection and beyond
helped us gain a better picture of how Romani women were faring compared
to Romani men and white women, but it unfortunately did little to better
their lot. The theory of intersectionality has yet to be embraced or applied
robustly in some spaces. Fourteen years after publishing Re-envisioning Social
Justice from the Ground Up (Oprea 2004) and almost a decade after Kóczé’s
Missing Intersectionality (2009), the subordination of Romani women remains
largely unaddressed or misunderstood in political and legal spaces. A case in
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248 Alexandra Oprea
point is human rights law’s treatment of intersectional violations against

Romani women,3 that is, violations that are shared neither by Romani men
nor by white women. The continued bifurcated understanding of race and
gender and human rights law’s failure to adopt a robust understanding of
Romani women’s subordination is disheartening.4
Even in spaces where intersectionality has been embraced, the newfound
awareness did not necessarily translate into an awareness of how the cross-cut-
ting axes of subordination excluded Romani women from the very spaces and
institutions now purportedly seeking to help them. This is due to the particular
way in which intersectionality was consumed by the various state, institutional
and individual actors. Intersectionality was embraced as long as the margin-
alization it tackled was “‘somewhere else,’ as long as the raced and gendered
oppression was NIMBY (not in my back yard), it was fine to discuss. There
was little self-reflection or a wholesale interrogation of the policies and prac-
tices that put some in a position to speak on behalf of ‘Others.’ Unfortunately,
in Roma related actions and projects little headway was made in terms of
taking into account white privilege or male privilege.
This intersectionality cherry-picking ensured that even as Romani women
and intersectionality gained currency as analytic categories, there would be no
parallel, obligatory inclusion of Romani women in those spaces. Despite
awareness that we lie at the crossroads of various forms of exploitation and
injustice, it seldom occurs to scholars, policy-makers and activists that this is
happening among their ranks, as though academia, government, and NGOs
were somehow exempt. Implicitly – to the extent one even notices their
absence – it is presumed that Romani women do not occupy certain positions
because of qualifications and merit and not because power mediates our access.
This presumption that we live in a meritocracy allows those who produce
knowledge about Others or policies for Others to ignore their “knapsack of
privileges” (McIntosh 1995).
This book is a departure from this practice. And it is long overdue. The
voices you hear in these pages are of brave women and their allies who were
willing to risk ostracization, ridicule,5 harassment, and violence to do what is
right, to write our history, women who have the courage to embody what is
thought to be an oxymoron: a Romani feminist.6 Occupying this no (wo)
man’s land is not easy, much less writing from and about it. These pages are
sacrifice. These pages were written while working a full-time job, in between
caring for children and ill parents, nursing babies – for some, it has meant for-
going a couple days’ salary at their ‘real’ jobs. These pages were written in spite
of structural barriers, not the least of which are language barriers, financial
barriers, and anxieties about venturing into this unchartered territory wielding a
pen as a warrior might a sword or a shield. Lest I be misunderstood, what is
uncharted is the form it is taking, not the resistance itself.
As I have argued elsewhere, Romani women’s activism is home grown, not
imported, and it has many tentacles. Romani women’s contestation of power
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Concluding Remarks 249
in political and academic spaces coexists with and complements contestations in

the private sphere, in the everyday lives of individuals who do not consider
themselves activists or think of themselves as part of any political movement.
We mustn’t forget the everyday activism of our sister soldiers whose voices go
unheard: the Romani mother who goes to her child’s school to complain
about how s/he is treated only to be called a “tiganca borata” (repugnant
Gypsy [woman]), “mahalajoaica” (roughly translated, “rowdy b*tch”) and to
have the police called on her. The Romani girl who tells her parents that she
will not marry the man who “nashadea la”. The older Romanian Romani
woman begging near the World Trade Center in snowy weather, wearing
summer sandals (papuchi) – she is fighting for free speech for all of the poor in
this country. My young, 80lb Romani woman client who was passively pan-
handling in a small township in New Jersey, in front of a Walmart, who resis-
ted an unlawful arrest and suffered a broken wrist and three months in U.S.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention as a result. The young
woman in ICE detention who refused to sign paperwork that falsified her
responses to questions. The woman whose mouth had to be wired shut after
her husband broke her jaw because “i voi del duma” (roughly, “she always has
something to say”), yet still advocated for her right to get her daughter back
from the New Jersey Department of Children and Families (NJ DCF).
Having one’s jaw broken and wired shut as a result of speaking out is a
powerful illustration, yet it is only one example of how Romani women are
literally silenced. We cannot speak in the home without facing retaliation; we
cannot even hold signs that speak to our marginal status (panhandling) without
being assaulted by law enforcement; we cannot put our grievances into words
in schools or political spaces without facing backlash. Everywhere we turn we
are either told that our voices do not matter, that we do not make sense, or
that we are overly sensitive. This book brings much needed legitimacy and
visibility to Romani women’s resistance.
Why the Form is as Important as the Substance

I cannot underscore enough the importance of this compilation of work not
only because of its substance, but also because of its form. The written word
has particular significance for the Roma. Our status as a nation without a ter-
ritory that lacks the institutions that come along with having a home country
has rendered education and even basic literacy elusive for the Roma. For
Romani women, the virginity cult,7 and the obligation to join the husband’s
family and leave one’s own family8 have made education and literacy particu-
larly elusive.
The written word has been key to Romani subjugation. Paperwork, docu-
ments9 (passports, IDs, birth certificates), citations/references (to support facts
that are not known to the general public, such as assertions of discrimination10)
have been intrinsic to Romani exclusion. The overreliance on paperwork
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250 Alexandra Oprea
(tyranny of documentation)11 has been an effective weapon against a largely

illiterate group such as Roma. Not only have we not historically had access to
creating these sources, as a nation without a territory, we have lacked institu-
tions to create even the most basic records of our lives (identity, marriage
documents).
We live in an age where rights have become dependent upon paperwork
(e.g., evidence in court, contracts to show the terms agreed upon by the par-
ties); documenting rights has become commonplace (e.g., signing consent
forms, signing waivers of liability for certain activities, signing receipts indicat-
ing agreement to pay, signing confessions). One’s agreement to the terms
before her is indicated by signing one’s name. For Roma in general and
Romani women in particular, this has become a way in which we have been
recruited to cosign our own oppression.12
Simply put, the written word/literacy has been a tool wielded against us,
used to deprive us of our rights; Romani – and specifically Romani women’s –
illiteracization,13 in conjunction with paperwork regimes that developed as part
of bureaucratic, documentation-dependent institutions, created the perfect
storm to ensure that rights guaranteed on paper are never exercised by Romani
women. Even the signature, purportedly built as a check against those with
superior bargaining power, has actually developed into a tool used to legitimize
our oppression, depriving us of our reproductive rights and rights to redress.
It is against this backdrop that this book is written. And it is this backdrop
that mediates our relationship to education, literacy, and the written word.
One of the unfortunate consequences of this backdrop is that being educated
and being Romani have been constructed as mutually exclusive. That is, a
Romani person who is educated is considered less Romani, more gajikanime,
as lack of access has morphed into a marker of Romani identity.14 Within the
community, at least in the U.S., among immigrant (Romanian) Roma, this
may mean being considered hasardi (lost); some even consider it lajau (sha-
meful). But the judgment passed by the community is very much gendered.
The connotation is worse when it is an educated woman because it is taken
to indicate that she is loose, as she has been amongst the gadje for so many
years. Thus, education is thought to corrupt and taint Romani women in a
way that is very different from men. Romani women who attend higher
education and venture into the professions are sometimes regarded as sexually
available and thus more vulnerable to sexual harassment.15 I only reflected on
this recently, in light of the recent events in the U.S. with the sexual mis-
conduct floodgates opening in Hollywood (Almukhtar, Gold and Buchanan
2018) and Congress16.
Reflections From the U.S. and the Promise of Narrative

I recall how over fifteen years ago, when I began writing about the intersec-
tional subordination of Romani women, a Romani male activist scoffed at me
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when I described myself as a ‘Romani scholar.’ He insisted on calling me Tigy

and I resented it. I got other bad vibes from him but said nothing. Then, one
night, I had to stay late at the organization where I was interning to help him
translate a funding proposal into English and he came close, sniffed me and said
“Mmmm…You smell good. I thought all Gypsy women smelled bad…” He
then tried to touch me inappropriately and instead of telling him off, I gently
said I had a boyfriend and pleaded with him that we needed to “focus on the
proposal for those poor children.” As uncomfortable as it was, I stayed there to
finish the proposal that was due and over the next couple of months continued
working in the hostile environment he created. I thought that if I told the
director, who I thought viewed me as a daughter, I would get this man in
trouble and after all, he is a lawyer and a doctor and did not want to bring
down one of us who ‘made it.’ Little did I know that telling the director would
make no difference. When I nervously told the director, he laughed and said,
“Oh, Alexandra, you know how it is in the Romania [Roma community]…
You’re an attractive girl.” What I did not realize then was that to the tradi-
tional director, it was considered something akin to the assumption of risk. I
was out in the world with no man to answer for me (husband, father,
brother) – I had stepped outside of the protections of the community and
essentially assumed the risk that I would be sexually harassed.
It never even occurred to me to tell the other two directors, two non-Roma.
I thought that it would be best handled within our ranks. I was not as brave as
Anita Hill and was not willing to endure what would certainly have been further
degradation. What is more alarming is that I have never told this story until now.
I wonder how many years we have to wait until Romani women can have
our own ‘#MeToo’ (Chappell 2017) moment, without being painted as race
traitors, as the pioneer Anita Hill was. This compilation dedicated to our
movement, our struggles is a move in this direction. I am especially hopeful at
the inclusion of this narrative (Chapter 6) in this book precisely because we
have been told that our thoughts and personal experiences – falling so far out-
side the scope of ‘normal’ – are not worth speaking about, much less writing
about. These counter-narratives are what will give birth to our own ‘#Me
Too’ movement. But for now, it seems far away, the way a luxury item would
to a person focused on necessity.
Romani Women in Europe Versus Those in the U.S.: A False Dichotomy?

If I were asked to provide a perspective on the struggles of the Roma in
Europe versus those in the U.S., prior to January 2017, I would have perhaps
said that racism and sexism are less overt here than in Europe. However, the
inauguration of Donald Trump blurred this line by eroding notions of political
correctness and ushering in an era of repackaged white nationalism and sexual
predation. Racists have become emboldened17 and immigration detention
polices are becoming more draconian. Roma, particularly immigrant Romani
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252 Alexandra Oprea
women are caught between a rock and a hard place: continue living in Europe
under horrid conditions or come to the United States and endure incarceration,
ankle monitoring and separation from support systems. My experience is largely
with those who choose the latter. For Romani women, emigrating to the U.S. is
particularly dangerous because they accompany the husband’s family, leaving
behind their own relatives. They are at the whim of the husband. These condi-
tions provide ripe ground for domestic violence and exploitation. I have been in
consultations (in my capacity as attorney and social worker) where the husband has
hit the wife in the head in front of men for “speaking out of place.”18 Because of
their professions or lack thereof, these women are also overpoliced and over-
represented both in the criminal justice system, as black and Latina women are,
and in the ever-expanding system of immigration detention in the U.S., as they
lack documentation. In this environment, even if a Romani woman wanted to call
the police on her abusive husband, it is likely that it would result in both of their
arrest/detention. In addition, there have been instances where the authorities are
made aware of domestic violence in the home and wind up arresting the husband
and removing the children from the home, in spite of the fact that only the
mother now remains in the home. It then becomes an uphill battle for the mother
to regain custody as her undocumented status and poverty level count against her.
These women must then suffer the abuse in silence.
This book is thus especially significant considering the profound ways in
which structures, institutional policies and practices continue to literally and
figuratively silence Romani women and punish them when they do speak out
or otherwise attempt to resist their subordination.
Carol Silverman: 0000-0002-4554-2271

This pioneering volume draws together important actors from different gen-
erations of the Romani women’s movement in Eastern Europe who share their
insights and articulate their deeply committed personal and political observa-
tions. Beginning with a wide-ranging Introduction that places Romani femin-
ism in wider frames of scholarship regarding social movements, citizenship, and
identity politics, the volume moves to insider histories of gender activism that
take account of socialism and postsocialism. The first section focuses on trans-
national arenas, the second on national arenas. In this afterword I attempt to
draw together threads from various chapters to analyze the challenges and bar-
riers activists have faced, the milestones they have reached, and the prospects
ahead. Moving between theoretical concepts and activism, I interrogate issues
of methodology, legitimacy, intersectionality, culture, and alliance.
Methodology Matters
The reflexive dimension of this volume is one of its greatest strengths. One of
feminism’s main tenets has been to show how all epistemologies and
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knowledge and truth claims come from particular positionalities; moreover,

positions of the powerful appear invisible because they are normalized. Until
recently, absolute truths have been claimed by dominant groups – men, ethnic
majorities, and people with various forms of wealth. But with feminist gains,
knowledge has been decentered and truth claims from various marginal “stand-
points” have emerged. With the formation of the Romani women’s movement,
knowledge itself, as constituted by non-Roma and by Romani men has been
questioned. Experiential knowledge from Romani women has become more
visible, and more recently, further decentering has occurred in terms of sexuality,
class, and ability (Kóczé 2015; Matache 2017).
The voices in this volume attest to the core feminist principle that “the
personal is political” (see Introduction). Many authors trace their involvement
in women’s issues to their life histories – how they were shaped by families,
communities, and mentors, and by exclusions and opportunities (Schultz 2005).
Their narratives illustrate that personal experiences can not only be transformed
into activism, but also help to construct theories about difference and power.
Here I mean that reflexivity is more than a method of disclosure of position-
ality – rather, it is a tool of analysis: from personal circumstances of oppression
come insights into how power works. Furthermore, experience can build
incrementally toward action and ultimately structural change.
The theme of reflexivity leads to issues of reciprocity and legitimacy. Several
authors narrate how they needed to separate from their communities precisely
to gain new views into the gendered and ethnicized circumstances of their
lives. These insights transformed them into activists and scholars but also
somewhat alienated them from communities, precisely where most of their
activist work would matter. This is a well-known phenomenon among activists
from marginal communities: once they acquire skills outside their communities,
they may lose their legitimacy inside, in part because they are struggling to
establish their legitimacy in mainstream institutions.
Several authors point out that activists who are out of touch with Romani
communities may unwittingly adopt patronizing and top-down judgments
from non-Roma. This is especially salient in matters of supposed ‘tradition,’
such as early marriage and virginity tests, which I will discuss below. The edi-
tors point to ‘NGOization’ which has “displaced Romani grassroots voices”
(Kóczé et al. XX). Gheorghe, for example eloquently narrates why she decided
to return to community work; after years of international meetings and policy
papers, she chose grassroots work where she could tangibly impact women’s
lives. “I was coordinating grand projects for Roma women, but I stopped
communicating with Roma women, I only talked to embassies, institutions,
and important people. I was left with no time or energy required to see directly
what happened to women in communities, women who did not have the
opportunity to show what they were doing” (see Chapter 5). The decision to
return to grassroots work is often an ethical stance, to embrace a reciprocal
exchange – giving back to ordinary folks whose needs are greatest.
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254 Alexandra Oprea
One illustration of the dilemma of grassroots vs. policy work is the debate
over use of the term feminism. Many Romani women, especially the less
educated, reject the term entirely. Either they feel it is anti-men, anti-tradition,
or simply alien to them. These same women may actually be quite powerful in
their families or communities, and they may embrace some of the tenants of
feminism, such as equal rights. As the editors write in their Introduction: “there
are women who do break the taboos and articulate women’s equality agendas,
but who do not frame their work as feminist. This is why Debra Schultz argues
for using the expression of Romani gender politics rather than Romani feminism
…. (Schultz 2012, 40)” (Kóczé et al. XX). Furthermore, Schultz points out
that there is a taboo among marginalized groups to “never criticize your own
people to the dominant society” (Schultz 2012, 37). This evidence argues for
an inclusive and sensitive attitude towards terminology.
Intersectionality
This volume resonates with a clear call for mobilization around inter-
sectionality, a concept that brings together multiple axes of hierarchy, including
gender, race, ethnicity, class, and sexuality. Many authors interrogate how it
can be used for Romani feminism and why it has yet to be fully harnessed.
Introduced by Crenshaw (1991), intersectionality has expanded from critical
race theory and law to myriad spheres. In the 2013 issue of Signs: Inter-
sectionality: Theorizing Power, Empowering Theory, guest editors advocate “an
intersectional way of thinking about the problem of sameness and difference
and its relation to power. This framing – conceiving of categories not as distinct
but as always permeated by other categories, fluid and changing, always in the
process of creating and being created by dynamics of power – emphasizes what
intersectionality does” (Cho et al. 2013, 795). Similarly, Kóczé drawing from
Yuval-Davis (2006, 193–209), states: “One of the specific characteristics of
intersectional analysis is an anti-homogenizing approach that refrains from
over-generalization. An intersectional approach scrutinizes the differences
within large categories of ethnicity, gender, and class and explores how differ-
ent social divisions are enmeshed and constructed by each other” (2006, 61).
According to MacKinnon, intersectionality does not:
simply add variables. It adopts a distinctive stance, emanates from a specific

angle of vision, and […] embodies a particular dynamic approach […]
while remaining grounded in the experiences of classes of people within
hierarchical relations [….]. Intersectionality focuses awareness on people
and experiences – hence, on social forces and dynamics – that, in mono-
cular vision, are overlooked. Intersectionality fills out the Venn diagrams at
points of overlap where convergence has been neglected, training its sights
where vectors of inequality intersect.
(MacKinnon 2013, 1020)
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For example, Romani scholars have added “race” to earlier conceptions of

ethnicity and class because Roma, regardless of class or gender, have been
racialized as inferior persons.
Some scholars have criticized intersectionality because it reifies and essen-
tializes categories of identity rather than dismantling structural inequality
(Phoenix and Pattynama 2006). However, 2013 Signs editors “emphasize an
understanding of intersectionality that is not exclusively or even primarily
preoccupied with categories, identities, and subjectivities. Rather, the inter-
sectional analysis foregrounded here emphasizes political and structural
inequalities” (Cho et al. 2013, 797). “As Jennifer Jihye Chun, George Lipsitz,
and Young Shin observe: ‘Intersectionality primarily concerns the way things
work rather than who people are’” (Ibid., 923).
I underscore that identity politics are too often demonized as essentializing and
dismissive of power differentials; to the contrary – identity politics itself is often the
product of inequality. Similarly, Cho et al. claim that “the opposition between
identity and power is itself a rigid and non-dynamic way of understanding social
hierarchy” (Cho et al. 2013, 797). MacKinnon similarly notes that identities are, of
course, “authentic instruments of inequality. And they are static and hard to
move” (cited in Ibid., 1023). MacKinnon further observes that identities and ste-
reotypes “are the ossified outcomes of the dynamic intersection of multiple hier-
archies, not the dynamic that creates them” (cited in Ibid., 797–8).
In Romani gender studies, Alexandra Oprea (2004, 2005a) and Angéla
Kóczé (2009, 2011) need to be credited as the pioneers of intersectional
approaches. Oprea pointed out that when Romani women criticize practices in
their own communities, they are accused (often by men) of betraying Roma
(Oprea 2004). Similarly, Dunajeva et al. claim that having multiple perspectives
within Roma politics is often wrongly blamed for diluting its focus on chal-
lenging injustice (Dunajeva et al. 2015, 76). This rendering of supposedly
competing identities/perspectives is futile; rather, an intersectional analysis
reveals what Kóczé labels “intersectional discrimination” (Kóczé 2009, 61). In
her influential report Missing Intersectionality, Kóczé writes: “The analysis begins
from the proposal that the social position of Romani women as a group is
shaped by the interaction of (at least) ethnic, gender, and class inequalities”
(Kóczé 2009, 13). The authors in this volume profusely illustrate that Romani
women face challenges not only from the majority society, but also from their
own communities, the feminist movement, the Romani movement, and from
their class and sexuality positions.
Kóczé further sensitizes us to the profound differences within the category
Romani women (2009) so that we can see precisely what factors produce dis-
crimination for which women. For example, several Czech and Hungarian
authors in the volume analyze forced sterilization (and other types of health
discrimination) via gender, racial, ethnic, and class intersections – it is a human
rights abuse perpetrated on poor Romani women. Kóczé concurs: “Lack of
access to social benefits and health care and poor health status are directly
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256 Alexandra Oprea
linked with unemployment, poverty, low education and inadequate housing

and living conditions” (2009, 38–9).
Furthermore, the editors of the volume cite Vincze, who claims that:
introducing the perspective of gender difference […] is not an attack on

cultural identity. On the contrary, it is a contribution to the acknowl-
edgement of the internal diversity of this identity […]. Feminism is not an
enemy of other identity politics, even if it systematically denounces essen-
tialisms of any kind, including its own. But it surely is a form of activism
directed against any regimes of power, criticizing them from the perspec-
tive of the subordinated and disadvantaged, thus being able to mobilize
cross-ethnic solidarities.
(Vincze 2010, 9, cited in the Introduction)
Gheorghe, Mark, and Vincze’s chapter precisely “focuses on more than one
type of injustice to cultivate feminism as intersectional politics. […] It addresses
not only patriarchy, but also class inequalities and racialization” (see Chapter 5).
Vincze’s work on education and employment discrimination made her “realize
that all these issues were also connected to the fact that Roma individuals
confronting these hardships were living in precarious housing conditions, in
segregated areas, isolated from the rest of the settlements [….] a phenomenon
that I call ghettoization” (Chapter 5). Thus housing became an intersectional
feminist issue. Similarly, Carmen Gheorghe confesses: “It was not until last year
that I managed to convince feminist organizations from a network to work on
evictions. They argued that feminists had their own agenda to fight against
patriarchy, inequalities between women and men, and that was it” (Chapter 5).
Using an intersectional matrix, Vincze boldly tackles class and race in her
explicit critique of neoliberal capitalism:
In order to highlight the fact that feminism […] is also anti-racist, let me focus
on some structural aspects of the relationship between capitalism and racism.
First, […] neoliberal capitalism is enacted […] by racism. In this process, racism
functions most importantly as an institutionalized arrangement producing […]
accumulation on the one hand, and dispossession on the other. […] Racism
claims that “Roma poverty” or sub-standard living conditions are the out-
comes of Roma cultural traits or lifestyle. The interplay of capitalism and
racism materially produces the dispossessed […], and also racializes them dis-
cursively by asserting that they are sub-human or non-persons. […] It is my
conviction that the political intersectionality assumed by Roma feminists might
exactly address how racism and classism are intertwined in the creation of
inequalities or, to put it differently, how structural intersectionality functions.
(Gheorghe et al. XX)
This cogent analysis leads us squarely to debates about gender and culture.
9781138485099_text.3d;

Culture and Tradition

In the early years of the Romani women’s movement, activists focused on
issues such as early marriage, domestic violence, virginity, and female school
dropout rates. This produced tangible results but narrowed the roles of Romani
women to those “linked to the household and child-bearing only” (see Chap-
ter 2; also see Kóczé 2009, 24). Kóczé further claims that in the early 2000s,
the Council of Europe (which sponsored the International Romani Women’s
Network):
“womanized” the domain of ethnicity – treated minority and diversity

issues solely as issues of culture and tradition. The shortfall of this con-
ceptualization is that it does not emphasize the deep-rooted, social-struc-
tural causes of inequality. Romani women are seen as ‘mediators’ between
their communities and society. This view positions women in the gen-
dered role of “peacemakers,” who seek reconciliation, rather than justice.
(2009, 53)
While scholars such as Oprea and Kóczé offered multi-pronged analyses of

gendered practices, too often they were framed by policy-makers as issues of
‘tradition,’ as if Romani culture is uniform, static, deficient, backward, and
uncivilized. Romani gender activists were simultaneously blamed by non-
Roma that their culture is oppressive to women and also blamed by Romani
men that they had abandoned their culture. Volume editors cite Matache’s
description of “two markedly different identity patterns among Romani
women activist groups and their agendas. One of these addresses emancipa-
tion from the imperatives of tradition, whereas the other pursues an explicit
gender equality agenda without losing a Romani identity” (see the Intro-
duction). I believe that both these positions are ultimately untenable because
they embrace false binaries (emancipation vs. tradition and equality vs.
Romani identity) and fail to embrace intersectionality.
Mark, for example, relates how “Ironically […] in Romania, Roma
women’s status […] was addressed first by the (otherwise patriarchal) main-
stream public discourse in a false feminist tone, which seemed to be deeply
concerned with their subordination to community norms regarding early mar-
riage and childbirth. This was and remains a challenge that Roma feminists are
still faced with: protecting women’s and children’s rights within their own
communities while deconstructing the way in which such mainstream positions
reproduce convictions according to which Roma are an ‘inferior race’ per-
forming pre-modern/primitive practices of life” (see Chapter 5).
Oprea offered a cogent intersectional analysis of how a case of early marriage
among the wealthy Cioba family in Romania was sensationalized and ‘cultur-
allized”’ by the media, especially the feminist media (2005b). Even earlier,
Emina Enisova and the ‘Young Leaders’ spearheaded pioneering multi-national
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258 Alexandra Oprea
work on virginity that showed it was not uniformly upheld as an ideal in

Romani communities (see Chapter 1). Where it is, it is often tied to lack of
educational and labor opportunities. Recent research in Bulgaria by Zahova
(2017) shows that marriage age among Roma is steadily rising; this is echoed in
my work among Macedonian Roma (Silverman 2012). But ironically, Turkish
Romani grandmothers in Nova Zagora, Bulgaria are more educated and mar-
ried later in life than their grandchildren. Zahova explains that during socialism,
education provided access to secure jobs. Now, there are limited job prospects,
so a girl can only plan to marry and produce children (2017). Zahova’s and my
work also show that migration serves to increase the age of marriage.
Regarding reproduction, Vincze similarly asked:
a series of questions about the particular way these rights and decisions are
part of Roma women’s lives, who lived in poverty and were faced with
institutional racism. […] I addressed taboo topics regarding the way patri-
archal relations in the family and broader community shape, limit, and
control reproductive decisions. I observed what these Roma women do at
the intersection of several power relations, as they want to be accepted in
their community and family (e.g. to fulfill their reproductive role), but also
want to make decisions that fit in or adapt to precarious living conditions.
(Chapter 5)
Thus, early marriage and childbearing are certainly about patriarchy but cannot
be addressed apart from poverty and racism.
Many authors in this volume point to the lack of statistical data on sexuality
and gender. This is especially true of gendered violence, both domestic and
institutional. Kóczé writes that:
Violence against Romani women manifests in complex ways that vary

widely across Roma communities – from intra-group forms such as
domestic psychological and physical abuse and harmful practices that are
often labeled ‘cultural traditions,’ to institutional violence, police violence,
and violence from members of the majority population.
She recommends an intersectional approach that addresses “not only the vio-
lence, but also the daily forms of discrimination, social exclusion, and economic
vulnerability Romani women experience” which “attend to group specificities
and the complexities of social positionings” (Kóczé 2009, 13). Similarly,
Ericksen’s recent analysis of violence against Bosnian women shows how pov-
erty and racialization intertwine with gender oppression (2017).
Krumova interrogates domestic violence projects in Bulgaria, which, “being
unaware of Roma culture, often tended to present violence as ‘traditional’ for
Roma families” (Chapter 9). One project implemented by the Tomorrow
Foundation Sofia “pretended to take into consideration the Roma point of
9781138485099_text.3d;

view and not to impose stereotypes [but] again they did not include Romani
women at managing position[s]. Romani women were included mainly as
informants with the paternalistic attitude often applied by non-Roma organi-
zations” (Chapter 9). Moreover, Krumova criticizes mainstream Bulgarian
gender organizations for ignoring Romani victims of sexual trafficking even
when they represent 33.5 percent of cases: “A wide-spread opinion has been
(and still is to a great extent) that Romani women problems are problems of
their own, problems framed within the Roma culture […]. Some of the orga-
nizations go even further declaring that special measures should be undertaken
to prevent Roma children from ‘being exposed to the traditional violence in
Roma families’” (see Chapter 9).
This culturalist framing of Romani practices as immutable contributes to
further stereotypification. If intersectional analysis is omitted, Kóczé predicts
dire policy results:
Roma policies reproduce gender stereotypes of Romani women being

chiefly responsible for the reproduction of and care for their families and
communities. Thus, anti-racist interventions end up recreating gender
inequalities. At the same time, gender equality policies reproduce ethnic
biases. The compound result is that Romani women do not benefit from
and sometimes are even adversely affected by both Roma policies and
gender equality ones.
(Kóczé 2009, 61)
Alliance
A pervasive theme of this volume is the necessity of transnational, national, and
local alliances. The authors articulate both the successes and the problems in
establishing and maintaining various alliances such as with mainstream femin-
ism, the Romani movement, and the LGBTQ+ movement. They speak of
gaining experience from non-Romani women’s organizations but also of being
ignored. Via the history of the ‘Roma Women’s Initiative’ and the ‘Interna-
tional Romani Women’s Network’, Biţu and Schultz illustrate how transna-
tional feminism facilitated resources for Romani women while sometimes
sidelining them (also see Schultz 2012). The editors invoke Mohanty’s 1984
deconstruction of “global sisterhood” to warn against the condescending savior
complex of some white feminists who exude a colonial and patronizing stance
to “rescue Third-World women from their oppressive wild/barbaric cultures”
see the Introduction).
Many chapters chronicle how some men in the Romani human rights
movement were reluctant to recognize the specific needs of women; as men-
tioned above, they regularly accused feminist activists of splintering the move-
ment. Nevertheless, Gitana/Kalí activists and many others strategically work
with men in their projects. Comparing Gitana to Eastern European Romani
feminism, Mirga-Kruszelnicka states: “it is not perceived as an individualistic
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260 Alexandra Oprea
path, but rather as a tool for collective advancement of the entire community”
(see Chapter 10). And Kurtić and Jovanović are hopeful that younger Romani
men are more reflexive in their roles.
Schultz and Biţu describe the necessity to seize opportune times for strategic
networking, such as the European Union accession period, which offered a
minority rights-based approach and new funding sources (see Chapter 1). One
major regret they express was the lack of gender as an explicit pillar of the
Decade of Romani Inclusion; the four pillars were housing, education,
employment, and health; gender was demarcated as “a cross-cutting issue” (see
Chapter 1). Alliances along sexuality intersections are also emerging. Fremlová
and McGarry’s chapter cogently analyzes the “emerging Romani LGBTIQ
movement that has been negotiating ways of ‘decolonizing’ knowledge pro-
duction.” They argue that “employing critical, counter-normative queer, as
well as intersectional concepts” which interrogate fixed identity categories,
“enables a re-conceptualization of Romani identities” that are plural and mul-
tidimensional (see Chapter 2s).
Alliance, thus, is a key strategy of activist intersectionality; in other words,
intersectionality requires alliance in its practice. Returning to debates about
identity, Cho et al. claim that: “Intersectional politics does not mean dis-
mantling identities” but, rather, dismantling oppressive structures. “Margin-
alized and oppressed people can and should form alliances – tied together by
their similar experiences of oppression, even where the genesis of these
oppressions does not have a common link – to collaboratively fight to tear
down structural regimes that serve to oppress peoples across multiple axes”
(2013, 803).
Prospects
This volume illustrates the tremendous strides that the Romani women’s
movement has accomplished since the 1990s. Authors not only chronicle huge
gains in visibility but also expose the fault lines of debate during the struggles
they waged to be heard and taken seriously. The prospects for the future point
to a commitment to “addressing power structures from an intersectional lens”
(see Chapter 11). In positing intersectionality as a valuable analytical concept to
understand multiple discrimination, the volume advocates that solutions must
also be intersectional.
The targeted move from analysis to action is addressed by all authors. Cho
et al. concur: “Structural intersectionality is needed to understand how such
differentiated power works but […] political intersectionality is needed to
negotiate new identity formations in progressive movements. ‘Progressive pol-
itics do not flow magically from aggrieved identities’ (Chun, Lipsitz, and Shin
2013, 937)” (Cho et al., 2013, 803). Solutions must be negotiated politically,
and the challenges are enormous. Maya and Boada articulate several core
principles for future activist work:
9781138485099_text.3d;

reflecting over the representativeness and legitimacy of all civil society

actors; working towards the pluralization of civil society and equality of
conditions for all, to generate truly democratic practices […]; building
reciprocal and self-reflexive alliances by asking ourselves: where am I and
how did I get there? […]. What can come out of this, and does it have
potential to challenge the status quo?
(see Chapter 11)
In 2009, Kóczé boldly outlined the promise of the future:
The way forward is threefold. Firstly, Roma policies have to integrate the
goal of gender equality and consciously work against gender stereotypes.
Secondly, gender equality policies have to become more inclusive and
integrate anti-racism and diversity among their goals. Finally, specific […]
policies are also necessary to address some of the most pronounced dis-
advantages, such as those that Romani women face in employment and
health. The last of these requires an understanding of the specificities of
Romani women’s situation, which lie at the intersection of ethnic, gender,
and economic disadvantages.
(2009, 61)
This volume bears fruit for many of her suggestions by examining gendered
histories, activist dilemmas, and the obstacles ahead.
Notes
1 Excerpt from Alexandra Oprea’s talk at the conference Culture beyond Borders: The
Roma Contribution, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, April 10, 2017 (discussing
whether “the subaltern can be heard” in the context of song production: manele).
See also Kóczé 2015.
2 I do not mean to imply that it has been universally accepted. There are numerous
blind spots, see Kóczé, 2009 and there has been backlash, Oprea 2009.
3 For a discussion on human rights jurisprudence on Romani women, see Oprea
2017.
4 For a discussion of how anti-racist and feminist dialogues, as well as human right law
fail to address Romani women’s reproductive rights violations, see Oprea, ibid.
5 Here I am referring specifically to authenticity critiques often hurdled at Romani
women that we have somehow lost sense of what it means to be Romani simply
because we are educated or that we are whitewashed/gajikanime and have some-
how become disconnected from the plight of Roma. I dare say that all of the
Romani women in this volume have continued to be victimized in spite of our
statuses. The example of the man at the Harvard conference who continued to use
“Tigan/Tiganca” in spite of Magda, Alina (the Romani performer) and I telling him
that it is offensive comes to mind here. Another example that comes to mind is an
instance where I was asked for proof that I attended law school by a family court
judge, when, after graduating, I wrote a letter in support of a young Romani
mother in my community whose children were taken away.
9781138485099_text.3d;

262 Alexandra Oprea
6 See Oprea 2004 and Kóczé 2009.

7 In some communities, it is not only poverty and segregation that keep Romani
women out of school, it is also the excessive preoccupation with protecting a girl’s
virginity, upon which a family’s honor rests.
8 Thus making her a less worthy investment than her male counterpart who will stay
with the family. For a discussion see Oprea, 2005.
9 Birth certificates and marriage certificates are out of reach for many Roma yet are
required for basic services. The absence of these documents is also blamed for
Romani failure to access Holocaust compensation funds. Roma were often rendered
stateless because they lacked these documents (Slovakia, FRY Macedonia).
10 Contentions such as “Romani women are discriminated against” all must be sup-
ported because our statements are often not enough.
11 I came across a reference to this term in Bartlett 1971.
12 In the European context, the image of illiterate Romani women signing forms
consenting to their sterilization comes to mind here. Another example that comes to
mind, from my own experience here in the U.S., are the signatures on the bottom
of immigration forms, indicating agreement to Customs and Border Patrol’s version
of responses provided by asylum seekers to a set of questions they are asked upon
entering the U.S. Purportedly designed at as a check against officers fabricating
responses, the requirement that one’s signature appear on the bottom of each page is
a meaningless formality that does little to ensure that rights are respected. This is
especially true when signatures are obtained under conditions of duress (incarcera-
tion, operating table, etc.).
13 I use this to emphasize the way in which Romani women’s illiteracy is a product
of historical racism, institutionalized practices and internal patriarchy that is rigi-
dified by both (e.g., the legacy of slavery implicated in early marriage, see Oprea
2005).
14 Some Roma who had access to education turned their backs on their communities
(“sold out”) and this may be ingrained in our historical memory as a community;
also, we should not forget that educational institutions were aimed at assimilating
Roma.
15 Although in what follows, I focus on Romani men, but white men’s harassment of
Romani women is prevalent as well.
16 Alcindor and Rogers 2017; Stolberg 2017.
17 At no point since my coming of age have I ever seen racists emboldened the way I
see them emboldened today, in post-Trump America. See e.g., Raghunathan 2018
and Reilly 2016.
18 The wife later tells me, “Janes sar si mascar amende…” (“You know how it is
among our people…”)
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The Romani Women’s Movement; edited by Angéla Kóczé, Violetta Zentai,

Jelena Jovanović and Enikő Vincze

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