EU FPV Thematic Network: The Social Problem and Societal Problematisation of Men and Masculinities

LATVIA NATIONAL REPORT ON RESEARCH ON MEN’S PRACTICES WORKPACKAGE 1 Irina Novikova

1.Key points

  1. No aspects of social problems and societal problematisations of men and masculinities have become a topic of critical studies in national academic research after restoration of independence in 1991.
  2. Even mainstream sociological research of family and work spheres point to working overload of men and its effect upon family, child upbringing and self-education.
  3. Categories of gender, class, ethnicity sexuality, age are not utilised as variables in the research on men and women in family and employment
  4. There is a high societal awareness in the degree of family violence, but very few researchers deal with this issue as a gender research. The concern with men’s aggressive behaviour is still regarded through traditional stereotypes and explained in terms of men’s impoverishment, value crisis, drug-addiction. Very little gender research of the problem leaves space to cultivating “universal” fears of men.
  5. Homophobia has become a visible element of society today, having been represented by nationalists as another invisible enemy of the nation, together with ethnic aliens. Dominant homophobic discourses have manifested a well-known mechanism of social exclusion among men produced by men in the dominant nationalist discourse in stigmatising “other” men’s sexuality or ethnicity. There is no research conducted in Latvia on men’s sexuality.

2. The national gender background

Latvia is a parliamentary democracy. The Prime Minister, as chief executive, and the Cabinet are responsible for government operations. The President, as Head of State, is elected by the Parliament (Saeima). The Saeima elected Vaira Vike-Freiberga to a 4-year term in June, 2000. The October 1998 elections for the 100-seat Parliament and the national referendum for amending the Citizenship Law to meet European standards were free and fair. The judiciary is independent but not well-trained, efficient, or free from corruption. The economy is oriented toward the private sector. Almost all agricultural land is farmed privately. Three large enterprises (shipping, telecommunications, and energy) are scheduled to be privatized, but had not been by year's end.

Latvia restored political independence in 1991 as the other two Baltic republics of Lithuania and Estonia. Latvia became an independent state only in 1918. The 1930s were viewed as the period of the national growth and development of the agricultural society under the paternal rule of Karlis Ulmanis before Latvia was annexed in the USSR in 1940. In the 1990s the reconstruction of statehood and nationhood was based on re-claiming the past in the rhetorical expression “return into the past”. Rebuilding of the state and nation was seen as re-traditionalisation of gender roles and ‘re-masculinisation’ of the political space.

Together with Estonia, Latvia based its citizenship on the exclusionary principle that divided the population into the community of “citizens” (citizens of Latvia prior to 1940 and their offspring) and the community of “aliens” (migrants to the territory of Latvia after 1940). The applied political division was based on the ethnocentric raison d’etre that the ethnic and demographic situation have changed dramatically after 1940, with the 40% Russian-speaking community, prevailing in the cities after several migration waves in the Soviet period. The citizenship regime resulted in ethnosocial division of the society before the discriminatory citizenship law was lifted. As Zarana Papic argues about the postsocialist political situation in East-Central Europe:

As the most influential concept in post-communist state-building was the patriarchal nation-state concept, the ideology of state and ethnic nationalism based on patriarchal principles inevitably became the most dominant building force. Various forms of ethnic nationalism, national separatism, chauvinist and racist exclusion or marginalisation of old and new minority groups are, as a rule, closely connected with patriarchal, discriminatory and violent politics against women, and their civil and social rights, previously guaranteed under the old communist order. (

In Latvia the situation turned out to be alienating for the majority of non-Latvians, both men and women, when the previous notions of citizenship were destroyed, and the postsocialist society moving into the constructions of public and private in the conditions of economic neoliberalism claimed by the right-wing governments. Legitimacy of prior institutions, apparatuses and mechanisms dealing with social rights of citizens collapsed. Any other forms of exercising collective citizenship beyond its political form like, for example, economic citizenship in trade-unions were masterfully devalidated by neoliberal rhetorics for political facilitating their access of few to socio-economic advantages of ethnopolitical citizenship. Socialist provision of citizenship rights had been based on the total state control of citizenship since the state was the possessor of resources and power. Thus, men's roles, statuses, values as citizens turned to be problematically combined with this specific form of citizenship in the spheres of work and family. Social policy and social protection were shifted from the state level onto the local levels of enterprises, and this meant a certain, previously unknown, dependency mechanism for a person.

An important international factor to be considered is, firstly, the multifocal process called “Europeanisation” expressed in the integration of Latvia in the European Community, and secondly, economic globalisation manifested in the development of transnational economies. “Two challenges face the Latvian labour market.

In this context, there is still no clear understanding of what model of a welfare state is developing in the country, what model of social policy could be appropriated and adapted to the national situation. The variety of men’s experiences is still a research failure, and as such, it has important implications. Our understanding of the complexity of gender relations within and between societies is kept on the elementary level, with negative impacts upon policy.” However, at least, the issues that I have outlined – a welfare state model, family policies and discourse of differences – have not found an adequate language and formulation of policy and research methodologies in terms of gender and men’s research in the Latvian academy. With a dramatic shortage of gender research on men’s problems across disciplines, practitioners working for gender mainstreaming on the basis of the existing Conceptual Document on Gender Equality will be supplied with knowledge as to how “accommodate difference” among men.

I take the period of ten years – from 1991, since the restoration of political independence in Latvia in 1991. Over this period, academic research has never included problems of men and masculinities as a separate area to be financed from the National Research Council. Firstly, the gender research has been marginally developing due to the absence of qualified professionals in the academic sphere. In their absence, gender as a category of analysis was appropriated rather superficially and “converted” into a word to be used in mainstream men’s/women’s research projects within academically well-established disciplines as for example the sociology of family and demography. The presence of academic researches and publications in these disciplines points to the politically sensitive aspects of social life in Latvia over the last ten years. The demographic situation in the country has been evaluated as catastrophic. The birth rate has dramatically declined, divorces and unregistered marriages outnumber officially registered marriages, the number of stray and rejected children had been growing. The demographic situation has been accounted for the substantial presence of Slavic non-citizens. This explains why there is no qualitative academic comparative gender research of men’s practices in work and family, men’s health, social exclusion and violence cross-ethnically. It is also important to note that variables such as sexuality, regional/local differences, age are employed rather scantily in the academic publications.

The Center for Gender Studies, The University of Latvia, tries to highlight the feminist approach to the problems of men and masculinities. In June, 1999, Professor Robert Connell was invited with a lecture and workshops at the University. His interview was published in a popular mainstream magazine “Rigas Laiks” (The Time of Riga) in the Latvian language, in the bulletin “Women of Baltia” in the Russian language. It will fully be published in the forthcoming collection of essays of Nordic and Latvian scholars which also includes the essay of Per Iksdal on the problem of men and violence. Robert W.Connell’s paper “Masculinities and Globalization” is included. In Anthology of Contemporary Feminist Theories in the Latvian language Riga: Yumava, 2000. The Center for Gender Studies conducted the HESP Summer School “Men and Masculinities” for young researchers of the region, and the followup book project is in progress. Recently a Nordic-Latvian collection of essays has been published including translated papers of Per Iksdal and Yukko Huttunen on the issues of violence and family. An introductory book on men’s issues by Astrida Neimane “Viriesiem” (For Men) was published in 1999 (Riga: Papardzieds, 1999).

It should be mentioned here that due to the shortage of publishing facilities and capacities, academic research and publications often go into either Internet, or into different low-budget published collections that are not disseminated widely but remain in a rather limited circle of their immediate “consumers”, for example, those who have ordered the research and publication. The marketing of publications and still developing library electronic service make access to the sources of information rather limited.

Publications:

Konels, Roberts. Viriesi un globalizacija. In: Musdienu feministisku teoriju antologija (ed. I.Novikova, Riga; Yumava, 2001)

Neimane, Astrida. Viriesiem. Riga: Papardzieds, 1999

Family and work

Today we are faced with the consequences of the nation-(re)building process of the early and mid-1990s, with the destruction of the national infrastructure of the Soviet labour market and access to economic and material resources. On the one hand, “the transition to a market economy requires serious structural and institutional reforms. On the other hand, the Latvian economy, labour market, and educational system must adapt to the increasingly rapid process of globalisation. In today’s increasingly competitive environment organisations are becoming unstable, and this has an impact on the way people work. They work more and more, often managing more than one job, changing jobs, and moving from regular employment into short-term project type work. In these circumstances employment is no longer long-term and secure, but instead it often becomes fragmented.” (Tabuns, A., Vanaga. S. Labour Market in Latvia: employment and unemployment.

Let me quote some part from the report on their research of employment and unemployment in Latvia:

“Today’s working life provides not only ways in which to prove oneself, but also creates insecurity and stress. Risk has become part of working. This means that people must constantly keep themselves in top form in order to retain their competitive edge in the labour market. As the following shows, this often happens at the expense of one’s health, family, and free time, in reality narrowing and even damaging other important opportunities in life. The remuneration for this work is often low, and even if money can be made, this does not always compensate for personal losses.

Many employed people as well as job seekers do not understand what is taking place in the labour market, how it is developing, and how this applies to them as they shape their own personal employability. As a result, a significant part of society continues to link its economic failures and aspirations with state economic policy and does not want to take the initiative and responsibility for its own welfare, career, and ability to compete.” (Tabuns, Vanaga)

As a typically excluded example, a big group of men migrants from non-Latvian territories of the former USSR had been mainly construction workers, military (including retired military), workers at the factories as part of the Soviet industrial circuit. With shutting down industries and housing construction and withdrawing the army, most of them stayed in Latvia to become the first wave of unemployment. With unemployment, the consumption of agricultural production and goods produced in Latvia decreased dramatically. The process resulted in the impoverishment of rural families that was combined with closing down collective farms of the Soviet type. The effects of drastic impoverishment are visible today in social escapism and high rates of alcoholism, mortality, suicide (in particular, among men of younger generations), drug-addiction, lumpenisation, massive involvement in “grey” economy.

The researchers Aivars Tabuns and Sanita Vanaga use gender approach in their evaluation of employment and unemployment in Latvia: “ In the last few years the structure of the labour force has changed as the number of employees decreased and the number of self-employed people increased. Thus, in November 1995 37,200 men and 20,300 women were self-employed, but the number of self-employed men had risen to 53,200 and the number of women to 43,900 by November 1997. During this time the unpaid employment of family members and relatives also increased from 46,600 in 1995 to 59,700 in 1997 (Statistical Yearbook, 1998).”. They also argue: “According to the Central Statistical Bureau’s Labour Force Survey, 10% of the labour force spends an average of 9 to 11 hours every day working at their main job, while 12% work an average of 11 or more hours daily. In other words, every fifth worker works overtime at their principal job. These numbers are particularly high among employers, the self-employed, and among those who work without pay in their own families. 5% have taken on another job, but 6% are looking for additional work. The number of hours that people spend on these other jobs is rather large: an average of 18 hours per week. The Central Statistical Bureau’s survey included the question whether people would be willing to work more hours if that would increase their earnings. While the majority of people did not want to change their working hours, the percentage of people who would be willing to work longer hours for higher pay was also significant (33%). Only 5% wanted to work less (Labour in Latvia, 1998).

As shown by the Central Statistical Bureau and the Institute of Economics time budget surveys, working people have very high total workloads. This is particularly true of families with children of pre-school age. As a result, the opportunities for employed people to spend time with their families and children are rather limited. For example, women aged 20 to 29 devote an average of 70 minutes a day to child care (physical care, supervision, engaging in activities with children, or taking them to activities), while women aged 30 to 39 spend an average of 40 minutes per day on child care. Men from this age group devote an average of 24 minutes per day to children. On average employed men spend less than three minutes per day on personal education, while women average four minutes. These, however, are only averages. According to the survey data, people living in rural regions do not spend any time at all on personal education.” (

Two moments have to be emhasised in their research conclusions – working overload for both genders and its effects upon family, child upbringing and self-education. However, in their report, the categories of gender, class, ethnicity, sexuality, age – typically for all other research reports – are absent.

With social and economic “emasculation” of men, at least two dominant discourses found popular expressions in everyday life – “our men are in crisis, and we must help them” (a post-Soviet reverse side of a “strong woman” myth), and “let us return our men to families to revive our nation”. In this context, the homo/heterosexuality has been dominated by hegemonic homophobic discourse.

The tendency in the national academic circles towards the gender research of men and masculinities was manifested in the conference “Man’s Role in the Family”, 19.-20. November, 1998, Riga, with the publication of the Conference Proceedings. However, as the title and contents of the conference proceedings show, the central focus of the discussions under the umbrella of The Council of Europe was :

-views about the role of men in the family

-family relationships and health

-the role of men in the family and opportunities to facilitate it

(See List of publications in the end of the section)

The conference reflected the dominant national family ideology and political pressure on the restoration of the pattern of strong-father-breadwinner-type of a family. One should not,. However, forget that the dominant family discourse reflects de jure situation of the Soviet definition and concept of a nuclear family as lawful wedlock. In the latter both spouses were recognised as having equal access to the labour market. As workers, both spouses had an identity to be recognised in Soviet social policies. However, the accompanying phraseology of Soviet family legislation stressed the importance of mother to the family building and childcare. The postsocialist dominant discourse on family incorporates former traditional and Soviet concepts in the basis of family policy. For example, “ Social Report – 2000” states that “The Ministry of Welfare, in its politics of family welfare, has to target a family as a traditional formation – family with children” (Social Report, 75). This fuzzy but politically dominant vision of family as a nuclear reproductive heterosexual institution is reflected in the situation with hierarchies of gender in the national labour market: “At present the economic situation offers men better chances of finding jobs. It must also be noted that women are more active than men in using training opportunities. This also influences the employment level of women”. (Social Report, 12).