Post-socialist utopia and retropia in Hungary – Exploring different gender needs and concerns

This paper accounts for the findings of empirical research, based on four focus group interviews, conducted in Hungary within the scope of the „UNTWIST: Policy recommendations to regain ‘losers of feminism’ as mainstream voters” Horizon Europe research project. The research aimed to explore the gender needs and concerns of people voting for the (governing) right-wing populist party, Fidesz, and to map the interviewees’ perception of the state of the country. By discussing their voting behaviour, we sought to explore whether their needs and worries were addressed. We conducted two women-only and two men-only focus group sessions, in Budapest (the capital of Hungary) and in Miskolc (the centre of an economically deprived region). Additionally, the interviewees’ voted for Fidesz in the last elections in 2022, but have previously voted for other mainstream parties. The Hungarian case serves as the East-European case study of the UNTWIST project. The specificities of this country are due to its semi-peripherical status and its state-socialist past. We embedded our research within the theoretical framework of gender and post-transition. Our preliminary findings showcase an important role of nostalgia and retropical approach to the state-socialist era. Interviewees often refer to the “good old days” while also being critical towards the outcomes of the post-transition period. Further findings on how participants viewed gender relations illustrated an evolutionary approach to gender equality, namely that gender equality goals had been already reached, as it was claimed by the state-socialist rhetoric, or would be achieved on their own without any political or societal involvement. Indeed, the result of the empirical research revealed that certain gender issues were either silenced, hardly mentioned, or considered taboo, including intimate partnership violence and social solidarity.