Benoît Eynard
email: benoit.eynard@utt.fr

Sébastien Liénard

Sébastien Charles

Aurélien Odinot

Benoıˆt Eynard

Se´bastien Lie´nard

Se´bastien Charles

Aure´lien Odinot

Web-based Collaborative Engineering Support System: Applications in Mechanical Design and Structural Analysis

Keywords: collaborative design, CSCW, Web, FEA, CAD

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Introduction

The increase in information sharing, led by multisite distribution of activities and by extended enterprise approaches implemented in many companies, emphasize the requirements of means and tools supporting collaborative work in a remote organization [START_REF] Shen | Editorial of Special Issue on Knowledge Sharing in Collaborative Design Environment[END_REF][START_REF] Huang | Web-based Collaborative Conceptual Design[END_REF]. Concurrent engineering and collaborative design methods and tools contribute widely to simplify the development of remote and distributed works [START_REF] Zhuang | CyberEye: An Internet-enabled Environment to Support Collaborative Design[END_REF][START_REF] Kvan | Collaborative Design: What Is It[END_REF]. Concurrency and distribution of tasks become synonymous with success because of the increasing needs for reactivity and competitiveness for companies. Web technologies represent one of the most powerful tools of exchange, pooling, and distribution of information between project's team members [START_REF] Huang | Web-based Support for Collaborative Product Design Review[END_REF][START_REF] Zhang | A Review of Internet-based Product Information Sharing and Visualization[END_REF].

The aim of the article is to present an asynchronous Web Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) that would enhance the sharing of Computer Aided Design (CAD) and finite element analysis (FEA) data. In the following section, the interest of using Web technologies more widely in mechanical engineering projects is shown. This section also presents a survey of the available technologies and their possible applications in the above-mentioned field. Then, the asynchronous collaborative engineering support system and its main features developed by Ideamech Company are detailed. Finally, the integration of a Java3D viewer is assessed and discussed, and the interests of the presented research work are summarized.

Survey of Web CSCW in Mechanical Design and FE Analysis

Web-based product data exchanges have a strong development because of the interest shown by manufacturers, co-contractors, partners, and suppliers who find there the ideal support of concurrent engineering, extended enterprise, and collaborative design [START_REF] Xu | A Web-enabled PDM System in a Collaborative Design Environment[END_REF][START_REF] Qin | A Framework of Web-based Conceptual Design[END_REF]. Concurrent engineering introduced the need of tasks distribution and concurrency of activities between several project team members. Extended enterprise required remote work between project teams split up on worldwide units. Lastly, collaborative engineering reinforced the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in order to support communication, coordination, and cooperation between project teams in charge of product development.

The large range of software and computer systems and of, intrinsically, legacy file formats raises important difficulties in data exchange, reading, translation, and viewing, especially in a remote mode. To try to solve these matters especially in a web-oriented approach, numerous technologies or standards format come to maturity, such as PHP and XML [START_REF] Burkett | Product Data Markup Language: A New Paradigm for Product Data Exchange and Integration[END_REF] for dynamic processing of web data, VRML [START_REF] Kan | An Internet Virtual Reality Collaborative Environment for Effective Product Design[END_REF] or Java3D [START_REF] Tay | CyberCAD: A Collaborative Approach in 3D-CAD Technology in a Multimedia-supported Environment[END_REF] for 3D viewing within web applications, and STEP [START_REF] Zhang | An Internet based STEP Data Exchange Framework for Virtual Entreprises[END_REF] for product information exchanges.

Evolution of Mechanical Design Activities

Based on the concepts issued from concurrent engineering, extended enterprise and CSCW approaches, the mechanical engineering activities, which were originally co-localized and mainly sequential, turn henceforth to distribution and concurrent planning of activities in order to reduce costs and lead times as well as to enhance reactivity ability. This evolution of working modes and organizations become one of the main strengths of business and corporate integration. This integration is now mainly based on ICTs allowing taking advantage, remotely and at a lower cost, of skills and know-how while they are physically far away. Regarding collaborative engineering, simultaneous carrying out of tasks by geographically distant project teams is henceforth enabling. This leads to the needs in improving the project management (tasks concurrency) and enabling the co-working of geographically distributed teams. But it means numerous exchanges of information, which come along with further difficulties. Then, the teams also require the setting up of an efficient management and sharing of information, and also remote viewing of data.

The question of physical support to be chosen for data exchange security and for file format remains important. Regarding the method of data transferring, Internet stands out because of its universality in communication and exchange. For example, numerous systems of product lifecycle management (PLM) or collaborative engineering are either entirely Web-based, or they provide a thin Web client [START_REF] Rezayat | The Enterprise-Web Portal for the Lifecycle Support[END_REF][START_REF] Morris | Interactivity and Collaboration on the www -is the 'www shell' Sufficient?[END_REF].

Web Technologies Integration within Mechanical Design and Structural Analysis Fields

By historical practice and organizational inheritance, mechanical companies often split up engineering design and structural analysis activities [START_REF] Klaas | Embedding Reliable Numerical Analysis Capabilities into an Enterprise-Wide Information System[END_REF]. But in collaborative engineering, these activities should be integrated and merged [START_REF] Sun | Internet-based Distributed Collaborative Engineering Analysis[END_REF]. The departments involved in a project frequently have to exchange their own works in order to share or to comment on their respective issues. Furthermore, subcontracting development activities toward engineering consultancy companies create strong needs for information sharing between the original equipment manufacturer and its suppliers. On the contrary, to gain reactivity and quality in their performances, those late try to get customer validation as soon as possible on a 3D CAD file, on a preprocessing FEA model or on a preliminary analysis result.

Computer Aided Design models are used as analysis input; then the post-processing results, sometimes, lead to the change of the original CAD model. Information transfer is thus bidirectional and is generally made via a LAN or by Internet. Exchanged data between both fields often require adequate processing, standards, and software allowing the files translation. Regarding a simple viewing approach, it would be interesting to get these data available simply for the right users.

These needs based on the experience of Ideamech Company have led to the development of the Web CSCW presented in Section 3. The lowness of Internet data transfer rate and the size of 3D CAD, preprocessing and post-processing files (often exceeding a dozen Mb and might exceed several hundreds of Mb) led to the use of neutral exchange formats which, although they damage the quality of product data, allow reduction of data volumes. To make, it is necessary to reduce the models size so as to keep the main and relevant part of data. VRML and associated format might help fulfil the visualization needs of CAD and FEA fields regarding current neutral format and to answer Internet data transfer limits. These assumptions led Ideamech to develop Teamproject1 : an asynchronous Web CSCW supporting collaborative engineering and mechanical design. In order to enable FEA data viewing via the Internet, a preliminary NASTRAN/ VRML translator had been implemented. Then, for improving the performances of display and handling of 3D data, Sections 4-6 discuss the specification and implementation of a new viewing module based on technologies in compliance with web constraints and collaborative engineering needs.

Teamproject

Nowadays, products lead times are a key factor of competitiveness. In product development cycle, many companies practice iterative exchanges: a 3D CAD model is issued and updated during the whole project lifecycle; decisions are made during technical meetings and project reviews until the manufacturing launch. In collaborative engineering, these iterative exchanges have to be minimized and project times reduced. Generally, various project team members have to check the design changes (project manager, designers, mechanical engineers, etc.). In such a context, many data exchanges and information sharing are required [START_REF] Sun | Internet-based Distributed Collaborative Engineering Analysis[END_REF][START_REF] Bourdakis | From CAD to VR; Building a VRML Model of London's West End[END_REF]. Three main needs are generally mentioned: communication, coordination, and cooperation. Teamproject has been defined as an asynchronous Web CSCW which allows:

-management and sharing of information (communication), -management of projects and distributed teams members (coordination), -remote viewing of CAD and FEA models (cooperation).

Teamproject provides a friendly graphical user interface with a project management workspace (teams, schedule, shared documents, milestones, and tasks) and 3D visualization module for CAD and FEA models.

Architecture

Teamproject is developed based on a three-tier clientserver architecture [START_REF] Xu | A Web-enabled PDM System in a Collaborative Design Environment[END_REF] and on OpenSources technologies: APACHE server, PHP script interpreter, and MySQL database (Figure 1). Teamproject consists of a set of PHP scripts, which allows structuring and storing information in the database.

The software is only implemented on one server connected to the Internet or through the company Intranet, on which all the user workspaces are centralized via the database. Currently, users access the system by simply opening a Web browser. They visualize the features of 3D CAD and FEA models with a VRML plug-in [START_REF] Bourdakis | From CAD to VR; Building a VRML Model of London's West End[END_REF][START_REF] Ando | Study on the Collaborative Design Process over the Internet: A Case Study on VRML 2.0 Specification Design[END_REF]. This kind of architecture is especially relevant for CAD and FEA activities regarding collaborative engineering context [START_REF] Duffy | Development of an Internet Virtual Layout System for Improving Workplace Safety[END_REF][START_REF] Group | A Distributed Architecture for Design Environment[END_REF].

Main Functionalities

Regarding the basic needs for communication, coordination, and cooperation, Teamproject provides several functionalities. This software has been developed around a central core on which modules are attached. The core module provides the graphical user interface features for information display and the features for management of various users' access rights (administrator, co-worker, project manager, etc.).

MESSAGES AND SHARED FILES

As regards communication needs, each team member can create, publish, and erase messages as for 'post-it'. These messages are shown on the graphical user interface via a selection of addressees to whom they are sent.

The shared file module allows the exchange of files while they are under working version. This module can be compared to an interfaced FTP application or simply to a remote disk space.

PROJECTS AND DOCUMENTS

MANAGEMENT In a virtual organization made up of numerous team members involved in many projects, data management can be difficult [START_REF] Eloranta | Improved Project Management through Improved Document Management[END_REF]. Teamproject allows team members to have a very easy sharing of the required information. Projects and documents management provide useful functionalities for coordination between team members.

Web-based Collaborative Engineering Support System

Knowing the project schedule and tasks distribution, they can download necessary documents for their assigned activities.

Milestones and Tasks

Project managers can check and supervise the schedule and project progress thanks to a two-level organization: milestones and tasks (Figure 2). They specify the milestones and tasks, which may be assigned concurrently to the team members. Milestones and tasks clarify the start and end dates, a brief description of their contents, and mainly the required deliverables.

During the project progress, team members receive updated information via their worklist status regarding the general project progress. Project managers can supervise the project progress, with the summary of the completed, late, and current tasks. When a task is closed, a file can be attached as deliverable and uploaded in the common workspace, and later referenced and shared.

Documents Base

Documents download/upload within the base can be carried out in two ways: (1) by closing a task for which a deliverable is required, or (2) by creating a new document index card. Several attributes are necessary for document download/upload in the base: project name, author, revision, document type, file, and description. The document management functionality allows each team member to have concurrent data access and then carry their tasks simultaneously. When a document is used, its access for other team members is then read only; no overwriting is possible. Synchronous access is possible but document changes can only be asynchronous.

CAD AND FEA DATA VISUALIZATION

Lastly, concerning cooperation needs (currently with a free downloadable VRML 3D plug-in), users can visualize 3D CAD and FEA models within the support of Teamproject for checking design changes and carrying out asynchronous project review. Based on the preliminary experiment of the VRML viewer use, the change of viewing technology and the integration of a new viewer based on Java3D has been decided and will be discussed in Sections 4-6.

CAD Model

Browsing in CAD model is ensured by a hierarchical organization of the models, which allows selection of the parts for which visualization is needed. Then models can be dynamically handled in 3D with useful features, such as rotation, zoom, pan, and refit. Furthermore, information associated with CAD models, such as part names, comments, author name, and native version is also available via Teamproject.

FEA Model

Teamproject integrates viewing functionalities of FEA models in order to allow team members to read all information linked to structural analysis without having to implement FEA post-processor. Figure 3 shows the mode shape of a spacecraft sunshield displayed within the Teamproject environment.

Considering the need for remote review of structural analysis issues, all pre-processing information is available in the FEA viewing workspace: meshing, strains, and boundary conditions applied to the model, material, and properties. Then, translation from preprocessor to VRML mainly contains meshing, strains, and boundary conditions for a realistic viewing of pre-processing files. In this preliminary version of the viewer, the translator was implemented with PHP and the data conversion was batch processed and stored in the database.

Post-processing functionalities allow reading and assessing the structural analysis issues. Team members can display and handle deformed views with many shifting and constraint distributions. Vibratory modes can also be used when this kind of analysis has been carried out on a FEA model. Further information, such as maximum and minimum (stresses, shifting), and general information about the analyzed model (size, mass distribution with localization of center of gravity or inertia, natural frequencies, etc.) are also available.

Requirements for New Finite Element Analysis and Viewer Modules

Regarding the needs of high interactivity with users, the FEA and viewer modules of Teamproject have to be improved in order to allow an effective dynamic display of data. The nature of web-based modules aims at the development of a distributed architecture enabling an improved tool for analysis processing and remote 3D displaying of its issues. The original Teamproject specifications have to be kept. Then, these modules have to be web oriented. The analysis module has to run on a server, where an FEA solver is implemented. The visualization of the analysis issues has to be ensured via a web browser client; then the users are not required to be FEA experts in order to validate results. For that job, they will only need basic mechanical engineering know-how.

Requirements for the Graphic User Interface

As regards the needs of distribution for carrying out projects and specificities of Teamproject, the following requirements have been clarified:

-network communication between the server and the client has to be reliable. Regarding Internet/Intranet environment, the classical TCP/IP protocol shall be used, -currently, the Internet/Intranet bandwidth is relatively low in comparison to the bus bandwidth of a computer, so it is necessary to minimize the number of client-server exchanges, -the data processing and FEA shall be ensured by the server, -the web pages interface has to be dynamic regarding the nature of the application, -the interface shall be able to manage several users simultaneously, -the installation on the client side shall be limited to a simple plug-in compliance with all standard browsers.

Technology Survey for Developing a Dynamic User Interface

Creating dynamic Web pages interacting with the customized information display is the kernel of Web application, based on three-tier architecture. For the development of Web applications, several script languages are frequently used. For example, Common Gateway Interface (CGI), Active Server Page (ASP), Person Home Page (PHP), Java Server Pages (JSP), Applet, Servlet, and JavaScript [START_REF] Morris | Interactivity and Collaboration on the www -is the 'www shell' Sufficient?[END_REF][START_REF] Apte | Performance Comparison of Dynamic Web Platforms[END_REF][START_REF] Huang | A Java/CGI Approach to Developing a Geographic Virtual Reality Toolkit on the Internet[END_REF].

Regarding the application needs, the use of a Serverside scripting language to reduce the client side charge has been chosen. As the Applets and JavaScript scripts processing part are implemented on the client side they do not meet the specifications of the above-mentioned needs. Sun Microsystems developed the Java Server Pages (JSP) technology based entirely upon Java programming language. JSP is a better solution to generate dynamic Web pages in comparison to ASP (not compatible with all platforms), PHP (poor database access functions, undeveloped library mechanism), CGI (not multithread), JavaScript scripts, and Applets. Together, the JSP and Servlets technologies seem the most attractive alternative to develop dynamic Web scripting/programming. Indeed, these solutions provide platform independence, enhanced performances, splitting up of logic from display, and easier administration and use. Hence, all these elements validate the choice of the JSP and Servlets to develop a dynamic user interface. Figure 1 describes classical three-tier architecture with the possible technology implementations.

Assessment of 3D Data Visualization Technology

The next step is to identify the most suitable technology for implementing the visualization module. This module must be able to create a virtual world to support a high interaction level with the user regarding collaborative engineering needs. Considering a 3D FEA model, the minimum interactivity is to be able to view this model from various perspectives. One of the main objectives is to use a viewer which does not need huge hardware requirements and can run on a common personal computer (desktop or laptop). Last, the software must be portable and platform independent. The preliminary version of the Teamproject visualization module was based on VRML (see Section 3.2.3), but the interactivity with users was fairly satisfying. Then a survey was necessary to assess available technologies for improving the viewer.

Technology Survey for 3D Viewing

VRML

Virtual Reality Modeling Language is a file format for describing interactive 3D objects and worlds. VRML is designed to be used on the Internet, intranet, and local client systems [START_REF] Ando | Study on the Collaborative Design Process over the Internet: A Case Study on VRML 2.0 Specification Design[END_REF]. VRML is also intended to be a universal exchange format for integrated 3D graphics and multimedia. The richness of VRML is due to its interaction and navigation capabilities and also the fact that VRML objects can be hyperlinked to multimedia (image, text, video, audio) or HTML files, as well as to other VRML objects. But it was not widely accepted and used as HTML because of the limitations and the rigidity of the standard. These limitations naturally led to the development of new Web3D formats including Java3D, X3D, and legacy format, which are less rigid and thus more expandable [START_REF] Walsh | Core Web3D[END_REF].

X3D

The eXtensible 3D alias X3D aims to be the successor of the VRML. It is developed to solve the VRML problems while taking up the VRML functionalities and integrating new features and new possibilities for data visualization and data exchange (www.web3d.org). X3D is a significant step in the VRML evolution, defined to ensure the best functionalities of VRML and to be fully integrated with XML. In fact, XML seems to be the future file exchange standard for all applications over the Web.

Currently, X3D lack programming language possibilities. Although it provides some means for data description, X3D is limited regarding data modification. These limitations come from the need to display the scene within the viewing plug-ins. Moreover, due to its lack of maturity, the choice of X3D is not relevant.

JAVA3D

The Java3D Application Programming Interface (API) is an interface for writing programs with 3D display and 3D models interaction. It offers many properties, such as being simple, portable, secure, robust, multithreaded, distributed, and object-oriented. In addition to the inherent strengths of the Java language, Java3D extends the concept of 'Write Once, Run Anywhere' to the development of 3D graphics applications.

The Java3D API provides a flexible platform for writing interactive 3D graphics programs. It shares some similar VRML 3D modeling features, and can also be used to view and interact with VRML worlds. With Java3D API, developers can take advantage of a simple, high-level programming model that enables them to build, render, and control the behavior of 3D objects and visual environments.

To summarize, Java3D is designed to be a more general 3D environment. With the Java3D APIs, users can directly capture the 3D scene by using the mouse, change viewpoints, zoom in/out, and rotate the 3D model to observe the model behavior in the best way.

Choice of Java3D

A growing number of engineers in the 3D modeling and design communities are using this technology for cross-platform, 3D graphics application development and deployment. Regarding the application context, the aim is to establish a consistent environment based on Java so that all the components in the system can interact with each other more easily. The Java3D APIs are, therefore, chosen for developing the client side in the new version of Teamproject viewer instead of preliminary VRML plug-in. The FEA model processing is still undertaken by the server, while 3D rendering and update as well as synchronous update of other windows are all performed by the client (Figure 1).

The advantages of Java3D are portability, efficient programming, and easy code modification, and a wide open community contributes, tests, suggests, and promotes evolution of the Java3D world [START_REF] Walsh | Core Web3D[END_REF]. Advantages of browsing Java3D models versus VRML ones are that they are faster, have significant improvement in visualization quality, interactivity, better ability for data storing, portability, internet compliant language (compatibility with standard browsers), complete integration with other Java APIs, adapted to multiprocessing (Java3D is internally multithreaded in order to run in multiprocessor systems). However, the two main weak points of Java3D can be underlined: its high temporary memory and processor requirements for the virtual machine running. Moreover, the Java3D files are bigger than VRML files.

Development of FEA and Viewer Modules

To enhance FEA data sharing and transfer via Internet, the development of a translator between native NASTRAN and Java3D formats is currently under process. The chosen language for implementing this translator is Java because of its stability, platform independence, many implemented functionalities, appropriateness to Internet through JSP, and the opportunities of evolution it offers.

Architecture Specifications for the New Modules

As regards to the development of the new modules, the software architecture has been specified as a collection of six modules: the user interface, the FEA module, the pre-processing module, the processing module, the post-processing module, and the database.

Figure 4 presents the architecture specifications for the new modules.

the user interface: The user interface is developed in order to provide Web-based access to the data files or databases. This interface enables users to dynamically select data they want to visualize, as well as how they wish to visualize them. the FEA module: This module may use the NASTRAN or ANSYS solver to carry out analysis. the processing module: The processing module simply establishes the relationships between the vaults and the FEA module. the pre-processing module: The pre-processing module reads, analyzes and processes the files upload in the system to identify and extract the required data. It also provides a 3D viewing of these required data. the post-processing module: The post-processing module generates a 3D viewing of the processed model. A dynamic model is generated according to the user's request. This model resulting from NASTRAN or ANSYS translation is a Java3D formatted file.

the database: The database stores all the data (FEA models, jobs, simulation results) and provides an interface to communicate with the other modules.

Results

Java3D APIs are really suitable for complex 3D modeling structures. Unfortunately, if Java3D APIs provide a rich set of features for creating 3D objects, it also requires too many line of code even to set up simple shapes. However, compared with VRML, which was used in the preliminary version of the Teamproject viewer module, the Java3D compiled code is less cumbersome in memory. But, at the same time, Java3D code is more difficult to program than VRML. Real technical training is absolutely necessary to understand well the concepts and approach of Java3D programming.

Based on the first results, the use of the Java3D APIs to display a complex 3D modeling structure as a Web format seems to be promising. Indeed, the pre-processing files, used by NASTRAN solver, can be translated via Java3D APIs. The translation of these files is relatively fast and easy. With regard to the first promising results, the Java3D APIs seem to be really convenient to carry out a complex 3D modeling structure issued from NASTRAN files. This API could efficiently be used to model the whole of the 3D structures issued from NASTRAN into a web display format.

Conclusions

Using Internet as communication support allows the implementation of new methods and tools enabling collaborative engineering in a remote and distributed design project approach. An asynchronous Web CSCW, such as Teamproject, can significantly improve project management and sharing of information between partners. The implementation of such a kind of Web CSCW is easy because it is fully based on Internet and OpenSource features. Teamproject may provide a real added value in the management of design projects. It offers a fast and efficient access to the issues of mechanical design and structural analysis. Without this kind of software, these data require the use of tools with a huge corporate know-how and expertise, especially in FEA field.

This article has introduced the use of Web technologies in mechanical design project. The architecture and the main features of the asynchronous CSCW developed by Ideamech Company have been described. Regarding the users' needs for communication, coordination, and cooperation in collaborative engineering, the following key functionalities of Teamproject can be underlined: projects and documents management, Web-based Collaborative Engineering Support System message notification, files sharing, CAD and FEA viewing. Based on a survey of available technologies, the choice new 3D data viewer based on Java3D has been made and its specifications have been detailed.

Figure 1 .

 1 Figure 1. Three-tier architecture of Teamproject.

Figure 2 .

 2 Figure 2. Project status.

Figure 3 .

 3 Figure 3. FEA model results display.

Figure 4 .

 4 Figure 4. Architecture specifications for FEA and viewer modules.

http://www.ideamech.com

B. EYNARD ET AL.

In Space (ISIS) space flight experiment (a pathfinder for the Next Generation Space Telescope). In the late 2000, Se´bastien came back to France to start IDEAMECH (www.ideamech.com), a toulousian consulting company providing mechanical engineering services to aerospace firms: structural analysis, design, etc. Currently, he is working on European Space Agency (ESA) contracts with industrial partners for the development of the next generation of space structures also called the Gossamer Technology, which will enable the use of very large structures required for future space missions.

Se´bastien Charles

Se´bastien


Eva Ve ˇs ˇínová-Kalivodová

Czech Society in-between the Waves

Keywords:

HAL is

Although the 1990s only ended recently, which does not give us much of an analytical distance, I would still like to attempt a historically grounded feminist reflection of gender roles in Czech society during the past decade. I seek across those years continuity with the not too distant socialist past as well as divergence from it. My focus is mainly upon Czech society, but issues of broader relevance for Eastern and Central Europe are also touched upon.

The question central to this article is: do Czechs live in a pre-feminist or post-feminist society? My argument is that it is both: some characteristics point to a pre-feminist stage, others to a post-feminist era.

THE IMPORTANCE OF HISTORICAL INSIGHT

A major post-feminist -in the sense of post-second-wave -characteristic of the current situation of Czech society is its post-socialist nature itself. Referring by second wave to those feminist political movements in western democracies that, in the 1960s and 1970s mainly, imposed upon (inter)national policies the issues of women's inequality in maledominated society, I view the current situation in those democracies as post-feminist because they are largely devoid of a vanguard of massive feminist political protest against the persisting inequality of women. By 'post-feminist', however, I also refer to the actual impact of the second wave upon those democracies, which has been multiple and profound. Defining by 'post-socialist' the social stage after the Czech replacement of state socialism by real parliamentary democracy and a market economy, I see in this stage the residual effects of state-socialist policies. These policies -having prevented (among others) free development of feminist attitudes and expressions of feminist will, but having invited/pulled women into the (state-socialist) public sphere -did, in their own manner, a part of what the second wave demanded and to a degree achieved: Czech women were 'made to conquer' the public sphere. It is in this sense that the post-socialist Czech society bears post-feminist characteristics. Nevertheless, the anti-democratic nature of the state-socialist emancipation of women, and the still influential reaction of people, women and men, against it can account for other characteristics that I would define as 'pre-feminist'.

To expound the origin and development of such a complex mixture of attitudes related to the experiences of the Czech population, and to explain, too, its part in the construction of gender roles, I employ a historical reflection of the beginnings and 'progress' of state socialism. Unlike, for instance, Nash (2002: 292), I share the need to examine the past with other Czech feminists and/or 'gender studies scholars'. Such an examination expresses a search for one's own feminist position within Czech society. It also shows an effort to comprehend and describe a 'different gender sensitivity' acquired in state socialism and persisting in the course of its democratic transformation (Fábián, 2002: 278). This sensitivity is felt across the post-communist 1 region and its exploration equals a major theoretical groundwork for the scholars in this region. While these scholars test possibilities of western feminist theories and contextualize the notion and category of gender difference itself, they explore what happened in terms of gender construction and specifically gendered resistance under state socialism. Those happenings, more than problematic in their consequences, might be perceived as gendered developments alternative and parallel to the second wave that was transforming the West. 2 Consequently, they might be understood as developments the consideration of which is not to be 'skipped' (on the grounds that Eastern and Central Europe is adopting a western political/economic 'life style' anyway), but which are inherent to the socially historical, empirical and theoretical scope of feminist thought in pursuit of possible social change.

The gender construction of the Czech socialist project, which prevented and supplanted the second wave in Czech society, should be discussed with regard to the ways in which it used national sentiments and accomplishments -including the national feminist tradition -marking the (gendered) birth and development of the modern Czech nation. The Czech women's movement first emerged in the mid-19th century [START_REF] Ve ˇs ˇínová-Kalivodová | Woman's Creativity as a Social Force: Boz ˇena Ne ˇmcová, a Czech Citizen of the mid-19 c. Austrian Monarchy[END_REF][START_REF] Malec ˇková | Nationalizing Women and Engendering the Nation[END_REF] and then developed in order to raise women to become the helpers of the male builders of the nation -the good mothers and educators of generations to come. Understandably, the differences between the position of man's 'helper' and 'equal partner' soon started to fill the genuine feminist agenda of 19thcentury Czech women. However, up to the end of the 19th century, the mainstream of the Czech women's movement followed a distinct 'national course'. Its achievements concerning women's education, and also its first steps in promoting the idea of women's professional life [START_REF] Hendrychová | Z historie feminismu v c ˇesky ´ch zemích[END_REF], were 'inherited' by an important sympathizer with the movement, T.G. Masaryk. It is well known that this successful Czech politician in Austria-Hungary and first president of the independent Czechoslovak state (1918) helped Czech women to win suffrage (1920), and helped their and his belief in the social equality of men and women to be achieved also through the new constitution (on the merits of the 'Feminist President' see [START_REF] Nash | Exhaustion from Explanation[END_REF].

However, the fight for actual implementation of the constitutional article on equality continued and was a hard one. In the interwar period , the Czech women's movement diversified politically. It was mainly its strong liberal stream 3 that effectively promoted social, economic and political equality of men and women and its encoding into the state structures. This stream continued to pursue the 'national course' of the women's movement taken in the 19th century, which was becoming increasingly more politically sophisticated and modified under the changing political conditions of a young democracy. It led a fertile dialogue with the institutions of Masaryk's state, and became a recognized political agent. Largely thanks to the pressure exerted by women activists upon political structures, and to their work among the population, the social position, or the gender, of Czech women was changing. Growing numbers of educated and/or qualified women now lived various kinds of public, working lives. A change in women's position and agency might have been a phenomenon that, among other things, informed Czech national consciousness -or, rather the dynamic through which the national enters into the configuration of identity.

Outside the liberal stream, other women were publicly active. Side by side rather than in collaboration with the liberal organizations of middleclass women, there existed organized efforts of social democratic and communist women, with their own international contacts (Bures ˇová, 2001: 31, 35, 41, 308/note 72). Already in the pre-Second World War era, a wide range of socialist ideas found support with a considerable proportion of the Czech population. Pro-socialist tendencies in the women's movement may have been enhanced by talented and prominent women writers of the time (with Marie Majerová and Helena Malír ˇová at the forefront), whose work subscribed to idealistic cultural theories of the artistic avant-garde. Its members linked with socialism their hopes for the total liberation of all individuals. To women, it promised liberation from a paternalistic bourgeois culture that had entrapped them in the private sphere.

The Second World War started for Czechoslovakia with the Munich Agreement that sacrificed its sovereignty for the chimera of peace in Europe. It ended with the liberation by the Soviet Army that secured, according to the Allies' plan, the future Soviet hegemony in this country (as well as in others). On the whole, the war policies strengthened pro-Russian and pro-socialist sympathies among Czechs. 4 They helped to prepare the Communists' victory in the parliamentary elections in 1946, and the 'Victorious February' of 1948 when the Communists took over in the government (see, for example, [START_REF] Margolius-Kovály | In a Conversation with One Eye Open -Jedním okem[END_REF][START_REF] Sayer | The Coasts of Bohemia: A Czech History[END_REF].

Thus, the Communists could prepare and start building their project of a Czechoslovak socialist future, being helped by strong national sentiments. Czechs had felt strongly positive about the independent state and Masaryk's Republic. However, this Republic felt betrayed by the democratic countries that had once been regarded as political examples. The fact that France and Great Britain signed the Munich Agreement caused a general disillusionment from which Czechs eventually awoke during the war while reorienting their sympathies towards the Soviet Union. As for the women's movement, it could always -as a social agent in a nation craving for sovereignty, or in a young small state bordering on mighty powers -only contest the dominating gender constructions as related to national policies. And the national, being valued and permanently endangered, rarely conflicted with gender. For women claiming the public sphere, therefore, work with and within political movements and parties shaped by men was the usual mode of operation. Then, also, the Communists could expect women's support for the new political course -because women's national feelings were hurt similarly to men's. Moreover, by offering a project of women's emancipation, the Communists could appropriate the ideological work of the left-oriented stream of the interwar women's movement. And they smartly made use of the enhancement of social equality of women, which had largely been accomplished by the liberal feminists.

FROM STATE SOCIALISM TO POST-FEMINIST POST-COMMUNISM?

When the socialism of hopes became state socialism, its regime quickly violated the ideals embraced by many people before and during the war. Allegedly, women were 'freed', but they were also forbidden to remember the times when the women's movement was an independent political agent. To threaten women into obedience to the Communist Party line of women's emancipation might have been one reason behind a most appalling Stalinist-era show trial against Milada Horáková, a lawyer who had opted for a career in the state social welfare system, a women's leader 5 and prisoner of war during the Nazi occupation. After the war, Horáková became a leading figure in the Czechoslovak National Socialist Party (the party of President Edvard Benes ˇand a strong rival of the Communists) and a member of parliament. She resigned her seat in parliament after the Communist takeover in 1948; she was arrested and accused of conspiracy against the state (she did try to mobilize cooperative opposition of democratic forces against the Communists). Probably because of her persistent criticism of the anti-democratic regime during the interrogations, she was labelled as the leader of a dangerous (nonexistent) plot. She was sentenced to death, and, in 1950, was the first woman to be executed in 20th-century Czechoslovakia (the victims of the Nazi occupation apart).

Equalized and unified by political discourse, and by taking a working part in the socialist project, women and men actually had to cope with the loss of a part of traditional gender difference. However, the regime -due to its lack of ideas for the private sphere, its inefficiency and/or unwillingness to effect real changes in patriarchal relationships -never bothered to prepare or educate the population for the new gender roles whose construction it declared. Thus women acquired a new type of social/economic equality in addition to their roles of caring and homemaking mothers and wives. The double workload became a necessity for them -but also a value. The traditional gender difference was not to be sacrificed either by women or by men. They might have partially safeguarded it for the same reason -as a joint reaction against the homogenization imposed by state-socialist discourse and practice. To a greater degree, however the difference was saved for reasons particularly gendered -and, perhaps, even conflicting: men, unprepared for a gender revolution that might evolve out of the socialist project, clung to the legacy of male patriarchal superiority in various ways. Women, needing but missing men's help to fulfil their 'emancipated' tasks, may have ceased to rely on them, or even to need them in the family sphere.

To explore a possible social move through state socialism into a postfeminist situation marked by women's independent agency, it is helpful to look to testimonies of oral history -a source that can shed light on how women (and men) 'lived gender', what they internalized from its construction by communist social engineers, how they processed it in their daily lives as workers, wives and mothers (or husbands and fathers). In a contribution to a large international project, 'The Memory of Women', 6 we can, for instance, follow three women of successive generations speaking about how their priorities of having children, families and social working lives emerged. We can observe how in this process most of their married relationships were approaching collapse, and trace how newly constructed roles could induce gender conflict: from pre-war years through state socialism into post-communism, the growing selfconfidence, responsibility and independent ability on the part of the women interviewed clashed with the increasing decline of the traditional breadwinners' dominance. Can we link with this decline a recurrent confusion and/or uncertainty in the part of their husbands that found expression in their irresponsibility in relationships, their abuse of their partners and arrogance -but also, in one exceptional case (of four marriages discussed), in 'soft' and supportive cooperation?

Women did not protest against going out to work; many women (and men) workers actually felt enthusiastic about the state-socialist project, initially. Though the enthusiasm evaporated quickly, most women came to value their jobs not only economically, but as an opportunity to use their capabilities, to have a social life. This attitude did not change after the collapse of the communist regime: as the polls of the mid-1990s proved, women's preferences to keep a public work life clashed with the conservative political pressures exerted by Czech right-wing parties [START_REF] Ve ˇs ˇínová-Kalivodová | The Vision of Czech Women: One Eye Open (Gender Roles in Czech Society, Politics and Culture)[END_REF].

LACK OF ANGER AS A PRE-FEMINIST CHARACTERISTIC?

Though state-socialist policies helped women to acquire a position in which their claim to the public sphere seemed socially guaranteed, it has turned out to be a constructed position that the post-communist developments towards a 'neo-liberal democracy' [START_REF] Einhorn | Gender and Citizenship in the Context of Democratisation and Economic Transformation in East Central Europe[END_REF] have shattered profoundly. Czechs believed that these developments finally opened up possibilities to really manage their lives. However, it has become apparent that in the new conditions women achieve less than men. Those parts of the Czech 'liberalized' labour market that are feminized, such as education, nursing, social work, but increasingly also medical care and other services, are alarmingly underpaid; in companies' hierarchies, women employees and professionals occupy lower positions; in the labour market, they face negative discrimination. The gender pay gap was widening through the 1990s. On average, women currently earn about 28 percent less than men (C ˇermáková, 2001). The conditions of prolonged maternity leave [START_REF] Has ˇková | Hranice mater ˇství[END_REF] again renders them 'traditionally' dependent on their husbands' income. The leave causes a career break that has already proved to be endangering mothers' return to work. In recent governmental documents (National Plan, 1999;National Action Plan, 2001, 2002), women with children are already categorized as a social group likely to suffer from long-term unemployment. Through the 1990s, the birth rate decreased to its lowest level in the history of the settlement of the Czech lands, and is the third lowest in Europe [START_REF] Hartman | Demograficky ´vy ´voj nas ˇí populace[END_REF].

While, on the whole, the connection of political/economic liberalization with the revived patriarchal social dynamic (also fuelled by a strong backlash against socialist egalitarian policies) is easily comprehensible, the lack of outspoken dissatisfaction on the side of Czech women is truly puzzling.

It may be the state-socialist gender experience that still hinders conscious feminist attitudes. A vast majority of the population still employs the notions generated by the special private/public split constructed by communist totalitarian regimes: the 'private' has not been seen to be interlinked with the 'public'; the political meanings and connotations of their interconnection have been ignored. While state-socialist policies conserved traditional 'private' roles of women as mothers and homemakers (and many women therefore embraced them affectionately, having a feeling of individual choice), they successfully implanted a universalistic, genderneutral self-conception into people acting on the totally controlled 'public' scene. The concept of a universal (public) human being, detected by de Beauvoir (1988: 174-6) in totalitarian discourse and practices, became firmly embedded in the consciousness of the Czech people, in the nation's culture, sciences, politics and thought in general. Moreover, the state-socialist public scene, in which genders were seen as represented more or less equally (though they did not actually perform as such), was also a scene in which workers were prevented from competition -instead of individual accomplishment they pursued collective tasks of a planned economy. Thus the illusion of (public) gender equity came into being.

Real democracy, a dream of most people oppressed by the previous regime, must improve life for all -so thought women with social imagination of the state-socialist provenance. Since 1989, few of them have suspected that the common experience of repression might not inherently imply advancement of all; might not save (ideologically constructed) political respect for gender equity for ever. If men do not want the illusion of equity to die because it helps the revived patriarchal modes of behaviour pass uncontested, women maintaining it opt, in fact, for a dangerous gender blindness in new social developments. They cannot embrace gender as a (constructed and changing) part of identity and of the pursuit of what they want to achieve. Their unpoliticized gender inhibits them in fighting discrimination against them (which is already targeted by governmental reports 7 ), and some even deny it in public polemics: In a stance similar to S ˇiklová's (1999a; on this, see note 3 of this article), professor of law Alena Winterová opposes a woman politician's vision of a Council for Equal Opportunities of Men and Women (Winterová, 2001: 1, 12). Arguing that she has long been legally men's equal and could always act as such, Winterová regards it as offensive that some Council would force its help, or even positive discrimination upon her.

No wonder that it is to such non-feminist -or pre-feminist -voices that the Czech mainstream attend. These voices, trying to present concrete evidence of a gender-neutral individual's unlimited freedom, voices ignoring the dilemmas and conflicts in ever developing gendered reality, help the public debate to circumvent feminist dissent and emphasize issues that it interprets as post-feminist. In recent years, there has been a slow growing interest by the Czech media in 'women's issues', and the major newspapers and popular periodicals like to focus on the attractive lifestyles of (mainly) female 'singles'. The plethora of such reportage partly serves a new social religion of success. However, it also coarsely reduces the complexity of the gendered compound of public and private lives to a two-way choice for women -either to have a family, or (by usually working harder than men) to pursue a brilliant career.

This new discursive gender construction (that, on the other hand, completely ignores the rising feminization of poverty) confirms and enhances a visible social trend formed by the pressures of the 1990s economic/political transformation. Gender-sensitive sociological research has shown there to be a rising number of younger singles (from 5.6 percent of those under 30 in 1961 to 15.7 percent in 2001), a higher concentration of single women in the under-30 age category than of single men across the whole age range, and gendered differences in social status in the younger singles group: Women, unlike men, are rarely unemployed and rely on better/higher professional qualifications (Radimská and Tomás ˇek, 2003: 10-11).

Other recent sociological research observes new modes of gender behaviour at least among the first generation that matured in post-communism times. Interestingly, it is a study by one of the Czech 'gender studies scholars', in whose earlier work marriage, family life, raising children and loyalty to men were explained as important values of Czech womanhood (see criticism in [START_REF] Kodíc ˇková | Are East European Women Eastern or European?[END_REF][START_REF] Nash | Exhaustion from Explanation[END_REF], that relates these new modes of behaviour to changing gender identity under new social conditions. Drawing upon available research results and work in progress, Marie C ˇermáková points to the emergence of a collapsing gender contract between male breadwinners and female homemakers. In the culture of individual efforts (while the distanced state invokes the traditional gender responsibilities in individuals less and less successfully), younger women will not accept the social disadvantages of 'their' traditional responsibilities. They will pursue their interests of 'socially equal individuals' who want to attain their own satisfactory social status and chance of not only family, but larger social creativity and freedom (C ˇermáková, 2003). Yet the future of a society of such individuals (working on the terms of a one-gender, i.e. male, efficiency and output) is seriously endangered if there is no willingness to remodel the gender contract on both sides.

LACK OF POLITICAL FORCE

The lack of political force and will to urge a new model of the gender contract is a well-known fact, not only in Eastern and Central Europe, but also in established, long-functioning western democracies. Yet there are substantial differences between 'new' and 'old' democracies in relation to the European Union and its policy of gender equality. It must have been largely the western experience of modern feminism that got sifted into the EU agenda. Judging from descriptions of this agenda, the policy of gender equality has strengthened its position. It is presented as an obligatory political approach in the planning and implementation of all EU policies. In some sense, this development may be interpreted as a post-feminist effect of successful political struggles of the second wave. If West European societies had not acknowledged the claims of modern feminism, there would have been no development of EU policies towards The Community Framework Strategy on Gender Equality 2001Equality -2005Equality (2000) ) and its 'dual track approach' of gender mainstreaming and specific actions in favour of women. Now also the Czech government is obliged to fulfil the European criteria of (inclusive) democracy and the rule of law, a functioning market economy and social justice and equality. It is clear that during the accession process important steps have been taken: amendments of 1999, 2002 to the Czech Employment Act are aimed against discrimination towards 'certain groups of citizens [who] experience excessive difficulties in access to employment due to their sex, ethnic origin, health condition, age, and other reasons' (National Plan, 1999: 30). The Minister of Labour and Social Affairs became the national coordinator of the policy of equal opportunities, which introduces gender mainstreaming. Representatives of women's NGOs have been invited to become members of the Council of the Government for Equal Opportunities of Men and Women (founded in 2001), which signals beginning cooperation between the state and civil society. Nevertheless, while assessing the establishment of this Council, it is impossible to decide whether it demonstrates a growing political force of civil society, or the fact that the EU imposes its help 8 upon civil society to overcome the 'gap' or 'trap' of its ineffectuality [START_REF] Einhorn | Gender and Citizenship in the Context of Democratisation and Economic Transformation in East Central Europe[END_REF]. In fact, all the aforementioned steps would hardly have been taken without the 'guidance' of the EU, which amounts in effect to the obligation to implement EU recommendations while accepting its financial support. Furthermore, it remains in question how deeply and permanently the application of gender-aware legal measures and policies born in the EU post-feminist political culture can affect a society with a largely pre-feminist consciousness.

FEMINIST ISSUES FOR THE FUTURE So far, the enhancement of gender equality that has been tied with the country's accession to the EU has awakened both hopes and worries among Czech feminists. In a post-communist and pre-feminist society, state-regulated gender mainstreaming may become counterproductive. Legal measures in favour of gender equality may remain empty shells. The effects and possible future influences of the EU integration of the Czech Republic and Poland upon women's political agency have been examined by an international project titled 'Constructing Supranational Political Spaces: The European Union, Eastern Enlargement and Women's Agency'. 9 The project, planned for 2002-4 and using as its methods gender-specific textual analysis of the discourses of EU 'eastern enlargement' and narrative interviews (with national and EU politicians; with national and European NGOs), is before publication. However, the results of the textual analysis of one type of EU eastern enlargement discoursethe official Czech/EU pre-accession documents -pose intriguing questions themselves. Some of them point to serious discrepancies between various EU political discourses. The examination of the EU's strengthened obligation to enhance gender equality (The Community Framework Strategy, 2000) as manifested in the EU Employment Strategy reveals the 'additionality' of gender-related concerns. Also after 2000, these concerns remain concentrated just in one of the four pillars of the strategy ('Strengthening of Equal Opportunities Policies for Women and Men Combating Labour Market Discrimination'). The gender-mainstreaming approach is declared, but not incorporated into considerations (or formulations) of concrete directives. What thus resembles rather lip service paid by the EU to gender equality in employment is -not surprisingly -reproduced even more superficially and carelessly by the Czech document (National Action Plan, 2001: 31-8).

More doubts concerning the use of equal opportunities discourse in EU documents on employment may arise, perhaps, especially in the minds of readers from 'eastern' accessing countries. Is equality really a target of the planned policies, or does it rather offer convenient terms for delineating economic strategies that were proved to have unequal gender impact, and that lead to the feminization of poverty and/or a collapsing gender contract (see, for example, C ˇermáková, 2003)? To speak concretely, the EU pressures the Czech state into introducing more flexible work practices because they 'may also have effects on the opportunities for people, in particular women, to combine work and family responsibilities' (Joint Assessment, 2000: 8;my emphasis). If the Czech labour market adopts EU policies of flexibly employing more citizens for less time (in a global situation of the decline in qualified job opportunities due to technological progress), 'the recent disproportionate decline of women's employment' may be stopped (Joint Assessment, 2000: 8). However, because also the gender stereotype is explicitly attached to flexible work practices, more women than men may be expected to become 'flexible' employees, with modest earnings and modest career growth. The same document indirectly criticizes Czech policy, stating that 'in terms of more flexible work practices, the Czech Republic currently has the lowest percentage of people working part-time in the OECD' (Joint Assessment, 2000: 8). It is quite clear that this legacy of Czech state socialism -full-time employment of people, and 'in particular women' with their other responsibilities -is to be eradicated.

In the future, feminist watchfulness, resolution and action in addressing local and regional issues will still be necessary, on the side of Czech women as well as women across the globe. In Eastern and Central Europe, there may be potential to generate and radicalize gender-aware and feminist attitudes in educational projects within gender studies. These projects, which draw upon feminist theory whose growth started with the second wave, have represented a major feminist action since the beginning of the communist era in the 1950s. They may become a way to change pre-feminist consciousness.

NOTES

A first draft of this article was presented at the Third Wave Feminism Conference (organized by the Institute for Feminist Theory and Research, University of Exeter, UK) in July 2002.

1.

The expressions containing 'communist/Communist' I use as terms largely synonymous with 'state-socialist' (rule/regime). In my argument, the word 'communist/Communist' has a double motivation: in the fact that the regime in question was a (totalitarian) regime of one political party -the Communist Party; and in this Party's declared goal of preparing society for the communist social order. The goal itself, used by the propaganda to justify the regime's totalitarian practices, always remained falsely utopian and is beyond reference of expressions containing 'communist/Communist' in this article. 2.

Such a perception transpires from the ongoing work of some Czech authors whose 'schizophrenic' position between western feminist and eastern nonfeminist/anti-feminist discourses has been marked by their alternatively advocating (e.g. [START_REF] Havelková | A Few Pre-Feminist Thoughts[END_REF][START_REF] ˇina | Are Women in Central and Eastern Europe Conservative?[END_REF], and trying to radicalize the Czech different gender (in)sensitivity (e.g. [START_REF] Havelková | Druhé pohlaví s otevr ˇeny ´m koncem[END_REF]S ˇiklová, 1999b). However, from this empirically split point of view (admitted by both [START_REF] Havelková | Affidamento[END_REF]S ˇiklová, 1999c), adopted by more authors and speakers of the same generation (and criticized, with insufficient insight, by [START_REF] Nash | Exhaustion from Explanation[END_REF][START_REF] Kodíc ˇková | Are East European Women Eastern or European?[END_REF], the following observations have been made: in terms of globally applied socioeconomic criteria for gender (in)equality, the situation of Czech women after the communist period is comparatively as advanced as that of women in the West. Yet the statesocialist emancipation acted against gender reflectiveness, not to mention feminism. At the same time, essentialist (class) ideology of pseudo-Marxist state socialism made Czechs hostile and protective towards any forms of real or suspected essentialism, or absolute thought models. Proof abounds in many Czech 'anti-ideological' statements from Václav Havel's to those of (many) anti-feminists -but also in opinions of Czech 'gender studies scholars' themselves, who have come to prefer viewing the future development as a plurality of (rather individual) feminisms [START_REF] Havelková | Affidamento[END_REF]S ˇt'astná, 1995: 120), or even as individual tasks of utilizing the accomplished emancipation (S ˇiklová, 1999a). Younger women -and men -maturing intellectually in the postcommunist era may have fought with fewer personalized dilemmas on their way to feminism. Among the feminist acts and activities on various youth scenes during the 1990s, there have even emerged quite radical (leftoriented) ones, which among others seem to be concerned with dangers of (also feminist) globalization and hegemonic political approaches.

3.

This was represented by the Women's National Council -the Czech branch of the International Women's Council -and by the Provincial Organization of Progressive Moravian Women (Bures ˇová, 2001: 388). Both were associations of smaller women's professional and interest groups, welcomed members from across a wide political spectrum and pursued objectives of women's social equality with men. 4.

Throughout the history of Czechoslovakia (1918-93), the two main nationalities, Czechs and Slovaks, lived in close yet complicated relations, went through different political developments in the Second World War and through not completely the same experience of state socialism. The focus in this article is on the Czech experience. 5.

Milada Horáková was already active in the liberal women's movement before the Second World War. She belonged to the Czechoslovak National Socialist Party and worked in the Women's National Council (see note 3). As a result of its peace and anti-fascist campaign, the Council was forced to dissolve in 1942. Its president, F. Plamínková, was arrested and shot dead by the Nazis; Horáková, also arrested in 1944, survived and after the war became the president of the Council's successor organization, the Council of Czechoslovak Women. She was elected a National Socialist parliamentary

Ve ˇs ˇínová-Kalivodová: Czech Society in-between the Waves

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deputy. On Horáková, see, for example, Dvor ˇáková and Dolez ˇal (2001) and Iggers (1995: 287-312). 6.

See more on this Eastern and Central European project at www.feminis mus.cz. The three interviews interpreted in this article were published by [START_REF] Hradilková | More than a Family Saga[END_REF][START_REF] Hradilková | More than a Family Saga[END_REF] in a double special issue of Jedním okem -One Eye Open on 'Gender and Historical Memory' in the Czech 20th century. 7.

The discrimination against women and their underrepresentation are targeted by the national action plan of enhancing equality of men and women, adopted by the Czech Social Democratic Government in 1998.


GENDER, ETHNICITY AND POSITIONING IN PROCESSES OF SUBJECTIFICATION

. Two other analytical concepts that the author discusses and makes good use of are the Foucauldian notion of 'subjectification' (with reference especially to the works of Bronwyn Davies) and 'intersectionality' (here, too, she refers to the relevant literature, although not to the interesting fact that this concept has been adopted and adapted from the world of law). The concept of subjectification is treated particularly thoroughly, and linked to various strands of 'post social constructionist' literature. In Chapter 3, the methods and methodology are, unfortunately much too briefly, presented. This part has, according to the author, been cut down considerably from the original thesis, and I find the result frustrating. After these introductory chapters comes the presentation proper of the empirical material, discussions and analysis. The symbolically and socially significant places, bodies and clothes are all clearly and meticulously described, each in a separate chapter. After this, Staunaes presents a discussion about boys' positioning in relation to masculine ideal types, followed by a discussion of girls' positioning in relation to feminine ideal types. After these discussions, we meet the 'figure' Bettina, a girl who, in her attempt to override ethnic categories, goes too far in ignoring the gender aspect, and finds herself in the category 'whore'. In Part 6, we meet the teachers, or the 'professional/s'. In the two chapters that form this part, we are introduced in each school to categories of children that are considered to typify troublemakers in the classroom and are described by the teachers as 'stealing the other pupils' time'. In one of the schools, the teachers' schematic representation of the 'time thief figure' is a Danish girl; in the other, a Turkish boy. Through these and the other 'figures' such as 'Bettina' the 'whore', 'Wahid' the 'queer', and 'Selma' the 'headscarf girl', the author demonstrates how ethnicity and gender are inextricably intertwined within an overall normative system that the schools share, although it takes different forms, which make different subject positions available in the two schools. In both cases, heterosexuality is the most firmly established or imperative norm. At Søskolen, Staunaes convincingly argues, ethnic categories overshadow categories of gender and sexuality. At Åskolen, she shows how categories of sexuality and gender

overshadow ethnic categories. Through a discussion of the two schools' contrasting policies on ethnic difference, the author concludes that teachers as well as pupils at Søskolen are trapped within the limited categories and available subject positions that this school's monocultural model has produced. Åskolen, on the other hand, has successfully managed to deal with diversity through its multicultural model, within which a wide scope of non-essentialist and negotiable subject positions has become available to teachers and pupils. Paradoxically, the downplaying of ethnic differences in Søskolen's monocultural model has led to an emphasis on such differences in practice. This echoes what I myself found in a school in Oslo [START_REF] Seeberg | Dealing with Difference: Two Classrooms, Two Countries. A Comparative Study of Norwegian and Dutch Processes of Alterity and Identity, Drawn from Three Points of View[END_REF], where the acknowledgement of such differences was rendered taboo by the school, but the pupils busied themselves with making these differences significant in their everyday interactions. Towards the end of the book, the football metaphor that the Søskolen leadership employs in its attempts to discipline its 'time thieves' is presented, discussed and analysed in terms of gender and ethnicity.

My knowledge of Danish psychological research in this field is too limited for me to place this work within such a tradition. However, I am more familiar with the field of ethnicity in schools. My own recent doctoral dissertation has much in common with Staunaes's book, since I, too, focused on the ways in which difference was dealt with in two schools -in my case, one school in Oslo and one in Amsterdam. I therefore read Staunaes's book with special interest. What has she done that I have not, what can I learn from this book -and is there anything I have done that Staunaes might have learned from, had she been familiar with my work? My evaluation of the book is accordingly shaped by my own position. Of course, there is no lack of relevant literature, and one has to choose. One reference I should have liked to see, however, is that of Jayne [START_REF] Ifekwunigwe | Scattered Belongings: Cultural Paradoxes of 'Race', Nation and Gender, Race and Ethnic Studies series[END_REF]. Her book about the experience of being 'mixed' serves precisely to question and disturb the naturalness and stability of dominant ethnic and racial categories. Otherwise, Staunaes positions herself favourably within recent work developing theories of intersectionality and subjectification. I am impressed by the sophisticated way in which she makes use of, and combines, such approaches in her discussion of this material. She presents us with thorough reflections on what informs the many choices that young people (have to) make all the time, choices that involve the quite subtle symbolism of group identification. We are also given ample knowledge of the structures (I call them structures, Staunaes calls them subjectivity networks) that exist within each school and that pupils and teachers relate to and reproduce in their own ways.

Staunaes's ambition was to disturb the apparent stability of categories, and this she manages to do, and to do well. However, I have two critical points to make. First: 'Much is possible, but context-free engendering is not' (p. 350). Exactly; and this is why I should have liked to know a good deal more about the wider contexts of which the two schools are part. The categories that are used in the creation of subject positions have not come into being in isolation in these schools; they are parts of a much larger picture. For instance, Staunaes does describe two dominant narratives about immigrants in Denmark, but we have only her words for them ('worries' and 'denial'). In such a sophisticated piece of work, one would have expected to find references to at least some of the more central authors of these narratives, and one would have expected Staunaes to present ways in which these two narratives were made explicitly relevant to, and by, people in school. This is just one example of what might have been done in order to situate the schools as part of a larger, historically produced universe of meaning, which in turn (one assumes) relates to fundamental power structures in Danish society. The school leaderships remain anonymous, and one wonders why this is so. Staunaes has conducted an impressive amount of research in two schools and found intriguing differences between the two, without giving, I feel, adequate information about how these two schools have come to develop in virtually opposite directions. This objection, of course, has to do with underlying assumptions concerning the philosophy of science. I, for one, do not believe that structures simply come into being through individual actions, but I am led to wonder if that might be Staunaes's point of view. This criticism, however, she does to some extent forestall through arguing that other research has amply taken care of the more structural aspect; what she wishes to do is to focus on the other end of the structure-agency scale.

This brings me to my second criticism: I feel that the real people are missing in Staunaes's otherwise excellent descriptions. It may be an anthropological obsession, but to me, conveying a sense of closeness to the people to whom one owes one's 'data' is important. It is with a certain discomfort that one realizes that the de-humanization is part of the analysis. Take for instance the introduction to Chapter 5, 'The Bodies': 'Looking through the photographs the first time [after fieldwork] I see John, Cecilie, Esra, Anders, Ömer, Arne, Bitten, Hassan etc. again. Pupils and teachers at Søskolen and Åskolen. But the next time I look at them something happens to my reading of photographs, field notes and interview transcripts and the subjects are decentred to my eyes: what I now see is bodies in action' (p. 129). The intention, then, is not to give me a glimpse into the lives of living people -pupils and teachers with all sorts of emotions and experiencesbut into abstract subject positions. This feeling of alienation is strengthened when Staunaes refers to as 'figures' those few selected pupils we do get to know a good deal about. It is also established through the way in which the visual is strongly emphasized both in the descriptions and in the use of metaphors. This is where I feel something important would have been gained through reading Ifekwunigwe, or anybody else for that matter who manages to combine theoretical lucidity with the feeling of being human. Paradoxically, 'attempting to disband the concept of structure by looking at more individual processes in school life' (p. 38) through the theoretical concept of subjectification throws much light on the local structures in the two schools, whereas the individual people remain strangers to us.

The book is very well written, and its strong points by far outweigh the weaknesses. To some readers, the post-postmodern language may give rise to some impatience, but all in all I think Staunaes has very convincingly defined and discussed the concepts she has chosen to make use of.

European Journal of Women's Studies 13(1)