The Gender & Sociology department was established in 1990. Over the course of the 1990s the research team gradually expanded and today is one of the key scientific institutions in the Czech Republic that focuses on the position of men and women in society. The department theoretically and empirically advances a concept of gender-oriented sociology extending to feminist sociology, feminist theory and empirical gender research. The research focus of the department concentrates on sociology of private life, issues of gender and the labour market, gender social inequalities and the feminist critique, care politics and the production of knowledge.

The department combines the findings from its quantitative and qualitative research with the theoretical study of particular problems and thus contributes to the analysis of various specific questions connected with gender. The department’s activities include university-level education in the sociology of gender and lecturing. The department also contributes substantially to the development of the transdisciplinary academic field of gender studies, feminist theory, and feminist sociological methodology.

A part of the department is the National Contact Centre – Women in Science, which was founded in 2001 as part of the EUPRO programme of the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport of the Czech Republic. The goal of the National Contact Centre – Women in Science is to contribute to advancing the debate on gender equality in science and education at the level of state administration, research institutions, universities, the research community, and in the media, and thereby to influence the introduction of institutional changes in research organisations and indirectly to improve the position of women and young people in science. Direct support for women scientists is offered in the form of personal assistance and by means of the seminars and workshops that the National Contact Centre – Women in Science regularly organises. Support for young people in sciences is offered through the information portal INFOMAT.


Areas of Research

1. Sociology of Private Life
The private life of women and men is currently undergoing fundamental changes resulting from the effects of the individualisation of society, the transformation of the labour market, and changes in women’s and men’s expectations from partnership and family life. The spread of unmarried cohabitation, the growing number of divorces and consequently of single-parent families in society, the postponement of parenthood, and the increasing proportion of people living without a partner are the most visible consequences of these changes. The Gender & Sociology Department examines the issue of private and family life in connection with changing gender roles and the division of labour in the family and the changing demands of the labour market and the sphere of paid employment – which increasingly impinges on private life – and the particular effects that these changes have on the lives of women and men. The department also focuses on the critical examination of social policies and their effects on forms of intimacy, partnership, and parenthood. It also examines the way in which men and women construct their own private identity and patterns of private life, and how this interacts with the demands of the surrounding environment and with institutional frameworks and constraints. Issues addressed include, for example, work/life balance, childlessness, fatherhood and motherhood as a couple and after a divorce, and the effect of positive and negative job flexibility and marginalisation in the labour market on forms of private life.

2. Gender and the Labour Market
The participation of the wider strata of society in paid employment is the primary means of maintaining a satisfactory living standard, eliminating poverty, and fostering social inclusion and it is also an essential precondition for the functioning of the modern welfare state in contemporary advanced countries. Both at the European level and in Czech legislation gender equality relates mainly to equality in the labour market. The right to paid employment, or more precisely, the right to equal access to paid employment, is understood to be a basic civic right. However, research and statistical data from countries throughout Europe indicate that women are still not fully fledged members of ‘society of employment’, and the right to equal access to paid employment is still the reserve of men. Sociological studies have shown that women are no less ambitious with regard to building a professional career for themselves, they are no less willing to continue to educate themselves, and employment is no less important a life value for women than it is for men. The Gender & Sociology Department endeavours to evaluate the social processes that in the past and present have influenced the gender structure of the Czech labour market and the formation of sources and mechanisms of gender discrimination. Analysis also focuses on the measures and policies of the social state. Alongside examining the position of women and men in the labour market generally, with a view to identifying marginalised groups, the department also focuses on gender in organisations, management, and business.

3. Gender Social Inequalities and Feminist Critique
In modern societies gender contributes to shaping and maintaining social inequalities at both the local and the global levels and intersects with socioeconomic position and other socially ascribed categories to compound disadvantages and specific forms of marginalisation in society. Although it is possible to observe the positive development of the democratising of gender roles and the emancipation of women in terms of the changes in gendered social structures and the position of women (and men) in late modern societies, these positive aspects are accompanied by the exacerbation of social inequalities between different groups of women (and men). The Gender & Sociology Department focuses on marginalised groups of women and men (e.g. single mothers, women migrants, groups at risk of poverty) and on identifying how social categories interact to create specific forms of disadvantage. By examining these marginalised groups the department’s work also underscores the connection between capitalist modernisation and the effects of globalisation, which subject society to various forms of pressure and deepening inequalities. The department also studies civic activism and criticism of the negative aspects of the development of society articulated by women’s organisations and the feminist movement in the context of the era of real socialism, the socioeconomic and political transition of the 1990s, and current Europeanization and globalisation processes.

4. Care Politics
The gendered division of spheres of activity into paid and unpaid work is one of the main issues of feminist research on the position of women in society. In criticism of social and gender inequalities the concept of care is as an empirical reference point that helps uncover concealed power relations cutting across the categories of gender, class, race or ethnicity and nationality, age, sexual orientation, and geographic location. Care is therefore both a moral and a political issue. The Gender & Sociology Department explores care politics from the perspective of the gender division of labour in the family and its consequences for the position of women and men in society – both in the private and public spheres – and from the perspective of the changing relationship between paid and unpaid activities, its consequences for marginalised groups of women, and how care has been externalised and driven into the market under the influence of globalisation. These questions are connected both with historically and culturally changing ideologies of care and with the institutional and legal framework of care policy of a given society, which also fall within the scope of the department’s research interests. The department elaborates individual aspects of care politics through a critical theoretical examination of the concept of care in the modern global era and through empirical studies at the national and European levels.

5. Feminist Epistemology and the Production of Knowledge
The academic environment is the main sphere of knowledge production in modern societies. The issue of gender and knowledge can be approached from three perspectives: the position of women in science and the women’s careers, the role of gender in knowledge production, and the ways in which differences between men and women are shaped and reproduced by science. The department focuses on examining the connection between work and private life, transnational mobility in science, how gender plays a role in the way research institutions take shape and operate, and discriminatory behaviour in research organisations. This branch of research also includes discourse analyses of science policies from a gender perspective. The department’s research builds on (feminist) Science and Technology Studies (STS) to analyse how scientific knowledge is produced and disseminated through society. Alongside research the department’s activities in this area are aimed at supporting and improving the position of women in science, striving for changes in science policies that take a gender perspective into account, and generally promoting the discussion of gender issues in science. The department also draws attention to gender, science, and education as a theme in the scientific community through media activities and events organised for the public.