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A review by worldlibraries
How We Survived Communism and Even Laughed by Slavenka Drakulić
4.0
Imagine living in a country where your political system did not consider your needs as a woman and mother important enough to provide for. It's easy enough in the West to bemoan the superficiality of a consumer culture, but how long could you last, Western ladies, in a country that had no consumer culture at all? Imagine a life without cosmetics, any sort of feminine hygiene products, toilet paper, where fruit was available only sporadically if at all, and where recycling was not about ecology but about the complete lack of any goods to replace worn-out items.
This book iis a wonderful description of what it was to live as a woman trying to create a normal life under a totalitarian regime. Encouraged by her feminist friends in the West, Gloria Steinem and Robin Morgan, Ms. Drakulic describes what it was like for women in the first few years after all of the regimes fell. While pundits described grand political theories about what just happened after the Wall fell and what was continuing to happen, Drakulic was among the first authors writing about how these regimes affected ordinary women.
This book is a quick and wonderful read that shows communism didn't necessarily end when the Wall came down. It will take future generations for all of that communism to leave the mind. I don't think any other writer has helped me see how communism breeds incredibly fascist outlooks in people since making a mistake of saying the wrong thing could be so well...fatal...plus job #1 was to survive iuntil the next day.
This book iis a wonderful description of what it was to live as a woman trying to create a normal life under a totalitarian regime. Encouraged by her feminist friends in the West, Gloria Steinem and Robin Morgan, Ms. Drakulic describes what it was like for women in the first few years after all of the regimes fell. While pundits described grand political theories about what just happened after the Wall fell and what was continuing to happen, Drakulic was among the first authors writing about how these regimes affected ordinary women.
This book is a quick and wonderful read that shows communism didn't necessarily end when the Wall came down. It will take future generations for all of that communism to leave the mind. I don't think any other writer has helped me see how communism breeds incredibly fascist outlooks in people since making a mistake of saying the wrong thing could be so well...fatal...plus job #1 was to survive iuntil the next day.