Life for Women in Post-Communist Romania | States of Undress

I'd like to point out that although corruption reached astronomical levels after the fall of communism, and although there is still massive corruption here, things have actually improved a lot. The reason why a protest against corruption brought more people to the streets than any other protest since the revolution, is not because corruption is worse than ever, but because we finally have the hope that protesting can make a change. That particular protest actually managed to achieve its short term goal

This reminds me of vice during its hay day. Fantastic reporting. We are all so lucky to have been born in a free country. These girls could have been any one of us.

From the title I thought this would describe Romania in the 90's... The situation definitely is improved. It's not so dramatic as the documentary presents.

The documentary is from 2017. Things have improved.

Incredible reporting!! I love how Refinery29's fashion roots are being integrated into so much more about the female experience. Hailey is an excellent reporter, the timing and the questions were so good and I love how many perspectives were discussed. Not to mention, many of the people being interviewed are hard to reach/don't want to be found. Thank you

That final shot of the crowd organized into the Romanian flag colors gave me goosebumps. What a well done documentary.

Another brilliant documentary! So well researched, so well put together in fact Refinery29 is my favourite series of doccies, clothes, travel, women's issues and brilliant reporting and investigative journalism

i love Bucharest, lived there for a year, the best most down to earth welcoming people

Wow. I am speechless. What a well done documentary. The girl’s story at the end was very sad. I hope she is safe and doing better today.

I was pleasantly surprised by the breadth and depth of this documentary. The presenter was excellent. Nicely done Refinery

Wow, tears in my eyes. Such a beautiful documentary, thank you for showing this to the world and giving a voice to the people. Watching this with a broken heart, far from home.

Those are the types of documentaries we need, documentaries about women and their lives all over the world.

This series is incredible.

Hailey, what a great report! This was entertaining but also educating. And you've asked the right questions. Thank you! <3

I am sorry but this is an example of very bad and superficial journalism.

I think posting this without the disclaimer that it’s old is very misleading to people who watch these during coffee breaks and/or have few reliable sources that actually tell the truth and it’s not just manipulation.As i said in another reply, in 2023 Romania is the second largest eastern European economy after Poland, larger than Hungary, Czech Republic and Greece. We are more accepting of diversity, we are tackling more basic social issues like road safety, equitable taxation, funding for education workers, medical workers, etc. in a way designed to also address the rampant corruption in those systems, which was at least partially caused by the disparity between the social value of that work and the social/financial status of those doing it. All this is possible because of the initial short term success of the protests from 2017/2018 which triggered an (at the time inconceivable) change in our political class, even if small, so that politicians can no longer afford themselves the same outrageous privileges in overcoming the rule of law. All this can only be sustained by continuing to fight back against the current wave of neo fascism, that arose as a response to these big societal changes, as it has throughout Europe. Also, such a complex topic shouldn’t be discussed in such a subjective and superficial manner, the corruption and poverty didn’t just happen and the state of things didn’t develop in a void. After the fall of communism, corruption became the means of survival bc of other countries essentially using their wealth to do a hostile take over of the means of generating wealth that already existed in communism/post communist Romania. This was possible bc the immediate post communist governments introduced a national economy that was fully regulated by the government with a currency that was intentionally devalued, in order to increase the national value of exports to a global capital economy, where the nominal worth of our means of production and resources were criminally undervalued. This process is essentially presented to citizens worldwide as a “cost of transitioning to democracy “ where in actuality, it is a cost to enter in a capitalist global economy, and shift the role of post comunist romanian citizens from producers to consumers. Yes, there is plenty of poverty in Romania, just as there is anywhere in the EU and US, however there is no place in Romania that is even half as bad as the LA strip, Muirhouse and Govanhill in Scotland, the slums of Paris and many others.

I love Hailey’s fashion and culture reports! Thanks for keeping it up.

Amazing video. Hailey is amazing, compassionate when needed and hilarious when needed. Love her videos!!! I watched a documentary about 10 years ago about all the homeless kids in the streets of Bucharest that were forced to be born to parents that couldn’t or didn’t want to take care of them. It was horrible. This should be a lesson to the politicians trying to force births in America, but alas they don’t even care about kids in the first place.

This was such an amazing documentary! I learned so much from the Romanian people and their struggles. Thank you

It is really interesting how western journalists when talking about romanian women or the life of a romanian woman never talk about the fact that we have one of the lowest gender pay gap 2%, highest senior executibes and enterpreneur in EU 4/10 being women, 2 from 5 engineers are women, we have 2 years of for maternity leave with 85%salary pay, work 40h/week only country where women work equaly to men.And on top how women generate social programs on top on GDP growth....For the west we are just prostitutes eventhough that is small % of the population, just like in the majority of the countries. And don't get me wrong I have seen plenty of sex traffing documentaries and each time I cry that someone could go through this and I am realizing that this has increased and we went from comunist where women equal to men and having jobs even from 50-60s when other west coubtries did not allow women to have a bank account to capitalism romanian women being prostituted, but I am really sick of this image which is being created of the romanian woman's identity.