Introduction: Coming of Age

When carefully observing with a retrospective lens the evolution of feminist thinking and analysis within the Romanian landscape, one may notice important transformations and further advance a hypothesis on its different stages of becoming. Feminist analyses have indeed traveled into the academic domain; if more concentrated in their "youth" on a wider recovery of feminism (by all means necessary), recent studies are more diverse, thematic oriented, and context related. These recent theoretical productions are nevertheless rooted within the larger constructionist scenario of the first years of transition as they also apply epistemological and methodological instruments carefully shaped in that "era." I dare to propose that this new stage embraced by feminist analysis began some years ago with specific thematic analysis. Recent publications discussed in the present essay reveal a better anchorage or consolidation of this stage. This text highlights a process of maturing undertaken by feminism during transition, a necessary foundation depicting inner development of (critical) thinking and analysis.

I correlate this process of maturing with thematic-oriented analyses, applying wider feminist frames/theories, however more individualized in comparison with the latter as thematic-oriented analyses are by definition more interested in demarcating their topic. The first feminist analyses and research addressed more macro-level assessments. An important intellectual "brick" (1) contributing to the grounding of feminist theoretical production, Ultima inegalitate (The last inequality) (2003), (2) reveals an author carefully analyzing gender policies and relations during transition under a specific conceptual umbrella, that of patriarchy. In Drumul catre autonomie (The road towards autonomy) (2004), (3) Mihaela Miroiu embraced autonomy as a fundamental concept and correlated it with the evolution of gender-sensitive policies and women's status/rights beginning with the very emergence of feminism. The analysis of this particular theorist connects local evolutions of feminism throughout various political regimes with international ones, having women's autonomy as the "guiding concept." These two macro-level approaches tackle a larger sociopolitical and economic context, creating the intellectual "vessel" for other analyses to develop. In contrast, Gen si interese politice (Gender and political interests) (2007) (4) and biONGgrafie, AnA- istoria traita a unui ONG de femei (biNGOgraphy, AnA- The living history of a women's NGO) (2008) (5) address specific themes, such as gender political interests, social exclusion, the labor market, and the history of a women's NGO (nongovernmental organization).

A second correlation I highlight within the process of maturing is the ability to enrich and widen the field of intellectual inquiry. If political science and sociology usually benefited from gender or feminist analysis, other domains are provoked today by feminist thinking, that of literature, for example. And as we shall understand, Bianca Burta-Cernat, the author of one publication reviewed here, dares do more. While engaging in a process of recovery of forgotten women writers, she transcends analysis of literary characters and takes further steps into the voyage of maturing by questioning marginality and perspectives belonging to the feminism of difference within literature.

Another important feature of this maturing process (6) is a self-reflexive critical approach within feminist...