64 providing equal educational opportunities. Undoubtedly, the argument that education serves the reproduction of the ruling class yields more explanatory power in relation to capitalist societies, but it cannot be repudiated that in socialist societies as well education has equally been a major route to reproduce the ruling class.29 Until now, ‘birth origin’ remains the most important criterion for access to a first-class university. Especially in the case of women who want to go to university, the scope of choice is rather limited as their options are constricted by prejudices regarding which social domains women should enter: business school, light industry school, nursing school, teachers’ school, etc. are their predetermined options. In the same way as in the field of education, an unequal class structure and a structure of inequality between men and women has operated in the field of labour, rendering the latter an area typically characterized by labour rights violations. It is not individual autonomy, but unilateral assignment by the state which still remains the absolute determinant when it comes to ‘choosing’ one’s occupation. Again, this unilateral placement is decided through arbitrary assessments of one’s birth origin, the outstanding character of one’s family lineage, the position of one’s parents, and their inclination to the party and the revolution. Irrespective of individual efforts or skills, one is to live as a labourer if one’s parents are labourers, as a farm worker if one’s parents are farm workers, etc.; thus, classes are passed on from one generation to the next. Since the economic crisis, moreover, cases have become even more frequent in which people are forced to give up their dreams due to the state discourse of ‘sacrifice’ which enforces group placements immediately after people graduate from secondary school or finish military service. Instinctively, [I thought] ‘Because my father is in the coal mines I also have to go to the coal mines’; as I’ve been educated in this way from an early age it’s not even depressing. Although the same amount [of work] was done, men – because they’re men – get a different pay. They’re all men. When women do something it’s something like being responsible for a restaurant, a warehouse, that’s what women do, but other 29 Although one’s political conviction and status are widely regarded as important factors determining social selection such as in the selection of party members or university entrance, in reality, personal connections and family background are masked as status and conviction. For example, the father’s background operates as the most important variable for children’s university entrance. The son of an official can thus be guaranteed social success. Under the name of ‘ideological status’ family background is legally used as the basis of preferential and discriminatory treatment.