Are You a Modern Girl? Consumer Culture and Young Women in 1960s Poland

Stiletto Socialism

“…20 As stated by Malgorzata Fidelis, mass consumption in the 1960s was part of a pan-European trend fueled by the Cold War competition between East and West. 21 Socialist Yugoslavia diff ered from other Eastern European socialist countries in terms of personal living standards, travel, and shopping abroad. There were also substantial diff erences among the state socialist regimes in how their political, economic, and other institutional mechanisms operated: much less uniform and harsh in Poland and Yugoslavia, compared to the Soviet Union, Bulgaria, and Romania.…”

Sex on equal terms? Polish sexology on women’s emancipation and ‘good sex’ from the 1970s to the present

“…7 It is also worth noting that although controlling sexuality was an important element of socialist power, at least in Poland in the first decades of socialism, sexuality itself was not openly part of the official discourse (Fidelis, 2009; Malewska, 1969; Szpakowska, 2003). Before the 1970s there were very few publications about sexuality; there were some pre-war publications, but these were not easily accessible.…”

“…11 Socialism cannot be considered a homogenous period. After the Second World War and into the 1950s, ‘the state and the popular media emphasized a military-like mobilization of female labour and recruitment for male-dominated jobs such as tractor driving, along with promoting collective identities and self sacrifice for the greater good of building socialism’ writes Małgorzata Fidelis, a historian working on the subject of Polish women under communism (Fidelis, 2009: 172). Thus, the most important turning point was the end of Stalinism, which constituted a backlash, ‘a major departure from the Stalinist concept of young women as political activists and equal workers’ (Fidelis, 2009: 172).…”

“…After the Second World War and into the 1950s, ‘the state and the popular media emphasized a military-like mobilization of female labour and recruitment for male-dominated jobs such as tractor driving, along with promoting collective identities and self sacrifice for the greater good of building socialism’ writes Małgorzata Fidelis, a historian working on the subject of Polish women under communism (Fidelis, 2009: 172). Thus, the most important turning point was the end of Stalinism, which constituted a backlash, ‘a major departure from the Stalinist concept of young women as political activists and equal workers’ (Fidelis, 2009: 172). In the following decades, contradictory messages were sent to women by the state and state-controlled popular media: women were more and more associated with qualities such as beauty and fashion as well as with motherhood and responsibility for the family (Fidelis, 2009; Marody and Giza Poleszczuk, 2000; Szpakowska, 2003: 41).…”

“…Thus, the most important turning point was the end of Stalinism, which constituted a backlash, ‘a major departure from the Stalinist concept of young women as political activists and equal workers’ (Fidelis, 2009: 172). In the following decades, contradictory messages were sent to women by the state and state-controlled popular media: women were more and more associated with qualities such as beauty and fashion as well as with motherhood and responsibility for the family (Fidelis, 2009; Marody and Giza Poleszczuk, 2000; Szpakowska, 2003: 41). However, women were still present in the labour market, could achieve some level of financial independence and seek ‘diverse non-domestic activities’ (Fidelis, 2009: 172).…”