International Women’s Day as a platform of gender performativity in socialist Czechoslovakia

Abstract

For the study of gender relations and the role of women in the Czechoslovak socialist society, it is very beneficial to pay attention to the forms of celebrations of International Women’s Day (IWD). The national holiday dedicated to women as a social group was the best platform for articulating the regime’s strategies concerning women and revealing the contradictions in which Czechoslovak state socialism perceived women. Moreover, on the occasion of IWD, not only the prototype of the female ideal set by the Communist Party came to the surface. Direct or incautious hints, the problems of ordinary women, the shortcomings of socialist society, the true nature of the declared “equality”, gender stereotypes and the whole complex of contemporary discourse about women were revealed inside the patriarchal system. The primary sources for this article are periodicals (especially the Rudé právo newspaper and Vlasta magazine), which are understood as means of “authoritative discourse”. This authoritative discourse mediated, among other things, through the regime media is a central factor in the stabilization and legalization of the system. Such a discourse is also a set of statements and phenomena maintaining a consensus between the rulers and the ruled. Other items of value for the study are the archival materials stored in the National Archive, period sociological surveys and stenographic records from the proceedings of the National Assembly.