“I couldn't live without my factory now” The recruitment of women into the workforce in Communist Czechoslovakia in the 1950s

Abstract

This paper provides a gender analysis of the recruitment campaigns aimed at bringing women into the workforce in Czechoslovakia in the 1950s. This period was noteworthy for the intensity of the recruitment campaigns and for the image of the female worker, which contrasted markedly with traditional ideas of femininity. In later years as the campaign lost its intensity the discourse construction more often reflected other images of the new socialist woman, particularly in terms of their private lives. Methodologically, this is a cultural-historical study based on gender analysis and critical discourse analysis. The sources are largely made up of periodicals from the time and instructional pamphlets for women, as well as archive material from the Central Committee of the Czechoslovak Communist Party and mass organizations for women.