This lecture examines how, in post-1945 East Central Europe, official ideology and policies shaped gender relations, how they evolved, and how women responded to these shifting agendas and realities. It traces the emergence and development of knowledge production on women’s issues from the 1950s to the 1980s, both as a site of critical assessment of state-socialist policies and their outcomes and as an expression of women’s voices. Based on the Marxist understanding of production and social relations, the key official state emancipatory agenda stressed women’s employment as a condition for emancipation and equality between the sexes. Nevertheless, expertise on women’s work showed the limits of this agenda through the intersectional lens of gender and class.

Countless research projects revealed the lived realities and aspirations of women from diverse social milieus, drawing on interviews, memoirs, and mass surveys. While the authors of these studies, women experts, might be regarded as state actors, their research and activism within and beyond state institutions challenged the universality of official narratives. Their discussions with Marxism and negotiations with shifting policies complicate oversimplified views on the relationship between the state and gender equality in post-war East Central Europe.

Natalia Jarska is a historian and Associate Professor at the Institute of History of the Polish Academy of Sciences. Her research focuses on women’s and gender history, labor history, and the history of sexuality in postwar Poland. She has published a book entitled Women of Marble: Women Workers in Poland 1945 to 1960 (in Polish, Warsaw 2015), and articles in journals including Slavic Review, Women’s History Review, and Contemporary European History. She is currently co-Principal Investigator, with Annina Gagyiova, of the research project FemEx: Women Experts and Feminist Knowledge Production in Post-War East Central Europe, 1945 to 1989.

Der Vortrag ist Teil der Vortragsreihe Prague Histories Forum, die gemeinsam von den Prager Außernstellen des DHI Warschau, des Collegium Carolinum und des GWZO Leipzig organisiert wird. In diesem Wintersemester 2026/27 widmen wir uns dem Thema „Gender & Queer in East Central Europe".

Alle Vorträge der Reihe finden Dienstags von 15:50–17:20 Uhr in der Kunstfakultät der Prager Karlsuniversität statt.

Venue: Špork Palace, Hybernská 3, Prague 1 | Room 303, attic floor

All of the “Prague Histories Forum” lectures will be accessible online via Zoom. Please register here:
https://maxweberstiftung.zoom-x.de/meeting/register/yq0DKEQFRjS4TW3N2dNDeA

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