The Myth of Gender Equality? Older Women’s Narratives on Sexuality Under State Socialism

Abstract This article explores female sexuality during state-socialist rule in Croatia and Poland. Using life-course framework and qualitative data from individual interviews with 35 women aged 65–93, we investigate a complex interplay of socialist puritanism, officially proclaimed gender equality, and a patriarchal cultural tradition based on a restrictive religious morality, and the role it played in women’s perception of sexuality, sexual expression, and pleasure. In the private sphere, the process of socialist modernization (and its gender egalitarian ideology) was frequently neutralized by the post-World War II austerity and conservative family socialization—with long-term consequences for female sexuality. The current study is a contribution to the literature on social regulation of sexuality in Communist Europe during the second half of the twentieth century.