(Un)gendered workers and women's rights in authoritarian Czechoslovakia

The article illuminates female engagement in Czechoslovak/Czech trade unions across three political regimes: National Socialism (1939–1945), the post-war ‘People's Democracy’ (1945–1948) and Communism (1948–1989). It argues that transformations commonly associated with the socialist pursuit of gender equality after 1945 had important antecedents in wartime developments under the Nazi Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. Trade unions are analysed as institutions structured by a gender regime articulated in male terms, within which competing notions of gender difference and gender equality shaped both state policies and women's own demands. Focusing on blue-collar workers, the article traces women's social and political integration into trade unions and workplace representation from the 1930s to the 1950s. Particular attention is paid to the establishment of the Women's Department in Czech trade unions in 1942, which accelerated organisational changes later linked to post-war socialist reforms. The article shows that regimes with far-reaching ambitions to reshape society created new opportunities for challenging established gender hierarchies while simultaneously instrumentalising identities such as gender, class, and nationality. At the same time, debates on women's rights often remained detached from everyday workplace realities, where male dominance and gendered inequalities proved remarkably persistent.