Marx or Malthus? Population debates and the reproductive politics of state-socialist Poland in the 1950s and 1960s

Kuźma-Markowska, Sylwia

doi:10.1080/1081602x.2019.1702889

Cited by 10 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 27 publications

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“…Even the critics of nurseries favoured the ‘protective function’ they served for children in a situation deemed to be at odds with the prevailing ideas about ‘proper’ childcare. For example, like in Hungary and Poland (see Kuźma-Markowska 2020; Varsa 2021a), in Czechoslovakia single mothers were one of the categories of women who were suspected of child neglect. They were associated with ‘broken homes’, which prevented ‘proper’ childcare (Junková 1975: 12), and with children in emotional distress (Matějček 1986: 35).…”

Section: Nurseries and The Risk Of Children’s Emotional Deprivation A...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Obedient mothers, healthy children: communication on the risks of reproduction in state-socialist Czechoslovakia

Dudová

Hašková

2023

Med Humanities

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The article analyses medical communication in popular media relating to the risks in reproduction in the state-socialist Czechoslovakia between 1948 and 1989 and shows how it used emotions as an instrument to control women’s reproductive behaviour. In particular, we use an approach inspired by Donati’s (1992) political discourse analysis and by Snow and Bedford’s (1988) framing analysis to explore communication on the risk of infertility in the abortion debate, the risk of fetal abnormalities in the prenatal screening debate, and the risk of emotional deprivation and morbidity in infants in the debate on mothering practices. The analysis contributes to the knowledge on how the construction of risk in reproduction, including childcare, serves to create a moral order of motherhood by defining what constitutes ‘irresponsible’ reproductive behaviours and their associated risks, and in doing so may lead to the further marginalisation of already marginalised people. We explain how expert discourse on reproduction and care aimed at the general public worked by constructing risks, a fear of these risks, and women’s responsibility for avoiding them in order to regulate women’s behaviour through self-discipline, which worked alongside other disciplinary techniques. These techniques were applied unequally and mainly to marginalised groups of women, such as women of Roma ethnicity and single mothers.

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Section: Nurseries and The Risk Of Children’s Emotional Deprivation A...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Obedient mothers, healthy children: communication on the risks of reproduction in state-socialist Czechoslovakia

Dudová

Hašková

2023

Med Humanities

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“…Esta teoría sirvió como fundamento a partir de mediados del siglo xx para la preocupación occidental en torno al crecimiento de la población en los países en vías de desarrollo. Por el contrario, el bloque soviético rechazó el temor a la superpoblación adoptando la "política marxista de población", en la que el Estado debía ser capaz de proveer recursos a todos sus nuevos ciudadanos (Kuzma-Markowska, 2019).…”

Section: El Demonio De La Superpoblación Y El Demonio Del Suicidio De...unclassified

Parto o muerte: la extinción de España. Una revisión sistematizada de la literatura sobre la construcción de “pánicos demográficos”

Aragón Morales,

Ruiz Jiménez

2023

Polít. soc.

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El proceso de cambio demográfico en el que se encuentra inmersa la sociedad europea, y particularmente la española, viene siendo objeto una gran atención mediática y política. Esta atención no es ajena a los recientes éxitos electorales de diferentes partidos de derecha radical, de manera que los mensajes que recibimos de forma cotidiana están profundamente impregnados por su ideología antifeminista, nativista y xenófoba. De este modo, el cambio demográfico se está construyendo en clave de crisis, como “catástrofe demográfica”, con importantes consecuencias de género y sobre la población inmigrante y refugiada en materia de derechos sexuales y reproductivos, entre otros. Para abordar esta realidad, contextualizamos el cambio a través de diferentes indicadores demográficos y llevamos a cabo una revisión sistemática de la literatura. Nos centramos en la bibliografía sobre pánicos demográficos como la más relevante para entender la construcción del cambio demográfico como problema, y finalizamos con una reflexión sobre la necesidad de analizar el pánico al cambio demográfico en España tras la irrupción de Vox en el Congreso de los Diputados.

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“…a boom in the production and dissemination of Catholic advice material began during the 1970s, boosted by the publication of the encyclical Humanae Vitae in 1968 and increasing tolerance from authorities, whose familyoriented policies intended to stimulate population growth had become more aligned with those of the episcopate. 16 However, the foundation for these principles had been laid in preceding decades. In the early postwar period, Catholic advice literature on marriage and sexuality largely repeated prewar discourses and presented marriage as the only space for sexual activity.…”

Section: Premarital Sex In Catholic and Secular Sexual Expertisementioning

confidence: 99%

Premarital Sex in State-Socialist Poland: A Generational Perspective

Jarska

Ignaciuk

2022

East European Politics and Societies: and Cultures

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In this article, we examine personal narratives on premarital sex by two generations of Polish men and women—one born in the 1950s and 1960s, and their parents’ generation, born in the 1920s and 1930s and coming of age during or after World War II—and place these in dialogue with discourses surrounding young sexuality in state-socialist Poland. Using sociological surveys, popular sexological literature, and Catholic marriage preparation material, we contextualize accounts of premarital heterosexual experiences, provided through oral history interviews and contest memoirs—ego documents submitted for autobiographic writing competitions in the 1960s and 1970s. We show there was no clear division between public secular and Catholic approaches to premarital (hetero)sexuality, with both opposing sexual experimentation before and beyond marriage throughout the state-socialist period (1945–1989). However, across the same period, young people’s acceptance of premarital sexual experimentation increased and the importance of a woman remaining a virgin until marriage declined. Our analysis of discourses and experiences reveals the connections and intersections of secular and Catholic realms. While secular experts did not conceptualize premarital sex as a sin, they often mirrored Catholic views by framing their discourse in terms of love, sex, responsibility, and potential risk. Young people negotiated various elements of these teachings in their premarital sexual practices, which, during the final decades of state socialism, were largely normalized, especially when couples were planning to marry.

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Marx or Malthus? Population debates and the reproductive politics of state-socialist Poland in the 1950s and 1960s

Cited by 10 publications

References 27 publications

Obedient mothers, healthy children: communication on the risks of reproduction in state-socialist Czechoslovakia

Obedient mothers, healthy children: communication on the risks of reproduction in state-socialist Czechoslovakia

Parto o muerte: la extinción de España. Una revisión sistematizada de la literatura sobre la construcción de “pánicos demográficos”

Premarital Sex in State-Socialist Poland: A Generational Perspective

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