Women in Poland, 1945–1989

Katarzyna Stanczak-Wislicz, Institute of Literary Research, Polish Academy of Sciences – cultural historian interested in women’s history in post-1945 Poland and history of popular culture; the author of e.g. Real-life Stories. Confession Narratives in Polish Popular Women’s Magazines in XX century (2010), co-editor of the Texts and Contexts from the History of Feminism and Women’s Rights. East Central Europe, Second Half of the Twentieth Century, (CEU Press, 2024). Piotr Perkowski, University of Gda.sk – social historian, his research fields include social and economic history of Poland in the second half of the 20th century; the author of a book on post-war Gda.sk (Gda.sk – miasto od nowa). His forthcoming monograph, Communism, Shipyards and the Crisis of Modernity: The Political Economy of Late Socialism in Poland, navigates the era from Gierek to Jaruzelski, exploring the interplay between a command economy, societal pressures and post-Bretton-Woods global dynamics. Malgorzata Fidelis, University of Illinois Chicago – social and cultural historian, focused particularly on everyday life and the relationship between individuals and state power in post-1945 Eastern Europe; the author of Imagining the World from Behind the Iron Curtain: Youth and the Global Sixties in Poland (2022) and Women, Communism, and Industrialization in Postwar Poland (2010). She is currently working on a book about the post-1989 transition in Poland with an emphasis on grassroots protests in defense of reproductive rights. Barbara Klich-Kluczewska, Jagiellonian University, Kraków – cultural historian, her fields of research include history of family and childhood, history of sexuality and gender history; the author of e.g.: Family, Taboo and Communism in Poland, 1956¬–1989 (2021) and co-editor of Fearing for the Nation. Biopolitics in Central and Eastern Europe in the 20th Century

• Introduction to the English-Language Edition Chapter 1. The Road to Power? Women in Politics (Piotr Perkowski) Chapter 2. Equal Rights or Conservative Modernity? Women and Work (Ma.gorzata Fidelis) Chapter 3. The Modern Housewife: Woman in the Household (Piotr Perkowski and Katarzyna Sta.czak-Wi.licz) Chapter 4. “It’s Not Easy Being a Girl”: Upbringing, Coming-of-Age, and Education (Katarzyna Sta.czak-Wi.licz) Chapter 5. Women and the Family (Barbara Klich-Kluczewska) Chapter 6. Objects of Biopolitics? Health, Reproduction, and Violence (Barbara Klich-Kluczewska and Piotr Perkowski) Chapter 7. Beautiful and Resourceful: Beauty Culture and the Body (Ma.gorzata Fidelis and Katarzyna Sta.czak-Wi.licz) Concluding Remarks Bibliography Index