Post/socialist chemical research: a gendered politics of visual representation

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article explores changes to the strongly gendered politics of representation in applied chemical research using visual material from company magazines of Czech-based chemical plants (1969–2000). This representation overlaps with identified developments in the gender order and how these relate to the disputed Cold War discourse. The focus on visual representations gives us a novel perspective on the intersection of technology, gender and geopolitics and what it can tell us about the ways in which competing versions of modernity have been shaped. We find that in the 1969-1989 period, applied chemical research is primarily portrayed as interaction between women and chemical equipment, making the face of applied chemical research distinctly feminine. This is in line with the definition of socialist modernity through a stress on women’s emancipation and equality as part of the liberation of society as such. However, a detailed visual discourse analysis reveals that this visual representation is less about applied chemical research and more about femininity defined around a singular understanding of motherhood. The gradual dehumanization of chemical research in the visual material resonates with the onset of political and economic change around 1989 marked by a radical change in the overall visual culture.