Some gender aspects of socialism

Margarita Karamihova

doi:10.37620/eaz2020165k

Abstract

Thе article presents a brief of the results of the study of the dynamics of women's underwear at the time of socialism in Bulgaria. The choice of the research topic is inspired by the concept that the attitudes towards women, women's bodies, and women's sexuality can be revealed through the dynamics of things. Studying underwear in the context of an ideology and everyday life can help us reveal many invisible characteristics of everyday life during socialism. The author firmly believes that such a comparative study is timely and necessary to be developed in all countries of the former Soviet bloc in terms of revealing similarities and differences in ideologies, economies, and policies.

Highlights

For 30 years, one might expect that the studies of socialism are already a fully-fledged scientific field with clearly defined temporal, spatial, and problematic boundaries
In “Soviet underwear: from ideology to everyday life” the emphasis is placed on the context, namely on the study of the ideological context, in which people and objects existed; it states that things appear in culture and acquire characteristics not in a random way, but they are the object of ideological construction (Гурова 2008: 4)
As a woman born in the second half of the 1950s, I am a witness, and I am a part of the culture of the Bulgarian socialism

Summary

Method

It is possible to apply a whole palette of methods for collecting empirical information. As a woman born in the second half of the 1950s, I am a witness, and I am a part of the culture of the Bulgarian socialism It was, inevitable that I applied the method of auto-ethnography. For many women, sewing clothes at home becomes a (second) profession It explains the developed practice of publishing tailoring patterns in fashion magazines. The invented socialist ethics was supporting early modernization period perception that only the ladies with low morale are wearing luxury underwear, and only they are showing it Is another memory: Childhood Case 1: I come across Neckermann magazine. Classification of clothing followed three parts structure: for home – for work – for official occasions I was not comfortable being looked at with the rough underwear, but I had only it. (F, born in 1960, small town)

The light wind of changes

Pervious Border

Findings

To be done