Women’s Work and Men

Abstract

Through the use of selected contemporary sociological research and prolific collections of largely unpublished memoirs, this article analyzes men’s attitudes toward the paid employment of women—particularly married women—in post-Stalinist Poland. The personal narratives reveal an increasing acceptance of women’s work outside the household over time and across generations. A significant shift in Polish men’s attitudes to a greater acceptance of women’s paid employment took place in the younger generation, born in the 1930s and 1940s and socialized after World War II. However, hostile attitudes of working-class men toward working women persisted, based on a continuing aspiration to uphold the male breadwinner family model.