Managing the Double Identity: Married Women as Housewives and Workers in Post-1956 Poland

Abstract:The aim of this article is to explore married women's identities and life choices in relation to paid employment and housework in Poland from the late 1950s to the early 1970s. It focuses on women with secondary and higher education. In line with other studies that propose to go beyond dominating narratives on gender inequality under state socialism, this article aims to explore women's agency and underlines the importance of the analysis of women's voices and experiences. Taking advantage of a collection of four hundred unpublished accounts on marital life from the 1960s and 1970s, the article analyzes how women built their identities, how they negotiated the "double identity," and how they used strategies to combine productive and reproductive labor. The article shows the importance of strategies that involved other family members and the crucial role of power relations in marriage.