The municipal elections of 1919 and the parliamentary/senate elections of 1920 gave women their first opportunity to exercise their new right to vote, and as such were important milestones in the forming of women’s new status as equal citizens. The paper analyses election campaigns aimed at female voters in selected periodicals published by the Czech Catholic People’s Party in 1919 and 1920: the newspaper Lid (The People) and the newly established magazine Žena (Woman). It explores the main topics and strategies of the campaign and identifies the underlying concepts of women’s political interests and motivations. The main focus is on the magazine Žena and its attempts to reconcile traditional Catholic femininity and the ‘separate spheres’ model with women’s newfound status as political actors and to create a picture of a new, politically active Catholic woman for its readership.
"Damit sich kein Geschlecht verschmäht fühlte, nahm Gott die Gestalt eines Mannes an und ward von einer Frau geboren." Erforschung des Mittelalters durch das Genderprisma.
In East-Central Europe, Marxist humanism embodied one of the most promising theoretical developments of the 1960s. While respecting the unquestionable value of this intellectual current, this article highlights the contradiction between the emancipatory proclamations of humanist intellectuals and their reluctance to recognize certain prevalent forms of oppression. After comparing the humanist approach toward gender-structured themes in the former Czechoslovakia with the contrasting techno-optimist approach, the latter group is shown to have been more sensitive toward women’s issues. Th e article concludes that there was an intrinsic problem in Marxist humanist theory that contributed to this historical shortcoming in its emancipatory eff orts.