University of Pennsylvania

Kateřina gave a talk “Love and Sex Behind the Iron Curtain: What Can We Learn from the Experiences of 20th Century State Socialism in Eastern Europe?” She argued that the Cold War East had its sexual liberation. In socialist societies, this liberation came from above, mediated by experts. Looking at socialist Czechoslovakia, she argued that we see at least two things: 1) that sexuality can be liberated in the absence of social movements; 2) and also that gender and sexual liberation do not necessarily go hand in hand – because we see gender and sexual liberation already in the 1950s and then gender re-traditionalization in the 1970s – which is a development that runs contrary to the well-known Western narrative of the sexual revolution of the 60s and 70s. Importantly, she showed a socialist country as a modern country. Modernity is not only capitalist – socialist states in the second half of the 20th century attempted alternative modernity, which was guided by the ideas of both class AND gender equality. In many respects, socialists states failed: political freedoms, to name just one example, were absent. But we would do ourselves a disservice if we disregarded many social liberties that socialism introduced, long before its capitalist rival.