The Romanian Red Body: Gender, Ideology and Propaganda in the Construction of the “New Man”
The Romanian Red Body: Gender, Ideology and Propaganda in the Construction of the “New Man”

Summary/Abstract: Starting from the premise that the communist regime in Romania did not change just the lives, destinies, and mentalities of people, but also their bodies, I use discourse analysis to investigate the shaping of the “new man”, the prototype of the communist subject. I argue that this prototype was not only ideological and discursive, but embodied and gendered. I analyse propaganda publications from 1970–1980, and suggest that there were two main educational targets: women, as part of the general public, who had to “learn” the new principles of gender equality, and youth (by mid-80’s the generation of “children of the decree”, born after the 1966 banning of abortion, was reaching adolescence). The communist regime emphasized family as the “basic cell” of society, but also every citizen’s participation in reproducing it. Under the veil of “emancipation”, women’s sex roles were strongly highlighted by propaganda; these roles included the “duty” of looking good, staying healthy, working hard and producing children. The discourse about femininity and beauty allowed propaganda to blend traditional gender identity with political ideology, with the aim of staging a noticeable “process of civilization” for the women who were just entering the workforce in the 1970’s as an effect of the process of massive industrialization.

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