The Ambivalence of socialist working women's heritage: A case study of the jugoplastika factory

Abstract

This article focuses on the segment of socialist modernization connected with the industrial production of plastics, which developed largely as a result of women's achievements, i.e. as the symbiosis of the early socialist culture of competition, (self-)discipline and (self-)correction of human flaws, and the patriarchal heritage that praised female virtues, such as readiness to sacrifice and to take responsibility for the prosperity of family and community as a whole. As early as the late 1950s, the rivalry between the two collectivist projects - patriarchal and communist - that, each in its own way, disciplined, socialized and used the female workforce and reproductive ability, found a common interest in reinstating the discourses of femininity and domesticity. The transition from penury to relative abundance, alongside the beginning of mass production of domestic appliances and consumer goods, synthetic materials and plastics, was accompanied by the passivization of the woman as a political subject and the commodification of her image in the mass media. This ethnographic study of women employed in the Split factory Jugoplastika (1954-1991) and those working in its plant on the Dalmatian island of Šolta (1959-1991) discusses the ambivalent heritage of socialist emancipation. For most women, regular work at the plant fundamentally changed their everyday lives, gender relations within the families, their living standard and the way they perceived their own abilities and competency. Their narratives reveal a selective view and evaluation of their lives in socialism; a lack of critical reflection on their own ideological position within the local and national context, a nostalgic look back at the economic empowerment they experienced and pride in the skill with which they performed their working tasks. These experiences are contrasted with those from the period of dependence on the island's traditional economies (agriculture, fishing, lime production), as well as with the recent focus on natural resources and tourism, based on the reactivation of the traditional way of life, where women have little opportunity for (self-)affirmation.