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Paper short abstract:

The discourse of gender and sexuality played the crucial role in the defining of modernization in post-war Poland . For catholic thinkers it was associated with the idea of bodily purity of women, for communists - with the acceptance of status-quo.

Paper long abstract:

The post-WWII period in Poland was a moment of transition. It became obvious that nothing could be the same as it had been before 1939. Soviet domination very quickly became taken for granted and new claims for legitimacy were made.

"Modernity" and "modernization" were keywords for both the communists and the Catholic Church. The discourses of gender and sexuality with the slogan "new woman" played a crucial role in the process of defining post-war modernity. Primarily, it was a symbol of division between past and present. For Catholic thinkers the concept of "new woman" was associated with maternity and perceived as a strong factor capable of restoring traditional society, thanks to moral strength and bodily purity.

At the same time, the declaration of women's equality and the family law reform in 1945 created new national policies. The government promised to take care of unmarried mothers, and women who returned from Germany pregnant or with small, often illegitimate, babies. Modernization was associated with the unification of the status of legitimate and illegitimate children (perceived as war victims), as well as with claims for "sexual reform". This was an attempt to accept post-war status quo.

In the meantime scientific and medical discourses were focused on the matter of fertility and reproductive health. They had to face many problems , which were results of the war. Medical discourses were still affected by pre-war eugenic ideas, but were being re-written to better fit the new times. Scientific argumentation became more important than old concepts connected with pre-war chastity movements.