Some babies are better than others. Selective Pronatalism, Ethnicity and Sexuality Politics behind the Iron Curtain
The result's identifiers
Result code in IS VaVaI
<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F68378025%3A_____%2F25%3A00618740" target="_blank" >RIV/68378025:_____/25:00618740 - isvavai.cz</a>
Result on the web
<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.4324/9781003204763-17" target="_blank" >http://dx.doi.org/10.4324/9781003204763-17</a>
DOI - Digital Object Identifier
<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.4324/9781003204763-17" target="_blank" >10.4324/9781003204763-17</a>
Alternative languages
Result language
angličtina
Original language name
Some babies are better than others. Selective Pronatalism, Ethnicity and Sexuality Politics behind the Iron Curtain
Original language description
This chapter focuses on the reproductive policies – regulation of abortion, sterilization, and financial support to families – in socialist Czechoslovakia, to show how ethnicity represented one of the main dividing lines between those deserving and undeserving to reproduce. While pronatalism operating along the lines of nation and race was present in sexuality politics of many modern states, including the “western” ones, the context of state socialism (1948–1989) was specific by high level of state control and limited individual agency and civil society watch. We use discursive institutionalism to explain the development of pronatalist policies by exploring how ideas are generated among policy actors and communicated to the public through discourse. We argue that the goal of pronatalism in the state socialist Czechoslovakia was to increase birth rates by utilizing its sexual citizens, and in particular the women’s bodies to serve the demographic and economic objectives of the state. Moreover, pronatalism has always been selective and differentiated along the lines of ethnicity and nationality, thus limited women’s full bodily and social citizenship. We show that the logic of the Czechoslovak pronatalist policies, like elsewhere in the state socialist countries, was guided by heteronormativity, racism, and ableism.
Czech name
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Czech description
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Classification
Type
C - Chapter in a specialist book
CEP classification
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OECD FORD branch
50401 - Sociology
Result continuities
Project
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Continuities
I - Institucionalni podpora na dlouhodoby koncepcni rozvoj vyzkumne organizace
Others
Publication year
2025
Confidentiality
S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů
Data specific for result type
Book/collection name
The Routledge Handbook of Sexuality in East Central Europe
ISBN
978-1-032-06964-7
Number of pages of the result
11
Pages from-to
152-162
Number of pages of the book
488
Publisher name
Routledge
Place of publication
London
UT code for WoS chapter
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