Open AccessWomen in a Men’s Collective in the 1970s and 1980s
Author(s) -
Lucie Marková
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
history in flux
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2706-414X
pISSN - 2706-4441
DOI - 10.32728/flux.2021.3.8
Subject(s) - oral history , gender studies , context (archaeology) , prestige , socialism , interpretation (philosophy) , symphony , period (music) , emancipation , narrative , sociology , inclusion (mineral) , workforce , czech , political science , history , art , communism , aesthetics , literature , law , art history , anthropology , linguistics , philosophy , archaeology , politics , computer science , programming language
For many years, the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra was an exclusively maleorganization despite the increasing number of women in Czechoslovakia joining the workforce. This paper, which is based on oral history interviews with members of the orchestra, the paper will attempt to identify the reasons why almost no women were employed there during the period of Czechoslovak Socialism and under what kind of conditions the only two female members worked. Through interpretation and depth analysis of the oral history interview with one of the two female musicians employed by the Philharmonic before 1989, the paper will primarily map the issue of how women reconciled work and family life, which was considered one of the main obstacles for female musicians, while also taking into consideration the Philharmonic’s prestige and itsfrequent tours abroad. The acquired experience of a female musician is interpreted within the context of male narratives and is embedded in thestudy’s theoretical framework. This framework is defined by the available research on women’s emancipation and transformations of the gender order of the Czechoslovak socialist society, as well as research comparing the career patterns of musicians (both female and male) and the inclusion of women in the world’s leading symphony orchestras.