It is Great to Talk Freely about Sex Now!: Sexualization of Women in the Soviet Satirical Press during the Perestroika Period

• In Event: Changing Femininity: The Social Construction of Women in Eastern European Literary and Periodical Texts

Abstract

In this paper, I focus on the sexualization of women in the Soviet satirical press during the Perestroika period. The policy of Glasnost encouraged satirists to talk about hitherto silenced topics such as drug addiction, prostitution, shortages, repression, the benefits of a market economy, etc. Humorists presented the possibility of covering sexual issues as a great freedom of self-expression. However, under the guise of a new theme for Soviet satire, the humorists actualized and legitimized, first of all, the traditional culture of laughter, in which female objectification was one of the main features of sex jokes. So, at the expense of the female body, the “sexual revolution” mainly took place in the Soviet press.

Author

• Kateryna Yeremieieva, Ludwig-Maximilians-U Munich (Germany)