The Female Profile Promoted in Scânteia During the First Decade of the Communist Regime in Romania

The chapter addresses the representation of women in the written media of the early communist instalment in Romania, focusing on the Scânteia newspaper. The publication was the party's official voice, one of the main instruments of communist enforcement, ideological and informational control, a barometer of policy changes, intent and actions of the political movement coordinated from Moscow, thus making it the perfect source of information. The newspaper addressed the general public and appeared daily, with rare exceptions, until 1965. The period of interest was the first decade of the communist establishment, which was also the harshest repressive regime that the country endured until the Revolution of December 1989. After browsing almost 30,000 pages from the indicated timeframe, each mention of a woman was selected and entered into a database that grew to over 18,600 text and photo references which later transformed into interesting and original conclusions.

Keywords: advertising the regime's saviour profile ; censorship and disinformation ; female attitude towards the communist regime ; female related articles, references and visual representations ; indoctrination through Soviet education and culture ; Romanian women's rights before and after WWII as part of the women's emancipation movement. Feminism vs feminity ; the battle for political power and propaganda ; The communist repressive apparatus operated with two main labels: “hostile elements” (dangerous women in need of rapid elimination), and “healthy social origin” women (useful instruments for the regime's instalment and preservation of power). ; the communist repressive regime in Romania ; the electoral fraud from November 1946 by which the communists finally seized power, and the 1948 amendment of the Constitution (on the Soviet model) ; the female associative forms before and after the communization of the Romanian society ; the instrumentalization of women for a political agenda ; The political cleansing campaign meant to eliminate all female enemies or to promote women as victims of the old regime ; the representation of women in the communist media from Romania ; visual analysis of the presence of women in the written media