“That Feelin’ When You have Gotten Your First Salary – Now You can Finally Buy Something for Yourself”

Images of everyday life for Slovenian women after 1945, from the perspective of employment and consumption

Abstract

The article focuses on comprehension of the changes that came with full-time jobs for women during the era of socialism in Slovenia. We will try to understand what the money earned by women themselves meant to them and how they managed it. We will investigate how they spent it and how their external appearance changed after they got a job, and how much it mattered to them. The pressure from working full-time, while caring for children and the household was one aspect of life under socialism—however, not the only one. The new identity of a working woman manifested itself on the outside in a new, tidier appearance, and financial independence induced them to start engaging in diverse leisure time activities outside their homes, while cultivating their womanhood through consumerism.