Authoritarian regimes place significant emphasis on gender roles as part of their ‘imagined communities’, where everyone has their place attributed through evocation of the nation’s ‘history’ and ‘mission’. By placing gender at the core of historical analysis, this article examines the antinomies related to the role of women, and the shifting perceptions of femininity, under the Metaxas regime. It examines the female branch of the National Youth Organisation (EON), a laboratory of a ‘new femininity’, analyses the regime’s discourses and idealised representations of femininity and masculinity, and offers critical exploration of affinities between the Metaxist understanding of womanhood and pre-existing aspects of Greek interwar feminism. The article interprets from these fields the oscillations and contradictions marking Metaxist ideology and practices via-à-vis the role of women, and in doing so sheds new light upon the character of the regime itself.

专制政权非常重视性别角色作为其“想象社区”的一部分，其中每个人都通过唤起国家的“历史”和“使命”来归因于自己的位置。通过将性别置于历史分析的核心，本文考察了在梅塔克萨斯政权下与女性角色相关的矛盾，以及女性气质观念的转变。它考察了全国青年组织 ( EON)的女性支部)，一个“新女性气质”的实验室，分析了该政权的话语和女性气质和男性气质的理想化表现，并对 Metaxist 对女性气质的理解与希腊两次世界大战间女权主义的既有方面之间的相似性进行了批判性探索。这篇文章从这些领域解释了标志 Metaxist 意识形态和实践的振荡和矛盾，通过女性的角色，并在此过程中揭示了政权本身的特征。