Women

What is the old Russian proverb that suggests sexism?

‘The more you beat your wife the better the soup will taste’

Bolsheviks

• On seizing power in 1917 the Bolsheviks established a women's branch of the Central Committee, Zhenotdel, to promote the status of women within socialist notions of inequality

• Measures aimed at improving the position of women were driven partly by ideological considerations communist ideas of equality between the sexes

• Radical communists argued that the communal organisation of household chores and childcare would liberate women from domestic drudergy

• On seizing power In

  1917, the Bolsheviks rushed through a series of decrees that gave women greater status and freedom within marnage: divorce was made easier and abortion was legalised. The laws that made a woman obey her husband. live with him and take his name were abolished. Women no longer needed their husbands permission to take a job or study in further education. Lenin addressed a women's congress in 1918, where he was cheered for suggesting that baba, the derogatory term for a woman, be banned. The principle of equal pay for men and women was passed into law in December 1917 and maternity leave arrangements were granted.

  When the soviet constitution of 1918 declared that men and women were equal, the legal status of women had been out on an equal footing to that of men. But this should not be taken to mean that the status of women in society had automatically improved.

• Measures aimed at improving

Short term impact of the civil war (1918- 1921)

• Over 70,000 women fought in the Red Army during the war, but few held high rank.

• Millions of women were recruited into factories, but social provision for childcare was inadequate.

• Despite the desire of the regime to provide crèches for all young children, the government lacked the resources to implement this.

Long term impact of the civil war (1918-21)

• many women their jobs when soldiers returned to civilian life after the war was won as were generally more likely to be skilled

• Traditional attitudes that women were unsuitable for heavy manual work persisted, as did the attitude that women were likely to stay in a post due to pregnancy and maternity leave

• The disruption of war and the subsequent famine of 1921-22 left many women homeless A rise in prostitutio reflected the desperation of large numbers of urban women

State of islamic women to begin with

• Particularly resistant to change were the Muslim areas of Central Asia, where the polygamous, male-dominated family was well entrenched.

• women were shielded from public view, often veiled and denied an education

• The Bolsheviks attempted to break down these traditional attitudes by using young female activists who encouraged unveiling, while explaining basic contraception, personal hygiene and childcare. The campaign against the veiling of women in 1927 met with some success. Opportunities for Islamic women increased and female brigade leaders and tractor drivers were celebrated through films and posters. Despite these changes, traditional Islamic attitudes were slow to change and resistance was often violent. At Baku, a Zhenotdel meeting was attacked by Muslim men with dogs and boiling water. Women who refused to wear traditional dress were sometimes killed by members of their own family in honour' killings. By the 1930s, the Soviet government took a softer, more gradual approach to changing the Muslim population's attitude to women.

The impact of collectivisation and industrialisation on women in the countryside

In 1930, the Party closed down Zhenotdel, Claiming that women's issues had been solved. This was a reflection of the attitudes of the male-dominated Party, which had always been half-hearted in its support for women's issues. Nonetheless, the policies enacted by the Party in the 1930s were to have far-reaching consequences forlives of women. As at least 50 percent of the total population were women, they shared the burdens of collectivisation and industrialisation.

The policy of forced collectivisation in the countryside resulted in many men departing for the towns in search of better jobs.

Some sent money back to their wives; others deserted them.

Collectivisation came to rely more and more on the labours of women. Agricultural work offered low wages, and life in the countryside meant fewer services; both were a reflection of the lower status attached to agriculture over industry. The status of women in rural areas reflected this general pattern. In addition, it was in rural areas that traditional attitudes to women were more entrenched and slower to change.

The impact of the Second World War accelerated these trends.

The most able-bodied men from the collectives were conscripted into the armed forces and women provided the bulk of the agricultural workforce. Conditions were made worse by the Red Army's requisitioning of machinery and draft animals.

The imbalance between the sexes in the countryside was even more pronounced after the war. Returning soldiers preferred to try their luck by moving to the cities for work. Rural areas lacked able-bodied men, adding to the shortage of males caused by losses in the war. Even as late as 1950, it was possible to find villages entirely populated by women and children. The shortage of livestock added to the problem and women often had little choice but to shackle themselves to ploughs in order to till the soil.

In the Khrushchev and Brezhnev years, the status of rural women improved slowly as social provision, such as health care and maternity benefits, was extended to the countryside. The extension of the internal passport system to collective workers in 1974 provided the freedom for women to move to towns in search of jobs that commanded greater status and pay. However, the reality was that the opportunity to move was more likely to be taken by young males, exacerbating the trend of leaving low-status agricultural work to females.

The impact of collectivisation and industrialisation on women in the towns

The pressure for labour in industry under the Five-Year Plans meant that women were given little choice but to work. Work was no longer a symbol of female liberation, but a socialist duty.

The economic hardships of the 1930s forced many women to work out of economic necessity. The number of female workers rose substantially in the 1930s, from three million in 1928 to over 13 million in 1940. Women dominated the workforce in light industry, especially textiles, but were increasingly found in occupations previously considered to be the preserve of male workers. Women entered the construction industry and worked in lumbering and engineering. Parts of the Moscow underground were built by brigades of female workers (like the one depicted making munitions in Source 4). Women were used as role models, such as the tractor driver Praskovia Angelina, to encourage and motivate the female workforce.

In the towns women were better placed to take advantage of the expansion in higher education. In 1929, the government reserved 20 percent of higher education places for women. This was a rather modest increase on the 14 percent already occupied by women, but by 1940 over 40 percent of engineering students were female.

Gaining a higher-level education was often a passport to improving the status of an individual woman, as was becoming a Party activist. Both improved the chances of promotion and provided a route for upward mobility in society. The number of women in skilled jobs and management remained disproportionately low but showed an increase throughout the 1930s. Women started to make up a high percentage of jobs in the expanding areas of health care and education, although neither sector offered high wages and the top levels of these sectors were still dominated by men.

The 1930s saw the emergence of a more privileged group of urban women, the wives of the Soviet elite. Those married to industrial managers or Party officials did not have to enter the workforce and were encouraged, instead, to do 'social work. This included activities such as providing curtains in workers' dormitories, providing classes on hygiene, and organising cultural productions in the workplace. There was even a magazine aimed at this group, entitled The Socially Active Woman. It was a subtle way of reinforcing social divisions among women.The importance of women in industry continued to increase during the Second World War with women taking over jobs previously held by men who had been conscripted into the Red Army.

Women could also improve their status by joining the Red Army themselves. An initial wave of female volunteers in 1941 was turned away. Despite its claims of promoting equality of the sexes, the Soviet government did not consider women to be suitable for active combat. Heavy losses caused the govemment to reluctantly change its mind. Some 800,000 women served in the armed forces during the Second World War, most in medical units but also as pilots, machine-gunners and tank crews. Eighty-nine women received the Soviet Union's highest military award, Hero of the Soviet Union. As with the situation after the civil war, many women either lost their jobs or reverted to unskilled roles after the war was won and the men returned to civilian life. Nonetheless, the line between what was considered to be male work and what was considered female work was blurred, far more so than in the developed capitalist countries of the West.

By the 1950s, the attitude that women were expected to work and could do so in a wide range of occupations was widespread. Unfortunately, women were still expected to play the key role in looking after the home and providing for their husband and children. This double burden put considerable pressure on women and made career progression difficult.

Women in politics: Lenin era

• The Provisional Government of 1917 had given women the vote for the first time

• Despite this, the number of women who played an active role in politics remained limited

• Even in the Communist Party, with its declarations of sexual equality, women were seriously under-represented at all levels

Women in politics: Stalin era

• In 1932, women made up 16 percent of Party membership

• Female delegates at Party congresses did not exceed ten percent before 1939

• This under-representation was particularly noticeable at the higher levels of the Party organisation. Alexandra Kollontai was the first woman to become a people's commissar, serving as Commissar for Public Welfare from 1917 to 1918

• She later became the first female ambassador in history however, her role was an exception

• Only seven women were members of the Central Committee before the Second World War: the two most prominent being Kollontai and Nadezhda Krupskaya, Lenin's wife.

Women in politics: Khrushchev and Brezhnev

• the first woman to become a full candidate member of the top body within the Party was Ekaterina Furtseva, who became a member of the presidium (the renamed Politburo) in 1957

• She was a favourite of Khrushchev and consequently her career declined when he was dismissed in 1964

• The Soviet Union had to wait until September 1988 before another woman made it into the Party's top body: Alexandra Biryukova

• Political power was still overwhelmingly in the hands of men

Role models: ballerinas

There was a long line of famous ballerinas, including Natalia Bessmertnova, at the Bolshoi Ballet company

Role models: actress in war and peace

The actress Ludmila Savelyeva became famous for her role in the Soviet film War and Peace (1967).

Role models: sports

• Sport was given high status by the Soviet government and this included putting resources into the development of women's sport

• Notable figures included the pairs figure skater, Irina Rodnina, who with different partners won ten successive world championships and three successive Olympic titles

• In gymnastics, Ludmilla Tourischeva won nine Olympic medals between 1968 and 1976, and Olga Korbut captivated audiences at home and abroad with her routines at the Munich Olympics of 1972.

Role models: space

• Valentina Tereshkova became the first women in space after Yuri Gagarin became the first man in 1961

• She was treated like a soviet hero

• she had an impeccable proletarian background and became a prominent member of the communist party

• she is still revered as a hero in present day Russia and many few women could meet her status

What is the problem with role models?

There was no doubt that Soviet women could excel, but often this was within a field that was restricted

The Soviet propaganda image of the industrial worker and peasant, which was widespread in the USSR, is perhaps more representative of the status of women in reality: the industrial worker was always male and it was the peasant who was female, a reflection of the subsidiary role agriculture, and women, took compared with industry and men.