Soviet women have justified the trust and concern shown to them by their state. They have shown a high degree of heroism both in peaceful, creative labour before the war, during the years of armed battle against the nazi invaders, and now, in the efforts to fulfil the monumental tasks set by the new five-year plan. Many branches of industry in which female labour is predominant are among the first to fulfil their plans. Equally worthy of mention are the enormous achievements of the Soviet peasant women, who bore on their shoulders the greater part of the burden of agricultural labour during the war years.
Our women have mastered professions that have long been considered the exclusive domain of men. There are women engine-drivers, women mechanics, women lathe operators, women fitters, well-qualified women workers in charge of the most complex mechanisms.
The women of the Soviet Union work on an equal footing with men to advance science, culture and the arts; they occupy an outstanding place in the national education and health services.
In a country where, 30 years ago, out of 2,300 thousand working women 1,300 thousand worked as servants in the towns and 750 thousand as farm labourers in the countryside, in a country where there were almost no women engineers, almost no scientists, and appointment to a teaching post was accompanied by conditions insulting to female dignity, in that country there are now 750 thousand women teachers, 100 thousand women doctors, and 250 thousand women engineers. Women make up one half of the student body in institutions of higher education. Over 33 thousand women are working in laboratories and in research institutes, 25 thousand women have academic titles and degrees, and 166 women have been awarded the State Prize for their achievements in science and work.
The women of the Soviet Union are implementing their political rights in practice. The Supreme Soviet of the USSR has 277 women deputies, while 256 thousand women have been elected to rural, urban, regional and republican organs of state power...
The women of the Soviet Union do not have to demand from their government the right to work, the right to education, the right to the protection of motherhood. The state itself, the government itself, draws women into work, giving them wide access to every sphere of social life, assisting and rewarding mothers.
Selected from The Soviet Woman - a full and Equal Citizen of Her Country by Alexandra Kollontai, 1946
There's been so much written on the status of women in the USSR and it's so evident that, while the treatment of women was not perfect and still left improvement to be desired, it was considerably better than what was found in capitalist nations at the same time, and even better than many today. The United States today is worse for women than the USSR was 100 years ago.
Two books on the subject of women's rights in the USSR that are really good:
-Equality of the USSR by L. Petrova and S. Gilevskaya, a collection of essays by various Soviet women
-Soviet Women by Mandel, which goes into the history of women's issues in the country
Much of the socialist world made considerable progress in women's rights. Cuba and the DDR are other excellent examples, but it's obvious everywhere you look.
Every socialist country still had issues with patriarchy, the same way they all still had class conflict, but it's so disingenuous to say that they were just as patriarchal as any capitalist nation. The collapse of the eastern bloc and the introduction of shock therapy was ruinous for women (as well as for the entire working class, but especially women).
romaincrisis
areudirty
prguitarman
kianamaiart
izzy806
germansingergirl
theartofmadeline
