Were Women's Lives Transformed

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  • Created by: EveCl05
  • Created on: 02-06-23 10:48

Womens Lives Transformed- Ideology, Equality

Advantages

  • Lenin's Government- End of hierarchy- 'Free Love' emphasised by Alexandra Kollentai
  • -Role and Status- Decree on equality, women more equal to men now
  • -Zhenotdel-Campaigns for Female literacy, Female education (1930- 28% of uni students- 12% in the UK)
  • -Greater social and economic mobility
  • -Encouragement of Female workers
  • Control of reproduction- contraception legalised in and out of marriage (UK- legal only in marriage)- Abortions legalised
  • -Sexuality- Lesbianism tolerated
  • -Cohabitation rights- couples who lived together had same rights as married couple - 1928- banned wedding rings
  • -Divorce made easier- 1926 postcard divorces
  • -Stalin's Govt- Economic advance/Education- 40% of engineering students
  • -Technical and higher education- greater access- access to male jobs
  • -Women dominated light/new industries
  • -Brigades of Female shock workers- e.g 2nd 5 year plan women working on the Moscow Metro
  • -Female Stakhanovites- Angelina
  • -Wives of party members expected to be active- magazine called 'The Socially Active Woman'
  • -800,000 women serve on the front line- Pilots (night witches), machine gunners, snipers, All Female tank crews, 89 women received highest medal 'hero of the soviet union'
  • -Most agriculture carried out by women due to depopulisation of men in the country due to industrialisation & war

Disadvantages

  • -Stalin's Government- Zhenotdel abolished 1930 (1919-30)
  • -Lenin's Govt- They have legal rights and rights to vote but they are useless, can't exercise them- one party state, fall of democracy
  • -Relaxed divorces more negative for women- 70% of postcard divorces initiated by men- high rate of marriage abandonment & child abandonment- left with little support
  • -Lack of childcare under NEP- lack of practicality meant they were limited in work
  • -Sexual harassment not a crime and ignored by the regime
  • -Stalin's Govt- Underrepresented in most industries- especially at higher levels
  • -Women expected to work 'double shift'- work outside the home and expected to be primary caregiver
  • -Women on less pay for equal jobs- 2/3 of what men are payed
  • -1930s- Great Retreat (June 1936)- women's status removed
  • -Hierarchy returned, reproductive rights taken away, homosexuality recriminalised, female homosexuality seen as a disease- women sent to hypnotherapy
  • -'Free Love' gone- no more sex outside marriage, wedding rings returned (1936)
  • -Emphasis on abstinence- on collective farms had 'virginity checks' on young females
  • -Divorces more difficult- especially multiple divorces, gets more expensive
  • -Measures to tackle child abandonment- men have to pay 1/3 of income for children, increases with multiple children
  • -Encouragement of multiple births- 7 children=5000 rubles for 5 years (parallels with nazi germany)

Evaluation

Transformed?Under Lenin- yes (80%) no (20%)Under Stalin- yes (45%) no (55%)

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