9) Women/family/sex/education

Question 1

What was the expectation of women in regards to babies?

Answer 1

• industrialisation and collectivisation in 1930s had caused a decline in birth rate.
• women who had more than 6 kids were legible for state help.
• 1936: abortion made practically illegal. Doctors could be sentenced for 2 years in prison.

Question 2

What was the expectation of women in regards to chores?

Answer 2

• women spent 5 times longer on domestic roles than men.
• wives of party officials had to participate in ‘wife activists movement’: charitable work, expected to ‘mother’ Russian society
• crèches introduced in work places

Question 3

Before the 1930s, what was the ideas about marriage?

Answer 3

• frowned at marriage because they ‘exploited women’

- however, the 1930s marked a turning point: ‘the great retreat’

Question 4

What was the great retreat?

Answer 4

In the 1930s, it was a return to traditions in regard to family.

• propaganda: showed men as undermining family and women as strong and responsible
• wedding rings (that were banned in 1928) were reintroduced in 1936
• Stalin and wife = poster marriage. Her suicide in 1932 was conveniently omitted from the public.

Question 5

What were the ideas towards sex in the 1930s?

Answer 5

1934: sexual abstinence was promoted heavily
- ‘medical virginity checks’ on young women
- against contraception: no resources to the production of contraception in 5 year plans
- 1936 secretly ended the sale of all birth control

Question 6

What were the ideas towards education in the 1930s?

Answer 6

• school discipline was designed to prepare children for harsh workplace
• history, for example, was one of the subjects reformed in the new curriculum of 1935. Social classes were rejected and replaced with great Russians eg Ivan the terrible and Peter the great.

Question 7

What was the percentage of women in heavy industry?

Answer 7

In 1940, 40% of workers were women. In addition to this, they had many other roles.