Women And Family Seneca

Question 1

Women in Towns Between 1917 and 1953

Answer 1

Between 1917 and 1953, women’s employment fluctuated. Although employment rose under Stalin, gender inequality was still prominent.

Inequality continued between men and women, although women theoretically had equal rights.
The towns were more progressive on women’s issues.

Question 2

Zhenotdel

Answer 2

Lenin had set up the Zhenotdel, the women’s arm of the Communist Party.
Alexandra Kollontai was the head of the Zhenotdel. She believed that men and women were inherently different. In the Civil War, the Party recruited women for childcare jobs. Only a few worked in factories to cover labour shortages during that time.

Question 3

Women’s jobs under the NEP

Answer 3

Under the NEP, women were fired to give men their jobs.

Higher unemployment led many women to prostitution. 39% of men used prostitutes during the 1920s.

Question 4

Women’s jobs under Stalin

Answer 4

Under Stalin, women were much more present in the industrial workforce.
10 million were working by 1940.

Question 5

Women’s jobs during the Great Patriotic War

Answer 5

During the Great Patriotic War, women’s participation in the labour force increased even further to make up 75% of urban workers.
Women’s wages were only 60-65% of men’s wages. They often faced harassment in the workplace and were rarely promoted.

Question 6

Women in Towns Between 1953 and 1985

Answer 6

Between 1953 and 1985, women had greater access to more skilled jobs. By the end of the period, women dominated certain professions.

Question 7

Employment in the 1970 and 1980s

Answer 7

Certain skilled professions became female-dominated.
By 1985, 70% of medical doctors were women, as well as 65% of those working the cultural and artistic sphere.
Pay in these more ‘female’ spheres was lower than in male-dominated industries.

Question 8

Employment in the 1960s

Answer 8

Women made up 45% of the industrial labour force.
This work was mostly in the light industry on the production line or other low-skilled manual jobs.
During this period, women also took on administrative jobs.
In that decade, 74% of those working in clerical, health and education jobs were women.

Question 9

Women in the Countryside

Answer 9

Over the course of the 20th century, labour in the countryside was increasingly split into gender stereotypes. Particularly under Khrushchev, women were forced into female specific roles.

Question 10

Women in the Countryside- Women’s work in the 1970s

Answer 10

The trends started under Khrushchev continued into the 1970s.
1970: 72% of the poorest paid farmers were female.
General prejudice against women taking on leadership positions continued throughout the period

Question 11

Agricultural labour from the 1920-1940s

Answer 11

Women, as with the population in general, worked mostly in agriculture from the 1920s to 1940s.
They were responsible for household tasks and sometimes handicrafts, in addition to their regular agricultural work.

Question 12

Work under Khushchev

Answer 12

During his Virgin Lands Scheme, Khrushchev wanted to recruit more women into specific roles, such as milkmaids, gardeners, and homemakers.
Women were directed away from professions involving machinery or driving vehicles.
Their roles under the scheme were normally the most demanding but the poorest paid.
6,400 women were recruited. But by August 1958, less than 450 had well-paid professional jobs.

Question 13

The Family Between 1917 and 1935

Answer 13

There was a tension between conservative and radical views on marriage in this period. Lenin and his party tried to offer reforms which reduced abuses in marriage.

Question 14

Alexandra Kollontai’s view of the family

Answer 14

Alexandra Kollontai preferred the idea of communal free love to traditional family groups.
There were a number of experiments in communal living, but these rarely made it past the mid-1920s.

Question 15

Lenin’s view of the family

Answer 15

Lenin was more traditional and did not favour free love.
He supported a number of proposals to counter some of the abuses which went on in traditional marriages:
Readily available abortions.
Access to contraception.
The legalisation of prostitution.
The legalisation of homosexuality.
These were extremely progressive positions.

Question 16

Paul Ginsborg (2016):

Answer 16

Ginsborg argues that Lenin agreed with Kollantai that housework and childcare needed to be collectivised in order to liberate women. Indeed, in a 1919 pamphlet, Lenin wrote that Russian women were still ‘domestic slaves.’ However, he did not agree with Kollantai that human relationships needed to change as part of the revolution. He was particularly against her revised vision of sexual morality

Question 17

Sheila Fitzpatrick (1999):

Answer 17

The upbringing of children is normally considered women’s business, and so it was in Soviet Russia in the 1930s. It was women, not men, who wrote again and again to the authorities asking for help for their children, “barefoot and hungry.”’
The most common type of appeal from urban citizens was a written request for help in tracing an absent husband and collecting family support payments. Aleksandra Artiukhina, chairwoman of a large trade union with many women members reported that “thousands of letters come to me at the union from worker women about seeking their husbands.”

Question 18

The Family Between 1936 and 1953

Answer 18

Family policy became stricter and more traditional in Stalin’s dictatorship. Family policy became more conservative as Stalin’s grip on power tightened.

Question 19

Stalin’s aims for the family

Answer 19

Stalin aimed to cut divorce rates and increase births. He thought more stable family units would help the economy.
Abortion was made illegal unless the mother’s life was in danger.
Contraception was made illegal.
Male homosexuality could now be punished by up to five years’ hard labour.
Lesbian women now underwent hypnotherapy as a ‘cure’.

Question 20

Divorce

Answer 20

Divorce became more expensive, and the price increased for subsequent attempts.
After a divorce, men were required to give one-third of their wages to the woman to help support their children.

Question 21

Higher birth rates STALIN

Answer 21

Financial incentives were used to encourage higher birth rates.
Having seven children could earn a woman 2,000 roubles a year for five years of the child’s life.
11 children granted a woman 5,000 roubles each year.

Question 22

Sheila Fitzpatrick (1999):

Answer 22

‘If earlier generations of scholars perceived the social conservatism embodied in the legal changes of 1936 as a volte face (an abrupt and complete reversal of attitude, opinion, or position), it is now interpreted as the culmination (point of highest development of) of trends already observable in the 1920s.’

Question 23

The Family Between 1953 and 1964

Answer 23

Khrushchev’s view of the family was very conservative and traditional. He did improve women’s rights.

Question 24

Developments for women- Khrushchev

Answer 24

Khrushchev legalised abortion in 1955.
Paid maternity leave was increased from 77 days to 112 days by 1956.
The sixth Five Year Plan coincided with better creche and child-care facilities.

Question 25

Khrushchev supporting consumer goods

Answer 25

He also introduced a Seven Year Plan, which introduced more consumer goods and clothing.
Refrigerators were also an important feature of Khrushchev’s family policy. If people could store food effectively at home, they did not need to go to the supermarket every day

Question 26

Limitations of Khrushchev’s reforms

Answer 26

Contraception was not readily available, and creche hours prohibited full working lives for women.

Question 27

The Family Between 1964 and 1985

Answer 27

Under Brezhnev, increasing the population was an important priority.

Question 28

Brezhnev divorce

Answer 28

The government liberalised divorce in 1965.

1979: One-third of marriages finished with divorce

Question 29

Birth rate BREZHNEV

Answer 29

Brezhnev wanted to increase the birth rate.
Again there was an emphasis on females’ ‘nurturing’ abilities, and also their need for a ‘strong’ man to look after them.
Women were increasingly criticised for choosing work over family responsibilities.
Brezhnev blamed working women for juvenile delinquents, crime, drugs, and alcohol abuse.