Women and the family under Khrushchev

Question 1

What were Khrushchev’s aims for women and the family?

Answer 1

Women’s rights were re-emphasised in the years following Stalin’s death. However, Khrushchev focused on women’s rights in the context of traditional families. Generally, Khrushchev wanted women to continue to perform their traditional roles as wives and mothers, but he wanted to make these roles easier

Question 2

How did the status of women change/transform under Khrushchev?

Answer 2

There were more workforce opportunities for women

Question 3

How did the status of women not change/transform under Khrushchev?

Answer 3

Double burden - 49 per cent of women in workforce
Had to maintain family responsibility

Question 4

When was abortion re-legalised?

Answer 4

1955

Question 5

When was state paid maternity leave increased under Khrushchev?

Answer 5

1956

Question 6

In 1956, state paid maternity leave increased from…

Answer 6

77 days to 112 days

Question 7

What did the Sixth Five-Year Plan state in relation to women?

Answer 7

1956:
Contained a commitment to “improve in every way the working and living conditions of women workers”

Question 8

List some of the national women’s magazines that were created by 1956

Answer 8

• Women Worker
• Peasant Woman
• Women of the World
• Soviet Woman

Question 9

Education was widely available to women in cities - provide evidence to support this claim

Answer 9

By the 1960s women made up half of the Soviet Union’s graduates

Question 10

By 1960 what per cent of the workforce were women?

Answer 10

49 per cent

Question 11

Who was the first women in space and when?

Answer 11

Valentina Tereshkova (1963)

Question 12

What is the Soviet propaganda poster featuring women called?

Answer 12

The Motherland is Calling (1967)

Question 13

How did the “Motherland is Calling” present women?

Answer 13

Presented women as the symbol of the Russian nation and celebrated the vital work of women during the war

Question 14

What were the Virgin Lands schemes?

Answer 14

Khrushchev’s plan to boost the Soviet Union’s agricultural production in order to alleviate the food shortages plaguing the Soviet populace

Question 15

Why were women specifically targeted in the Virgin Lands Campaign?

Answer 15

To recruit volunteers to work in the Virgin Lands. They believed young women would entice men to move to the Virgin Lands

Question 16

In the Virgin Lands, what were women required to do?

Answer 16

Act as milkmaids, gardeners and to start families

Question 17

Virgin Lands Campaign slogans

Answer 17

“Your caring hands are needed everywhere”
“Join us, girls, in the Virgin Lands”

Question 18

Who was turned down for the Virgin Lands Campaign?

Answer 18

Single women over the age of 26 were turned down for the scheme, as were single mothers

Question 19

Female farm workers in the Virgin Lands were often subject to…

Answer 19

sexual abuse and rape

Question 20

The Seven-Year Plan aimed to eliminate the…

Answer 20

“double shift” by introducing convenience foods and mass-produced clothing, ending the need for women to cook and sew

Question 21

In spite of the changes Khrushchev introduced problems remained - outline these problems

Answer 21

• Contraception remained hard to acquire
• Letters to women’s magazines indicate that crèches opened late and closed early so that women were still unable to work full days
• Some employers refused to recognise the new legal entitlements regarding maternity leave and maternity pay