Women in Soviet society

Martine Mespoulet (1)

1 CENS - Centre Nantais de Sociologie

Women’s participation in economic, social and political activities in Russia started to increase at the end of the 19th century: many women kept campaigning for social and political change, for emancipation in both private and public life. Furthermore, after WW2, the Soviet Union was characterized by a high rate of female economic activity and widespread participation of women in the education system. It is the aim of the article to explain what changes were brought to women in the USSR. The author questions whether it transformed their status in society, whether it affected the relations between genders, and concludes that, although the Bolshevik Party did draft a very progressive legislation in this field, there were no structural changes in the tasks division between men and women neither in the private nor in the public sphere. If a wider access to work granted the soviet women a relative economic independence, the image of the “working mother” was broadly dominant.

Mots clés: Women; Soviet Union; Czechoslovakia; women rights; socialist society

Domaines: Histoire; Sociologie

Martine Mespoulet. Women in Soviet society: Cahiers du CEFRES N° 30, Le communisme à partir des sociétés - Communism from the viewpoint of societies. Cahiers du CEFRES, 2006, Communism from the viewpoint of societies, 30, pp.7. ⟨halshs-01160379⟩