Gender and Work Worldwide, weeks 7 to 12
2002-3
Simon Clarke
Week 7. Feminism, Women and the Revolution
Two of the leading Marxist theorists of the nineteenth century, Friedrich Engels and August Bebel, had addressed the issue of the liberation of women, connecting it to the working class revolution. However, most orthodox Marxists regarded the `Woman Question' as subordinate to the class struggle, and paid little attention to it, but there were revolutionary feminists within the movement, foremost amongst whom in Russia was Alexandra Kollontai. In the immediate aftermath of the revolution there was an explosion of imaginative and idealistic proposals to overcome all forms of exploitation and oppression, central to many of which was the liberation of women. However such emancipatory schemes soon came face to face with the realities of the revolution and the priorities of political stabilisation and economic expansion. Women were expected to play a full part in the production drive, and to take their place in the new society not as women but as workers. Although there were schemes not only to socialise childcare, but also to develop collective living, in general this led only to the minimal provision of both private and collective facilities, so that the task of bearing and rearing children, and the heavy burden of domestic labour in the face of shortages, fell on the shoulders of women. Alongside the woman as worker was the image of woman as mother, which was further strengthened as labour shortages emerged in the 1930s, and was only intensified by the need to rebuild the population after the war. Women in the Soviet Union were certainly able to perform a full social role! But how could such a burdening of women be reconciled with the rhetoric of socialism? In this seminar we will look at the development of Soviet theories of women, from the revolutionary feminism of Kollontai to the official theories of the Soviet state.
Seminar Questions
1) How did Kollontai understand the liberation of women?
2) Was Kollontai's feminism compatible with Bolshevism?
The Classics:
F. Engels: The Origins of the Family, Private Property and the State (also in various Collected and Selected Works of Marx and Engels).
A. Bebel: Woman Under Socialism. HC 8700.B3
A. Bebel: Woman in the past, present and future HC
8700.B3
Early Feminism:
*M. Buckley: `Soviet Interpretations of the Woman Question' in B. Holland: Soviet Sisterhood, Chapter 1 HC8731.S6.
*Alexandra Kollontai: Communism and the Family. HC8031.K6
Elain Bowers: Engels, Bebel and Kollontai, ms.
W.G. Rosenberg: Bolshevik Visions, vol. 1, part II. HC9031.B6
A. Kollontai: The Autobiography of a Sexually Emancipated Woman. HC8731.K6.
A. Kollontai: Selected Writings. JB2351.K62.
R. Stites: Women's Liberation Movement in Russia. viii -ix. Theory, part 4 1917-30. JD195.51.S8
L. H. Edmondson : Feminism in Russia, 1900-1917. HC 8731.E3.
Kate Millett: Sexual Politics, II.4.A. HC8700.M4.
A. Clements: Bolshevik Feminist : the life of Aleksandra Kollontai. HC8731.K6.
B. Farnsworth, Aleksandra Kollontai : Socialism, Feminism, and the Bolshevik Revolution JB2351.K64
A. Meyer: ‘Marxism and the Women's Movement’, and B. Farnsworth, The 1926 Marriage Law Debate, in D. Atkinson, A. Dallin and G. Lapidus, eds, Women in Russia. HC8730.A8.
M. Malysheva: 'Feminism and Bolshevism' in Rai, Pilkington and Phizacklea, (eds) Women in the face of change. HC 8730.W6
S. Kruks, R. Rapp and M.B. Young (eds): Promissory notes: women in the transition to socialism. JD195.P7.
S. Aizazova: ‘Feminism in Russia: debates from the past’, in A. Posadskaya, (ed.) Women in Russia: A new era in Russian feminism. HC8731.W6
L. Trotsky: Women and the family. HC8731.T7.
M. Buckley: Women and Ideology in the Soviet Union. HC8731.B8. Covers the whole period.
Essay Question: Was Kollontai’s feminism compatible with Bolshevism?
Week Eight: The Bolshevik Revolution: Women’s Liberation or Women’s Subjugation?
The Russian revolution was rapidly followed by a wide range of policy and legislative changes which were designed to implement the Bolshevik strategy for the liberation of women, including equal rights legislation and legal reform in the areas of marriage, divorce and abortion. Policies of welfare provision for the needs particularly of working mothers were introduced. Women’s organisations were set up around the country to mobilise women in support of the Revolution.
Many of these changes were stalled or reversed after the early years of the revolution, and a much more conservative family policy was introduced in the 1930s under Stalin.
There are essentially two contrasting explanations of this period. One, exemplified by Wendy Goldman, argues that the first flush of the revolution liberated women, but this was followed by a conservative reaction which sought to re-establish their traditional subordination. The other, exemplified by Irina Aristarkhova, argues that the Bolsheviks never had any intention of liberating women, but their legal and policy reforms of the 1920s were designed to detach women from their subordination to men within the family, in order to subject them during the 1930s to a more rigid subordination to the state. Thus, there was neither liberation nor conservative reaction but merely stages in a single coherent programme of subordination of the whole population to the state.
Seminar Question:
Did the Russian Revolution liberate women?
Reading
*Irina Aristarkhova (1995): Women and Government in Bolshevik Russia, Warwick Working Papers in Labour Studies, 4.
Atkinson, Dorothy (1978) ‘Society and the Sexes in the Russian Past’ in Atkinson, Dallin, and Lapidus, (1978) , p. 3-39
Atkinson, Dorothy, Dallin, Alexander, and Lapidus, Gail Warshofsky (eds) (1978) Women in Russia The Harvester Press: HC8730.A8.
Buckley, Mary (1989) ‘The "Woman Question” in the Contemporary Soviet Union’ in Kruks, Rapp, and Young (1989)
Buckley, Mary (1989) Women and Ideology in the Soviet Union Harvester Wheatsheaf HC8731.B8.
Clements, B., Engel, B., and Worobec, C. (eds) (1991) Russia’s Women: Accommodation, Resistance, Transformation University of California Press HC8731.R8
Dunn, E. (1978) ‘Russian Rural Women’ in Atkinson, Dallin, and Lapidus, (1978) , p. 167-189
*Engel, B. A. (1991) ‘Transformation versus Tradition’ in Clements, Engel, and Worobec (1991).
Engelstein, Laura (1991) ‘Abortion and the Civic Order: The Legal and Medical Debates’ in Clements, Engel, and Worobec (1991).
Farnsworth, B. B. (1978) ‘Bolshevik Alternatives and the Soviet Family: the 1926 Marriage Law Debate’ in Atkinson, Dallin, and Lapidus, (1978) , p. 139-167
Glickman, Rose (1978) ‘The Russian Factory Woman, 1880-1914’ in Atkinson, Dallin, and Lapidus, (1978) , p. 63-85
Goldman, Wendy (1991) ‘Women, Abortion, and the State, 1917-36’ in Clements, Engel, and Worobec (1991)
*Goldman, Wendy Zeva (1989) ‘Women, the Family, and the New Revolutionary Order in the Soviet Union’ in Kruks, Rapp, and Young (1989)
Goldman, Wendy Z. (1993): Women, the State and Revolution. HC8031.G6
Kruks, Sonnia, Rapp, Rayna and Young, Marilyn B. (eds) Promissory Notes: Women in the Transition to Socialism New York: Monthly Review Press JD195.P7.
Landes, Joan B. (1989) ‘Marxism and the "Woman Question” in Kruks, Rapp, and Young (1989)
Lapidus, G. W. (1978) ‘Sexual Equality in Soviet Policy: A Developmental Perspective’ in Atkinson, Dallin, and Lapidus, (1978) , p. 115-139
Rosenberg, W. G. (Ed) (1990) Bolshevik Visions: First Phase of the Cultural Revolution in Soviet Russia Part 1 and Part 2, The University Of Michigan Press HC9031.B6
Stites, Richard (1978) ‘Women and the Russian Intelligentsia: Three Perspectives’ in Atkinson, Dallin, and Lapidus, (1978) , p. 39-63
Waters, E. (1989) ‘In the Shadow of the Comintern’ in Kruks, Rapp, and Young (1989)
Essay Question: Did the Russian Revolution liberate women?
Week 9. Women and Work in the Soviet Union
Women had a central role to play in the strategy of forced industrialisation, both as workers and as mothers. The priorities of production have determined the position of women in the Soviet Union ever since. How did the reality of women's working lives measure up to the rhetoric of the official ideology?
The Soviet Woman is both a worker and a mother. But what is the relationship between these two roles? And what is the role of the state in determining women's subordination? Do men subvert the liberatory efforts of the state, or is the Soviet state itself patriarchal?
Seminar Questions
1) Did women have equality of opportunity in the Soviet Union?
2) How did gender differences in patterns of work in the Soviet Union differ from those in the West?
3) Were Soviet women exploited by Soviet men, or did they retain a femininity that is lost in the West (seriously - some of them believe it!)?
4) Was the root cause of women's exploitation the attitude of Soviet men, or was it her social role as determined by the Soviet state?
Reading:
H. Pilkington. 'Russia and the former Soviet Republics' in C. Corrin (ed). Superwoman and the Double Burden. HC8730.S8
*D. Filtzer. Soviet workers and the collapse of Perestroika. HM9310.F4.
*L. Lapshova and I. Tartakovskaya. 'The position of women in production' in S. Clarke (ed). Management and Industry in Russia: Formal and Informal Relations in the Period of Transition.
*J. Shapiro. 'The industrial labour force' in M. Buckley (ed) Perestroika and Soviet Women. HC8731.P3.
G. Lapidus: Women in Soviet Society, Chapter 5. HC8731.L2.
G. Lapidus: Women, Work and the Family in the USSR, Introduction and Part 1.. HC8731.L2
M.P. Sachs: Women's Work in Soviet Russia, esp. Chaps 1, 4. HM5131.S2.
A. Heitlinger: Women and State Socialism. Chap 10. HC8731.H3
*M. Sachs: Women in the Industrial Labour Force, in Atkinson, Dallin and Lapidus, eds, Women in Russia. HC8730.A8.
*M. Sachs: Women, Work and the Family, in M. Sacks and J. Pankhurst, eds, Understanding Soviet Society. HC531.U6.
N. Dodge: Women in the Professions, in Atkinson, Dallin and Lapidus, eds, Women in Russia. HC8730.A8.
A. McAuley. Women's Work and Wages in the Soviet Union. HM5131.M2
D. Filtzer. Soviet Workers and De-Stalinization. Chapter 7. HM9310.F4
R. Glickman. Russian Factory Women.
E. Bowers. Women in Employment in Russia. MA Dissertation, University of Warwick
Essay Question: Did work set Soviet women free?
Week 10. Perestroika and Russian Women: Patterns of Russian Feminism
Gorbachev’s programme of perestroika (restructuring) and glasnost (openness) was launched to modernise and democratise the Soviet system. What was to be the role and fate of women in this programme? Gorbachev suggested that women should return to their ‘womanly mission’ as home-makers, and some Russian feminists endorsed this view, on the grounds that women had been subjected to an exploitative ‘double burden’ in the Soviet Union – as Lissyutkina argues, ‘liberation is perceived by many as the right not to work’ – but few men earned enough to support a family, even at subsistence level, and increasing numbers of women were single parents, while there was little evidence that women wanted to give up work to be cooped up in their apartments. In this seminar we will look at the kinds of issues which Russian feminists have taken up, in the next seminar we will look at what has happened to Russian women in the past decade.
Seminar Questions:
1) Did perestroika offer Soviet women a future?
2) Does the market offer Russian women new opportunities?
3) Should Russian women fight with men for social protection in the face of the market?
4) Should Russian women fight against men to force them to share their burdens?
5) Should women demand part-time work, and domestic support, or should they fight for equality?
6) Is Western feminism relevant to Russian women?
Reading:
*V. Sperling Organizing Women in Contemporary Russia
*R. Kay: Russian Women and Their Organizations : Gender, Discrimination and Grassroots Women's Organizations, 1991-96
A. Posadskaya. (ed) Women in Russia: A new era in Russian feminism.
A. Posadskaya. Self portrait of a Russian feminist. New Left Review 195. Sept/Oct 1992. Pp. 3 - 19.
E. Waters. ‘Finding a voice: The emergence of a Women's movement’. in Funk and M. Mueller. Gender Politics and Post Communism. HC8730.G3
O. Lipovskaia. 'New Women's Organisations’, in M. Buckley. Perestroika and Soviet Women. HC8731.P3.
V. Konstantinova. 'The Women's Movement in the USSR: A myth or a real challenge? in Rai et al. (eds) Women in the face of change.
M. Molyneux: `The Woman Question in the Age of Perestroika', New Left Review, 183, 1990.
Sarah Ashwin: `Development of Feminism in the Perestroika Era' Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Report 30 August 1991
N. Zakharova et al. `The Women's Question and Perestroika', Kommunist, 4, 1989. Abstract in Current Digest of the Soviet Press, 41, 19, 1989.
M. Buckley: Women and Ideology in the Soviet Union, chs 6 and 7. HC8731.B8.
M. Buckley: `Gender and Reform' in C. Merridale and C. Ward: Perestroika: The Historical Perspective.
G. Lapidus: Women, Work and the Family in the USSR. HC8731.L2
B. Holland: Soviet Sisterhood, Chapter 8 HC8731.S6.
C. Hannson and K. Liden: Moscow Women. HC8731.M6. 1980 interviews
T. Mamonova: Women and Russia. HC8731.W6. Russian feminists speak
Essay Question: Does Russian feminism address the problems facing Russian women?
Week 11: Women and Work in Russia Today.
Many commentators assumed that women would be the first victims of the ‘transition to a market economy’ as they bore the brunt of rising unemployment and cuts in education and health care, social and welfare benefits. As we saw in the last seminar, many Russian commentators assumed that women would be quite happy to leave the workforce in large numbers because they were working for low pay in often appalling conditions and thus would welcome the opportunity to ‘return to their families’, and some feminists even acclaimed the liberation of women from exploitation at work. Others, particularly western feminists, saw such changes as threatening the hard-won, if limited, independence that Russian women had achieved. In this seminar we will review the results of recent research into a number of areas of women’s working lives, to ask what has been the impact of the transition to a market economy on Russian women, and what do they themselves feel about it.
We will cover a number of related topics in the seminar:
Reading.
*S. Ashwin and E. Bowers. ‘Do Russian women want to work?’ in M. Buckley (ed) Post Soviet Women.
*S. Bridger, R. Kay (1996). No more heroines? : Russia, Women and the Market, Routledge.
*S. Ashwin, (2001) ‘”A woman is Everything”: The Reproduction of Soviet Ideals of Womanhood in Post-Communist Russia’, in A. Smith, C. Frege, A. Swain, eds., Work, Employment and Transition, Routledge.
*S. Ashwin (2000), Gender, State and Society in Soviet and Post-Soviet Russia, London and New York: Routledge.
Bowers, E. (1996) ‘Gender Stereotyping and the Gender Division of Labour in Russia’ in Clarke S. (ed.) Conflict and Change in the Russian Industrial Enterprise, Edward Elgar, Cheltenham: 191–209.
L Lapshova and I Tartakovskaya. The Position of Women in Production’ in Clarke (ed) Management and Industry in Russia.1995.
Kozina, I. and Borisov, V. (1996) ‘The Changing Status of Workers in the enterprise’ in Clarke S. (ed.) Conflict and Change in the Russian Industrial Enterprise, Edward Elgar, Cheltenham: 136–61.
Metalina,T. (1996) ‘Employment policy in an industrial enterprise’, in Clarke, S. (ed.) Labour Relations in Transition, Edward Elgar, Aldershot: 119–45.
Monousova, G. (1996) ‘Gender Differentiation and Industrial Relations’ in Clarke S. (ed.) Conflict and Change in the Russian Industrial Enterprise, Edward Elgar, Cheltenham: 162–190.
Monousova, G. (1998) ‘How Vulnerable is Women’s Employment in Russia’, in Simon Clarke, ed., Structural Adjustment without Mass Unemployment? Edward Elgar, Cheltenham.
Marina and Volodya Ilyina, ‘On the Buses’, in Simon Clarke, ed., The Russian Enterprise in Transition Edward Elgar, Cheltenham, esp. pp. 370-3.
V Bodrova. Glasnost and the ‘woman question’ in the mirror of public opinion: attitudes towards women, work and the family. In Moghadam (ed) Democratic Reform and the Position of Women in Transitional Economies. 1993.
K Kauppinen-Toropainen. Comparative study of women’s work satisfaction and work commitment: research findings from Estonia, Moscow and Scandinavia. In Moghadam (ed) Democratic Reform and the Position of Women in Transitional Economies. 1993.
Simon Clarke, Sarah Ashwin and Irina Kozina, ‘Gendered Roles in Russian Households’, ms.
Simon Clarke, ‘Budgetary Management in Russian Households’, ms.
Marina Kiblitskaya, Confessions of Single Mothers, ms.
Sarah Ashwin & Tanya Lytkina: Men in crisis in Russia: The role of domestic marginalisation, ms.
Sarah Ashwin: Gender differences in employment behaviour during economic transition in Russia: the legacy of the Soviet gender order, ms.
Katarina Katz: Labour in Transition: Women and Men in Taganrog, Russia, ms.
Katarina Katz: Gender and Work in Transition – the Emerging Russian Labour Market., ms.
Ann-Mari Satre Ahlander: Women’s and Women’s Work in Transitional Russia. Impacts from the Soviet System., ms.