The Changing Status of Women (Edexcel A-Level History): Revision Notes
The Changing Status of Women
Introduction
The status of women in Soviet Russia underwent significant changes between 1917 and 1985, though the promise of full equality was never fully realised. Despite the communist commitment to equality between men and women, Soviet governments maintained elements of traditional gender roles throughout this period. The government's attitude towards women shifted through different phases, sometimes promoting liberation and at other times reinforcing conservative values. These changing attitudes can be traced through official propaganda, legal reforms, and women's representation in society.
The Soviet Contradiction
Soviet policy created a fundamental contradiction: whilst officially declaring men and women equal, the reality was that women faced continued discrimination. They were significantly under-represented at the highest levels of government, typically assigned to low-paid and low-status employment, and expected to perform what became known as the double shift – a combination of paid work outside the home and unpaid domestic labour within it.
This meant that whilst women were expected to contribute to building socialism through industrial or agricultural work, they were simultaneously required to maintain their traditional roles as homemakers and mothers. Women were therefore burdened with dual responsibilities that made genuine equality impossible in practice.
The government's approach to women's status can be understood by examining three key areas: the theoretical basis for equality in Marxist ideology, the changing representation of women in propaganda and official discourse, and the practical reality of women's legal rights and social position.
Marxism and sexual equality
The Bolshevik approach to women's equality was grounded in Marxist theory, though interpretations of this theory varied. Understanding the theoretical foundation helps explain why policies towards women often seemed contradictory.
Marx's Theory of Inequality
Marx's view was that true equality could only be achieved in a communist society. He identified various forms of inequality in traditional societies, including:
- Sexual inequality (inequality between men and women)
- Racial inequality
- Class inequality (inequality between social classes based on wealth and economic power)
However, Marx prioritised class inequality as the fundamental problem. He believed that once class inequality was destroyed through communist revolution, all other forms of inequality – including sexual inequality – would automatically disappear as a consequence.
Lenin's interpretation differed slightly but importantly from Marx's original theory. Lenin argued that capitalism itself, as an economic system, would naturally lead to the destruction of sexual and racial inequalities, even before the achievement of full communism. His reasoning was that capitalism operated on principles of economic efficiency, which meant that businesses and industries needed to recognise and utilise talent wherever they found it, regardless of the worker's sex or race. However, Lenin believed that class inequalities would persist under capitalism because the capitalist system depended on the exploitation of workers by owners.
Practical Implications for Soviet Policy
This theoretical difference had significant practical implications for the early Soviet government. Lenin argued that because Russia had been economically backward under the Tsars, the Communist Government had to complete all the developmental tasks that capitalism should have already achieved. This included two major objectives:
- The industrialisation of the Soviet economy
- The elimination of sexual and racial inequality
Therefore, in Lenin's view, the Soviet government had a specific responsibility to actively promote women's equality as part of building a modern socialist state, rather than waiting for it to emerge automatically after the abolition of class.
However, this commitment to equality in theory often conflicted with practical considerations and deeply ingrained cultural attitudes that proved difficult to overcome.
Women in government propaganda
Government propaganda provides valuable evidence of how official attitudes towards women changed over time. The images, posters, films, and statues produced between 1917 and 1985 reveal shifting views about women's proper role in Soviet society.
Playing a supporting role, 1917–40
During the first two decades after the revolution, Soviet propaganda typically presented women in secondary, supportive roles rather than as equal partners with men. This period established visual conventions that emphasised traditional gender distinctions whilst claiming to promote equality.
The 'Worker and Kolkhoz Woman' Statue (1937)
One of the most iconic examples was the 'Worker and Kolkhoz Woman' statue created in 1937. This massive 25-metre-high stainless steel sculpture became a symbol of Stalin's Soviet Union. It depicted two figures:
- A male factory worker holding a hammer
- A female collective farm worker holding a sickle
Whilst both figures appeared heroic and dynamic, the choice of who represented which type of work was significant and reflected deeper assumptions about gender roles.
The pairing of male industrial workers with female agricultural workers in propaganda was not accidental. According to Leninist theory, industrial workers (the proletariat) and peasants both played important roles in the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism. However, the industrial working class was considered the leading force in the revolution, with the peasantry playing a vital but secondary, supporting role. By consistently showing men as industrial workers and women as peasants or agricultural workers, Soviet propaganda subtly reinforced the idea that men held the primary, leadership position in building socialism whilst women provided essential but subordinate support.
Women's visibility in propaganda during this period was notably limited compared to men. During the Civil War (1918-21), propaganda posters focused heavily on male soldiers as defenders of the revolution. During the first three Five-Year Plans (1928 onwards), male industrial workers dominated poster imagery as the heroic builders of socialism. When women did appear in propaganda from 1917 to 1940, they were most commonly portrayed as mothers or children. This emphasis on maternal imagery suggested that women's primary role was nurturing and raising the next generation rather than actively fighting or working on the front line of socialist construction.
Mockery of Women in Revolutionary Films
Some propaganda went further and actively ridiculed women and femininity. Sergei Eisenstein's influential film October (1928) mocked female soldiers who had fought against the Bolsheviks during the October Revolution. The film drew a stark contrast between the masculine, decisive Bolsheviks and their political opponents, who were portrayed as effeminate and indecisive. This negative portrayal of women in combat roles contradicted the official commitment to equality.
The propaganda of this period bore striking similarities to pre-revolutionary Russian religious art, which had traditionally presented women as supportive maternal figures or as physically and morally weaker than men. This continuity suggests that despite revolutionary rhetoric about equality, fundamental attitudes towards women changed remarkably little in the first decades after 1917.
Women at war, women in space, 1941–64
The Second World War and early Cold War period brought significant changes to how women were represented in propaganda, though contradictions remained. Women became more visible and were sometimes celebrated as heroes, yet simultaneously portrayed as vulnerable and in need of male protection.
During the Second World War (known in Russia as the Great Patriotic War, 1941-45), women featured prominently in propaganda for the first time. The famous poster 'The Motherland is Calling' symbolised the Russian nation as a woman and acknowledged the crucial contribution of women to the war effort. Millions of Soviet women worked in factories, served in combat roles, and kept the nation functioning whilst men fought at the front.
The Propaganda Campaign of Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya (1942)
However, propaganda also continued to present women as vulnerable victims requiring male protection. In 1942, the state newspaper Pravda published a series of graphic photographs of Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya (widely known as 'Tanya'), an 18-year-old female partisan fighter. The images showed that she had been captured, enslaved, tortured, mutilated, and hanged by German soldiers.
Her mother subsequently toured the country making emotional appeals to Soviet men to defend Soviet women and the motherland from such brutality. This propaganda campaign explicitly linked the defence of the nation with the defence of Soviet women, positioning women as objects to be protected rather than as equal defenders of the nation.
The regular use of this theme throughout the war period reinforced traditional notions of male strength and female vulnerability, even as women were actively fighting and dying alongside men.
After the war ended, the propaganda narrative shifted again. Heroic women soldiers were now presented as living proof that the Soviet Union had achieved absolute sexual equality. Terms like devushki-voiny (girl-warriors) and frontovichki (women who served on the front line) became common in high-level political speeches. Khrushchev's Secret Speech in 1956, which criticised Stalin's cult of personality, specifically praised women's wartime contributions. Soviet war films produced throughout the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s regularly featured heroic female characters, presenting the war as a moment when women had proved themselves equal to men.
Valentina Tereshkova: The First Woman in Space
The most celebrated female hero of this period was Valentina Tereshkova, who became the first woman in space in 1963. Her biography was presented as the perfect Soviet success story:
- Born on a collective farm
- Lost her father during the Second World War
- Overcame these disadvantages through Soviet education and opportunities
- Qualified as an engineer
- Became the first female cosmonaut (the Soviet term for astronaut)
The head of the Soviet Space Programme famously described her as nothing less than 'Yuri Gagarin in a skirt' – a comparison that was meant as the highest praise but also revealed continuing assumptions about gender, suggesting that a heroic woman was essentially a man in women's clothing.
Despite celebrating women's achievements, this period also saw official concern about women adopting Western fashions and lifestyles, which were seen as threatening to Soviet values and morality.
Good mothers and absent mothers, 1964–85
Under Brezhnev's leadership (1964-82) and continuing through to the end of the Soviet Union, propaganda took a decidedly more conservative turn regarding women's roles. This shift reflected growing official anxiety about demographic trends and social problems.
Initially, propaganda in the late 1960s and early 1970s promoted an ideal of the 'true Soviet woman' who could successfully combine being an exemplary worker with being a caring wife and mother. This dual expectation placed enormous pressure on women but was presented as achievable and desirable. However, by the mid-1970s, the tone became even more conservative.
The Pronatal Campaign and Return to Conservative Values
Falling birth rates prompted the government to launch a pronatal campaign (a campaign designed to encourage higher birth rates). Brezhnev's propaganda increasingly emphasised 'natural differences' between the sexes. This rhetoric stressed women's 'natural' ability to nurture children and their 'natural' need for a strong man to protect and guide them.
This biological determinism directly contradicted earlier claims that gender roles were social constructs that could be changed through socialist transformation.
By the late 1970s, the pronatalist message had evolved into outright criticism of working mothers. Official propaganda blamed women who 'neglected' their children by going to work for a range of social problems, including:
- Juvenile delinquency
- Rising crime rates
- Drug taking
- Alcoholism
- Family breakdown
This represented a dramatic reversal from earlier periods when women's participation in the workforce had been celebrated as evidence of socialist progress. Now, working women were portrayed as failing in their primary duty as mothers and causing damage to Soviet society.
This conservative view persisted throughout the 1980s and was reaffirmed by the last three Soviet leaders – Brezhnev, Andropov, and Chernenko. Even Gorbachev, despite his reputation as a reformer, maintained traditional views about women's primary role as mothers and homemakers.
Conclusion on propaganda
Soviet propaganda never presented a consistent or coherent view of women's role in society. Instead, the representation of women in official imagery and discourse shifted repeatedly, reflecting changing government policies and priorities regarding women's emancipation and social roles. These shifts revealed more about the concerns and anxieties of the Soviet Union's male-dominated leadership than about any objective progress towards equality.
The Limits of Female Emancipation
Throughout the entire period from 1917 to 1985, Soviet leaders remained fundamentally suspicious of full female emancipation and determined to keep women's liberation within narrow, controllable boundaries. Whilst women were occasionally celebrated as heroes and encouraged to participate in certain aspects of public life, they were never fully freed from traditional expectations about their primary duties as wives and mothers.
The contradiction between official declarations of equality and the reality of continued gender discrimination remained unresolved throughout the Soviet period.
Summary
Key Points to Remember:
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Despite official commitment to equality, Soviet women never achieved full equality with men and faced persistent discrimination throughout 1917-85.
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Marx believed class inequality was fundamental, with other inequalities disappearing after its destruction; Lenin argued capitalism would eliminate sexual inequality before full communism was achieved.
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Women's representation in propaganda shifted through three distinct phases:
- Supporting roles (1917-40) – women portrayed as mothers and agricultural workers
- Celebration of heroic achievements (1941-64) – women as war heroes and cosmonauts
- Return to traditional maternal roles (1964-85) – emphasis on motherhood and 'natural' gender differences
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The 'Worker and Kolkhoz Woman' statue symbolised the gender hierarchy, with the male industrial worker representing the leading force and the female agricultural worker in a supporting role.
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Brezhnev's pronatal campaigns in the 1970s-80s blamed working mothers for social problems and emphasised 'natural' gender differences, representing a return to conservative values after earlier progressive rhetoric.