The Role And Status Of Women In The Soviet Union Summary

Authorities were fully aware that women besides, working in factories had to go home and perform their household duties creating that double workday. Soviet officials would boast in the opportunities they had given their women, but tended to overlook the double burden women endured. Once again we see a pattern that women were never stopped performing their duties and home. The author tells us that on average women worked thirty hours at home plus another sixty to eighty in their jobs. In a different approach, trying to prove the inequality of women in the Soviet Union author Donald R. Brown argues in his book, The Role and Status of Women in the Soviet Union that women’s role in the political life of the Soviet Union was limited due to the idea that women were the weaker sex. Evidence suggests that women were never encouraged to fully participate in political roles, rather they were more prone to hold lower ranks and junior positions compared to their male counterparts. Brown states that even despite the fact women had some sort of participation in political roles in the USSR, men were highly against it arguing women were not strong enough to fully carry those roles. …show more content…
It’s clear that the author puts the blame on Stalin for the low participation of women in politics. In comparison to Lenin who wanted women to be more active in society, Stalin was quite the anti-feminist. Brown states the Stalin clearly wanted women to work hard in the factories in order to fulfill his plans, but he made sure women were kept in their place, never appointing females in high political office. After Stalin’s death, the notion that women were incapable of obtaining high political roles continued as the basis for keeping them lower