СОВЕТСКИЙ ПРОЕКТ ЭМАНСИПАЦИИ ЖЕНЩИН: ДОСТИЖЕНИЯ, ПРОБЛЕМЫ, ИТОГИ

Abstract

The task of the article is to present a reconstruction of the idea and practice of the Soviet experience in «solving the female question». The topic seems relevant in connection with the growing interest in the Soviet past, on the one hand, and the lack of knowledge about this among modern youth – on the other. The article is based, firstly, on a general analysis of the Marxist concept of emancipation of women, which served as the theoretical basis of the Soviet project; secondly, on the description and reconstruction of political documents and campaigns of the Soviet period; thirdly, on the assessment of the real economic and social policies of the Soviet state, sociological and statistical data. As a methodological basis, a gender approach is used, the concept of deconstruction by J. Derrida, the symbolic capital of P. Bourdieu. The author comes to ambiguous conclusions. On the one hand, the Soviet project for the emancipation of women was certainly revolutionary for its time, both in terms of the goals put forward and in the methods of active state policy used. On the other hand, from the very beginning it was marked by internal contradictions that directly stemmed from its Marxist understanding – to make women «assistants to the proletariat». Formally expanding women's rights, public policy has never declared the goal of achieving real gender equality. As a result, a hybrid type of gender system arose in the USSR, combining traditional and modernization norms and institutions. Modernized social institutions continued to be based on traditional perceptions that the natural biological differences between women and men determined their social inequalities. Having freed women from the «power of men,» the state actually and legally appropriated this power to itself. Of course, this alienation of male rights to women in favor of the state not only contribute to the reduction of patriarchal principles of social structure, but also reinforces them. And, unfortunately, in post-Soviet Russia, these trends are only increasing.