Emancipation in the Soviet Way: c Women in a Socialist Economy

Abstract

There are many gender imbalances in the social and economic sphere of Ukraine, the reasons for which originate in the peculiarities of the state policy of the Soviet Union with regard to women. Although the official ideology asserted that the "women's question" in the USSR had been resolved and equality between women and men had been achieved, this issue required deeper analysis and research. Despite a certain number of works devoted to the study of women's issues in the USSR, it must be stated that the problem of the economic activity of Ukrainian women in the Soviet national economy has not yet been given due attention and is very relevant and useful for further research on gender issues. Therefore, the purpose of this article is to trace the changes in the economic activity of Ukrainian women associated with the formation, establishment and modifications of the Soviet regime, to analyze the real situation of women in the USSR and their participation in social production.It was found that the involvement of the female labor force in the USSR production used legislating gender equality, domestic "emancipation" of women, the eradication of illiteracy and the involvement of women in different levels of education, the development of the system of social guarantees and benefits for women through active advocacy, deployed socialist competition. It was established that the gender division of labor was almost leveled thanks to the policy of widespread involvement of women in production activities at the stage of the formation of the Soviet economy and after the Second World War. However, later the concentration of women in certain sectors of the economy, mainly those where the use of their labor was explained as a continuation household responsibilities of women, which in turn affected the gender pay gap. It can be argued that the main task of the Soviet emancipation policy towards women was to use them additional labor resourse in the Soviet economy.