Women in the Khrushchev Era by M. Ilic , S. E. Reid , L. Attwood (review)

Abstract

reviews 741 education in the country at large (for instance in provincial universities), a much under-researched issue, given how much attention these academic controversies have received from historians over the years. Pollock's study is an extremely valuable contribution to the debate on the nature of Soviet science, but it also deserves a wider readership amongst all those interested in the influence that Marxist-Leninist ideology had over both the Soviet state and Josef Stalin personally. HistoryDepartment Michael Froggatt Universityof Durham Ilic,M., Reid, S. E. and Attwood, L. (eds).Women in the Khrushchev Era. Studies inRussian and East European History and Society. Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke and New York, 2004. xiv + 254 pp. Glossary. Illustrations. Notes. Bibliography. Index. ?50.00. As Melanie Ilic points out in the introduction, this is a neglected area despite the revival of thewomen question in theKhrushchev period and the avail ability of a wealth of resources. In the firstchapter, Ilic provides a useful overview of the period, pointing out how key policies (forexample, on hous ing, health, consumption) affectedwomen's lives.The revival of thewomen's department, abolished by Stalin in 1929, throughWomen's Councils repre sented the New Soviet Woman as a housewife-mother-activist. On the one hand, thismeant that the regime took the problems women faced in combin ing these roles with full-time employment seriously; on the other, the failure to address the gendered division of labour ensured that Soviet women contin ued to shoulder the double burden. There was at least more open discussion of reasons for marital discord, but there was also concern that sexual equality was undermining men and de-feminizing women. The advice literature on housekeeping which now appeared was firmly directed at a female readership. These points are developed in the two chapters on working women. Deploying usually overlooked data on female employment, Donald Filtzer reveals how women were marginalized inheavy industry,pushed out of skilled and better-paid positions which theyhad been doing since the 1940s, confined tomostly un-mechanized work. The double burden as well as the bias in favour of male labour prevented them from improving their skills, so that any woman who wanted to increase her earnings took on dangerous jobs. Female dominated sectors were regarded as less skilled and commanded lower pay than male-dominated sectors. Michaela Pohl's case study of female emigrants to theVirgin Lands reinforces these points, showing women being confined to less satisfying work. She also shows how Slavic women were expected to 'civilize' the area of settlement (northern Kazakhstan) through marriage, motherhood and social activism. At the same time, such women, especially from Moscow, were seen by the indigenous people as too assertive, immoral and even out of control. 742 seer, 86, 4, October 2008 Kristin Roth-Ey takes up this image of 'loose girls', examining themoral panic around the 1957Youth Festival which drew thousands of foreigners to Moscow. She argues that the conflicts over adolescent female sexuality and femininitypervaded representations of the festival, both in official discourse and in rumour. The former, however, did not directly address issues such as rising rates of illegitimacy, abortion and sexually transmitted diseases. Instead, concern was expressed about the threat to Soviet morality from disaffected teenagers' vulnerability to foreign, especiallyWestern, influences.The related theme of Communist Party attempts to regulate private life through advice literature on parenting and how itreinforced the traditional gendered division of roles between mothers (caring) and fathers (controlling) is pursued by Deborah Field. The aim was toproduce children who would put the collective first.Field shows how parents followed advice theyagreed with while ignoring the rest, refusing to relinquish private aspirations for their children. Another means of influencing gender roles was the cinema. John Haynes examines two key films,The Cranes areFlying (1957) and Ballad ofa Soldier (1959), focusing on the reconstruction of motherhood which, though remaining essentialist, was also a positive evaluation of women's experience. Lynne Attwood and Susan Reid redirect this focus to the domestic space. Reid returns to the theme of resistance toParty effortsto shape family life,this time through the aesthetics of the home. Attwood's examination ofKhrushchev's housing and domestic goods programmes shows both how they fell...