3-GORBACHEV+Kim,+Lizzie

What was the situation for that group/institution before Gorbachev became Premier?

Before the Bolshevik Revolution, women were considered vastly inferior to men, since Russia was a stern patriarchy. However, after the revolution, women were seen as equals, with an increase in the working industry until the New Economic Policy and other policies that pushed women back into the role of housewife and caretaker. These traditional roles for women were originally created to help the population after World War II, but were maintained afterwards and helped to keep women in an inferior position as before. However, the women were also expected to keep some employment, which changed the family dynamic. They were both the man and woman of the household, which meant that there was greater pressure upon them to raise the family as well as keep it financially secure. Document: “ There were a great significances but there were also some negative things that were brought up because of these reforms. Since there was more females than males,females had to work like men. But now that there was no motherly role in the house, the children were starting to lose their morals,behavior, and culture. Therefore, women were now expected to act as both parents. ” (Chatterjee, Choi)

How did that group/institution interpret the application of those policies to it?

Despite the fact that Gorbachev’s new liberal policies were supposed to make women's’ lives easier and more equal for both the home and workplace, the women are still left in a disadvantageous position in both, with the traditional roles of homemaker and only a secondary role as a worker. Tradition still overpowers the women’s lives and they are still in a stilted position where they must still be homemakers and not have as many opportunities for jobs.

Document: “ Perestroika has not in this case lived up to its liberal image. In a society with little experience of political debate and democratic process there is a temptation to cut corners, and the Soviet government has chosen to tackle a number of social problems with coercive methods that seem to offer rapid results. In a society that is undergoing rapid change there is a tendency to place a high premium on the family, and at the present time the prostitute has become one of the scapegoats for the failure of reality to measure up to ideals. At times of rapid social change, however, questions of personal life are often fiercely contested, with defence of tradition countered by demands for change and freedom. In the Soviet Union the counter-demands have as yet made little headway. ” (Waters, Elizabeth)

How did the Soviet state apply those policies to that group/institution, and what were the effects?

The Soviet Union allowed women to become more involved with the government as well as the rest of society as they were considered equal to men after the Bolshevik revolution, however they were mainly to improve the Soviet Union’s agenda and image as the government was only interested in these things and true equality was not achieved since the government was truly apathetic to women’s rights, and would have preferred the women to stay at home and fufill more traditional roles.

Document: “ The changes made under the bureaucracy were in fact a reflection of the political degeneration taking place. This degeneration was a contradictory process: women were becoming involved in production, yet for women the political gains of the revolution were clawed back concurrently with the crushing of political democracy for the working class as a whole. Policies to bring women into production, or to expand the population, were consciously decided upon by the bureaucracy only from the point of view of consolidating its privileges, prestige and caste interests.” (Author unknown)

What was the significance of Gorbachev’s reforms as it pertained to that group/institution?

Gorbachev’s reforms were mainly to separate women from their work and family jobs and place them into just one group, rather than have them combined. The main point of this was to take the strain off of women from the pressure of having to raise a family and work at the same time, and have them return to their original job as child-bearers. However, by doing this Gorbachev’s reforms helped to push back the women into traditional roles in their “pure womanly mission” (Gorbachev) and reverse the forward movements that women had made.

Document: “Now, in the course of perestroika, we have begun to overcome this shortcoming. That is why we are holding heated debates in the press, in public organizations, at work and at home, about the question of what we should do to make it possible for women to return to their pure womanly mission.” (Gorbachev, Mikhail)

Works Cited: [|__http://www.jstor.org/stable/1973044__] [|__http://www.socialistappeal.org/analysis/women-marxism/141-women-in-the-soviet-union__] [|__http://www.jstor.org/stable/128134__] [|__http://www.jstor.org/stable/1394929__] [|__http://pi.library.yorku.ca/ojs/index.php/lh/article/viewFile/5380/4575__]