Documenti di Didattica
Documenti di Professioni
Documenti di Cultura
BY NINA BELYAEVA
he idea of conducting even a cursory opinion poll was environmentaland human rights movements.Next is the women's
dropped as soon as they heard the world "feminism." movement. Amazingly, the immense force of Western and world
Even the most energetic and enlightened women advo- history is practically non-existent in our vast civilized country.
cates of perestroika looked disgusted: "who needs What should the women's movement do? What values does
feminism?" The young, pretty ones pursed their lips in aparticu- feminism proclaim today? Feminism is the women who not only
larly offended way. Feminism, after all, is meant to compensate sense the unfair, inequitable attitudes towards them, but who
acrimonious and worried women for the failures in their personal undertake, as their dignity demands, to resolve these issues -
life. A real woman should be surrounded by admiring men; without waiting for permission.
women's affairs are for those who can't do anything else. Besides "It's hard to deal with your [Soviet] representatives at interna-
the word itself smacks of the indecent, the shameful; I wouldn't tional meetings," said feminist Bella Abzug, one of America's
be sumrisedif many associated it first women politicians. "They
keep saying: 'wedon't need fem-
inism. The Soviet State has pro-
vided us with everything we
necd."' Indeed, our legislation
is progressive, but can we ac-
cept the State's limited concern
for us?
Yes, we have the right to
abortion - something which
amazes American women -but
with what wild pain, tears and
humiliation. Yes, we have free
maternity hospitals -if you dis-
count the gifts to doctors and
nurses -but they are breeding
grounds for infection. What
Soviet woman wouldn't be
happy to give birth in America
and pay - however much it
costs - for normal conditions
and a healthy child.
Yes, we have State-subsidized
nursery schools,but what mother
doesn't dream of aretired granny
or nurse to take care of her child,
so as not to hear the pediatrician
drone: "Nothing in particular,
just the normal nursery school
cough."
Yes, in the West there is a
bourgeois state to which the
working people's interests are
alien. But it does not pretend to
VOLUME 10, NUMBER 4 Women's Council meeting at Uralmash machine-building plant in the city of Sverdlovsk courtesy NOVOSTl PRESS AGENCY 17
solve all social problems: it grants the anything you like, accept it and say that councils were a sensation. They decided
minimum -won by the women's move- "everything isfine." to soberlyassess the situation in society as
ment there -and then steps aside: every- ... Women have been manipulated a whole, to understand women's part in it,
throughout most of our history. Put on and set themselves feasible tasks. They
thing else is your problem. tractors, or on steam engines, or
This is when social movements arise organizedlecturesand meetings with elec-
dropped out of planes with parachutes;
and do what the state is unable - or re- in the 1960s they were called to the tors. They were registered as "women's
luctant - to do. factories, and now, with the draft of the councils" in their city, and when they
Our resources are also very limited. So new law, we are driving them back into were turned down at the regional level,
why didn't the same scheme work here? the kitchen. Spiritual food and values they organized meetings and collected
Why hasn't a women's movement arisen have always been offeredfrom without. signatures in Reutovo, Pushchino, Zag-
From ready-made recipes. And Soviet orsk and Zhukovsky, towns not far from
in our country?ElviraNovikova,member women used to be happy-one and all. Moscow.
of the United Nations Committee on the We won' t have any women's movement This was the first women-sponsored
Elimination of Discrimination Against until women have the chance to stop election campaign and even if it didn't
Women, answers: this race, to concentrate on themselves, end in success, it was an invaluable ex-
to understandand hear their own voices. perience politically. Deeper insight was
Feminism is a movement of free, gained into immediate and longer-term
creative individuals, produced by the In the late 1970sin Leningrad,Tatyana objectives, and the need for an indepen-
entire system of culture. We have tra- Mamonova, Yulia Voznesenskaya, Na- dent organization. Such an organization
ditionally glorified motherhood as talya Malakhovskaya,Tatyana Goricheva was set up and is now known as the
women's main and principal function. and other like-minded women -artists, Women's Initiatives Club, attached to the
The hardship of having to combine poets, philologists, translators - who Fund of Social Initiatives in Moscow's
productive labour and their role in the were able to see the humiliating, defense- Sevastopolsky District.
family is solved very simply- by send- less condition of Soviet women, tried to The club arranges lectures and discus-
ing women back to thefamily. This isn't conceptualizethe reason for it and to find sions, teaches self-help techniques, and
emancipation, but the worst kind of ways of emancipating women's con- explores job opportunities. If we ever
slavery - depriving women of their sciousness.They startedan almanaccalled write a history of the Soviet women's
professional lives and dooming them to Zhenshchiny i Rossiya (Women and Rus- movement, it willbegin with this election
serve theirfamilies,toplay a dependent sia) and a magazine called Rossiyanka campaign in the Moscow Region.
role. (Russia's Woman) and then a club known What do we have today? What is the
At the beginning of this century, in as Maria which published a theological future of the movement?
pre-revolutionary Russia, a movement magazine of the same name, in an effort to Olga Voronina's group, Lotus, consists
of aristocratic women known as "Equal- combinewomen's liberation with the idea of women scientists dealing with the
ity" tried to foster this idea among of Christianity.Thegroup was short-lived. "women's question" in professionalterms
women workers. But as early as 1903, In May and June 1980, just before the -from the division of labour in society
the nascent party and trade unions Summer Olympics in Moscow, all of its into traditionally "male" and "female"
realized the immense potential force of organizers were expelled from the USSR roles, to specific sociological studies of
the female proletarian masses and the on charges of anti-soviet agitation and how women work. Lotus stands for lib-
Communist Party (then known as the propaganda. Evidently, our representa- eration from social stereotypes through
Russian Social-Democratic Labour tivesat internationalcongresseswere right internal discussions, exchange of ideas
Party)incorporatedpracticallyall their -we didn't need feminism. Or perhaps and new information. Although each
demands in itsprogram. Thus women's our State didn't? member works on her own topic, Lotus
democratic proletarian consciousness How did Soviet women find Larisa feels like a close-knit collective, open to
developed in theframework of the par- Kuznetsova and propel her into politics? everyone who shares their convictions.
tisan movement -not independently. Tatyana Ryabikina's association,
They found me through my articles, Women's Creative Effort, promotes its
Larisa Kuznetsova, philologist and through the editorial offices of New members' creative talents and abilities in
author of books on women in the USSR Times weekly. They invited me to "meet every field of artistic, literary and hu-
said, my readers" over a cup of tea, at home, manitarian endeavour. The association is
in Zhukovsky, near Moscow. Then they composed of members of creative unions,
No women's movement could have officially invited me to join their professionals, andanyoneelse who wants
simply existed in our country. For this women's council and suggested I be- to improve her skills in a creative sphere
you must be aware of yourselfas an in- come their candidate. It's surprising
or help others to do so. Founding mem-
dependent person, you must identify how accurately they grasped the situ-
your own requirements as women, ation and formulated their missions; bers include all the creative unions, the
whereas in the haste of revolutionary they knew what they wanted and I fol- All-Union Central Council of Trade Un-
renewal the human being was exam- lowed them. ions, the Cultural Foundation and the
ined in general, as part of thc" masses, Soviet Women's Committee.
as the "builder of a new society." In The news that the women's council The most organized, legally, group is
our thinking,we visualized people as a (headedby Olga Bessolova) at the Central the Preobrazheniye (Transfiguration)
single monolith: all workers. Add to Aerodynamic Institute had nominated its women's club, formed by Diana Medman
this the totalitarianmentality,governed own, independent candidatesto run in the in the system of the Academy of Sciences.
by catchwords and the beat of the drum, elections to the Supreme Sovietcame l i e The club's rules have been registered, it
and our religious readiness to believe abolt from theb1ue.Resuscitated women's has been granted the right to a judicial