"Nobody sees perestroika from a
POLAND • USSR test". 21 The independent groups were taken aback by the presence of members of the official student organization aiming to establish their dominance and control over the movement.
A year ago, young workers and students made a combative and spectacular entrance woman's point of view"
onto the Polish political scene. Now the first signs of a women's movement are apparent. It has a militant dynamic and has won its first support among young people and women workers. It could become a very important factor in the recomposition
IN THE multitude of analyses of the Soviet Union of of the mass movement in Poland after the perestroika, the situation of women is rarely discussed.
round-table, including in the recomposition of Solidarnosc, which is and will remain
Olga Alexandrovna Voronina, a philosopher at the Soviet the main framework of this movement.
Academy of Sciences, is the author of the only
At the beginning of May, as he came out of the Polish Primate's palace, Lech Walecontemporary study of women in the USSR. The sa was asked about his attitude to the new following interview with Olga Voronina was originally draft law: "Something has to be done to published in II Bimestrial, an Italian journal whose editors stop us from killing each other", he said.
On May 11, after the Warsaw demonstraalso contribute to the left-wing magazine, Il Manifesto.
tions, he took a different position.
"A matter of conscience, not of the law"
While reaffirming his fidelity to the doctrine of the Catholic Church in this area, he said: "It is nevertheless necessary to take account of the fact that there are people in
Poland with different conceptions of the world. Each person must resolve this problem according to his own conscience and morality, and it is not a matter for the
The aim of this conciliatory statement by
Walesa is obviously to prevent the outbreak of a new conflict within the mass movement, this time around with women conscious of their elementary rights. At the same conference the president of Solidarnosc repeated with redoubled vigour his condemnation of the youth radicalization, which, in his opinion, was leading the political life of the country in the direction of "anarchy". He also condemned the workers' strikes, including that of 20,000 copper miners in Lower Silesia.
Walesa reaffirmed Solidarnosc's intention to take the necessary measures to put an end to all the strikes in the factories and
"illegal demonstrations" in the streets.
"Pluralism and democracy in their Polish form cannot be taken to mean anarchy.
During the period in which the reforms are put into operation, we must refrain from irresponsible actions.... We will only get help from the capitalists when peace and order reign in Poland. They must be convinced that the dollars they invest in Poland are not going to be burnt up". 23
Three great social forces will decide if the social peace concocted at the roundtable will become a reality: workers, young people and women. *
21. Zycie Warszawy, May 11, 1989.
12
/ 22. Zycie Warszawy, May 12, 1989.
23. Zycie Warszawy, May 16, 1989.
International Viewpoint #165 • June 12, 1989
LGA Alexandrovna, for a long time you, the women of Russia, have been the most liberated in the world! You have equal rights, egalitarian laws, protection of maternity, free abortion and work for all. As women, you are a majority of workers in whole sectors, from health to education. Everywhere, women are more visible than men. What does the hyper-emancipated Soviet citizen think about her situation?
Say to one of us, "but you are liberated" and see if she doesn't tear her hair out! If I tell my friends that people in the West are interested in us, they retort: "Help me to get a visa for abroad. I have a lecture all ready around the theme 'My day, minute by min-
In practice, daily life of Soviet women is
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as follows: Eight hours work outside and eight hours inside the home. According to the few rare serious studies about our conditions, it emerges that today, 40 hours a week are spent on domestic labour and 41 hours working "outside". And domestic labour is extremely tiring, given the disastrous shortages, the endless queues, the lack of social infrastructures and their mal-
Seventy years ago, we were the vanguard in many areas. The "new", the "modern", that was us. Now, on the same questions, we are relatively behind other countries. A few days ago, I reread Kollontai's writings.! 1. Alexandra Kollontai (1872-1952) was Commissar for Social Welfare and the only women in Lenin's first government. In 1921, she became secretary of the Comintern's International Women's Secretariat. Her writing's cover many areas of politics, including feminism.
ПО ВСЕМ ОТРАСЛЯМ ЗНАНИЯ
For her, discrimination towards women should have been resolved by her economic independence and equal rights. Lenin thought the same thing. Even today, people still think it. But this is has reduced the woman question essentially to one aspect of the problem: that of work. It is a gigantic oversimplification, which has prevented a real debate on the man/woman conflict. • Are you saying that the feminist question has not really been tackled?
I want to say the following: the big problem is that no-one — neither men nor women - realized that alongside the revolution inter-personal relationships had to change as well and that it was necessary to develop a new approach, above all concerning the relations between men and women in a society that passed from a form of concrete and real slavery to [personal] independence.
In the years immediately following the revolution men felt free, but none of them asked themselves what had to be changed so that women could feel really independent and liberated. Women had the same status as men at work, but - and I insist on this - only at work. So, for women, the weight of domestic labour remained undiminished, and on top of this they had the right to another job, but that also became a social obligation. • Everything is the same 70 years later?
Yes. At the beginning women entered the work sphere as a sort of member of a reserve army of labour. Nobody paid attention to developing women's professional training, and this "lack of attention" was no accident. It expressed the belief that, in any event, it was obvious women's real priority work remained in the family. I think that women were aware of this contradiction from the beginning. • So when Gorbachev talks about women going back to the home, isn't he expressing a demand, a
No, I think this proposal avoids the question of the legitimate demands of working women. When I met with one of them, she said to me: "Look at the life I lead. I get up at dawn, make breakfast for the kids and my husband, and then I rush to take the kids to school, then I run to catch the tube or the bus for a 40-minute or 1-hour journey to work, then I queue at the shops, then I go to pick up the kids, then I make dinner, then I put the children to bed, then I do the darning and ironing...This sort of life I can
I would add that the majority of working women do jobs that are physically extremely tiring. It is obvious that if you offer to let them return to the home, initially they will be tempted by this proposition!
But you have to look a bit closer: "What has changed if, instead of doing the ironing at night, you do it in the afternoon; if, rather than queueing for potatoes at six in the evening, you queue up at ten in the moming; if you have to look after the kids all afternoon at home? Of course, you get a few more hours sleep, but your life won't
"What's more, you'll be dependent on your husband for money. If he comes home drunk, you'll have to keep quiet, he'll think he's the boss. And if he leaves you or you live on your own, what will you have left? A couple of kids and no income." Then this woman replied: "It's true that this is not a
Personally, I think that the only way out is a radical change in social organization. But this is not what's behind the state's thinking when they propose that women go • Do you think they are doing this to shift onto women some of the services that draw heavily on the public purse and on the budget?
It's difficult to answer that. In truth, I don't think that any of those today, men or women, who are talking about women returning to the home really believe in it. Women make up 51% of our labour force — if they pull out, what's going to happen? A disaster for the economy. In addition, women do unskilled and tiring work. Would men be ready to replace them?
Statistics show that half of women workers do jobs that require strength in their legs or arms, with little thinking involved. These are women who make up most of the personnel on the railways, in light industry and in agriculture all over the Soviet Union. In the Baltic countries, they have jobs that are a bit more skilled. These are women who grow cotton, potatoes, wheat; who sow and harvest. On building sites, it's the women who carry the mortar on their shoulders. In restaurants, they do the washing-up. In the services, they have the lowest levels of skill. Imagine what would happen if they were taken out of all these jobs and sent back to the home! It is simply a slogan to try to get a bit of instant sup• But with the industrial reform, there will be a big reduction in labour, partly made up by the use of new technologies. Won't it be the female part of the workforce that will
I think it's more complicated than that, less linear. Concerning work, first of all. There are two assertions that are currently emphasized: the first contends that today we are in the process of building a basis to allow women to pursue careers, and the second is to say that women's natural role is in the home. What do they mean? The real reasoning behind them, although it's not explicit, is as follows: if women have to work, they should take the jobs offered them, which are still necessary for development, and they should keep quiet.
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The same goes for social services. They aren't being improved because there is a tacit understanding that women will always be around, on call, to bring up the children, look after the elderly and take the responsibility for these jobs in society. This story of sending women back to the home leads to an impasse. It won't resolve either the economic crisis or the crisis of the family. • But what would women prefer, in general?
The majority don't want to return to the home. A few months ago, in a poll of 100 women, 80% wanted a job and social infrastructures; only 20% preferred to be simply housewives. Personally, I agree with the majority. Let's develop the social infrastructures, solve the social problems that have been shelved — it is symptomatic that in our country they are referred to as "women's problems". I suppose this is why they are incessantly pushed to the bottom of the • Does the slogan "women back to the home" represent a resurgence of the patriarchy?
In fact, Russia has always been marked by the patriarchy. Before the revolution, peasants made up 80% of the country with the culture and stereotypes that go along with that. The revolution swept down like a storm on this collective consciousness. In the 1920s therefore, a real and effective feminist dynamic did not exist, but feminist values were promoted and there was a retreat of some of the most archaic stereo-
During these years, women workers involved in building the new society were exalted by everyone - even motherhood was demoted to second place. An example was in Fyodor Gladkov's novel, The Cement [one of the main "five-year plan novels"]. Hardly had she given birth when the woman put her baby into the care of an institution, and the child hardly reappears in the story. But it could be said that this was presented in a positive way. The institution substituted for the old family, the new generation lived communally, and society took charge of caring for and educating children. The family as a consumer unit no longer served a function. Women wrapped red scarves around their heads and went off to build communism!
In this situation, the strong, virile male image was weakened. Even in imagery, men and women appeared as equals. They worked hard and worked well; they worked for the future. They appeared not to have any other pressing needs, such as love or personal problems. Then the war came, which was terrible and turned many things upside down in the rest of the world. • What did the war change in terms of the preceding imagery?
Along with the war, the stereotype of the "real man" came back. It was perhaps not 13 so dominant as in the USA in the 1950s, but
USSR it was widespread. Although women were also comrades in arms, the glory of defending the homeland was totally monopolized by men. Once again they became the heroes, with the all the ensuing honours and recognition. Nobody talked about the women who were keeping the economy going, it was men who were — and are — "the" active element.
When peace came, however, all the frustrations did too. The economy went badly and that cut the ground from under the feet of the heroes and undermined their confidence. Earnings were not enough to feed the family, finding a second job was not easy, and having a career depended on the wishes of others (on the decisions of the Party).
What's more, there is one factor that no-one has analyzed but which I think has had a great influence on the psychology of men. During the war, women realized that they were capable of sorting out the most difficult situations on their own. Having a man around was not indispensable. Certainly, they missed men at a sentimental level, but how could women indulge such feelings without being accused of bourgeois deviations? And, in addition, when the men returned home they wanted to become the heads of the family again. Conflicts and frustrations ensued.
I think that this was one of the causes of the growing alcoholism among men and women's apathy in society and the family. Submission, one could say, rather than apathy, an inclination to leave things to society — a society that is male. Virility reached its peak. Today, it is normal to hear both men and women say that it is the man who must take charge. • But in the tremendous debate that has been opened up, have women begun to speak out? Do they participate in elections? Are they putting forward demands and elaborating programmes? 14t not put on the men/women conflict, even in As women, as subjects, no. The accent is International Viewpoint #165 • June 12, 1989 a small way. If women are involved in things, it is as interested people, as individuals who want change.
And besides, what are the concerns of the candidates, the press and the meetings? Politics, the economy, price reform, cooperatives and agricultural reform. Some are for, and some are against, perestroika. But not a soul sees the process from a woman's point of view, candidates for the elections included. Of course, there is a difference between conservatives and reformers, in the sense that the latter take into account more often problems with social services and women's living conditions, while the conservatives want women in the home.
An amazing article was published in Pravda at the end of February. First of all, it struck me as an anti-woman article -women were egoists, only interested in themselves, without feelings, and the cause of the breakdown of the family and problems of young people. How dare they say this, I fumed to myself, revolted, when it is our shoulders that bear the burden of all the social shortcomings?
But I continued to read: "Society is too feminized", women must return home and keep their noses out of other things, schools must have a military-style discipline by taking women out of teaching, and so on. It was a militarist, fascist and feudal vision. It was full of nostalgia for a "strong" leader, an energetic state, a male power. After I had read it all, this article struck me as being more frightening than a simple attack on women's dignity. It frightened me that they had given it so much space in Pravda, just as the diffuse "women back to the home" movement had sent shivers up my spine. I know that this will be impossible for many years, but I don't want to head towards a "reformed society" where women's submission, exploitation and oppression still exist. • You are very insistent about social services. What do you think the priority should be?
Perhaps it seems strange to you that I put so much emphasis on our living conditions. I don't want to overestimate this problem, but I am absolutely sure that if we don't succeed in changing them, there will be nothing new for women. I don't know how to explain it to you. I want women to be able to work, to study, to develop themselves in society, but I also want them to be able to leave work during certain periods of their lives, for example when they have several children. Today, they can't do this, either because family benefits aren't available at all, or only for a year. And the benefits are a derisory 35 roubles a month.
Listen, I come from Central Asia, where I saw women with 10 children forced to work between pregnancies. What's more, they must have guarantees at the workplace. These exist on paper, but who applies them? For example, if a woman worker demands a day off because her child is ill, she knows that she has the right to take it, but she doesn't have the means to exercise that right. In most cases the boss replies: "No, and if you make trouble, I'll fire you". So you see, these problems have to be sorted out. • But doesn't that amount to the same thing as the slogan "women in the home, motherhood is their destiny"?
No, it is one of their rights, and the problem isn't that women "must" stay at home. The reasoning has to be turned on its head: "Women have the right to be full-time mothers", and not in addition to be their husbands' servant, stair cleaners, providers of deficient social services.
These rights have to be developed in a very concrete way, starting from serious research on the situation of women in our country. Until now, no sociologist has done it. I'm trying to do it. We are an informal group of young social science researchers. But we will need a network across the country that will allow us to increase the number of interviews, establish statistics and make analyses. Women's problems are
June 12, 1989 • #165 International Viewpoint not the same in Moscow, Leningrad, Minsk, Novosibirsk, Tashkent, Alma Ata and so on. They also demand different solutions. But we are so few and have so little means that we have decided to begin with a provocation. • What provocation?
First, I spoke about the right to be a fulltime parent. We say that this right must be given either to the man or to the woman. They decide together who will leave work (maternity or paternity leave) to bring up the children after birth or in other circumstances. Given that in our country the idea that men could put themselves out, do the washing or bathe the children is scandalous, if not utopian, we publicly announced that we demanded the right "to be a fulltime father"! At the beginning, that caused a number of smiles and leg-pulling. Then, they started to listen to us.
The most urgent task is actually changing people's habits and the culture. In a coun try where the term "individual" has a negative connotation, what connotation do you think "woman" can have? • When you said provocation, l thought you were referring to sexuality, a theme that until now has been taboo. Does your group take up this problem?
Sexuality remains a closed subject, a secret. Our tradition has always smothered sexuality, and we don't even talk about it today. It is considered as "unproper", and it is not talked about in the schools. You know that when there was a televised discussion between Soviet and American women, somebody asked the question: "And in terms of sexual relations, what is happening?" and the Soviet woman replied: "Here, sex doesn't exist". But the translator said in English: "Here, problems relating to sexuality don't exist". But that wasn't what was actually said. • But I recently read an article by Igor Kon on sex education and I saw a group of sexologists, psychologists and doctors talking about the problems faced by couples on the television...
That's true. But only the specialists talk about it, with the discussion being kept to a strictly scientific level. This is not a cultural problem, it is not something innate. Sexologists can be counted on the fingers of one hand — there is Svyadosh in Leningrad and Vasilyenko in Moscow.
The only person who talks concretely about all aspects of sexuality is Igor Kon. But you can ask him how much time it took to publish his Introduction to Sexology, and how many copies were printed. There are some copies in the libraries, but most doctors have never been able to get hold of it. • But you talk about it among women?
I repeat, consciousness of sexuality as an important individual question is still taboo. Such a culture doesn't exist. You can see that when you try to talk about it. It is difficult for me to talk about it with my friends or my husband. It hurts to talk about it. I know that it is necessary to talk about sex, but it bothers me. I am myself inhibited, and I would find it unthinkable to talk about sex before an audience. • On prostitution, l've read a number of unbelievable reports...
In fact, they are very repressive, but above all they are misogynist. Some people demand prison for prostitutes. There is no serious study on prostitution that looks at women from all social milieus.
We can maybe have an intuitive idea on the origins of prostitution. For example, a young girl sees her mother's daily life, thinks that that is what is in store for her and rejects it, hoping to get money more easily by going becoming a prostitute. There are others who quite simply don't earn enough money. We should also make the distinction between what we could call internal prostitutes and those who cater for
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, and people think they're linked to the KGB or the police, but I don't really know enough about all that. • According to Ogonyok, six-and-ahalf million women have abortions each year in the USSR. Is this true?
I don't know. There are no official statistics on abortion. The figure you give is very likely close to reality, but finding serious information on this question is very difficult. This is one of the reasons why we insist such a lot on setting up sociological research groups on women's conditions. • But why are there so many abortions. What forms of contraception do you use?
First of all, it's because there is no sex education. Then, contraception is rare. The only contraceptives sometimes available are diaphragms, and there are only very few couples who have good enough accommodation to have a decent sex life. In addition, people are having sex earlier. The numbers of young girls of 12 to 14 who get pregnant is increasing, and most of them resort to clandestine abortion because otherwise they have to get their parent's permission to go through the normal channels. • I'm sorry to have bothered you with all these questions about a subject that is very delicate for you. I want to conclude with one question: Do you consider yourself a feminist?
I would like to be able to define myself as a feminist, but to really do so I would need to have another culture. I think that feminism needs more developed conditions than those we have.
I'm conscious of my identity as a woman, and I experience very strongly the conflicts between men and women. But I am a primitive feminist, a feminist who is still asking for increased social services, like you in the 1950s. We need feminism, but there are 15 still very few feminists... *
"People would rather die from bullets than die of