Stalin's Impact on Women

• The women's section of the Central Committee was shut down with Stalin declaring that women's issues had been solved.
• Many peasant women were abandoned by their husbands who left to seek work in the industrial towns and cities.
• In industry, women continued to earn 40% less than men and promotion was much harder for women to achieve.
• On the positive side, the expansion in higher education provided new opportunities for women.
• In 1929, 20% of higher education places were reserved for women by the government.

  • This was a modest increase on the 14% that had already existed but by 1940, over 40% of engineering students were women.
• Women also gained a high percentage of jobs in the expanding areas of healthcare and education.
• There was a greater provision of creches and nurseries during the 1930s which helped women balance work with domestic duties although the latter was still seen very much as a woman's role.
• By 1934, the government had become concerned about family breakdowns and the falling birth rate.
• Men seeking a divorce were expected to contribute 60% of their income in child support.
• Abortion was outlawed except where there was a risk to the mother's life.
• Marriages that were not formally registered with the state lost their legal status.
• The government introduced awards for "mother-heroines" who had 10 or more children.
• Male homosexuality was declared illegal.
• The idea of the family as an unnecessary "bourgeois" concept was replaced by the view that family was a necessary unit of socialist society.
• Traditional values on women were reasserted.
• Images of strong, muscular women associated with the First Five Year Plan and collectivisation was replaced in the mid 1930s with a greater emphasis on the femininity of women and their importance as mothers.