The Bolshevik revolution of 1917 represents one of the most drastic shifts toward gender equality in history. Russia went from being an oppressive monarchy to having some of the most socially progressive goals of the time period. In Tsarist Russia, women suffered from the exploitation of capitalist employers and patriarchal husbands while government reformers ignored the injustice being done to them. Socialist groups preached gender equality for years before the revolution, causing women to get excited about the movement and become more involved in the party's activities as well as the revolution itself.
However, when the Bolsheviks finally came to power in October of 1917, party leaders did not seem willing to place a high priority on promoting equality and ingrained societal norms made women's liberation difficult and slow. The progressive rhetoric focused on utilizing women as a productive part of the workforce and completely ignored the artistic and intellectual aspirations of women. Women joined men in the workforce, but men never became involved in helping with the housework. The government viewed women as a tool that needed to be put to work, rather than as a person with goals and ambitions.
Because women of the house no longer had the entire day to spend at home, their daughters were subjected to dated household responsibilities. While the woman of the house worked a full time job, many daughters of peasant families took over household chores traditionally reserved for women, such as child-raising, cooking, cleaning, and sewing, while young men took on few, if any new responsibilities. Young women would often times see themselves as inferior because of the chauvinistic rhetoric that was common in society. Even when some became politically active in groups such as the youth wing of the Communist party, called the Komsomol, it did “little to alter these young women's opinions of themselves as unprepared and unable; indeed, in many cases, it only contributed to it.” The Komsomol would place the blame for this not on the sexist tendencies of the organization, but rather the inability of women to do productive work or understand politics.
To many party members, including socialist feminist Aleksandra Kollontai, equality for women meant that they were to act like men, undervaluing the position that women held before. This belief created a dichotomy in how women reacted to their newly found independence. Some women took their extra income and spent it on luxury goods, embracing the flapper culture of the 1920s and emulating a bourgeois lifestyle. In contrast, some women completely rejected their feminine identity by neglecting their family responsibilities, sometimes leaving their children with their parents, wearing masculine clothing, and becoming critical of women who only read romantic novels and wore makeup. This “defeminization” of some female factory workers caused much of the criticism against educating and employing women. Despite the progressive aims of the new Bolshevik government, women were far from being viewed as equals in the opinion of the general public. Double standards and sexist practices prevalent in Tsarist society persisted for many years after the revolution.
Women in Tsarist Russia had very few options open to them outside of being totally dependent on their husbands. They could pursue a career in education or medicine, but doing so made marriage difficult. These women did not want to marry below their economic means, so they avoided marrying peasants, but they could not afford the dowry necessary to marry a wealthy member of the gentry. They had to shun marriage altogether if they wanted to pursue their professional careers. Public opinion greatly discouraged women from remaining single. This is exemplified by the Russian saying, ne zhenat, ne chelovek (not married, not human). To society, getting married was a Russian woman's only purpose. They were very aware of the oppressiveness of the institution, but they saw it as an inevitability. Even women completely opposed to the idea of marriage, such as gentry class woman Praskovia Tatlina who said “marriage was unhappiness,” often found that they had no other choice. Tatlina dedicated her life to ensuring her daughters' educations so they might be able to support themselves independently and be happy. However, she did not reach this goal due to either patriarchic oppression or the want of one of her daughters to fall in love.
Throughout the last half of the nineteenth century, there was a debate among the intelligentsia in Russia on how to answer “the woman question.” This question became even more pressing with the emancipation of the serfs in 1861, which forced women to play an extremely important role in supporting the household, taking over some of the responsibilities that were previously upheld by serfs. Not all women in Tsarist Russia advocated education and independence the way Tatlina did. Natalia Grot had a much different perspective. Grot was married to Iakov Karlovich, a tutor to the future Tsar Nicholas II. Natalia thought that the education of women was destroying family values. She argued that going to school made women “feel the need for activity outside their own home” and they should be taught to expect to serve their “modest, feminine, and domestic” obligations.1 She felt that women were infinitely more useful as mothers and housewives, than as educated career women.
