Women Working in Factory Pre-Revolution

"The Woman Question"

The Woman Question was a popular topic of intellectual debate in European social squares, and referred to broad debates about the nature of women, their capabilities, and their role in society. As women were largely limited to the domestic sphere during the Imperial era, Bolshevik revolutionaries largely gendered the working class as male and considered women to be excluded from the public sphere, and contributed to the oppression of women. Revolutionaries prioritized men and accused women workers as the “most backward stratum of the proletariat” unable to develop a revolutionary consciousness without oversight. Feminism at the time was still limited to middle and upper-class, educated women, and was often considered counterrevolutionary. While the Bolsheviks were critical of bourgeois women’s groups and argued that they could not understand the needs of workers and peasant women, female students played a key role in sculpting the Bolshevik movement and some of the most notable moments in the Revolution are attributed to women. For example, the February Revolution attracted a large crowd of female factory workers and activists who had gathered in mass protest on International Women’s Day and played a key role in the first of two major revolutions in 1917. They were involved in the populist revolutionary movement, participated in printing/distributing propaganda, and carried out political/economic terrorist acts alongside men. Women played a key role in the Revolution of the late 19th-early 20th century.

Education

While European notions of equality became popular starting in 1850, women’s rights were closely tied to class, which was greatly affected by the Revolution, and feminist movements began to gain traction throughout the latter half of the 19th century. Again, the role of women within society fluctuated greatly as society itself changed. For example, in 1859 St. Petersburg University allowed women to audit its courses, but the policy was revoked just 4 years later. In 1860, feminist leaders Anna Filosofova, Nadezha Stasova, and Mariia Trubnikova (known then as “the triumvirate”) petitioned universities to educate women and funded organizations to help women become financially self-sufficient. By the early 1900s Russia had more female doctors, lawyers, and teachers than almost any country in Europe, but these educational benefits were only accessible to urban women of the bourgeoisie. The socioeconomic strata of the women’s rights movement largely reflected the strata of society as a whole, and peasant women remained almost universally illiterate and restricted.

WOMEN IN RUSSIA

"The Prettier Sex": The Role of Women

The role of women in Russian culture was much more traditional than that in European culture (this included rights, mobility, and presentation). In Europe, the transition from feudalism to capitalism happened over hundreds of years; in Russia, this transition was condensed into 25 rapid years after the emancipation of serfs in 1861. This delayed development and sudden transformation is reflected in the socio-cultural structures of Russia, particularly in the immediate aftermath of the mid-19th century. Women could earn independent wages, working most commonly as factory workers, domestic servants, midwives, telegraph workers, and teachers. Some could afford to dress fashionably, buy books, and were given access to dance halls, pleasure gardens, theatres, and limited education. Rights for women were largely tied to class, as wealthier women had access to education, arts, languages, and literature otherwise inaccessible to working-class women. These liberal arts were viewed as hobbies rather than valid careers, and if a woman’s creative work was good, it was described as “masculine”. Even in modern Russia, men are referred to as the “stronger sex” and women as the “prettier sex”.

Soviet women's journal founded in 1914 that featured relatively liberal content

Olga Rozanova Plate (folio 18) from Zaum

Olga Rozanova (19th Century Female Russian Artist),

"Plate (folio 18) " 1915

Women have the right to vote and be elected equally with men section 137 of the Constitution of the USSR. Below is the slogan: Hail the equality of Soviet women.

Restructuring + Reforms

After the February Revolution, the Bolshevik Party restructured its relationship to women. The Bolsheviks opposed any division of the working class, and initially refused to focus on women’s issues, publish literature targeting women, and create a bureau for women workers as they believed these would encourage separation within the united party. However, in 1917, they accepted the demands of the Russian feminist movement and established the Women’s Bureau. Lenin was greatly influenced by The Woman Question, and believed that men and women needed full autonomy, equal rights, and access to employment in order to be true comrades. Women were granted the right to vote 1917, divorce became attainable, the Family Code of 1918 gave women equal status to men, granted illegitimate children same legal rights as legitimate ones, secularised marriage, and allowed couples to take either the husband or wife’s name once married, and abortion was legalized in 1920.

As Stalin came into power, the social reforms of the early 1900s were quickly reversed as he shifted public and party attitudes towards conservatism by 1930. Today, Russia remains more traditionally gendered than its European counterparts and women’s rights remain contradictory in post-Soviet society. Women now have the right to paid maternity leave and parental leave, and were guaranteed equal rights under Article 19 of the 1993 Constitution of Russia. Working outside the home is common practice, though this is often necessary due to poverty and scarce government support systems. There are over 100 occupations legally forbidden from women and the gender pay gap is estimated at 30%, the second-largest gender pay gap in high-income countries in the world second to South Korea. Abortion is legalized, but sex work is illegal and human trafficking continues at an all-time high rate. In 2017 domestic violence was decriminalized for first offenses, a shift by Putin away from human rights and towards conservative values. One woman dies every 40 minutes due to domestic abuse.

S E X U A L

V I O L E N C E

"Unlimited Obedience": Domestic Violence

Despite relative freedom in terms of work and access to public spaces, married women still owed their husbands “unlimited obedience” and required permission before acquiring a job, education, or the internal passport needed to reside more than 15 mi. from her husband’s place of residence. While the law was favourable to women in the 17th + 18th century, it shifted during the 19th cent. and no longer supported them, another example of the fluctuating justice sparked by industrialization. Violence against women was common and normalized, and sentencing was often directly tied to class. Cases of assault and abuse (even where the woman died) were not treated seriously, as the woman's evidence relied on her “reputation” and social status, and abuse of poor women by wealthy/powerful men was extremely common. The punishment for a woman disobeying her husband was 10 lashes, and abuse was publicly tolerated and even encouraged. For example, in Russia in 1883, villagers “witnessed a woman harnessed to a cart, running alongside the horse to the cheerful jeering of her husband and father-in-law who were driving, [she] was badly beaten and soon lost consciousness.”

Vasili Pukirev, "The Unequal Marriage" (1863)

Rape + The Family

Abuse against women in the name of “disobedience” is an unfortunately common factor in marriage and the patriarchal unit across time and most, if not all, civilizations that Russia was, and continues to be, a contributor to. Many women were raped by their father-in-laws along with their husbands, making gang rape a custom of sorts in the 19th century. Not to mention more than half of charges were incest, most being accusations of fathers raping their daughters. The idea of justice and finding support in one’s own family home was an illusion, as this was often the place where abuse began. There were no ultimate justices for this violence due to the narrow definitions of what constituted rape, extreme conditions for the investigation or initial charge of rape, and the minimal lack of punishment.

Pussy Riot 2012, a feminist protest punk rock and performance art group based in Moscow. Stages unauthorized provocative guerrilla performances.

19th Century Reported Rapes in Russia

A Crime Against Honor

There was the ideal at the time that rape was a violent crime that should be countered and addressed. However, this concern was predominately tied to the idea of “honor”, which largely shaped society’s framework for approaching violence against women as a whole. It was believed that a crime was not done to a woman’s body, to her person, herself. Instead, it was a crime against her honor, her chastity, her preservation. Which, according to society, was not hers to own alone. A woman’s honor, if she was married, belonged just as much, if not more, to her husband, whom of course, could not be legally held accountable for raping that which is thought to be his property. This emphasis on honor closely draws on the societal expectation that only a certain kind of woman, those who had no virtue or chastity in the first place, were able to be raped. The mentality that only whores could be victims and that only men of low social standing or education committed these crimes disguised violence against women as a supposed class issue.

Vasili Pukirev, "The Unequal Marriage" (1863)

During the late 18th and 19th century, these carefully constructed social beliefs further legally limited who was able to rape and who was able to be raped. It was defined only as intercourse between a man and a woman against the woman’s will. Men could not be raped and the only tools used in the act were penises so that any other object inserted into a woman was not considered rape. The limitations set within the violence’s very definition permitted only a certain demographic to wear victimhood. It also relished a slew of conditions that needed to be met on a case by case basis to move forward toward any sort of “justice”.

Who Can Rape?

Illustration From "Killed by Gossip: Honor Killings of Women in the North Caucasus"

Nikolay Shilder, "Betrothal", 1859

A Few Conditions of Assault:

This all sounds hauntingly familiar to where we are today. And just as we’ve seen on our own screens. in our own lives, there was little punishment for those who actually made it past all the conditions and were convicted. A minimal fine. Monetary compensation. Brief labor sentence. If any. Most cases of course did not make it this far. Most were not reported. Most of the violence continued. And continues today.

*In February 2020, Russia saw a 72% rise in reported rape cases. 49% of women reported that they didn’t feel safe at home.

The violence must be “real”
A cry must be heard
1. If she was non-consenting but silent, the man’s actions could not be defined as rape
Bruises must be found on both victim and perpetrator
Bruises must be blue enough
The report must be filed by the end of the day of the attack
Judges must assess the degree of a woman’s resistance in order to prove if it’s genuine
1. (Yes, this is essentially re-assaulting the survivor)
2. If the resistance proved genuine, lawyers would most likely argue then it would be impossible to rape her in the first place

Women in Theatre

Russian actresses during the 19th century were praised for their sexuality.. It was practically expected that women on stage sacrifice their soul and body for the sake of achieving authenticity. The theatrical memoir was a common structural form that reinforced the gaze into women’s privacy as actresses openly narrated their own personal lives. In order to draw crowds, these were often stories of victimization, love sacrifice, and male attention. Despite the obvious unruly expectations of actresses, they had the opportunity to make choices and freedoms most women at the time did not possess. However, in 1757 when Rousseau boldly made the assumption that “feminine morality” can only exist in private, and that any woman who publicly displays her body for money is destined, sooner or later, to become a whore, he reset the expectations of women onstage entirely. The sexual availability of actresses and their so-called inevitable ties to prostitution became accustomed and likened the theatre to a bit of a brothel as the prejudice against the public display of female bodies continued to rise. With or without consent, male nobles often took actresses as mistresses and private sexual performances commonly took place after the public show. In a world where social status was stagnant, class changes suddenly became a bit more possible for these women. But, at what cost?

19th Century Russian Actress, Vera Komissarzhevskaia, who played Nina in Chekhov's The Seagull

Prostitute's Yellow Ticket or Replacement Card, 1904

Russian Prostitute 19th Century

Russian Prostitutes St. Petersburg, 1905

St. Petersburg Prostitutes 1905

The acceptability of sex work in Russia fluctuates throughout history, mostly due to the ever-changing role the church plays in social life. However, the overall treatment and support of sex workers’ working conditions were quite progressive at the time. Catherine the Great advocated for the health and safety conditions for sex workers by providing and requiring they undergo routine medical check-ups. She also gave the order that industrialists provide work to convicted prostitutes to break the cycle of those forced into the work not by their own choice but for their own survival. Those who continued in the field could do so without drastic and unjust punishments as a simple fine was often the repercussion. Though these attitudes are still not the hopeful decriminalization wanted, Catherine the Great’s permissible attitudes and lack of isolation towards sex workers shaped generational thought to come. In the coming years, “Yellow Tickets” or essential licenses for prostitution were required and stated the biweekly medical checkup on them. Additionally, “Supervision Rules'' were listed to ensure the safety of workers, brothels, and clients alike. By 1901, there were about 2,400 brothels and over 15,000 sex workers in Russia. Most were probably lower-class and most were probably not registered and operated under the occupation of “actress”, “singer”, or “dancer”. Though prostitution was common, it was (and still is) seen as moral condemnation for women and hobby or leisure for men. By labeling sex work as immoral, authorities are able to legitimize police repression thereby further oppressing and interfering in the lives of mostly lower-class women.

Sex Work Today

Today there are 1-3 million sex workers in Russia who mostly work and find clients online. Women are often older and 90% of them are mothers forced into it to financially provide for their children. On average, they earn about $3,800/month which is more than double the average salary. As we see in Russia’s past attitudes, it still remains illegal yet socially known. Due to stigmatization and criminalization, sex workers continue to face disease, violence (particularly police violence), and corruption. To learn more on how to support sex workers’ justice look into the human rights group: SWAN (Sex Workers Rights Advocacy Network) https://swannet.org/

S E X W O R K

#IDidn'tWantToDie Campaign, Russian women post selfies with fake injuries to protest lax domestic violence law

“There are very few records of lesbian communities or discussions of gay women. Female homosexuality was not acknowledged as a possibility, hence never made illegal, and so there are no police archives and only a few medical accounts that discuss the “treatment” of lesbians.”

- Sasha Rasponina

G A Y C U L T U R E

The conversation surrounding gay culture and the existence of LGBTQ+ members of society was primarily centered around gay men.
The first law against homosexuality for men in the navy was signed in 1716, and homosexuality was banned for civilians in 1835.
- While there were laws in place prohibiting homosexuality, they were seldom enforced.
The emancipation of serfs in 1861 lead to a mass migration of former serfs to major cities such as St. Petersburg and Moscow
- This migration led to the creation of new communities, and, by default, created a way for a “non-normative sexual subculture” to emerge.
Some of the most notable homosexuals were actually members of the nobility, though records of their identities are hard to fully study
A popular trend that started in the 1700s was the trend of “cross-dressing” balls, which were first made popular by Elizabeth I.
They also allowed women to be free of restrictive garments such as corsets.

Alexandra Kollontai, Russian revolutionary. Famed for ‘glass of water.' theory that states love/sex should be available to anyone as easily as asking for a glass of water.

The Egorov baths in St Petersburg, 1914.

Protestors outside the Petersburg Duma during the 1905 Revolution — the catalyst for a major homophobic crackdown by the imperial government

“While balls involving cross-dressing were popular throughout Europe, they took on special meaning in Russia in the 18th century, an era dominated by female rulers looking to assert their authority through symbols of masculinity.”

- Jennifer Wilson

Drag Ball, 1920s

The Egorov baths in St Petersburg, 1914. Bathhouses were known centres of male prostitution and companionship