The fight for w in the ex-So

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"In the countryside, grandmothers often still assume a part of the burden of rearing their grandchildren. In the cities, families depend on public The crumbling of Stalinism has broken down the barriers that prevented contacts between those fighting for women's rights in the countries of so-called actually existing socialism and those engaged in a similar struggle in the rest of the world. It has opened up the way for an important international widening of the women's The following article compares the situation of women in the former Soviet Union and in the West. It also tries to assess where the women's movement is today in the ex-USSR. The article has been taken from the March 16, 1992, issue of International Viewpoint, the journal of the United Secretariat of the Fourth International. It has been slightly abridged.

For a long time, education and training of women have been comprehensively guaranteed in the Soviet Union. In 198485, 54 percent of high school students and 58 percent of technical school students were women. For medical and teacher training institutions, the proportion of women reached 69 percent and 73 percent, respectively.

At the same time, 37 percent of magistrates and 40 percent of academics were women. But only 14 percent of higher ranking academics were women. Moreover, medical doctors are not highly respected professionals in the USSR, and teaching is actually looked down upon as a miserably paid "woman's" job. Women made up 80 percent of primary school heads, and 37 percent of heads of secondary schools.

Women represented 53 percent of the population and 51 percent of the workforce. However, as in the U.S. and Western Europe, Soviet women on average earned only about 60 percent to 65 percent of what men earned. Thus, we have to be wary about what the formal equality in education between the sexes means.

In the Soviet Union also, women have been concentrated in certain industries. They make up 85 percent of the workforce in textiles, 91 percent in trade and catering, but only 16 percent in engineering.

In 1988—and nothing has changed decisively since then-some analysts pointed to the difficult situation women face. Some 3.5 million of them worked in unhealthy conditions. Moreover, four million did night work (more than the total for men), despite the fact that legally women can only be required to do night work in special cases.

Since 1988, it has become clear that when an enterprise adopts the profit principle, it is women who lose their jobs first. Women with children are not hired and the enterprise's social amenities are cut back, with women suffering the most.

Some 80 percent of job cutbacks in administration have hit women. In November 1991, 77 percent of the unemployed in Moscow were women. A ban on laying off women who are the "sole providers" for their households is now under consideration.

The Soviet leadership realized that they had to draw women behind perestroika. That is shown by the fact that they set up women's councils in the factories.

The Law on Enterprises [one of the principal pieces of legislation involved in perestroika] proposed tasks for these bodies, but they were only vaguely defined. The councils were "to concern themselves with matters that affect women at work and in everyday life." Without clearly defined powers, however, these councils could not do anything.

Abortion, birth control, divorce A special problem that now at least is being brought to public attention through readers' letters, concerns the principal form of birth control—abortion. It was legalized immediately after the seizure of power by the Bolsheviks.

In the Stalin era, abortion was again made a criminal offense. After 1936, it was totally forbidden. In 1955, it was again officially permitted on medical grounds. In 1968, all restrictions were removed. Abortion became the method of birth control.

Means for contraception are not widely available even in the big cities. The quality of condoms—whose production was increased with the advent of AIDS— is inadequate (they tend to be either leaky or too thick). Moreover, a lot of women are so afraid of the effect the pill might have on their health that they refuse to use it. A typical remark is "the pill is a hormone preparation, and I think it's harmful."

(Thalidomide is confused with drugs preventing ovulation, and the consequences of taking thalidomide are presented as the results of taking the contraceptive pill.) Women, however, do use the coil as a method of contraception.

Almost every woman in the ex-Soviet Union has had an abortion, usually from one to five times. But some have had as many as 15 abortions. Unless they pay for it themselves, they face a bloody and barbaric operation. It is now being stressed that every women has a right to anaesthesia both in abortions and births.

Babies are delivered exclusively in clinics. And in most births the availability of painkillers depends on readiness to pay. From many interviews and descriptions, it can be gathered that medical care and drugs can be had for the right price. Naturally, women are particularly bitter about this sort of corruption.

Although in much of the ex-Soviet Union unmarried couples living together is tolerated, marriage remains the acceptable norm. While formally only a type of registration, marriage has a romantic element expressed in a ceremony resembling a church service, with white dresses, dark suits, bouquets, music and speeches.

The bridal pair can obtain a "marriage book" when they set the date. This entitles them to make purchases in special stores, where they can buy a sort of trousseau and wedding clothes.

Often marriages do not last long. The divorce rate in the old USSR was 3.4 per thousand inhabitants, as compared with a marriage rate of 9.3 per thousand. In most cases, divorce proceedings are initiated by women, frequently because of their husbands' alcoholism. A "ruined sex life" is also often cited as a reason.

Problems of everyday life fall disproportionately on women Virtually no sex education is provided in the schools. Today, however, everything is up for discussion, and the need for sex education is being openly raised. The AIDS problem, now openly recognized in the exUSSR, is an argument for sex education. At the same time, pornography and prostitution are surfacing.

Divorced women do not face serious material losses, although a single woman with two or more children is regarded as a social problem. They have their own jobs and incomes. Childcare is an exceptionally difficult problem, as is general family support.

In families that stay together, it is the Peter Turn women who assume the predominant share of the housework. They do 70 percent of the shopping, 80 percent of the cooking, 64 percent of dishwashing, 90 percent of the laundry, and 87 percent of the ironing. (These figures are from the 1960s. Since then, the situation may have improved slightly.)

In the big cities, in particular, especially in Moscow, 20 percent to 25 percent of families are crammed into shared-housing arrangements. Today, the per capita living space is 15.2 square meters (in the United States it is 40 sq.m.).

Large dwellings may accommodate two, three or often even more families. Young couples often live with their parents, so that five or six people are sharing two rooms, and cooking and washing facilities have to be shared with even more people. institutions."

In 1986, the Twenty Seventh Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union decided that by the year 2000 every family should have an apartment or house of their own. Home building was to be officially promoted, since having your own home "makes for strong and big families."

In the countryside, grandmothers often still assume a part of the burden of rearing their grandchildren. In the cities, families depend on public institutions.

Motherhood laws in the ex-USSR have made it easier for mothers to care for their children in the first stage of their lives (the fathers are not mentioned in these laws). To care for infants, mothers were granted a year's part-paid leave, which could be extended for another half year. They were guaranteed a job to return to. In 1990, they were accorded three years unpaid maternity leave.

A special complaint of women in Moscow, however, is that the daycare centers usually are neither near their homes or their workplaces. Women-and sometimes men-have to make hour-long journeys twice a day on overcrowded public transport to and trom the daycare centers. As a result, single women in particular place their charges in children's homes and see them only on weekends.

Many women have a low opinion of the kindergartens. Mothers complain that the children are always sick, especially with colds. Class size is often 25 or more.

The 1986-1990 five-year plan provided for 3 million more places in pre-school institutions. In 1983, there were places for 14.4 million children in such institutions, as compared with only 4.4 million in 1960.

On the basis of population increases, it can be estimated that there are 33 million children of pre-school age, of whom four to five million are being looked after at home. Thus, only about half of children in this age group can find places in public institutions.

In general, shopping is women's work. Often groups are formed in the plants, who send women to do shopping on a shift