Creating the new Soviet woman : women's magazines as engineers of female identity, 1922-1953

This book explores the Soviet attempt to propagandise the 'new Soviet woman' through the magazines Rabotnitsa and Krest'yanka from the 1920s to the end of the Stalin era. Balancing work and family did not prove easy in a climate of shifting economic and demographic priorities, and the book charts the periodic changes made to the model. "The 'new Soviet person' the Bolsheviks were committed to creating was to be a qualitatively different type to that which existed under capitalism: a creature willing and eager to subordinate his or her own interests to those of society. Both men and women would play a full role in the construction of socialism, but the model of the `new woman' had an additional feature - she also had to reproduce the population. Balancing work and family did not prove easy, especially against the background of shifting economic and demographic priorities, and periodic changes had to be made. This book explores the ways in which the 'new woman', in her various incarnations, was presented to female citizens from the 1920s to the end of the Stalin era in the pages of the popular women's magazines, Rabotnitsa (The Woman Worker) and Krest'yanka (The Peasant Woman)."--Publisher description The 'new Soviet person' the Bolsheviks were committed to creating was to be a qualitatively different type to that which existed under capitalism: a creature willing and eager to subordinate his or her own interests to those of society. Both men and women would play a full role in the construction of socialism, but the model of the ǹew woman' had an additional feature - she also had to reproduce the population. Balancing work and family did not prove easy, especially against the background of shifting economic and demographic priorities, and periodic changes had to be made. This book explores the ways in which the 'new woman', in her various incarnations, was presented to female citizens from the 1920s to the end of the Stalin era in the pages of the popular women's magazines, Rabotnitsa (The Woman Worker) and Krest'yanka (The Peasant Woman) Front Matter....Pages i-v Introduction....Pages 1-19 Front Matter....Pages 21-30 Work versus Family....Pages 31-39 Marriage, Divorce and Unwanted Pregnancy....Pages 40-51 The Promotion of New Gender Relations....Pages 52-65 Beauty, Fashion and Femininity....Pages 66-71 Variations in the ‘New Woman’....Pages 72-76 Front Matter....Pages 77-85 Women’s Experience of Industrialisation and Collectivisation....Pages 87-96 Overfulfilling the Plan....Pages 97-103 Home Life....Pages 104-114 Compulsory Motherhood: The 1936 Abortion Law....Pages 115-125 Gender Confusion in the Stalin Era: ‘Completely New People’, or Traditional Wives and Mothers?....Pages 126-135 Women in the Great Patriotic War....Pages 136-148 The Postwar Era....Pages 149-167 Conclusion....Pages 168-174 Back Matter....Pages 175-213 The "new soviet person" the Bolsheviks were committed to creating was to be a creature willing and eager to subordinate his or her own interests to those of society. Both men and women would play a full role in the construction of socialism, but the model of the "new women" had an additional feature--she also had to reproduce the population. This book explores the ways in which the "new woman," in her various incarnations, was presented to female citizens of the 1920s to the end of the Stalin era in the pages of popular women's magazines, Rabotnitsa (The Woman Worker) and Krest'yanka (The Peasant Woman). The Soviet attempt to propagandise the ''new Soviet woman'' through the magazines ''Rabotnitsa'' and ''Krest'yanka'' from the 1920s to the end of the Stalin era is explored here. Women were expected to play a full role in the construction of socialism, but they also had to reproduce the population. Balancing work and family did not prove easy in a climate of shifting economic and demographic priorities, and the periodic changes made to the model are charted here The new socialist women, says Attwood (Russian studies, U. of Manchester), were not only expected to subordinate their own interests to those of society, as men were, but also to reproduce the next generation of socialists. She shows how the new woman was portrayed in the popular magazines Rabotnitsa (The Woman Worker) and Krest'yanka (The Peasant Woman), especially images of how to balance work and family. "This book explores the ways in which the 'new woman', in her various incarnations, was presented to female citizens from the 1920s to the end of the Stalin era in the pages of the popular women's magazines, Rabotnitsa (The Woman Worker) and Krest'yanka (The Peasant Woman)."--BOOK JACKET