Lynne Attwood

Gender and Housing in Soviet Russia: Private Life in a Public Space

This book explores the housing crisis throughout Soviet history, looking at changing political ideology on appropriate socialist forms of housing, the meaning and experience of ?home? for Soviet citizens, and the differential experiences of men and women. MUP?s peer reviewers described it as ?accessible, informative and engaging?, but with sufficient new evidence and insight to make it ??cutting-edge? research?; ?[e]xisting studies of Soviet housing are either more limited in chronological scope or more focused on matters of policy at the expense of social history?; ?[i]mportant topics that sometimes slip out of the researcher?s gaze are here dealt with clearly and securely.? Since publication it has been positively reviewed in a range of prestigious journals, with one reviewer, Christine Varga-Harris (Reviews in History) describing it as ?striking for the breadth of topics it covers?.

The Popular Press

Anatolii Strelyanyi recalls that in 1976 the journal Literaturnaya Gazeta ventured to suggest, for the first time since the Revolution, that there were certain ‘negative aspects to the independence of the female sex’.1 In fact, as we have seen, pedagogical writers had been arguing the same point for more than a decade. In the mid-1970s, the themes which had long held an important place within the pedagogical literature — the need to resurrect traditional ideals of masculinity and femininity, to revise the definition of equality between the sexes, and to praise (though seemingly not reward) women’s demographic contribution to society as highly as men’s work contribution — entered the pages of the general press.

Privatisation of Housing in Post-Soviet Russia: A New Understanding of Home?

Abstract This article is concerned with the attitudes of the nascent Russian ‘middle class’ towards the privatisation of housing. It focuses on the questions of whether private ownership had an impact on these peoples understanding of ‘home’, whether it resulted in greater satisfaction with their housing, and whether it gave them the sense of being ‘stakeholders’ in Russian society. The principal research method was a questionnaire emailed to people in Moscow, St Petersburg and three provincial cities. A history of housing in Soviet Russia is also provided, along with an overview of research on housing and the home in other industrialised countries.

Housing in the Khrushchev era

One of the major problems confronting the Soviet Union at the start of the Khrushchev era was how to house its citizens adequately.1 The situation was particularly bad in areas formerly occupied by the Nazis or that had endured heavy fighting during the war, where thousands of people were virtually camping in dugouts, ruined buildings, basements, barns, bathhouses, train carriages and other places considered unfit for human habitation.2 Even in the capital, the vast majority of people were crammed into so-called ‘communal apartments’, where they had to share cooking and washing facilities with other residents, while some still lived in wooden barracks that had originally been intended as temporary post-war accommodation.3

Women workers at play: The portrayal of leisure in the magazine Rabotnitsa in the first two decades of Soviet power

Leisure has been variously defined as ‘freedom from the demands of work or duty’,1 ‘time at one’s own disposal’,2 that period of the day or week when one can rest and recuperate from the stresses of work, enjoy a break from routine, develop non-work interests and activities.3 It has been argued that leisure came into existence as a separate, compartmentalised part of people’s lives only with the industrial revolution; there were fairs, holy days, feasts, markets and other occasions for fun in pre-industrial times, but a clear split between work and leisure, as with the split between the workplace and the home, were products of industrialisation and urbanisation.4

‘ To Give Birth or Not to Give Birth? ’: Having Children in Soviet and Post-Soviet Russia

This chapter explores the intense concern, both in the Soviet Union and in post-Soviet Russia, with the so-called ‘demographic crisis’, and how the authorities have attempted to deal with it in different historical periods. In the present day, it considers Putin’s understanding of its causes, how he has attempted to resolve it, and how this fits in with his broader understanding of the family and gender relations in Russia. In Soviet times there were no reliable sources which could tell us how women themselves viewed these subjects, but this is no longer the case. Accordingly, the chapter analyses discussions on internet sites to discern how important the family and children are for women in post-Soviet Russia, how they explain their decision whether or not to have children, and how their attitudes differ from those of women in the late Soviet era.

The New Soviet Man and Woman: Sex-Role Socialization in the USSR

Part 1: The concept of sex upbringing the demographic crisis the link between sex upbringing and the demographic crisis the effects of Glasnost and Perestroika on women the outline of the book a note on translation and terminology. Part 2 Western theories of male and female personality differences: psychoanalytic theory social learning theory cognitive developmental theory feminism and sex differences in personality. Part 3 Soviet psychology and personality development: historical outline Ivan Pavlov the Troika - Vygotskii, Luria and Leontev the development of moral attitudes and behaviour biology and society in the development and personality a proposed Soviet theory of male and female personality, according to the tenets of Soviet psychology. Part 4 Soviet psychologists on sex differences: sex differences in ontogenesis, B.G.Ananev sex differences in interpersonal understanding, A.A.Bodalev sex differences in choice of toys, V.S.Mukhina sex differences in mental problem solving, T.G.Khashchenko sex differences and identification with parents - the work of A.I.Zakharov sex differences and identification with parents - the work of A.Ya.Varga sex differences and success in marriage, V.A.Kuts and V.P.Bagrunov sex differences in the development of moral behaviour, L.S.Sapozhnikova a comparison of British and Soviet approaches to sex differences in school subject preference, A.Kelly and T.Snegireva. Part 5 The work of I.S.Kon: personality, social roles, and the social construction of sex differences the role of biology in the development of sex differences the erosion of traditional sex differences in personality the interaction of social and biological influences more recent work. Part 6 Sex-change in the USSR - A.I.Belkins theory of gender development, and his treatment of hermaphrodites: hermaphroditism and transsexualism - the western approach Belkinss approach - hormones and sex differences the process of gender reassignment Belkins theory of gender development Belkin and western writings on gender Belkin and the pro-family ethos Belkin and Soviet psychology. Part 7 Sociological and demographic approaches to sex differences: the female personality under socialism male and female roles in the family. Part 8 The pedagogical approach to sex differences: the early pedagogical writings on sex differences conflicting opinions within the early writings the recent writings a summary of the pedagogical writings pedagogy and psychology pedagogy and the medical profession warnings against the encouragement of excessive sex-differentiation in personality summary of the pedagogical and medical approach. (part contents)

The Practical Application of Soviet Ideas on Sex Differences

We mentioned in the introduction that efforts have been made to tackle the demographic crisis on a practical as well as an ideological level. Yet improvements in material conditions do not automatically increase the birth-rate; indeed, Soviet demographers have shown that they can have the opposite effect.1 They have, accordingly, argued that it is also necessary to convince people that they want more children — to form in them, as one writer put it, ‘a thirst for fatherhood and motherhood’.2

Sex Role Socialization in the USSR: Summary of the Past, and Prospects for the Future

This book has primarily been a study of Soviet views on sex differences in personality, and the social roles which supposedly reflect them. It has charted the discussion from its emergence in the 1960s up until the present day. The Soviet Union is now in a state of flux, and the opening up of public debate has entered this field as well as others. However, before we turn to the future and ask what might become of relations between the sexes in the Soviet Union, we should turn back the pages and summarize the story so far.

The Work of I. S. Kon

The work of I. S. Kon merits a separate chapter for two main reasons. Firstly, he is one of the few Soviet scholars to have devoted much time to an analysis of sex differences in personality. Secondly, he spans a number of disciplines, and so fits awkwardly into any single category. He has been described as a social-psychologist, sociologist, ethnographer, and (increasingly) sexologist. This profusion of titles is not inappropriate, since Kon strives to maintain an interdisciplinary approach. He is aware of, and frequently cites, research undertaken in a variety of disciplines, both in the USSR and in the West, and laments the failure of other social scientists to learn from the work of their colleagues in related fields. For example, in one hard-hitting article in Pravda Kon anticipates the failure of the school reform proposals, introduced in 1984, unless pedagogical theorists and teachers join forces with psychologists and sociologists to produce an integrated study of children and the various agents of socialization. He goes on to attack the Academy of Pedagogical Sciences for virtually sabotaging the development of such a co-ordinated project by ignoring the work of neighbouring disciplines — notably sociology and social-pedagogy — rather than serving as a centre for the assimilation and assessment of all work in this area.1