Women's Work And Women's Lives by Hilda Kahne

Author:Hilda Kahne [Kahne, Hilda]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, Gender Studies
ISBN: 9781000009613
Google: zZSwDwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2019-09-18T04:58:43+00:00

Impact of Gorbachev's Policies on Women's Roles

The accession of Mikhail Gorbachev to the Soviet leadership and the inauguration of what became an increasingly far-reaching program of reforms had dramatic, although largely unintended, consequences for women's roles. On the one hand, the political changes associated with glasnost and democratization eliminated many of the taboos that had long constrained the discussion of gender issues and created unprecedented opportunities for social and political activism around a broad range of causes. At the same time, the mounting economic crisis precipitated by the leadership's erratic economic policies drove sheer economic survival to the top of women's agendas. As rampant inflation and the breakdown of the consumer sector produced growing hardship and increasing social unrest, "hunting and gathering" absorbed an increasing share of time and attention.

None of this was anticipated in the first months or even years of the Gorbachev era. To the extent that he had any new approach to women's issues in mind, its direction remained unclear and indeed contradictory. Some of his early initiatives gave women's issues higher visibility, including his energetic advocacy of the promotion of more women in political life and his appointment of Aleksandra Biryokova to the party's powerful Secretariat; his role in the creation of a national women's organization intended to link the Soviet Women's Committee to a broad nationwide network of local women's councils; and his emphasis on the need for new attention to be given to social and family policy. The prominent role and unprecedented visibility of his wife Raisa, however controversial, also altered the ethos of secrecy and male domination traditionally surrounding the general-secretary.

Gorbachev's early economic policies appeared to signal more ominous implications for women. The effort to promote more rapid economic growth and increased technological innovation by stimulating greater competition within the workplace carried with it the prospect of massive dismissals of redundant workers and growing wage differentiation. Coupled with Gorbachev's call for an expansion of the service sector, these prospects suggested the likelihood of a long-term shift in female labor force participation from industrial to service employment (Kostakov 1986). Had the Soviet leadership moved forward with a decisive economic program aimed at marketization and privatization, Soviet women would have confronted some of the problems of their counterparts in Poland, East Germany, and elsewhere in Eastern Europe. In the Soviet case, however, it was the economic dislocation resulting from the absence of decisive reform that had devastating consequences for women. Under these circumstances it may appear cavalier to focus on the implications of Gorbachev's political reforms for Soviet women. However, it may be that the most positive and enduring legacy of Gorbachev's leadership will be the intellectual, political, and spiritual liberation his reforms unleashed.

The impact of glasnost on discussion of women's issues was particularly dramatic. Not only did this discussion radically broaden in its scope, frankness, and forms of discourse, but a series of issues that were previously taboo— including prostitution, rape, contraception, and homosexuality—became legitimate topics of analysis and debate. Just as terms such

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