Women Under Communism
JANCAR, BARBARA WOLFE
TALKS WITH Women Under Communism by barbara wolfe jancar Rozalia Speteanu is in her 40s. Her elegant blue dress and stylishly short dark hair offset a demeanor that is competent, authoritative....
...These achievements would have been impossible without Soviet power...
...My first discovery, however, came not from interviews or casual conversations, but from simply looking around in the major cities...
...They like the independence that comes from being a breadwinner, and are pleased by the sense of participation and fulfillment they feel...
...Ivanova worked in various Bulgarian research institutes...
...One of the USSR's foremost specialists on the women of her native Uzbekistan, and the author of a book on their emancipation in the 1920s and '30s, she is happy to be associated with the Museum...
...Today we are free to walk in the streets as we please...
...two are doctors and one is an engineer...
...The "babushka," or grandmother, system is especially popular in the Soviet Union...
...This is seen, especially in Rumania, as a problem that must be overcome if the women of Eastern Europe are to move into the 20th century...
...In Soviet Central Asia I found the same combination of warmth and efficiency when I spoke to Khydshume Shukurova, Director of Tashkent's Lenin Museum...
...In contrast to the scrubbed faces I noticed in Moscow in 1961, eye shadow and lipstick seem to have become the standard equipment of the young female Muscovite...
...And throughout Eastern Europe, women seemed willing to pay more to be seen wearing something individual...
...Divorce rates vary, depending on laws and attitudes...
...Contrary to a common Western belief that the female labor force in Communist societies is spread across the entire occupational spectrum, the tendency, reinforced by health and government regulations, is for men to enter certain fields and women to enter others-most notably those associated with the nurturing role they have in more traditional societies...
...As one female physician told me, "Doctors are employes just like everyone else.'' Interestingly, women are conspicuously absent from high Party and government posts, and in my several encounters with those holding important jobs I learned that decision-making responsibilities are reserved primarily for men...
...For one thing, children are expensive, particularly if the parents want to give the child everything they missed when they were young, like music or tennis lessons, private English instruction, a summer vacation at a Pioneer camp, nice clothes...
...Furthermore, a new mother is guaranteed time off from work ??anywhere from one year without pay in the Soviet Union to seven years, starting with full pay and tapering off to nothing, in Rumania...
...Shukurova has three sons...
...Under her command are some 52 enterprises that together make up about 90 per cent of all services available to the city's population...
...she asks me...
...When I asked three young girls and one young boy from the Central Asian town of Fergana what they wanted to grow up to be, the girls said a teacher, a doctor and a nurse, and the boy said a pilot...
...Director Ivanova observed that Sofia dressmakers, who fall under her jurisdiction, were in great demand, although their prices are considerably steeper than those of stores selling ready-made clothes...
...Finally, women who work realize they have only a limited amount of time to devote to domestic activities, and they choose to concentrate their attention on one child rather than spread themselves thin...
...Like Director Speteanu, Director Ivanova exudes warmth and feminine charm along with seriousness and competence...
...Soviet Woman, the most popular women's monthly, currently stresses, along with industry and patriotism, such "feminine" qualities as attractiveness, softness, motherhood, and sex appeal...
...My interviewees were convinced that women made better students than men because they were more industrious, and better workers because they were more adaptable to changing conditions...
...Female tractor drivers are forbidden in Rumania on the grounds that the vibrations of the motor may damage the uterus, while in the USSR women are encouraged to drive tractors as a means of combating male elitism in the countryside...
...The women I interviewed seemed aware of the conflict between the old and new even in themselves...
...Saturdays are reserved for domestic chores, and Sundays Mrs...
...Where do women find employment...
...Both sexes apparently see mining, engineering and mathematics as male pursuits, and this inclination to separate vocations on a sexual basis extends back to childhood...
...Mrs...
...Statistics reveal that women outnumber men in teaching, especially elementary education, accounting, medicine, the food industry, textiles, and, more recently, chemistry, which may bear a relationship to cooking...
...The Communist world now abounds in beauty parlors, and Mrs...
...Elena Ivanova heads the Chief Home Services Administration for the Bulgarian capital of Sofia...
...At first, she told me, her job was difficult, but she managed, thanks to her mother's helping hand at home...
...such facilities are a more recent phenomenon in the other nations...
...Director Ivanova sees the State's provision of more laundries, increased semi-prepared foods and new restaurants as practical steps for the liberation of women...
...With an Army husband and a 16-year-old son, Mrs...
...One female sociologist in Moscow, who believed technology would in time eradicate the differing work capabilities of the sexes, went so far as to say that women eventually would outnumber men in leadership positions, since they were cleverer and had a more down-to-earth approach to problem-solving...
...Ivanova are chemical engineers, as is Madame Ceausescu, wife of the Rumanian First Secretary...
...She then went into the government, and before her appointment as Director in 1971 was secretary for industry to the Sofia regional Communist party executive committee...
...when she leaves the house, and ends as late as 8 p.m., following a Party meeting or a discussion with the people she represents as deputy to the Sofia City Council...
...A Hungarian sociologist I spoke to may have expressed it most succinctly...
...Speteanu proudly informed me that the demand for cosmetics had skyrocketed, with projections for a steadily increasing market...
...When she gets home, there are household chores to be done, and if official surveys are to be believed, her husband rarely helps...
...Barbara Wolfe Jancar, visiting Associate Professor of Political Science at Union College, is writing a book on women in Communist lands...
...The West may consider chemistry and medicine high-status male domains, but there is no special aura attached to either area in Communist states...
...Does Afghanistan give such freedom to its women...
...Consequently, she has very little free time...
...In the USSR abortions exceed live births at the second pregnancy...
...To at least some extent, careers open to women differ from country to country...
...The goal is essentially the same throughout the industrialized world: to provide a haven of love and tranquility from the tensions generated by technological civilization...
...In Rumania, seasonal chic was expressed by a sheepskin coat, a hat to match the fur trim on the collar and high boots of real leather...
...All of the Communist nations, though, are concerned about what has been called the "feminization of agriculture," brought about by the predominance of women on the land...
...Where it is permitted, abortion has been increasing over the past decade...
...And serious...
...The Soviet rate equals that of the United States...
...In Bulgaria and Rumania, where divorce is difficult, it is lower still...
...We could not study or hold jobs...
...Sociologists emphasize the need for husband-and-wife cooperation...
...Many prefer to stay home with their children or have their mothers babysit...
...Although several of the individuals with whom I spoke questioned the findings, government surveys indicate that once having gone to work, women enjoy their jobs...
...She may have to spend two hours each day commuting to and from work...
...Her position gives her access to data on the initial policy decisions that brought Central Asian women out of their Moslem seclusion and into the labor force...
...In America," she said, "consciousness has preceded economic opportunity for women...
...Population growth has declined sharply, and is now a matter of official concern in Eastern Europe, and, to a lesser degree, the Soviet Union...
...After taking a degree at the Soviet Institute of Novocherkassk, Mrs...
...The USSR's is the most extensive...
...Then, too, living space remains in short supply, and cramped apartments are no inducement to large families...
...If this seems to echo the American notion of the modern family, it is not surprising...
...Young girls donned it in adolescence and wore it for the rest of their lives...
...She is married and has two daughters...
...They felt women should be protected from heavy physical labor and from work that might endanger their capacity to bear children...
...Even the governments' considerable efforts to improve conditions of maternity and infant care have not forestalled the trend toward one-child households...
...In every oase, she is assured of her old job when she returns to work, plus all the benefits that would have accrued to her had she not interrupted her career...
...My mother was forbidden by my father to leave the house except with his permission...
...Our faces are uncovered...
...India...
...I also talked informally with women I happened to meet in the streets, subway stations and stores...
...The task for us now is to raise consciousness...
...Have you been to our historical museum...
...Of course, high fashion is not something everyone can afford (the total cost of the Rumanian outfit was $250, whereas salaries there average $150 a month...
...Does Egypt...
...On the other, she feels the tug of tradition toward the old female stereotype of housekeeper and mother...
...But a critically essential difference remains between women in the East and in the West...
...Paid leave two months before and two months after a baby is born has been a policy of all Communist regimes from the beginning...
...As for domestic affairs, a woman in a Communist nation is likely to be married and have at least one child...
...Mrs...
...She is a grandmother as well, and, like most Uzbeks, enthusiastically looks forward to being a grandmother many times more...
...In general, the people I talked to agreed with the policy of setting sexual restrictions on employment...
...Fundamentally, the successful woman in Eastern Europe and the USSR is strikingly similar to her Western counterpart...
...Feminine interest in dress and appearance, derided by Marxists in the past as bourgeois decadence, has burst forth across the USSR and the satellite nations...
...I was, in fact, surprised to find women in Moscow and Leningrad adamant against having more than one child...
...In Moscow, the Institute of Sociology is engaged in a project to develop a model of a happy Socialist family-predicated on what is termed a democratic authority pattern of shared duties among parents and children, shared decision making and a cooperative spirit...
...Indeed, while the majority of women in Communist countries work, a significant proportion do so because it is difficult to maintain a family on a single income...
...On the other hand, many women enter the ranks of the proletariat because Marxist ideology has taught them that full emancipation is possible only through labor...
...State maternity incentives, kindergartens and day-care centers notwithstanding, daily living is harder for a young woman in a Communist society than for her Western sisters...
...In the Soviet Union, they are not allowed to serve in the Armed Forces, yet in Rumania, they can and do...
...Now her life is a busy routine that starts at 7 a.m...
...Ivanova and Mrs...
...Unlike most working women in Eastern Europe, she is driven to and from her job, and has a housekeeper to do the cleaning and family cooking...
...She will have to stand in line for as much as 45 minutes to purchase food for the evening meal...
...In Hungary the overall number is higher than the number of live births...
...This winter, the fashionable woman in the Soviet capital was sporting a new "shuba," or fur coat, and fur hat...
...Have you seen the paranja, the garment that used to cover women from head to foot...
...Hungary's is somewhat lower...
...Women, for the most part, seem enthusiastic about the kindergartens, but less positive about the nurseries...
...In our country, it is the opposite...
...That enthusiasm carries over into her praise for the Soviets' liberation of her countrywomen...
...To relieve working mothers of child-care burdens, every Communist country runs a network of nurseries and kindergartens...
...On the one hand, she is urged to participate in civic and economic life like a man...
...Speteanu, Mrs...
...Speteanu needs the assistance, for hers is a grueling six-day week...
...We can marry whom we choose and pursue any career we like...
...But I also noticed a very positive assessment of women's capabilities...
...Shukurova were among the 50 women in leadership positions whom I interviewed on a recent trip to the Communist countries in an effort to find out what sort of woman was emerging there, and how she compares with her Western counterpart...
...Ivanova likes to go on visits or outings with her family...
...she did not joke once in the course of a two-hour interview...
...Speteanu and Mrs...
...She is Director of the Miraj cosmetic factory, Rumania's largest, employing 500 persons...
...Women I met gave various reasons for these changing patterns...
...Most of us were illiterate...
Vol. 58 • March 1975 • No. 7
