Soviet Women: Walking the Tightrope - Softcover

Gray, Francine Du Plessix

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0385417330 ISBN 13: 9780385417334

Publisher: Anchor, 1991

Synopsis

Shares the current concerns of Russian women, describes their role in Russian society, and looks at how their discontent has helped lead to the massive changes sweeping the nation

About this title

From School Library Journal:

The subtitle reflects the attitudes of Soviet women, who are constitutionally guaranteed full equality with men, but who after decades of working harder than most members of the opposite sex are willing to be a little less equal and have a lot less work to do. The geographically, culturally, and economically diverse group of women interviewed herein are bound by the recurring theme of lack of time and often lack of energy to accomplish all the tasks expected of them. Working women have essentially two jobs-the one they go to and the one they return to. The women interviewed are interesting and often individualistic. The problems addressed are diverse: intense disagreements usually centered around the lack of support from the family; anxiety over the quality of child-care centers; the difficulty of purchasing often even the simplest necessities; and the horrors of abortion, a common form of birth control. --Catherine B. Bryan, Jefferson Sci-Tech, Alexandria, VA
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal:

Both specialists and casual observers of the Soviet Union will find ample food for thought on every page of this vivid, informal survey on the attitudes and problems of Soviet women, conducted by Gray, author of esteemed nonfiction ( Adam & Eve and the City , LJ 8/87) and fiction ( Lovers & Tyrants , LJ 10/1/76). Her commentary reveals lives which are strikingly at variance with one's expectations of an industrialized society. Nearly unique among popular Soviet studies in the attention it gives to non-Russians (Gray is of Polish descent), her study should lay to rest the myth that women are better off under actually existing socialism than under the free-market system. Since mostly all the voices here are of women in major cities, one wonders with horror about the vast and even less fortunate rural population.
- Robert Decker, Harriman Inst., Columbia
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Anchor
• Publication date: 1991
• ISBN 10: 0385417330
• ISBN 13: 9780385417334
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 228