ABSTRACT
The events of the Soviet era sometimes affected women differently than men. In addition, the government intentionally undertook policies relating to women, the family, and children that affected women directly. At the same time, most of the women embraced a key element of Soviet ideology—that contributing to production and working for the public good were of utmost importance—and they apparently derived genuine satisfaction from their participation in public life. In general, Soviet women participated in public life to a much greater degree than did women of the same generation in the West. A few of the women found work a creative outlet: Dubova took pleasure in decorating cakes; Berezhnaia became an inventor; Fleisher wrote textbooks for the minority peoples she taught. The women’s responses make it impossible to assess their narratives solely within the framework of Western feminism or their lives simply in terms of “advances” or “equality.”
