Women in Soviet Society: Equality, Development, and Social Change

Women in Soviet Society: Equality, Development, and Social Change offers a developmental account of how women's roles were mobilized to serve state-building, industrialization, and political consolidation, exploring the tension between revolutionary ideals and institutional realities. It situates Soviet experience in comparative perspective and examines sectoral employment patterns, vertical stratification, earnings, women's representation in Soviets, the Party, and the elite, demographic trends in marriage, divorce, fertility, and policy reassessments. Lapidus's core argument is that Leninist development instrumentalized equality while also enabling real social mobility, yielding a balanced "balance sheet" of achievements and dilemmas.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 392 pages
Publication date: 27 May 2022
Publisher: University of California Press

Women in Soviet Society: Equality, Development, and Social Change offers a comprehensive examination of the twentieth century's most significant social experiment: the promise and limitations of Soviet sexual equality. Gail Warshofsky Lapidus goes beyond celebratory claims and straightforward indictments to provide a developmental account of how women's roles were mobilized to support state-building, industrialization, and political consolidation. The book is anchored in Tocqueville's "politics of equality" and engages with Marxist, Leninist, and psychoanalytic debates. Lapidus traces the tension between revolutionary ideals and institutional realities, including the Zhenotdel's early activism, legal "engineering" around marriage, divorce, and abortion, the Stalinist synthesis that re-centered family authority while accelerating female labor-force participation, and postwar "affirmative action, Soviet-style" in protection laws, childcare, and education. The result is a nuanced portrait of gains and trade-offs, including expanded access to schooling and work coupled with occupational segregation, wage penalties, and the enduring "double burden" created by underbuilt services and persistent domestic expectations. The book is structured with exceptional clarity, mapping women's changing positions across the economy, polity, and family and then situating Soviet experience in comparative perspective. Chapters examine sectoral employment patterns, vertical stratification, and earnings; women's representation in Soviets, the Party, and the elite; demographic trends in marriage, divorce, fertility; and the policy reassessments that recast women alternately as productive and reproductive resources. Lapidus's core argument—that Leninist development instrumentalized equality while also enabling real social mobility—yields a balanced "balance sheet" of achievements and dilemmas.

Weight: 590g
Dimension: 229 x 152 x 23 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780520321793