Peasant Women and Women's Emancipation
Peasant women were largely uninvolved in both the "bourgeois" feminist movement, and the Bolshevik revolution. Patriarchal gender roles were way of life in villages, and the village was the only life peasant women knew. Historians have theorized that peasants saw revolution as a dangerous threat to their way of life, and that peasant women, already impoverished, feared the disruptions brought by war. Only a small minority of peasant women joined the Bolshevik cause. Peasant women's rejection of women's emancipation is most clearly demonstrated in their refusal to be involved with the Women's Bureau.
Read more about this topic: Russian Revolution And The Emancipation Of Women
Famous quotes containing the words peasant, women and/or emancipation:
“Who keeps the tavern and serves up the drinks? The peasant. Who squanders and drinks up money belonging to the peasant commune, the school, the church? The peasant. Who would steal from his neighbor, commit arson, and falsely denounce another for a bottle of vodka? The peasant.”
—Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (1860–1904)
“To many women marriage is only this. It is merely a physical change impinging on their ordinary nature, leaving their mentality untouched, their self-possession intact. They are not burnt by even the red fire of physical passion—far less by the white fire of love.”
—Mary Webb (1881–1927)
“Will women find themselves in the same position they have always been? Or do we see liberation as solving the conditions of women in our society?... If we continue to shy away from this problem we will not be able to solve it after independence. But if we can say that our first priority is the emancipation of women, we will become free as members of an oppressed community.”
—Ruth Mompati (b. 1925)