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Lives of Russian Women |
| Section: BOOK WORLD / BOOKS FROM ABROAD |
| Author: Dragan Milivojevic |
| Publication:
The World & I Online |
| Issue Date: 10/1/1994 |
| Size: 2,202 Words, 12,884 Characters |
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THE TIME: NIGHT
Ludmilla Petrushevskaya,trans.
by Sally Laird
London: Virago Press, 1994
I've reached the stage, alas, when you love to keep a careful watch on your self but all I've got in the house is cooking oil, a poor substitute for those creams that you can't get for love or money these days! And try and make yourself beautiful without!
The world was told in numberless official publications that the perfect society was realized in Soviet Union--with no unemployment, guaranteed and universal health insurance, and full equality of the sexes in all areas of public life. Statistics were presented to substantiate the Soviet claim that their women were emancipated, such as that 70 percent of medical doctors were women, as were about 40 percent of engineers. These figures look impressive when compared with the corresponding percentages in the West, but these figures are misleading. These professions do not have the same earning power as they do in the West. Medical doctors are overworked, make house calls, and are paid comparatively little compared to other professions. Russian women are expected to be homemakers as well, an expression of the traditional Russian attitude.
Soviet fiction promoted this idealized image of Russian women by portraying ...
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... presents some of the problems facing Russian women in the nineties: the economic problems of divorced and unwed mothers, the low wages and the inferior position of women in the economy, the lack of adequate nursing care for older persons. Perhaps the intensity and the starkness of her depressing novel will arouse Russian public opinion to remedy these shortcomings in the treatment of women.
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Publication Details
(The World & I Online) |
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The World & I Online is a
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Liberal Arts, Fine & Applied Arts, General Science, and Spanish.
Originally published monthly in print as The World & I, our site
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