I took a class on warfare throughout the 20th Century this semester just gone, and my professor let me choose my own question for the assigned research essay. I chose to look at women combatants, because I and Bene have both been on a bit of a spree getting excited about various excellent ladies involved in wars a lot lately. I ended up becoming most interested by the roles of women in Russia's military, and decided to focus on that in my research. My topic, when I eventually realised what it was, was on the promises of equality made to Russian women by the Bolsheviks early in the 20th Century and how well that promise was kept. As it was a class on warfare, I was examining it through the lens of women's involvement in Russia's military action.
Anyway, before I start rehashing the whole thing, here's the real thing!
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| Female soviet pilots relax between missions during World War II |
The Second World War of 1939-1945 saw a dramatic increase in female combatants on the Soviet Union’s frontline from Russia’s involvement in World War I, 1914-17. This increase in the number of women and variety of roles was largely caused by a progression in the attitudes toward women, brought about not only through feminist activism but the adoption of Communist ideology shortly after the end of WWI. Focusing on the women combatants of Imperial and Soviet Russia in the First and Second World Wars, I will examine the changes that occurred in the attitudes to and roles of women in Russia throughout the 20th Century. I will use this to make a comparison to women’s roles in the armed forces of contemporary Russia and show that, though Russia’s women gained “unprecedented rights to equal jobs, pay, [and] education,” the promises made by Socialism of gender equality failed to be fully realised (Schwartz, 1979, p. 67).
