Domestic service in the Soviet Union : women's emancipation and the gendered hierarchy of labor / Alissa Klots, University of Pittsburgh.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Klots, Alissa, author.

Series:

New studies in European history

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Women household employees--Soviet Union.

Women household employees.

Women employees--Soviet Union.

Women employees.

Women--Political activity--Soviet Union.

Women.

Socialism--Soviet Union.

Socialism.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (ix, 307 pages) : digital, PDF file(s).

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, United Kingdom ; New York, NY, USA : Cambridge University Press, 2024.

Summary:

This innovative study is the first to explore the evolution of domestic service in the Soviet Union, set against the background of changing discourses on women, labour, and socialist living. Even though domestic service conflicted with the Bolsheviks' egalitarian message, the regime embraced paid domestic labor as a temporary solution to the problem of housework. Analyzing sources ranging from court cases to oral interviews, Alissa Klots demonstrates how the regime both facilitated and thwarted domestic workers' efforts to reinvent themselves as equal members of Soviet society. Here, a desire to make maids and nannies equal participants in the building of socialism clashed with a gendered ideology where housework was women's work. This book serves not only as a window into class and gender inequality under socialism, but as a vantage point to examine the power of state initiatives to improve the lives of household workers in the modern world.-- Provided by publisher

Notes:

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 26 Apr 2024).

ISBN:

9781009467179

1009467174

9781009467193

1009467190

9781009467155

1009467158