The Role Of Women In 20th Essay Example

The first feminist wave in Europe occurred during the late 1800s to the early 20th century. This began at a time in which women mostly took white-collar jobs such as teaching and other administrative work. It initially began with the liberalization of Europe through the fall of Monarchianism and a shift towards democracy. Additionally, during the industrial revolution, women were gaining more and more social respect to do things that men could do. Although feminism was rapidly evolving in the twentieth century, communist movements affected women’s struggle for rights by helping them attain new heights within feminism. Communism’s prevalence within many countries changed the viewpoints of turbulent societies drastically. Women in countries such as the USSR attained new voices which aided them to call out anti-feminist behaviors. This is shown especially within Document 2.

The point of view of this document was from a Soviet official in the Women’s Department of the Bolshevik Central Committee. She was part of a job that both men and women filled. The communist regimes often took steps to liberate and mobilize their women to have the same rights and men, and the ones who opposed this were not truly considered communists. During the Cold War, Soviet female participation within the highest forms of education increased as shown in Document 4. They were in a crisis with the United States, at the time, and experienced lots of rivalries to compete in space exploration and arms manufacturing. With many women achieving high education and gaining gender equality, it was made possible for them to win in certain races such as the space race with the launch of Sputnik. In Document 1, Kollontai, a highly accomplished Russian Communist revolutionist, notices a lack of concern for women’s rights among Bolsheviks and addresses them clearly to help achieve women’s rights. She then explains that Marxism will bring women’s liberation, so their sexism was not at best interest anyways. In other countries which were only beginning to develop, communism was bringing gender equality to greater heights very quickly. Document 3 outlines the rights in which women have in communist North Vietnam. Before this constitution, the Vietnam War was occurring in which France and Japan were invading Vietnam and Vietnam was under French/Japanese colonial rule. Vietnam wanted independence and the US joined because North Vietnam wanted to be communist. They then split at the 17th parallel. They believed that gender equality was essential for the bettering of their state. They never took this as an attack against male domination.

The propaganda poster for the Chinese Cultural Revolution shown in Document 5’s purpose was to encourage late marriage, allow women to do planned parenthood, and contribute to their growing societies. In Chinese society, the Great Leap Forward was pushed by Zedong which caused women to become more involved within industrial production. This was important because such state-directed initiatives for feminism implemented it into society at a very fast rate. Women are needed to help China modernize and this poster promoted delaying childbirth so women can join the workforce. In Document 6, Fidel Castro admits that women didn’t attain equality in Cuba although they have higher credentials than men. The purpose of this is to promise to help the women through their struggles to fix this as he agrees that the issue exists. These actions were extremely important for women to gain rights, even though Castro persecuted many of his own people regardless of their gender. In countries all over the world that were beginning to develop and industrialize, communism furthered women’s rights efforts drastically. As some communist countries might have still had faced issues within their societies, addressing these sexist behaviors was easier to do and they had much more accessibility than their non-communist counterparts. Communist movements helped achieve much better equality throughout the world.