Domestic Service in the Soviet Union - Women''s Emancipation and the Gendered Hierarchy of Labor

"This innovative study is the first to explore the evolution of domestic service in the Soviet Union. Bringing together gender and labor history, Alissa Klots demonstrates how the Bolshevik regime both facilitated and thwarted domestic workers' efforts to participate in public life and reinvent themselves as equal members of society"--

List of contents

Introduction: a kitchen maid to rule the state; Prologue: domestic service and the Bolsheviks before 1917; Part I. Servants into Workers, 1920s: 1. From exploitation to socially useful labor: the early soviet discourse on domestic service; 2. Just like any other worker? Class, gender, and labor rights; 3. Kitchen maids in the school of communism: union work and political mobilization; 4. The new soviet domestic worker: the enlightenment campaign and domestic workers' subjectivity; Part II. In The Land of Victorious Socialism, 1930-1950s: 5. The turn to production: domestic workers and the first five-year plan; 6. Serving in a socialist home: paid domestic labor and etatization of the home; 7. Like one of the family: domestic service as a site of intimate negotiations; 8. The meanings of privilege: domestic workers in postwar society; Conclusion; Bibliography.

About the author

Alissa Klots is Assistant Professor of History at the University of Pittsburgh. She specializes in Soviet history, focusing on issues of gender, labor, and aging. Her work has been supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Open Society Foundations, Dan David Foundation, and the Humboldt Foundation.

Summary

This innovative study is the first to explore the evolution of domestic service in the Soviet Union. Bringing together gender and labor history, Alissa Klots demonstrates how the Bolshevik regime both facilitated and thwarted domestic workers' efforts to participate in public life and reinvent themselves as equal members of society.

Product details

• Authors: Alissa Klots, Alissa (University of Pittsburgh) Klots
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press ELT
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 02.05.2024
• EAN: 9781009467209
• ISBN: 978-1-0-0946720-9
• No. of pages: 318
• Series: New Studies in European History
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > History; Social sciences, law, business > Sociology > Sociological theories; SOCIAL SCIENCE / Sociology / General, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Women's Studies, HISTORY / World, HISTORY / Women, Gender studies: women, Sociology: work & labour, Gender studies: women and girls, Former Soviet Union, USSR (Europe), USSR, Soviet Union, Sociology: work and labour, BUSINESS & ECONOMICS / Labor / General, History of other geographical groupings and regions, History of other lands, HISTORY / Russia / Soviet Era