The USSR made some early progress towards equality for women and LGBT folk, and turned it right back around a bit later.
I’m sorry but this is just wrong. The Soviet Union was the first European country to legalize abortion - and after banning it again, they became the second European country to legalize abortion when they re-legalized it, and their commitment to women’s health surpassed any other country for decades as the Soviets provided abortion on demand rather than after a laundry list of restrictions as most of their contemporaries did. The Soviets also had universal childcare, freeing women from the tyranny of domestic servitude decades before any other developed country would, and the legacy of this effort is so strong that even the capitalist successor regimes in Eastern Europe outperform the ones in the West in terms of having female scientists, heads of government departments, etc. The women of the Soviet Union were the freest women in the world for the entirety of the USSR’s existence.
True the Soviets never came around on LGBT issues, which is a shame.
True the Soviets never came around on LGBT issues, which is a shame.
Not even completely true. After the civil war and prior to the crackdowns of the 30s, gay marriage was legalized, and there were soviet scientists already proclaiming that gender was more akin to a spectrum than to a binary. Sadly, that progress was lost forever after Stalinism.
Unfucking it and refucking it and unfucking it again is not exactly success. No more so than recent changes to abortion in the US. And there’s a whole lot more to Feminism than abortion.
Unfucking it and refucking it and unfucking it again is not exactly success
…are you sure? Because if you end up with it unfucked, while in the rest of the world it is still fucked, then I would call that a success even if there was a rocky road to get there.
And the rest of my comment is about how it wasn’t just abortion. You should read it.
Yes, I’m quite sure in the context of my original argument that Russia was and is culturally conservative. A society that goes backwards like that never had a solid feminist culture to begin with.
All across the west we’ve seen rollback of feminist issues over the past decade, do you think that that nullifies all of the victories that have been won? Liberation struggle isn’t like a tech tree that you climb in one direction, it’s a constant back-and-forth battle being waged between the oppressed and the oppressors.
I’m sorry but this is just wrong. The Soviet Union was the first European country to legalize abortion - and after banning it again, they became the second European country to legalize abortion when they re-legalized it, and their commitment to women’s health surpassed any other country for decades as the Soviets provided abortion on demand rather than after a laundry list of restrictions as most of their contemporaries did. The Soviets also had universal childcare, freeing women from the tyranny of domestic servitude decades before any other developed country would, and the legacy of this effort is so strong that even the capitalist successor regimes in Eastern Europe outperform the ones in the West in terms of having female scientists, heads of government departments, etc. The women of the Soviet Union were the freest women in the world for the entirety of the USSR’s existence.
True the Soviets never came around on LGBT issues, which is a shame.
Not even completely true. After the civil war and prior to the crackdowns of the 30s, gay marriage was legalized, and there were soviet scientists already proclaiming that gender was more akin to a spectrum than to a binary. Sadly, that progress was lost forever after Stalinism.
Unfucking it and refucking it and unfucking it again is not exactly success. No more so than recent changes to abortion in the US. And there’s a whole lot more to Feminism than abortion.
…are you sure? Because if you end up with it unfucked, while in the rest of the world it is still fucked, then I would call that a success even if there was a rocky road to get there.
And the rest of my comment is about how it wasn’t just abortion. You should read it.
Yes, I’m quite sure in the context of my original argument that Russia was and is culturally conservative. A society that goes backwards like that never had a solid feminist culture to begin with.
All across the west we’ve seen rollback of feminist issues over the past decade, do you think that that nullifies all of the victories that have been won? Liberation struggle isn’t like a tech tree that you climb in one direction, it’s a constant back-and-forth battle being waged between the oppressed and the oppressors.
Nullifies, no. Shows that the west doesn’t have a solid feminist culture, yes. Same goes for the old USSR.