A few years after the Russian Revolution, Soviet women working in certain fields were allowed menstrual leave for 2 days at the start of their period. This provision was one of the protective legislations enacted by the Bolsheviks for women's benefit. However, this policy enjoyed only limited success in the 1920s and 1930s.
In this video, we explore the Soviet Union's early experimentation with menstrual leave provisions. We talk about the assumptions about women's bodies that informed this protective legislation, and whether or not women actually benefited from it. We will see how, although the Bolshevik government was initially committed to allowing women reproductive agency (and become the first government in the world to legalize abortion) concerns about population growth and innovation in birth control led the state to find different ways of influencing women's bodies and decisions.
Timestamps
0:00 - Introduction
5:24 - Managing periods in 20th century Soviet Union
10:26 - The menstrual leave provision
21:29 - Abortion and birth control
34:30 - Conclusion
References:
Gawlicz, Katarzyna, and Zsuzsa Millei. “Mysterious Cotton Pieces: Childhood Memories of Menstruation.” (An)Archive: Childhood, Memory, and the Cold War, pp. 213-34. www.openbookpublishers.com/books/10.11647/obp.0383/chapters/10.11647/obp.0383.09.
Hilevych, Yuliya, and Chizu Sato. “Popular Medical Discourses on Birth Control in the Soviet Union during the Cold War: Shifting Responsibilities and Relational Values.” Children by Choice? Changing Values, Reproduction, and Family Planning in the 20th Century, edited by Ann-Katrin Gembries et al., De Gruyter, pp. 99-122. www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9783110524499/html.
Ilič, Melanie. “Women Workers in the Soviet Interwar Economy.” Palgrave Macmillan UK eBooks, 1999, link.springer.com/book/10.1057/9780230375567#:~:text=With%20the%20mass%20recruitment%20of,role%20in%20the%20production%20process.
Vasilyev, Pavel, and Alexandra Konovalova. “Changing Menstrual Habits in Late 20th- and Early 21st-Century Russia.” Open Library of Humanities, vol. 1, no. 1, Feb. 2023, olh.openlibhums.org/article/6352/galley/22834/view/.
Vasilyev, Pavel. “Re/Production Cycles: Affective Economies of Menstruation in Soviet Russia, ca. 1917-1953.” Body Politics, vol. 8, no. 12, 2020, pp. 62-79. www.academia.edu/78693317/Re_Production_Cycles_Affective_Economies_of_Menstruation_in_Soviet_Russia_ca_1917_1953.
Image credits: drive.google.com/file/d/19w7Z0EO73VZAZJwhb3EJQOYC-sjYdZss/view?usp=sharing