Gromova  A.I.

THE ATTEMPTS OF SOCIAL AND POLITICAL REGULATION OF A FEMALE EMPLOYEE’S PRIVATE LIFE IN IMPERIAL RUSSIA AT THE TURN OF THE XIX-XX CENTURIES

Authors

Gromova A.I.

Keywords:

female employees, morality, power, control, traditional submission, patriarchal customs, struggle for equality

Abstract

By the beginning of the XX century, the involvement of Russian women in public life had increased significantly. They have gained access to education and work activities that were previously unavailable to them. At the same time, women employed in intellectual labor were still limited by several discriminatory forces, including a significantly lower level of wages compared to men, the inability to hold many positions in state and public institutions, etc., as well as various regulatory acts designed to control women's “chastity”, reproductive behavior and their private life in general. Such prohibitive acts issued by the authorities, and conservative views of society, which reserved for women only the right to fulfill traditional gender roles, not only seriously impeded their professional activities but also deprived them of the opportunity to dispose of their bodies freely. The article analyzes what methods of regulating the corporeality and reproductive function of a female employee were used and implemented in practice by state authorities in Imperial Russia at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, and how traditionalist public opinion contributed to this.

THE ATTEMPTS OF SOCIAL AND POLITICAL REGULATION OF A FEMALE EMPLOYEE’S PRIVATE LIFE IN IMPERIAL RUSSIA AT THE TURN OF THE XIX-XX CENTURIES