WHEN I chose this Soviet poster honoring International Women’s Day yesterday, I was perplexed by the picture. What is happening to the woman on the left? What is all that stuff? Now, I realize, thanks to a reader, that she is buried under her kitchen. This is a symbol of household slavery. The woman is literally crushed by her samovar and mop.

Lucy Zubova writes:

I don’t know if you translated it but the Russian wording reads: “8th March Insurrection Day of the Female Workers against Kitchen Slavery.” All I can say is, Ha ha ha ha. I don’t care how many billboards or pictures of Dyadya Lenin were placed around the former USSR. My own Russian husband has told me something of the life those “equal” Soviet women enjoyed. My mother-in-law worked full-time and kept house as well, not ably aided by her husband who drank his wages, a common scenario in the USSR. 

Women stood for hours in queues with their “avoska” hoping there would be something left when their turn came. They had no choice but to return to work when their babies were four months old. No stay-at-home motherhood for them. Many lived with alcoholic husbands, an addiction that runs rampant even today. And, women had no choice in consumer goods to decorate their homes as they wished. 

But I’m forgetting that where it truly mattered, they were superior: Abortion on demand. Tick. No-fault divorce. Tick. Childcare facilities provided at the workplace. Tick. What more could a woman want?

          P.S. My husband is a born-again Christian, a loving husband and father. The chains have truly been broken off.

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