The role of women in 1928 was that of being part of the work industry; 3 million women were employed because of the demands of the Five-year plans. Though Soviet Russia was meant to be a ‘classless society’ there were still inequalities specifically between men and women. However by 1940 there were 13 million women working in the Russian industry which shows change nevertheless women spent an average of 5 times as longer on domestic responsibilities’ than men, this is an example of continuity.
The domestic role for women was in in addition to working on collective farms or in Soviet industry they were expected to be responsible for household chores, such as cooking, cleaning and childcare. Furthermore another responsibility of women was to reproduce because the trauma of industrialisation and collectivisation had led to a dramatic decline in the birth rate in the early 1930s. The communist government then introduced polices to try and reverse this trend.
In addition to these wives of party officials were expected not to work, but to devote themselves to managing ‘a well-ordered communist home’. In the 1920s it was common for communist families to employ nannies however by the mid-1930’s this was frowned upon, this shows a significant change between what is the more important role to play in this time period. Women were now expected to be ideal mothers and partners. Their homes were to be examples of ‘order, warmth and feminine comfort,' and their husbands expected their wives to be caring and attentive. They were the men there jobs consisted of being party leaders and even though they had been liberated from their domestic duties, such as chopping wood and carry water, due to mechanisation, women had none of these advantages. Also in the 1930s Zhenotdel, a women’s branch of the Communist Central committee was closed down due to the fact that the Communist Party believed that sexuality had