Editing Socialist realism (section)

== Gender in socialist realism ==

=== USSR ===

==== Early Soviet period ====
[[File:Portrait of Vladimir Lenin, 1949, Czeslaw Znamierowski, private collection.jpg|thumb|Portrait of Vladimir Lenin, 1949, by [[Czeslaw Znamierowski]]]]
In the poster propaganda produced during the [[Russian Civil War]] (1917–1922) men were overrepresented as workers, peasants, and combat heroes, and when women were shown, it was often either to symbolize an abstract concept (e.g., [[Personification of Russia|Mother Russia]], "freedom") or as nurses and victims.<ref name=":0">{{Cite journal|last=Bonnell|first=Victoria E.|date=1991|title=The Representation of Women in Early Soviet Political Art|journal=The Russian Review|volume=50|issue=3|pages=267–288|doi=10.2307/131074|jstor=131074|issn=0036-0341}}</ref> The symbolic women would be depicted as feminine{{Snd}}wearing long dresses, long hair, and bare breasts. The image of the urban proletariat, the group which brought the Bolsheviks to power was characterized by masculinity, physical strength, and dignity and were usually shown as blacksmiths.<ref name=":0" />

In 1920, Soviet artists began to produce the first images of women proletarians. These women differed from the symbolic women from the 1910s in that they most closely resembled the aspects of the male workers{{Snd}}dignity, masculinity, and even supernatural power in the case of blacksmiths.<ref name=":0" /> In many paintings in the 1920s, the men and women were almost indistinguishable in stature and clothing, but the women would often be depicted taking subservient roles to the men, such as being his assistant ("rabotnitsa").<ref name=":0" /> These women blacksmith figures were less common, but significant, since it was the first time women were represented as proletarians.<ref name=":0" /> The introduction of women workers in propaganda coincided with a series of government policies which allowed for [[divorce]], [[abortion]], and more sexual freedom.<ref name=":2">{{Cite journal|last=Simpson|first=Pat |date=2004-01-01|title=The Nude in Soviet Socialist Realism: Eugenics and Images of the New Person in the 1920s-1940s|journal=Australian and New Zealand Journal of Art|volume=5|issue=1|pages=113–137|doi=10.1080/14434318.2004.11432735|s2cid=157757526|issn=1443-4318}}</ref>

Peasant women were also rarely depicted in socialist propaganda art in the period before 1920. The typical image of a peasant was a bearded, sandal-shoed man in shoddy clothes and with a [[scythe]], until 1920, when artists began to create peasant women, who were usually buxom, full-bodied, with a scarf tied around their head.<ref name=":0" /> The image of peasant women was not always positive; they often would evoke the derogatory caricature "[[Baba Yaga|baba]]", which was used against peasant women and women in general.<ref name=":3">{{Cite journal|last=Bonnell|first=Victoria E.|date=1993|title=The Peasant Woman in Stalinist Political Art of the 1930s|journal=The American Historical Review|volume=98|issue=1|pages=55–82|doi=10.2307/2166382|jstor=2166382|issn=0002-8762}}</ref>

As is discussed above, the art style during the early period of the Soviet Union (1917–1930) differed from the socialist realist art created during the Stalinist period. Artists were able to experiment more freely with the message of the revolution.<ref name=":3" /> Many Soviet artists during this period were part of the [[Constructivism (art)|constructivist]] movement and used abstract forms for propaganda posters, while some chose to use a [[Realism (arts)|realist]] style.<ref name=":0" /> Women artists were significantly represented in the revolutionary [[Avant-garde|avant garde]] movement, which began before 1917<ref name=":4">Lavery, Rena, Ivan Lindsay, and Katia Kapushesky. 2019. ''Soviet women and their art: the spirit of equality''.</ref> and some of the most famous were [[Aleksandra Ekster|Alexandra Exter]], [[Natalia Goncharova]], [[Lyubov Popova|Liubov Popova]], [[Varvara Stepanova]], [[Olga Rozanova]] and [[Nadezhda Udaltsova]].<ref name=":4" /><ref>{{Cite web|last=Larkin|first=Charlotte|date=17 Nov 2017|title=Women of the Avant-Garde|url=https://www.sothebys.com/en/articles/women-of-the-avant-garde|website=Sotheby's}}</ref><ref name=":1">{{Cite web|last=Tate|title=The short life of the equal woman: by Christina Kiaer – Tate Etc|url=https://www.tate.org.uk/tate-etc/issue-15-spring-2009/short-life-equal-women|access-date=2020-12-04|website=Tate|language=en-GB}}</ref> These women challenged some of the historical precedents of male dominance in art. Art historian Christina Kiaer has argued that the post-revolutionary shift away from market-based art production was beneficial to female artists' careers, especially before 1930, when the [[Association of Artists of Revolutionary Russia|Association of Artists of Revolutionary Russia (AKhRR)]] was still relatively egalitarian.<ref name=":5">Kiaer, C. H. (2012). Fairy Tales of the Proletariat, or, Is Socialist Realism Kitsch? In ''Socialist Realisms: Soviet Painting 1920–1970'' (pp. 183–189). Skira.</ref> Instead of an elite, individualistic group of disproportionately male "geniuses"<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Fredriksson|first=Martin|date=2007-05-01|title=The Avant-Gardist, the Male Genius and the Proprietor|url=https://septentrio.uit.no/index.php/nordlit/article/view/1785|journal=Nordlit<!--|volume=11-->|volume=11 |language=en|issue=21|pages=275–284|doi=10.7557/13.1785|issn=1503-2086|doi-access=free}}</ref> produced by the market, artists shared creation of a common vision.<ref name=":5" />{{clarify|date=November 2023}}

==== Stalin era ====
The style of socialist realism began to dominate the Soviet artistic community starting when Stalin rose to power in 1930, and the government took a more active role in regulating art creation.<ref name=":6">{{Cite journal|last=Reid|first=Susan E.|date=1998|title=All Stalin's Women: Gender and Power in Soviet Art of the 1930s|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/2502056|journal=Slavic Review|volume=57|issue=1|pages=133–173|doi=10.2307/2502056|jstor=2502056|s2cid=163795609 |issn=0037-6779}}</ref> The [[Association of Artists of Revolutionary Russia|AKhRR]] became more hierarchical and the association privileged realist style [[oil painting]]s, a field dominated by men, over posters and other mediums in which women had primarily worked.<ref name=":5" /><ref name=":6" /> The task of Soviet artists was to create visualisations of the "[[New Soviet man|New Soviet Man]]"{{Snd}}the idealized icon of humanity living under socialism. This heroic figure encapsulated both men and women, per the Russian word "chelovek", a masculine term meaning "person".<ref name=":4" /> While the new Soviet person could be male or female, the figure of man was often used to represent gender neutrality.<ref name=":7">{{Cite journal|last=Simpson|first=Pat|date=2004|title=Parading Myths: Imaging New Soviet Woman on Fizkul'turnik's Day, July 1944|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/3664081|journal=The Russian Review|volume=63|issue=2|pages=187–211|doi=10.1111/j.1467-9434.2004.00313.x|jstor=3664081|hdl=2299/616|issn=0036-0341|hdl-access=free}}</ref>

Because the government had declared the "[[The woman question|woman question]]" resolved in 1930, there was little explicit discourse about how women should be uniquely created in art.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Simpson|first=Pat|date=1998|title=On the Margins of Discourse? Visions of New Soviet Woman in Socialist Realistic Painting 1949–50|journal=Art History|language=en|volume=21|issue=2|pages=247–267|doi=10.1111/1467-8365.00105|issn=1467-8365|doi-access=free}}</ref> Discussions of gender difference and sexuality were generally taboo and viewed as a distraction from the duties people had to the creation of socialism.<ref name=":2" /> Accordingly, nudes of both men and women were rare, and some art critics have pointed out that Socialist Realist paintings escaped the problem of women's [[sexual objectification]] commonly seen in capitalist forms of art production.<ref name=":2" /><ref>{{Cite journal|last=Quan|first=Hong|date=2019-12-01|title=The representation and/or repression of Chinese women: from a socialist aesthetics to commodity fetish|url=https://doi.org/10.1007/s11059-019-00487-0|journal=Neohelicon|language=en|volume=46|issue=2|pages=717–737|doi=10.1007/s11059-019-00487-0|s2cid=189874839|issn=1588-2810}}</ref> But the declaration of women's equality also made it difficult to talk about the gender inequality that did exist; Stalin's government had simultaneously banned abortion and homosexuality, made divorce more difficult, and dismantled the women's associations in government ([[Zhenotdel]]s).<ref name=":2" /> The "New Soviet Woman" was often shown working in traditionally male jobs, such as aviation, engineering, tractor-driving, and politics.<ref name=":7" /> The point of this was to encourage women to join the workforce and show off the strides the USSR had made for women, especially in comparison with the United States.<ref name=":8">{{Cite book|last=Ghodsee|first=Kristen|title=Why Women Have Better Sex Under Socialism|publisher=Bold Type Books|year=2018|isbn=9781645036364|location=United States|pages=36}}</ref> Indeed, women had expanded opportunities to take up traditionally male jobs in comparison to the US. In 1950, women made up 51.8% of the Soviet labor force, compared to just 28.3% in North America.<ref name=":8" />

However, there were also many patriarchal depictions of women. Historian Susan Reid has argued that the [[cult of personality]] around male Soviet leaders created an entire atmosphere of patriarchy in Socialist Realist art, where both male and female workers often looked up to the "father" icon of Lenin and Stalin.<ref name=":6" /> Furthermore, the policies of the 1930s ended up forcing many women to be solely responsible for childcare, leaving them with the famous "double burden" of childcare and work duties.<ref name=":7" /> The government encouraged women to have children by creating portraits of the "housewife-activist"{{Snd}}wives and mothers who supported their husbands and the socialist state by taking on unpaid housework and childcare.<ref name=":6" /><ref name=":7" />

Women were also more often shown as peasants than workers, which some scholars see as evidence of their perceived inferiority.<ref name=":7" /> Art depicting peasant women in the Stalin era was far more positive than in the 1920s, and often explicitly pushed back against the "[[Baba Yaga|baba]]" stereotype.<ref name=":3" /> However, the peasantry, still living in [[Feudalism|feudal]] society, was generally seen as backwards, and did not hold the same status as the heroic status as the revolutionary urban proletariat.<ref name=":7" /> An example of the gender distinction of male proletariat and female peasantry is [[Vera Mukhina|Vera Muhkina]]'s statue ''[[Worker and Kolkhoz Woman]]'' (1937), where the worker is shown as male, while the collective farm worker is female.<ref name=":7" />