The conditions for a genuine solution to the G. v. were created for the first time in history in the Soviet state, born of the Great October Socialist Revolution. In the very first months of the existence of Soviet power, all laws that enshrined inequality of women were abolished (.....)
Political equality of women was enshrined in the first Soviet constitution (1918). By a number of acts of 1917-18, Soviet power completely equalized women with men in labor law, civil rights, family and marriage, in the field of education, took measures to protect women's labor, motherhood and infancy, and enshrined the principle of equal pay for equal work. (.....)
Women's rights are enshrined in Article 122 of the Constitution of the USSR: "In the USSR, women are granted equal rights with men in all areas of economic, state, cultural and socio-political life." The increasing and varied state assistance to women-mothers provides women with the opportunity to enjoy these rights. The network of institutions created for the protection of mothers and children is growing from year to year. (.....)
Respect for women as equal and active citizens of the socialist state is deeply rooted in the USSR. Women (53.9% of the USSR population at the beginning of 1971) made up 51% of the number of workers and employees employed in the national economy of the country in 1970 (24% in 1928), 48% of workers employed in industry. Among specialists with higher and secondary specialized education in 1968, 58% were women (with higher education 52%, with secondary specialized education - 63%), and their number has increased 58 times compared to 1928. 31% of engineers, 38% of technicians, 72% of doctors (before the revolution 10%), 69% of teachers and cultural and educational workers, 39% of scientific workers are women (1968). Among the deputies of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of the 8th convocation elected on June 14, 1970, there were 463 women (30.5%; among the deputies of the Supreme Soviet of the 1st convocation, elected in 1937, there were 16.5%). Women make up 45.8% of the deputies of local Councils of Workers' Deputies (elections of 1971). Scientific and technological progress contributes to the liberation of women from domestic work and their further involvement in production and social activities. (....)
(....)Women widely exercise their right to work, education, participation in social and political life.
The emancipation of women in socialist countries has been generally achieved. However, the elimination of the remnants of actual inequality of women in everyday life is a long process that will be completed as a result of the gradual transition from socialism to communism. The CPSU program provides for the creation of all social and living conditions that make it possible to fulfill this task. (....)
(....) The isolation of a significant portion of women from economic and socio-political life, the low political and cultural level, and in a number of countries mass illiteracy (at the end of the 1960s, women constituted more than 85% of the total number of illiterate people throughout the world) hinder their active participation in political life. In many bourgeois countries, legal inequality of women in family and marital relations remains. Discrimination against women in wages persists. Laws on equal pay for equal work, adopted in a number of countries (Italy, France, Germany, Argentina, Canada, Turkey, etc.), as well as international conventions, are violated. In Great Britain at the end of the 1960s, out of 9 million working women, only 1.5 million received equal wages with men. In the USA (data from the end of the 1960s), women, who make up 51% of the population and 37% of the working population, receive 42% less for their work than men, and this wage gap increased in the 1950s and 1960s. Discrimination against women is also manifested in difficulties in obtaining a profession and education and in the absence of the necessary conditions for combining work with the fulfillment of family responsibilities. In a number of capitalist countries, the proportion of women among highly qualified workers remains extremely insignificant. In the USA, only 1% of engineers, 3% of lawyers, 7% of doctors and 9% of scientists are women. The unemployment rate among women in 1969 in the USA was 4.7%, and among men 2.8%. In all non-socialist countries, peasant women and agricultural workers especially suffer from discrimination. (...)
