"No American socialist-feminist successfully integrated the anarchist-feminist analysis of domestic oppression into a socialist framework...Nevertheless, a socialist framework existed, in the work of Aleksandra Kollontai. Kollontai, a Russian Marxist revolutionary who participated in the birth of the Bolshevik state, wrote her most extensive analysis of the Woman Question while in exile in Western Europe in the years immediately preceding World War I." Following Bebel and Engels, Kollontai argued that the first requisite for women's emancipation was productive work outside the confines of the domestic circle. However, participation in the work force would not free women unless there were also changes in the industrial system. Ultimately, of course, the workers must overthrow capitalism, Kollontai declared. But, more immediately, socialists should work for shorter hours, less dangerous working conditions, paid maternity leaves, nursery facilities in all factories, and scheduled breaks from work so that mothers could breast feed their babies. Not all socialists agreed with Kollontai on the above issues. Most men and some women refused to countenance the urging of special reforms for women because they believed it undermined the solidarity of the proletariat. But Kollontai further extended her analysis of female oppression to include an attack on the emotional dependence of women upon men."
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Women's rights activistsMarxist feministsAmbassadors of Russia and the Soviet UnionMinisters of Russia and the Soviet UnionWelfare ministers
Original Language: English
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Sources
Margaret S Marsh, Anarchist Women, 1870-1920 (1981)
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Alexandra_Kollontai
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Alexandra Kollontai
Alexandra Mikhailovna Kollontai (Russian: Алекса́ндра Миха́йловна Коллонта́й — née Domontovich, Домонто́вич; 31 March (O.S. 19 March) 1872 – 9 March 1952) was a Russian ary, first as a member of the s, then from 1915 on as a . In 1922, Kollontai was appointed a diplomatic counsellor to the Soviet in
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