Maria Hristova1; 1 Lewis & Clark College, United States
Discussion
This paper examines the various ways in which women writing about labor both subverted and upheld prevalent Soviet stereotypes about gender equality, women’s roles in society, and the value of labor for self-actualization in Soviet literature of the 1960s. By focusing on two writers, Maiia Ganina and Anna Mass, I explore the tensions between official narratives and women’s writing centered on labor. More specifically, I examine Ganina’s “Mariia-Antuanetta” (1960) and Mass’ “Temptation” (1968). Both writers subvert prevalent gender stereotypes and extant discrimination against women’s labor through humor and a flawed main character. They also engage with the surrounding world in ways that both equate women and nature, but also nuance the narrative of the heroic male exploitation of the environment, popularized during the Virgin Lands campaigns.
