What Is Barbara Clemens Fourth Chapter Of A History Of Russian Women

Barbara Clemens utilizes the fourth chapter of A History of Russian Women to highlight the development of the feminist movement and the important role it played in Russian industrialization, urbanization and the Russian Revolution. By drawing similarities from previous class readings to Clemen’s interpretation of the changing role of women in Russian society, I am able to gain a better understanding of the impact that the Russian feminist movement had on industrialization and radical development within Russia during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Clemens first discusses the emancipation of serfs, which granted personal freedoms and divided up farmland. This marked the beginning of political and economic changes, leading to the development of the “woman question” that illuminated

The government made it very difficult to make reforms, which led to a popular opinion that the government was truly an obstacle to necessary reforms. Even with the success of improving education, this first wave of the movement only reached the higher classes of Russian society, leaving out the lower class peasants from the movement. The origin of radicalism shows the important connection between the feminist movement and the radical movement, foreshadowing the evolution of the Russian Revolution. The chapter shifts to discuss the impact that the emancipation had on peasant women. The emancipation, industrialization and the first feminist movement had little impact on the peasant class, however, Clemens highlights the fact that it still brought an influx of people, including women, to urban areas. This migration altered the role of women within the workforce and created a different array of job opportunities. Even with new job opportunities such as domestic servitude, factory work and even prostitution, peasant women faced discrimination, low pay and