Overview

The video argues that socialism has historically advanced women’s liberation—more free time, autonomy, political voice, and material security—by socializing care work, guaranteeing reproductive rights, and expanding economic independence. It grounds this claim in Marxist theory (Engels) and three case studies: USSR, Bulgaria, and the GDR (East Germany). It also notes limits and missteps.

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Theoretical basis (Engels)

• Engels’ thesis (1884, Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State):
  • The nuclear monogamous family arose with class society to secure male inheritance; it privatizes women’s labor and enforces patriarchal control.
  • Women’s unpaid domestic/reproductive labor is essential yet uncompensated and treated as “natural.”
  • True liberation requires: ending the family as the basic economic unit, fully integrating women into public/social production, and socializing domestic labor—goals tied to socialism.
• Quote themes: “Within the family he is the bourgeois; the wife the proletariat.” Even where women work, they still do a disproportionate “second shift.”

Case study 1 — USSR

• Immediate reforms after 1917:
  • Equal legal status, civil marriage, no-fault divorce, abolition of “illegitimate” status for children.
  • Early and expansive childcare network; public dining; sanitation and maternal–infant care → plunging infant mortality.
  • Paid maternity leave (56 days before and after birth by 1936; job/seniority protection; anti-discrimination for pregnant/nursing women).
  • Abortion legalized (1920; first in the world). Marital rape criminalized (1922).
  • Massive literacy and housing affordability (very low rent share).
• Framing: despite later repression/instability and acknowledged flaws, early USSR policies marked major leaps in women’s material conditions.

Case study 2 — Bulgaria

• Post-1946 socialism: constitutional legal equality, rapid gains in life expectancy, big drops in maternal/infant mortality, huge female workforce participation (highest globally by 1965).
• Demographic crunch (post-WWII losses + falling fertility) addressed scientifically rather than via bans:
  • Led by Elena Lagadinova (ex-partisan, scientist) who surveyed ~16,000 women (1969) to ask what they needed.
  • Findings: women wanted children but lacked time/energy due to paid work + second shift; men under-contributed; services insufficient.
  • Policy package (1973 Politburo decision): expand universal childcare, improve school/work cafeterias, homework clubs, self-service supermarkets, robust paid, job-protected maternity leave; child allowances; count leave toward pensions; gender-role education for men; oversight to enforce compliance.
  • Result: stable replacement fertility until the socialist collapse; tangible reduction of women’s unpaid load.

Case study 3 — GDR (East Germany)

• Contrast with capitalist FRG (West Germany) highlights system effects on the SAME people:
  • GDR: legal equality; easy civil divorce; illegality of firing pregnant women; career development; abortion legalized (1972); free contraception; 18 weeks at 90% pay; new-baby grant; paid leave to care for sick kids; extensive, low-/no-cost childcare; large numbers of women mayors; media avoided consumerist gender stereotyping.
  • FRG (until mid-1970s): men held exclusive property/child decision rights; married women needed husband’s permission to work; female labor force participation lower; fertility fell below replacement.
• Outcomes: GDR women reported higher sexual satisfaction than FRG women in multiple studies—attributed to economic security, equal education/roles, and real say in society.

Synthesis & conclusions

• Across socialist states, governments reduced women’s economic dependence on men by making all citizens equal recipients of social services (childcare, housing, healthcare, income security).
• This decoupled intimacy from economics, enabling women to leave bad relationships and pursue work/education.
• After capitalist transitions in Eastern Europe, many gains diminished: safety nets shrank, unemployment rose (often hitting women hard), and patriarchal norms resurged—fueling female nostalgia for socialist-era supports (per Kristen Ghodsee’s research).