Word: raisa
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...between ideal and reality is once again visible, as the Soviet Union projects a fresh image to the world in the person of Raisa Gorbachev, the wife of General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev. Intelligent, urbane and outspoken, she leads a fast-paced, glamorous life that is as elusive to most Soviet women as the pomp of the royal family is to most Britons. Hailed abroad as the new Soviet woman, Mrs. Gorbachev is perceived as her country's first female superstar since the days of Alexandra Kollantai and Inessa Armand, both early feminists, and Nadezhda Krupskaya, Lenin's wife, more than...
...Raisa Gorbachev enjoys opportunities that few Soviet women can imagine. She provides less a role model than a yardstick against which Soviet women measure their lives. "We envy her," says Rimma Raude, 37, an economist who emigrated from Kharkov to the U.S. a year ago. Mrs. Gorbachev's life-style serves both to highlight and deepen women's dissatisfaction, even as the rising expectations spawned by glasnost (openness) and perestroika (restructuring) have emboldened some women to speak out about their problems...
...women would suggest that Raisa sets a realistic standard for the future. Quite the contrary. The hopes and dreams of most Soviet women in fact sound startlingly unemancipated to the Western ear. They rarely challenge the status quo, which entitles men to be waited on, first by their mothers, then by their wives and female employees. Nor do women question the concept that they should assume responsibility for all child-related matters, whether that involves family planning, child rearing or, if a marriage breaks up, child support. Says Tanya, a Moscow teacher who, like many of the women interviewed, requested...
...apparently, does Raisa Gorbachev. For all the difference between her glamorous life-style and the drudgery endured by most Soviet women, the First Lady expresses attitudes that reflect popular aspirations. In a letter to TIME, she strikes a series of chords that show her to be in tune with her female compatriots. Selflessness. Self-sacrifice. Keepers of the hearth and home. From such broad themes, it is only a small step to the primary preoccupation: coping with life as it is, rather than dreaming how it might be. What does a woman want...
...Raisa Gorbachev projects a fresh image of her country' s female ideal, but the reality is far less glamorous. Although equal under the law, women in the U. S. S. R. are in many respects second- class citizens. Now Mikhail Gorbachev' s reforms are giving rise to hopes for change. -- The Soviet First Lady turns heads abroad and keeps tongues wagging at home...