Now if you're like me you're probably surprised that Russia of all places would have female frontline fighters back in WWI. But as I've said before, war makes unusual things happen and an unusual confluence of factors including the abdication of Russia's Tsar at the time led a new government to attempt some pretty radical (for Russia) policies. On top of that a war was going on and Russia's soldiers were NOT doing well. Morale was low and most of the men were sick of this shit!
Around this time the new head of the country's Minister of War, Alexander (Alexandra in some accounts I'm really not sure which) Krensky devised an idea of creating "shock battalions" to raise the men's spirits. The idea was these would be skilled and disciplined units that existed to galvanize the troops and rally them to fight on with zeal and enthusiasm. I'm not sure how good of an idea this was but leading men in a manner like this is more an art than a science and we're talking about a new, unstable government DESPERATE for ideas. Around this time a woman named Maria Bochkevia. A former peasant turned soldier, Bochkevia thought that an all female battalion, equal to any male regiment would shame the men into greater duty and valor. Basically, she thought to use the "No way am I letting a girl show me up" mentality against the male soldiers. That's right. She planned to use their own sexism as a weapon against them to get off their asses and actually fight.
 |
| Step aside boys. This is a job for the ladies! |
Seemed like a good idea even if she was on some level ripping off the Dahomey Amazons (she probably didn't know and I'm only mostly kidding) and there was some precedent for it. Individual women on rare cases had snuck their way into the Russian military before in defiance of the old laws from before the Tsar's abdication and had a nasty habit of demonstrating bravery, skill and dedication to duty that made their male colleagues feel a bit sheepish. Some of that was probably due to the fact that a lot of the men were conscripts and the women were all clearly volunteers in these matters (score one for volunteer armies). In fact, officers went out of their way to praise the female soldiers they had that they knew about and the women made it a point not to neglect their duties.
Now all that said, Bochkevia had her work cut out for her in this one. She was battling the inherent sexism of her culture and knew it (though she underestimated the extent of it) and knew she and her recruits had a lot to prove. She harshly punished any traditional expressions of femininity among her recruits including but not limited to giggling, excessive smiling and any behavior dubbed, "flirtatious." Between that and the shaved heads she enforced it was clear she was trying to make sure the women fit in with the Russian ideal of what a soldier was. That meant observing traditionally masculine behaviors and attitudes. Oh did I mention she encouraged swearing, spitting and drinking among her would be soldiers?
 |
| I think Toph is saying that sounds like her kind of women's group! |
For all her work though there were still problems. The uniforms they had to work with were generally ill fitting, unmade for women's frames and their equipment (boots particularly) didn't fit right. Furthermore, remember when I said before thta Bochkevia underestimated the sexist response she'd get from the men? Oh lord were the male soldiers on the front not happy at ALL to see the women's battalion. Though skilled in battle and demonstrating great courage under fire, this seemed to only make the men more angry at the new battalion rather than encouraging them to fight and their anger got directed both at the women they deemed unfit for combat, as well as the government they felt was keeping them in the war that, as stated before, they wanted no part of anymore.
Unfortunatley, when another revoution occurred the women's battalions were disbanded and to make matters worse, many of the soldiers didn't transition back to the non-war world well. Not for lack of trying but the hostility toward them was strong. The shaved heads marked them as being part of the old regime's propaganda attempts and between that and the sexism that many women are attacked with for daring to be something other than what their society deems appropriate many of the women were assaulted and discriminated against after the war though others did stay and fight in other conficts within and outside of Russia. Even so, a complex combination of interwoven factors has kept these women (about 6000 served in these sorts of units) out of history and it is a shame because you can't learn from a history that's not discussed and you can't apply the lessons. That said, Russia didn't forget about the idea entirely and today some of this idea can still be seen in the fact that their elite special forces, the Spetnaz, have incorporated women and co-ed units for some time now.
There's a lot of stuff to unpack with the stories of units like this. All kinds of complex issues from the presence of toxic masculinity to the politics of using women as propaganda props to the concept of performative masculinity and femininity as well as the cultural design of gender roles. All of these are topics which are perhaps a bit heavy for this space and things that I'm admittedly not well versed enough to speak on. As such I'll tell you to go out and seek knowledge yourself if it's something your interested in. Google is your friend. And with that I end things for the day. We've dealt with a lot of figures from numerous fields... but I realize we haven't touched on any visual artists since that initial blast of mini-profiles at the start of the month. Tomorrow let's remedy that.
No comments:
Post a Comment