The book written by Laurie S. Stoff is about the women that fought for Russia in world war one and the revolution. This book describes the experiences of the women in the war, getting information from previous writings and first hand accounts from many of the women soldiers in the wars. This is a very informative book, and it’s an easy read. No background information is required to read this book, all the tools you need to understand it is there.
Laurie S. Stoff is a professor at the university of Louisiana; teaching mainly history courses, but also teaching a women’s and genders course. She got her PhD specializing in Russia, East European, and women’s and gender history. Dr. Scott has many writings associated with her; she has 2 other books …show more content…
They took over the jobs that men left behind when they went to war, they helped in making supplies for the war, but what was mostly discussed in this chapter were the women that joined the men’s units. Most of these women disguised themselves as men to get into these units. Very few women were able to fight being openly a women, but there were those as well, these women fought even harder and acted braver than the men they were fighting with, to prove that they were just as good as the men, an example of these women is Maria Bochkareva (35). When women started to participate in more war time events, there were many of people that opposed this idea; the military thought that it was getting rid of the manliness of war, and threatened masculinity, and also some women activists thought it wasn’t really helping the cause, but this was not about equality, it was about necessity (2). With an onslaught of pressure from feminists and these women who were fighting for them the Russian government decided to make an all women’s battalion, and put Maria in charge of finding the women to join. Many women applied, but only the best got through. They named this battalion the first Russian woman’s battalion of death. The government only agreed to this because at this period in time their men soldiers stopped participating in the war, they thought making women fight would inspire or shame the men into fighting again, this was not the case. Because of this the first women’s battalion did not get the proper equipment and training necessary to be successful in battle, but despite that they did very well in smorgon, this proved them worthy (even though the government thought it may just have been luck). Other all women battalions were made after that, the main ones to this book being the second Moscow women’s battalion of death, the third Kuban women’s shock battalion and they also got their first