In nineteenth-century Russia, the woman question emerged as a prevalent topic for debate. It questioned women’s gender roles within society. The increase in women’s agency within the public sphere during the eighteenth century, brought on by Peter the Great’s reforms, changes in property laws, salon culture, and charity, engendered the woman question in the nineteenth century and influenced responses to it. Four responses to the woman question emerged: the feminist response, the nihilist response, the radical response, and the reactionary right response. Each of these responses reacted to or built upon preceding responses, each broadening the scope of the next. The feminists drew on eighteenth-century charity to shape its response that women’s …show more content…
Noblewomen were significantly impacted by the reform because men had to leave their estates and women filled their place as estate manager. Consequently, noblewomen gained a greater a footing in the public sphere through economic ventures and became adept at managing their family’s finances. Although Peter III abolished compulsory state service in 1762, noblemen continued to serve the state and noblewomen continued to care for estate finances. This continuation enabled noblewomen to maintain their status as estate managers throughout the eighteenth century. Since women’s role as estate manager lasted beyond one generation, it became a naturalized part of noblewomen’s gender roles. Charles Masson, a French diplomat during the reign of Catherine II, noted Russian women’s financial involvement: “women find themselves in a situation…in which they must take on the management of their estates, whose inhabitants are their property…They then engage in business by no means suitable to their sex”. His account demonstrates how visible and universal Russian noblewomen’s role as businesswomen was. This visibility indicates that Russian society accepted financial management as an extension of women’s duty to manage the household. Women’s newfound economic influence increased their power in the public sphere even if this power was not transparent. Women’s economic power allowed them to impact the public sphere by influencing Russia’s economy whether the realized it or not. The naturalization of noblewomen’s role as financial manager enabled women to maintain the role into the nineteenth century and made expanding this role