The Formation of a Special Gender Identity of Soviet Women Railway Workers in the Late 1960s — 1980s

Abstract

The article is based on oral historical sources and oral memories and examines the historical experience of the professional activities of Soviet women who worked in the train control service of the Belgorod Branch of the Southern Railway (Ministry of Railways of the USSR) in the late 1960s and 1980s, as a form of women’s leadership and gender equality formation (the erosion of male dominance) in the manufacturing sector. Specifically, the influence of the profession (working conditions, content of daily work practices, working rhythm, professional self-awareness) on the formation of a particular gender identity among women railway workers is investigated. An analysis of historical material makes it possible to supplement and significantly expand our understanding of how the “new type” of Soviet women, with an independent economic and social status, was formed in the late Soviet period. The materials constitute the informational basis for preserving information about the labor feats of women working at the railroad in the historical memory of Russian people; they open up new heroines, whose personal and professional lives are the subject of the formation in modern society of a positive attitude towards the female presence in the managerial segment of the engineering and technical sphere.