"Women--Russia's Second-Class Citizens"

Written to Look in 1954 by the "Russian-born wife of an American newspaperman," Julie Whitney, the article "Women--Russia's Second-Class Citizens" is a bitter indictment of the sorry lot of the women of the U.S.S.R. "A woman in Russia has a chance to be almost anything," Whitney avers, "except a woman. Even today, in a relatively cosmopolitan Moscow, a good-looking, well-dressed girl wearing make-up is one of three things: a foreigner, an actress or a prostitute.... The majority of statues of women in Russian parks wear brassieres and gym pants! Needless to say, there is no 'Miss U.S.S.R."' Whitney concludes with the damning information that in Moscow, with its population of five million, "there are just two beauty parlors which by Western standards deserve the name. The other half-dozen are 'medical cosmetic institutions.'"

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