Talk:Soviet women in World War II

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This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): ATASU.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 09:53, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Soviet women in the... (insert here)
How about renaming to "Soviet women in World War II", hmm? --Darwinek 18:34, 13 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Object. The title narrows down to the topic. Soviet women fought the Great Patriotic War. They didn't fight in Africa, did they?  `'mikka 21:55, 15 March 2007 (UTC)


 * The problem is most who live west of where the Iron Curtain was, don't refer to the Russian theater of war as the Great Patriotic War. If they refer to it at all they refer to it as the Eastern Front, or even as the Ostfront.  That may be offensive to your sensibilities, but keep in mind this is the English speaking portion of Wikipedia.


 * To such people's ears calling it "The Great Patriotic War" sounds like propaganda fluff. This could be due to most in the West not realizing the Eastern Front was 20 times the size of the Western Front in terms of numbers of divisions deployed, Axis and Allied.  But, I would attribute it more to being a culturally removed impressional reaction.


 * Mind I don't think that it would be over-stating things to call it "The Great Patriotic War", because of the scale of it, sacrifices of the Soviet peoples, and the desperate motivation to prevail and drive out aggressor invaders. Nonetheless I do not call it the "Great Patriotic War" to other Americans.


 * For that matter I'm not sure we need to limit things to calling it by the theater of war these women fought in. I mean, is there another article for the soviet women who fought elsewhere?  Like where were these girls on Tarawa?  Monte Casino?


 * My impression is that excluding this war to just the Great Patriotic War marginalizes this war as a fight by all the Allies against the Axis. Granted one could argue that the Western Allies are marginalized here, because they did not employ women in combat roles (only just that).  I don't buy that.  That's taken care of by the part "Soviet Women".


 * You have to understand, Americans believe today, and definitely believed then, the fight against the Axis was a co-operative fight between the Allies, who where more than just an alliance of convenience. That's why many American's were genuinely surprised, even disbelieving, when Winston Churchill gave his Iron Curtain speech. 76.111.80.228 (talk) 03:47, 4 September 2008 (UTC)


 * I think it's also worth pointing out that the Great Patriotic War link you yourself provided was actually for the "term". It's just more than a stub article; and twice reads "See:  Eastern Front (World War II)", a much more comprehensive and extensive article. 76.111.80.228 (talk) 19:01, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Turkish Female Air Combat Cred
Not to start a fight here, but apparently Sabiha Gökçen beat the Soviet women to the punch, as the first female aerial combatant, in 1937. If you call bombing rioters combat that is. Surprised the heck out of me to. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.111.80.228 (talk) 22:36, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

Quality of the article
The whole tone of the article is feminist, and seems to ignore the basic fact that the Soviets needed any warm body available to help defeat the Nazis, particularly in battles such as Stalingrad (Volgograd). The article seems to treat this whole matter much in the same delusional manner as the modern American military, where it becomes an issue of career opportunity and promotions rather than how best the overall society can defend itself. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.49.20.187 (talk) 21:30, 13 March 2014 (UTC)
 * "needed any warm body" -- not in USSR. Millions of needed bodies were deported because ideology trumped necessity. The question of women's roles is rather more complex, and clearly the IP commentator has not read any of the sources listed here. Rjensen (talk) 01:48, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

Request for statistics
The article cites an overall figure of 800,000 women. It would interesting and useful to have statistical information (if available) on the numbers in military nursing and secretarial work in the armed forces, and the number actually used in combat. Information on the numbers working in signals and as mechanics (tank, other vehicle and aircraft maintenance) would also be an interesting addition. Norvo (talk) 02:34, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

Links for Soviet Women Pilots in the Great Patriotic War and Women and the Soviet Military
Does anybody know where I can re-link these sources? I clicked on both of them and they seem to be down. Although, the Women and the Soviet Military one just says that it is unavailable so I'm not sure how long it has been like that or if it will be back up at some point. ATASU (talk) 01:40, 28 January 2018 (UTC)

Op-Eds and agenda pushing have no place here.
Please keep in mind that wikipedia is not a place to virtue signal or decry the patriarchy. This website exists to document information as objectively as possible. Using weasel words and phrases like "most women" or "commonly" is a dead giveaway of someone pushing an agenda.

Wikipedia is not for pushing an agenda, if you want to convince people that women are property and that is good, go to a pickup artist website. If you want to convince someone that women are property and that is bad, go to Jezebel. Keep your political opinions out of wikipedia. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.88.164.214 (talk • contribs)

A Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion: Participate in the deletion discussion at the. —Community Tech bot (talk) 03:03, 9 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Kovpak partisanki.jpg

No mention of number of women fulfilling combat roles. The figure of 800,000 might be quite misleading without context of how they were distributed.
An example of how this could be damaging is that this figure has been used to support the idea that women commonly fought on the front lines. According the the source that provided "https://www.academia.edu/26690480/Gendering_combat_Military_womens_status_in_Britain_the_United_States_and_the_Soviet_Union_during_the_Second_World_War", which says the following: "Of the nearly 500,000 women who served as regular soldiers, ca. 120,000 fulfilled combat functions, such as snipers, pilots, tank-drivers, mortar operators, and machine-gunners." Citing "Krivosheev (2005)" However, when you manage to find actual copies of "Krivosheev (2005) "О ПОТЕРЯХ СРЕДИ ЖЕНЩИН-ВОЕННОСЛУЖАЩИХ И ВОЛЬНОНАЕМНОГО СОСТАВА 1941-1945" It says the following (translated): "Of the recruits, 177,065 were deployed in parts of air defense, 41,886 in communications, 40,209 in the Air Force, 14,460 in women's formations and schools, and 18,785 in automotive parts, 28,500 for cooks, 41,224 for military medical units and institutions, 20,889 for the Navy, 7,500 for the NKPS railways, 70,458 in the NKVD, 29,259 in other (front, district and army) units and institutions of the Red Army." This actually adds up to 490,000 which conflicts somewhat with the 800,000 number. I am assuming that the ~120,000 cited was 40,209 Air Force + 41,224 for military medical units and institutions + 29,259 in other (front, district and army), but even this is quite a stretch to describe "snipers, pilots, tank-drivers, mortar operators, and machine-gunners.". Considering how widespread the belief is that ~800,000 women fought as soldiers, I think it's important that sources are checked before history is rewritten. It was extremely hard to get a copy of "Krivosheev (2005) "О ПОТЕРЯХ СРЕДИ ЖЕНЩИН-ВОЕННОСЛУЖАЩИХ И ВОЛЬНОНАЕМНОГО СОСТАВА 1941-1945" to fact check this. MaxConfusion (talk) 08:28, 27 October 2021 (UTC)