"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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