Promotion of Gender Equality by the Mass Media of Dagestan in the 1960s and its Results

Abstract

The issue of gender inequality in Russia’s Muslim regions is of great scientific interest and practical significance, and sociologists need to generalize the experience of the previous decades. Such multinational region as Dagestan provides a lot of useful data on the matter in question. This article describes the first attempt of the regional historiography to analyze the activities of Dagestan mass media to promote gender equality in the 1960s, e.g., in secondary schools, universities, socio-political life, culture, and family life. The author analyzed newspaper publications and documents from the Central State Archive of the Republic of Dagestan. The materials provided an objective scientific picture of the social landscape. The author relied on the principles of scientific objectivity and historicism and used comparative-historical, descriptive, and systematic research methods. All mass media obviously experienced some difficulties in covering the gender issues. However, the analysis revealed some positive trends and results in the struggle for gender equality in Dagestan, e.g., in the sanitary culture of urban and rural settlements. Still, this socio-political and socio-cultural issue remained unresolved by the end of the 1960s.

Keywords

• woman
• equality
• culture
• education
• newspapers
• magazines
• radio
• television
• dagestan