About this Book

The multiethnic female population of the North has never before been considered as a component of the social structure with its own history, mental and behavioral patterns. Applying the historical retrospection techniques, the researching project "Northern Woman: in the search of a new social identity" has attempted identification of characteristics of the social sex of northern women. The ethnic and demographic parameters have been identified statistically; the research sketches average portraits of the main social groups of women of all main ethnic groups of the Sakha Republic, including the native. The main sources of the original data in the research were content analysis of the Iocat press, narrow-focused interviews with experts, and especially a survey with questionnaires sent to women in their places of residence, that has covered nearly eight hundred women selected by a specially identified sampling technique. The research is mainly focused on the study of the ways of forming the gender in the Yakutian society. One of the theories attested by the research considers fading of traditional ethnic settings of behavior and forming. of positive and negatived tendencies applicable for the entire Russian society. A study of gender roles and gender identification results in the following conclusion: the traditional social sex of Yakutia can be identified as "Northern", which means a complex combination of economic and behavioural parity, in conjunction with rudiments of matriarchy and significant domination of patriarchy. In the Soviet era woman was drawn away from the family, instead she became cheap manpower for the communist economy. The positive result of this was mass education and mass professional training for women. The political collapse followed by the crisis in the Russian economy made women play new social roles, replacing men in many instances as main earners for their families. The Sakha Republic lacks most elementary understanding of gender issues, even in the top levels of state authority. There is no political organization of women, community groups are weak and operate in various areas slightly related to their gender role. Women are being discriminated in employment and career development, and this is deeply set in the commonplace mentality of both men and women.