Want to create an interactive transcript for this episode?
Podcast: New Books in Women's History
Episode: Regina Kazyulina, "Women Under Suspicion: Fraternization, Espionage, and Punishment in the Soviet Union During World War II" (U Wisconsin Press, 2025)
Description: Officially, women in the Soviet Union enjoyed a degree of equality unknown elsewhere in Allied countries at the time. However, long-standing norms of gendered behavior and stereotypes that cast women as morally weak, politically fallible, and sexually tempting meant that women in the army or living behind enemy lines were viewed with skepticism, seen as weak points easily exploited by the enemy. Concerned about sabotage, espionage, and ideological corruption, authorities categorized women who fraternized with the enemy—or who were suspected of doing so—as “socially dangerous,” a uniquely Soviet legal designation that exposed the accused to prosecution, imprisonment, and exil...