Kollontai on abortion

“As long as women or men live under the pressure of unemployment, as long as the level of wages is not sufficient for a family, as long as housing conditions are unfavourable, and as long as the state does not make motherhood easier for every woman in various ways and does not provide social services for mother and child, it is clear that the women must stand up for free abortions.”
— Alexandra Kollontai 1936

Cover design of the forthcoming Japanese translation

The Japanese translation of Why Women Have Better Sex Under Socialism: And Other Arguments for Economic Independence is coming out in May, and they have changed the title to “Maybe it's capitalism that's keeping you from enjoying sex.” This image is the lonely woman under capitalism surrounded by her purchases and is an interesting twist of the themes of the book.

Dyeing eggs for Orthodox Easter in Bulgaria

I spent the morning dyeing and decorating eggs with my 33-year-old nephew and sister-in-law in Sofia for Orthodox Easter (which is this weekend). I learned a very cool trick with parsley leaves. You boil the egg in salt water and when it is ready you spread out a parsley leaf on the side of the egg. Then you wrap the egg with an old nylon stocking and secure it with a twisty tie. When you dip the egg in the dye you will get a negative image of the parsley which looks very cool. You let the eggs dry completely and then you cover them with a thin film of oil to make them look shiny. I had so much fun doing this!

Even more amazing blurbs for Red Valkyries!

“Until the late 20th century, you could pay close attention in school, graduate from a prestigious university with a degree in history and still never find out who Harriet Tubman was. Outrageous, right? But due to capitalist ideology and Cold War hangover, you could still do all that and never learn about Alexandra Kollontai or Inessa Armand, or any of history’s great Communist women. Kristen Ghodsee’s riveting account of these complicated, imperfect and inspiring lives is an outstanding corrective to our miseducation, one that’s long overdue.”
—Liza Featherstone

“Funny and politically illuminating, Ghodsee writes with the clear-sighted directness of the revolutionary women she describes. Women’s sexual, political and daily emancipation were the eye of the socialist storm for Kollantai, Krupskaya, Armand and Lagadinova. Ghodsee’s book breathes new life into their stories of how to create a world without patriarchy.”
—Elizabeth Armstrong, Smith College

“Kristen Ghodsee’s new book is a well-documented and immensely personal guide to the 20th-century East European socialist women’s movement. The author extracts from silence and saves from oblivion five women who have made an attempt to change not only their own, personal history, but also political, social and cultural history of women in Europe and worldwide. It is a story about a communist revolution in which women played a significant role, creating and implementing the project of a better world for all people. Reflections on the past are not, however, used to celebrate it nostalgically, but to draw conclusions for the future – how to act to build an alternative to the hegemony of capitalism and nationalism. This well-written, passionate story about the “red Valkyries” shows that socialism is not a song of the past, but still valid and long-awaited response to the challenges of the present world. Ghodsee argues that the history is not over, but rushes forward. Speeding up, however, it needs signposts to avoid falling into the abyss. The Red Valkyries will be perfect for this role.”
—Agnieszka Mrozik, Institute of Literary Research of the Polish Academy of Sciences