Religion and Gender Equality in the Baltic States: Key Aspects of Soviet and Post-Soviet Developments

This chapter provides a literature and document analysis-based sociohistorical overview of the complex relationship between religion and gender equality in the Baltic states, inquiring into how Soviet Union policies on religion and gender equality were formed, implemented, and later transformed during the sociopolitical transformations of the post-Soviet period. It provides an overview of the period from the beginning of the Soviet occupation until the present. Soviet Union governmental policies affected religion as a social institution by removing it from the public sphere, contributing to an increase in religion’s social and symbolic capital and reinforcing the significance of its return to the public sphere after the collapse of the Soviet Union in the Baltic states. The restrictions on public religious life and close monitoring of religious organizations in the Soviet Union resulted in different development trajectories than the religious life of Euro-American societies. This trajectory ultimately resulted in Baltic religious organizations becoming more socially conservative, especially regarding gender-related matters. Gender was an important element in Soviet Union government policy, which aimed to reshape male and female roles in both public and private spheres. However, most efforts to achieve gender equality were put into female emancipation. Thus, the state first attempted to alter women’s roles and behaviors by involving them in paid employment and political representation. Along with involvement in paid work, women had to take care of the private sphere of home and family. Such governmental policies contributed to changes in the perception of gender roles and family life in private and public, and this impact can be tracked up to the present in Baltic societies.