This [Times series on communism] is unadulterated rubbish. I grew up under communism, and here is what I recall.
First, all communist countries were run by men; female leaders, like Margaret Thatcher and Golda Meir, would have been unthinkable. Women who rose to prominence, like Raisa Gorbachev and Elena Ceausescu, did so purely as appendages of their powerful husbands.
Second, the author concedes that "gender wage disparities and labor segregation persisted, and...the communists never fully reformed domestic patriarchy." I would say so. In a typical Eastern European family, the woman, in addition to having a day job at a factory, was expected to clean the apartment, shop for food, cook dinner, and raise the children. The Western sexual revolution passed the communist bloc by, and ex-communist countries remain much more patriarchal than their Western counterparts to this day.
Third, communist societies were socially uber-conservative. As such, pornography and prostitution were strictly prohibited, divorces were discouraged and divorced people ostracized, and prophylactics and the pill were hard to obtain. (Think about it for one hot second. Why would economies unable to produce enough bread and toilet paper generate a plentiful and regular supply of condoms? This makes no sense!) The reason why we refer to communist countries as "totalitarian" is because the state wanted to control every aspect of human existence. Sexual autonomy was, well, autonomous. Being outside the control of the all-powerful state, it was treated with suspicion and suppressed.
But don't take my word for it. You can still visit a few communist countries, including Cuba and North Korea, and compare the social status and empowerment of their women with those in the West. Had the esteemed editors of the Times done so, they would have, I hope, thought twice about publishing a series of pro-communist excreta.
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