Status Updates From The New Woman in Uzbekistan...

'Marfua To’xtaxo’jaeva makes a similar argument about the results of
the Soviet modernization program: that while it did create equality in
work and education (those areas that benefit society), discourses and
gender roles remained largely unchanged in the Soviet period.'

'For those who were literate, the language that they read shaped the
borders of their world. For example, in 1928 Russian teachers in Xorazm, Uzbekistan, lived in the Soviet Union . . . At the same time, Turkic-speaking teachers in Xorazm lived in Uzbekistan, reading Uzbek-language newspapers that were published in Tashkent and Samarkand and nothing from the larger union.'

'Joan Scott argues that in any case, subjects “are not unified, autonomous individuals exercising free will, but rather subjects whose agency is created through situations and statuses conferred on them. Being a subject means being ‘subject to definite conditions of existence. . .’ These conditions enable choices, though they are not unlimited.”'