p The second half of the 20th century is an age of tumultuous scientific and technical progress and of outstanding discoveries and inventions. People are exploring space, are flying to the moon and are penetrating the depths of the oceans.

p Against the background of these wonderful achievements,^;humanity’s unresolved social problems stand out with particular starkness. One of these problems is the status of women, who nowadays comprise half of the world’s total population and one-third of its workforce.

p It is perfectly obvious that the part played by women in all spheres of life today is constantly on the increase. But it is no less obvious that in many countries women remain subject to inequality and oppression. This has a harmful effect both on their own status and on the social climate of the society in which they live. After all, the status of women acts as a kind of barometer registering the amount of democracy in any state. As Charles Fourier commented the degree 6 of woman’s emancipation is the natural measure of the general emancipation.

p But what is the status of women in modern society—in the socialist, developed capitalist and developing countries? This question forms a complex problem on many levels, affecting all aspects of social life—the economy, politics and ideology. Therefore, the authors have aimed to show the most important tendencies in the international women’s movement and to present an objective picture of the status of the woman in society and in the family.

p The authors have approached their analysis of the status of women in the world today from the standpoint of Marxist-Leninist theory, the effective doctrine that has revealed the true causes of the inequality of women in a class society, and has shown how they are to be emancipated.

_p Women Today is an extremely topical work, appearing as it does in 1975, which has been declared by the UN General Assembly to be International Women’s Year.

V. V. Nikolayeva-Tereshkova
Chairman,
Soviet Women’s Committee