Woman Between Islam and Western Society
4. The Problems Facing Modern Civilization
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only one of many such examples.
WOMAN AND WAR
When Germany invaded the erstwhile U.S.S.R. in
1941, the Soviet government made emotional
appeals to its citizens to treat the saving of their
motherland as a sacred duty. Of those who joined
the military in response to these appeals, 800,000
were girls between the ages of 15 and 16. A book
has recently been published in Moscow entitled
War’s Unwomanly Face
45
which deals with the
experiences of these girls. During her four years of
research, the authoress travelled to one hundred
cities and interviewed 200 women who had
participated in the war.
The book reveals many hitherto unknown facts
about women’s participation in the war, one of
which is that many women began to conceal the fact
that they had ever had anything to do with the war.
“We wanted to become ordinary girls again.
Marriageable girls.” One of the interviewees, an
educated woman by the name of Vera Safronova
Davdova, said, “I believe that the women reacted to
the war in a completely different way from the men.
