Although Russia was unstable during the 1860s due to political conflicts, class conflicts, and various revolutionary ideologies that shook traditional mores, women were still constantly trapped in the their own state of oppression. Women have faced inequality everywhere: in their community, even in their own family. Compared to men, they were legally subordinated at every social level and could not carry out occupations outside of domestic work. In What is to be done?, Nikolai Chernyshevsky puts into practice many of the ideas of the intelligentsia to transform the subordination of women. The novel centers on Vera Pavlovna, a woman who escapes a suffocating lifestyle and forced marriage, becomes an entrepreneur, and finds her true love with the help of her newfound independence. Chernyshevsky uses Vera's journey as an example of how a woman is oppressed and how she can free herself from that oppression. Immediately, the story begins with Vera living under the rule of an autocratic mother who wants to marry her off to the son of their apartment building owner. Although Vera has aspirations of her own, she is doomed to lifelong servitude to her family and a loveless marriage to which she does not want to commit. This shows how not only men contributed to the subordination of women in Russia, but women also played a social role in this. Vera's mother wants her to marry rich in hopes of gaining money, power and status. All these reasons show how Vera's mother thinks in her own interest before her daughter's happiness, and also suggests how desperate not only women, but people from the lower classes were to escape their social stigma. But arranged marriage and permanent servitude are not unique… middle of paper… and Lopukhov had to receive permission from each other in order to enter each other's rooms. They also set up a “neutral” room where they could talk and drink tea together. Chernyshevsky purposely paints these characters as they are to exemplify how men and women are able to have respectful and egalitarian lives together. The equal relationship between the sexes could also suggest a relationship of equality between social classes. Vera showed independence and broke her oppression at every level: domestic, economic and political. Through marriage, she emerges from her domestic subordination and potential lifelong servitude to her family. Using marriage to her advantage, she cleverly creates a production cooperative and further challenges the common notion that women cannot pursue occupations outside of their home. Furthermore,