In 1920, Soviet artists began to produce the first images of women proletarians. These women differed from the symbolic women from the 1910s in that they most closely resembled the aspects of the male workers -- dignity, masculinity, and even supernatural power in the case of blacksmiths. In many paintings in the 1920s, the men and women were almost indistinguishable in stature and clothing, but the women would often be depicted taking subservient roles to the men, such as being his assistant (“rabotnitsa.”) These women blacksmith figures were less common, but significant, since it was the first time women were represented as proletarians. The introduction of women workers in propaganda coincided with a series of government policies which allowed for divorce, abortion, and more sexual freedom.