‘The Chief Achievement of Feminism in Russia? It isn’t Dead’ Activists Say

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 31 – Yesterday was the unofficial Day of Feminism in Russia; and in advance of this holiday, the 7x7 regional news agency asked women to respond to a survey on the WomenPlatform portal about what they considered to be the greatest achievements and most pressing needs of Russian feminism now.

            Some 128 women responded, and the general tone was that “the chief achievement of feminism in Russia” is that it continues to exist and move forward rather than giving up and dying as all too many people there would like (7x7-journal.ru/articles/2020/05/30/glavnoe-dostizhenie-feminizma-v-rossii-on-ne-umer-pobedy-zhenskogo-dvizheniya-za-10-let).

            Among the specific achievements the participants said were “dozens of actions” in support of women and women’s bills in the Duma and the increase in projects “organized by women for women like Project W, You are Not Alone, and A Sister to a Sister. They indicated that women had been especially active during the pandemic in providing psychological help.

            Women have launched their own online media projects and have convinced traditional print media outlets like Forbes, Cosmo and Glamour to change their approach and devote special sections to women’s rights and the feminist struggle. But violence against women and limits on the advancement of women still require struggle.

            A recent Levada Center poll found that Russian society considers spousal abuse a serious problem unlike harassment which many see as a less serious problem. But the survey also found that women are far more upset about both than are men. Unfortunately, the Duma has suspended consideration of a family violence law.

            Over the last decade, participants in the 7x7 survey report, “there have been several serious attacks on the reproductive rights of women,” with some deputies trying to require women to get the approval of their partners before having an abortion, and the Moscow Patriarchate calling for an end to all abortions.

            Russian feminists have responded by organizing demonstrations in Chelyabinsk, St. Petersburg, Novosibirsk and other cities.

            But if they have been fighting to prevent the loss of their rights in that sphere, Russia’s feminists have made major progress in another: reducing and hopefully being close to eliminating the survival of the Soviet past – the list of professions women are not allowed to participate in. As of this coming year, that list will be cut by more than 75 percent.

            According to Olga Shnyrova, the director of the Moscow Center for Gender Research, “the main achievement of feminism [in Russia] is that it isn’t dead. The conditions of the existence and development of feminism in our country are difficult because the powers that be view it as a potential threat.”

            “But at least in major cities, an understanding that the world has changed and that feminism is a normal component of our life is strengthening. But on the other hand, there is an opposing trend: There is an agreed of a definite aggressiveness toward feminism.” This reaction is to be found among those who do not recognize that the world is changing.

            “We will not return” to the past but continue the struggle, Shnyrova says. She adds that the Internet and such actions as #metoo and #I am not afraid to speak out have been extremely influential.  And feminists to be effective must be “cyberactivists.”  But this focus is not without problems.

            “’The broad treatment of the ideas of feminism in the new media’ often leads to the undermining of the feminist agenda, to its commercialization and depoliticization,” directions that the powers that be welcome but that feminists must guard against, the feminist leader concludes.