Evolution of gender roles and feminism in russia, a historical contextualization

Abstract

[eng] Feminism, or rather anti-feminism is a popular theme in Russian media and politics today. The feminist movement is being described as a “war to men” and even a threat to the Russian national values (Voronina, 2009). Strong binary gender roles have always been present in the Russian society and have been strengthened substantially by Vladimir Putin’s conservative politics, particularly after his second presidential term. Gender norms have been used in order to defend Russian nationalism, via ideas about femininity and masculinity (Sperling, 2015). One of the reasons for a strong rejection of feminism in Russia is a form of back-lash against the Communist past (Occhipinti, 1996), even though, as I would like to discuss in my thesis, real equality was never achieved in the USSR, and despite some great advances for women in the 1920’s, the conditions offered by Marxism-Leninism to achieve equality were not enough (Scott, 1982). I suggest that an analysis of the Soviet problematic of gender roles and inequalities considering the Social Reproduction Theory (Bhattacharya, 2017) would shed light on this issue. I would like to analyse the evolution of the Women Movement in Russia, starting from its beginnings in 1860’s (the so-called “Woman question”) influenced by a liberalization of the Russian society of the time as a result a crisis of the traditional Russian society in a specific socio-economic context (Yukina, 2007), followed by the development of women groups and their first demands (access to education). I would also like to consider the role of women in the Russian Revolution and stress the importance of such prominent figures as Alexandra Kollontai, Nadezhda Krupskaya and Inessa Armand in the achievement of many rights for women after the revolution and during the 1920’s, as well as the fundamental ideas of those years that acknowledged that the liberation of women could not come with women’s participation in the workforce alone (Buckley, 1985). I would like to analyse the important role of the Zhenotdels (Women’s departments), and the influence that they had on the emancipation of Soviet women (Kameneva, 2014). Unfortunately, these great debates were ignored later on, and many of the rights obtained after the Revolution were taken away during the Stalin years, when the main objective was Collectivization and women’s issues came off the agenda (Buckley, 1985). A revival of the Feminist movement took place in the late 70’s with a samizdat (self-published) magazine created by a group of young feminists from Leningrad. Although their revindications were quite different from their Western counterparts, they have had a certain impact amongst other Russian dissidents of that time and have continued their work after being expulsed of the USSR (Holt, 1985). As a conclusion, I would like to analyse the role of Russian women today, how gender is constructed in the Russian society and how it is paired with a totalitarian conservative regime in order to continue to maintain strong inequalities in the Russian society