Post-Soviet Women: New Challenges and Ways to Empowerment (Sustainable Development Goals Series) 3031380657, 9783031380655

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Sustainable Development Goals Series

Post-Soviet Women New Challenges and Ways to Empowerment Edited by Ann-Mari Sätre · Yulia Gradskova · Vladislava Vladimirova

SDG: 5 Gender Equality

Sustainable Development Goals Series

The Sustainable Development Goals Series is Springer Nature’s inaugural cross-imprint book series that addresses and supports the United Nations’ seventeen Sustainable Development Goals. The series fosters comprehensive research focused on these global targets and endeavours to address some of society’s greatest grand challenges. The SDGs are inherently multidisciplinary, and they bring people working across different fields together and working towards a common goal. In this spirit, the Sustainable Development Goals series is the first at Springer Nature to publish books under both the Springer and Palgrave Macmillan imprints, bringing the strengths of our imprints together. The Sustainable Development Goals Series is organized into eighteen subseries: one subseries based around each of the seventeen respective Sustainable Development Goals, and an eighteenth subseries, “Connecting the Goals,” which serves as a home for volumes addressing multiple goals or studying the SDGs as a whole. Each subseries is guided by an expert Subseries Advisor with years or decades of experience studying and addressing core components of their respective Goal. The SDG Series has a remit as broad as the SDGs themselves, and contributions are welcome from scientists, academics, policymakers, and researchers working in fields related to any of the seventeen goals. If you are interested in contributing a monograph or curated volume to the series, please contact the Publishers: Zachary Romano [Springer; zachary. [email protected]] and Rachael Ballard [Palgrave Macmillan; rachael. [email protected]].

Ann-Mari Sätre · Yulia Gradskova · Vladislava Vladimirova Editors

Post-Soviet Women New Challenges and Ways to Empowerment

Editors Ann-Mari Sätre Institute for Russian and Eurasian Studies Uppsala University Uppsala, Sweden

Yulia Gradskova Centre for Baltic and East European Studies Södertörn University Huddinge, Sweden

Vladislava Vladimirova Institute for Russian and Eurasian Studies/Department of Cultural Anthropology and Ethnology Uppsala University Uppsala, Sweden

ISSN 2523-3084 ISSN 2523-3092 (electronic) Sustainable Development Goals Series ISBN 978-3-031-38065-5 ISBN 978-3-031-38066-2 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-38066-2 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 Color wheel and icons: From https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/, Copyright © 2020 United Nations. Used with the permission of the United Nations. The content of this publication has not been approved by the United Nations and does not reflect the views of the United Nations or its officials or Member States. This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover illustration: Korndanai Vitthayanukarun/EyeEm This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Acknowledgments

This anthology grew out of the series of workshops ‘Post-Soviet Women—Ways to Empowerment’, hosted by the Institute for Russian and Eurasian Studies (IRES), at Uppsala University, and organized in cooperation with Södertörn University (Center for Baltic and East European Studies) in 2020–2022. First, we would like to thank Uppsala Forum on Democracy, Peace and Justice for providing workshop funding. We express our gratitude to the contributors to this volume for their engagement and hard work. Without them, this project would have never materialized! Special thanks go to Li Bennich-Björkman, Helene Carlbäck, Leo Granberg, Nathan Light, and Maija Runcis for reading and commenting on drafts at various stages. We also thank IRES for hosting the workshops which served as discussion forums and helped develop the different chapters of this anthology. We owe a debt of gratitude to IRES Head of Department, Claes Levinsson, for his full-hearted support. Last but not least, we thank all the participants in all the workshops and panels for fruitful exchange of ideas and knowledge. Uppsala and Södertörn, May 2023

Ann-Mari Sätre Yulia Gradskova Vladislava Vladimirova

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Praise for Post-Soviet Women

“More than three decades since women faced Soviet collapse, this book revisits the big questions of institutional change, neoliberalism, and women’s agency. The editors and authors consider a world changed by the return of conservative politics, new forms of feminist protest, and Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine, inviting us to consider whether initial concepts such as post-Soviet and double burden or new frameworks of postcoloniality and intersectionality best help us understand the new developments.” —Janet Elise Johnson, Professor, Brooklyn College and Graduate Center, City University of New York, NY, USA “This timely textbook opened exciting insights into the evolution of gender regimes in the post-Soviet space from Ukraine to Central Asia, going beyond the simple retraditionalisation thesis. It should not be left out of any university teaching programme on the topic.” —Katharina Bluhm, Professor, East European Institute & Institute of Sociology, Freie Universität Berlin, Germany “This very timely book delves into the complexities, diversities and nuances of transformations and continuities in women’s lives across a huge territory from the Baltic states, through Belarus, Ukraine and Russia, down to the Caucasus and across to Central Asia. Fresh and fascinating empirical data from ethnography, interviews, social media, vii

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statistical indexes, legislation and prevailing political narratives enrich discussions of the challenges that heterogeneous women face in various contexts, whether urban, rural or nomadic, and at different times in their lives. Authors vividly explore the significance for identity of women’s multiple responses, activisms, and empowerments to the various predicaments in which they find themselves. Analysis explores the relevance in recent decades of the impact on daily life of a ‘conservative turn,’ gender backlash and policies to promote patriotism, traditional family life and reproduction. The volume illustrates that despite authoritarian controls, aggression and war, simultaneously there exist buzzing grassroots digital feminisms and carefully devised strategies for running social organisations. Diverse contributions highlight political variations across these states and discuss the relevance of legacies of the Soviet past, nation building processes and EU membership for women’s agency. The book also raises the lively question of how best this literature can take decolonialisation on board. This extremely welcome anthology will be of interest to students of politics, sociology, anthropology, gender studies and area studies, as well as to feminists, activists, policy makers and the wider public. There is much in it for everyone.” —Mary Buckley, Life Fellow, Hughes Hall, University of Cambridge, UK

Contents

Post-Soviet Women: New Challenges and Ways to Empowerment-Introduction Ann-Mari Sätre, Vladislava Vladimirova, and Yulia Gradskova

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Women’s Positions in the Post-Soviet Societies From Defending Women’s Rights in the “Whole World” to Silence About Russia’s Predatory War? The (Geo)politics of the Eurasian Women’s Forums in the Context of “Traditional Values” Yulia Gradskova

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Debates on the Domestic Violence Prevention Law in Russia—Pro and Contra Elena G. Lukovitskaya

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When the Private Remains Nonpolitical: Gender Roles, Sexual Liberation, and the Example of Armenia Li Bennich-Björkman

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General Trends in Gender Inequality in Post-Soviet Central Asia Alma Kudebayeva

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CONTENTS

Women’s Rights in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan: In the Grip of Conservative Re-traditionalisation and Neoliberal Capitalism Galym Zhussipbek and Zhanar Nagayeva Why Was There No FEMEN in the Baltic States? Some Preliminary Observations Matthew Kott

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Negotiating Women’s Roles Being a Woman and Russian National Identity: Discourses and Representations Through the Lenses of Russian Conservative and Nationalist Organizations Alexandra Martin Brankova

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Female Parliamentarians in Armenia: From Traditional Theme-Takers to the New Theme-Givers? Ani Grigoryan

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Valkyries and Madonnas: Constructing Femininity During the Russo-Ukrainian War Kateryna Boyko

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Women Cultivating Love in the Belarusian Countryside Aliaksandra Shrubok

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Women’s Agency, New Movements and Activisms ‘They Beat Us, We Fly’: Indigenous Activism Among Women in the Russian North Vladislava Vladimirova and Elena Liarskaia

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Women’s Activism in Ukraine: Artistic Method in Early Civic Documentations of the Ukraine-Russia War Jessica Zychowicz

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Generations of Feminist Translations: Connecting Russophone Academic and Activist Feminist Translation Debates Across the 2000s and 2010s Dinara Yangeldina

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CONTENTS

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Balancing Between Global Trends: What Is Happening with Women’s Empowerment in Azerbaijan? Humay Akhundzade

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Women’s Agency During the Conservative Wave in Russian Social Policy Ann-Mari Sätre

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Index

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Notes on Contributors

Humay Akhundzade is the Head of Sector at the Social Research Center in Baku, Azerbaijan. She has MA in sociology from the European University (Saint-Petersburg) and MA in Psychology from Baku State University. Her research interests include gender in Azerbaijan, aging, and sociology of care. Her latest publications were on eldercare regime in Azerbaijan and gender arrangements in contemporary Azerbaijani urban families. Li Bennich-Björkman is Johan Skytte Professor in Eloquence and Political Science at Uppsala University. She is the author, editor, and co-editor of sixteen books in English or Swedish, numerous articles, book chapters, and popular pieces. Her most recent book is on Soviet nomenklatura and intelligentsia relations in the Baltic States and Ukraine, and how such governance affected the transition and the politics of independence. Kateryna Boyko is a Ph.D. candidate in Media and Communication Studies at the Institute for Russian and Eurasian Studies (Uppsala University, Sweden). Among her research interests are identity construction, online communities, the intersection of entertaining content and politics. Her doctoral project explores civic cultures of torrent communities in Ukraine. She holds a Master degree in Journalism from Kyiv National Taras Shevchenko University, while her second MA degree in Media Studies was obtained at Södertörn University (Stockholm). Alexandra Martin Brankova is a Ph.D. candidate in Media and Communications at Uppsala University, the Institute for Russian and Eurasian xiii

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Studies (IRES), and the Department of Informatics and Media. Her Ph.D. project investigates Russian nationalist media ecology, practices, and discursive constructions of Russian national identity pre- and during Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine (2018–2023). Her main research interests are related to national identity construction, nationalism, critical discourse studies, digital media, and methods with a specific focus on the Russian Federation and South-East Europe. She has completed both her undergraduate and postgraduate studies at the University of Glasgow where she graduated with an M.Sc. in Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies from the School of Social and Political Sciences. She has also been a visiting scholar at the Centre for Research on Extremism, University of Oslo. Yulia Gradskova is Associate Professor in History, Researcher in the Department of Gender Studies, and works as Research Coordinator at the Center for Baltic and East European Studies, Södertörn University (Sweden). Her research interests include Soviet and post-Soviet social and gender history, decolonial perspective on Soviet politics of emancipation of ‘woman of the East’, and transnational history. Her last book is The Women’s International Democratic Federation, the Global South and the Cold War. Defending the Rights of Women of the ‘Whole World’? (Routledge 2021). She is the author of Soviet Politics of Emancipation of Ethnic Minority Women. Natsionalka (Springer, 2018) and co-editor of several books, including Gendering Postsocialism. Old Legacies and New Hierarchies (Routledge 2018, with Ildiko Asztalos Morell). Ani Grigoryan is a Political Scientist affiliated to the Department of Political Processes and Institutes at National Academy of Sciences in Armenia based in Armenia with a focus on Eurasian studies and ethnopolitical conflicts. The scope of her main research interests includes women’s political participation in decision-making processes and conflict resolution. She is currently conducting research on women’s role in political upheavals in Eastern Europe as well as delivering lectures as a guest researcher. Matthew Kott (Ph.D.) IRES, Uppsala University, specializes in the contemporary history of the Baltic states, particularly Latvia. He is editor in chief of the Journal of Baltic Studies. His research interests include ideologies and how they affect societal developments. The FEMEN movement has been discussed in his teaching since 2009.

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Alma Kudebayeva is Associate Professor in the Department of Economics, KIMEP University, Kazakhstan, specializing in issues of poverty, well-being, and labor economics in Central Asia. She holds doctorates in mathematics from Al-Farabi Kazakh National University and in development economics from the University of Manchester and has been Fulbright Scholar at Indiana University and Research Fellow at DIW (Berlin). She has provided expertise on inequality and poverty assessment among others for the United Nations and the World Bank in a consultative capacity. She has a number of publications in scholarly journals such as Journal of Happiness Studies, Europe-Asia Studies, Economic Systems, Central Asian Survey, Journal of International Development, and Journal of Comparative Economics. She has a book chapter in Handbook of Sustainable Politics and Economics of Natural Resources. Elena Liarskaia is a Social Anthropologist and an Associate Professor at the Centre for Social Research of the North at the European University in St. Petersburg. Her research focus includes cultural transformation, histories of modernization, education, kinship and family relations, and reproductive strategies among Indigenous and local populations of the Russian North. She has published her research in many high-ranked peer review journals and anthologies in Russia and abroad. Elena G. Lukovitskaya Dr. in Psychology, is Associate Professor in Philosophy, Culture Studies and Sociology Department, Yaroslav-theWise Novgorod State University, Russia. She is the Head of the NGO ‘Novgorod Gender Center’. Her research interests include tolerance to ambiguity, gender discrimination, reproductive health, and domestic violence in Russia. She has published extensively in Russian. Her latest publication in English is on transformation of paternity in the modern family. Zhanar Nagayeva MA from Leeds University Business School, University of Leeds, UK, is a Research Fellow at Suleyman Demirel atindagi Universitet, Kaskelen/Almaty, Kazakhstan. Her interests are in the field of interdisciplinary research—finance, political science, sociology, education, psychology, and exploring humanistic approaches in education. Her publications include ‘The Social State, Active Citizen and Empowering Education: Contribution of Montessori’s Humanistic Philosophy of Education’. Adam Aemi (2022, with Galym Zhussipbek) and ‘Human rights of daughters-in-law (kelins) in Central Asia: harmful traditional

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practices and structural oppression’. Central Asian Survey (2021, with Galym Zhussipbek). Ann-Mari Sätre is Professor in Eurasian Studies and Research Director at IRES Institute for Russian and Eurasian Studies, Uppsala University. She is specialized in the structure and performance of the Soviet/Russian economy. Her current research is focused on post-Soviet transformation, women’s agency, poverty, and social policy in Russia. She is the author or co-author of several books (including Environmental Problems in the Shortage Economy: The Legacy of Soviet Environmental Policy, Edward Elgar 1994, and together with Leo Granberg The Other Russia: Local experience and societal change, Routledge 2017), articles, and book chapters on the Soviet/Russian political economy and women’s work. Among her publications is also a co-edited volume Attitudes, Poverty and Agency in Russia and Ukraine (Routledge 2016, with Ildiko Asztalos Morell). Her most recent book is The Politics of Poverty in Contemporary Russia (Routledge 2019). Aliaksandra Shrubok is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Cultural Anthropology and Ethology and the Institute for Russian and Eurasian Studies at Uppsala University. Her research examines plant-human relations through an ethnography of Belarusian women gardening practices in rural communities. Her research engages theoretically with care, love, affect, labor, and ethics. Vladislava Vladimirova is an Associate Professor in Cultural Anthropology and a Senior Lecturer in Eurasian Studies at the Institute for Russian and Eurasian Studies (IRES) and the Department of Cultural Anthropology and Ethnology at Uppsala University. She is a cultural anthropologist doing long-term research in Circumpolar Eurasia. Her main interests are in the field of Indigenous rights and ethnicity, environmental governance and justice, gender, moral economy, and conservation of environmental and cultural heritage in the Arctic. In addition to numerous book chapters and journal articles, she is the author of the book Just labor: labor ethic in a post-Soviet reindeer herding community (2006), for which she was awarded the Westin Prize by the Royal Society for Humanities at Uppsala (2009). In 2018, Vladislava Vladimirova and Otto Habeck were guest editors to a special issue of the journal Polar Geography on Gender in the Arctic.

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Dinara Yangeldina is a Lecturer and a Ph.D. candidate at the Centre for Women’s and Gender Research (SKOK) at the University of Bergen, Norway. Her research interests include post-soviet feminist activism and feminist translation, popular culture, media and music, post-coloniality as well as postsocialist discourses on race/ethnicity and sexuality. Galym Zhussipbek holds a Ph.D. in International Relations from the Faculty of Political Science, Ankara University, Turkey. He is affiliated to the Department of Social Sciences, Suleyman Demirel University, Kaskelen, Almaty, Kazakhstan. His research interests are in the field of critical realism, decolonial approach, political and religious situation in Central Asia, theoretical foundations of human rights, and modern ideational trends in the Muslim world. His most recent articles include ‘Strictness is a virtue’. Social determination of authoritarian parenting and political authoritarianism: the implications for children’s rights in Eurasia’. International Journal of Children’s Rights (forthcoming, 2023, with Zhanar Nagayeva) and ‘The Need to Bridge the Gap between Research on Children’s Rights and Parenting Styles: Authoritative/Democratic Style as an Acultural Model for the Child’s Well-Being’. Social Sciences (2023 with Zhanar Nagayeva). Jessica Zychowicz is the Director of Fulbright Ukraine & Institute of International Education, Kyiv Office. She is the author of the award-winning book Superfluous Women: Art, Feminism, and Revolution in Twenty-First Century Ukraine (U-Toronto Press 2020), editor of Freedom Taking Place: War, Women and Culture at the Intersection of Ukraine, Poland, and Belarus (Vernon Press 2023), and numerous articles. She was a U.S. Fulbright Scholar to Ukraine and Fellow at U-Toronto Munk School of Global Affairs, U-Alberta, and Uppsala University. She holds a doctorate from U-Michigan and B.A. from U.C. Berkeley.

Abbreviations

AFU BBC CEDAW CEU CRRC CSW DNR ESM EWF GARF GDI GGGI GII GNI HDI ICTJ IDP Kolkhoz LGBTQ MP NGO NKO

Armed Forces of Ukraine British Broadcasting Corporation Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women Central European University Caucasus Research and Resource Center Committee of Soviet Women Donetsk National Republic Evraziiskii Soiuz Molodezhi (Russian), the Eurasian Youth Union Eurasian Women’s Forum State Archive of the Russian Federation (from Russian) Gender Development Index Global Gender Gap Index Gender Inequality Index Gross National Income Human Development Index International Center for Transitional Justice Internally Displaced People Kollektivnoe Khoziaistvo (Russian), Collective Farm in the Soviet Union Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transexual and Queer Member of Parliament Non-Governmental Organization Non-Commercial Organization (from Russian)

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ABBREVIATIONS

NKVD OECD OSEREDOK POW PiS RAIPON RAPFR RFE/RL RIM RNU ROC SIGI SNF Sovkhoz SWB UCF UK UN OHCHR UN UNDP UNPFA USA USAid USNED VCIOM VK WEF WHO WIDF WUOR WVSR WWW ZM

Narodný Komissariat Vnutrennih Del, pronounced (the interior ministry of the Soviet Union) Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development Ukrainian Cultural and Educational Centre in Winn Prisoners of War Law and Justice party (Poland; from Polish) All-Russian Association of Indigenous Peoples of the North (from Russian) Restricted Access to Productive and Financial Resources Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty The Russian Imperial Movement The Russian National Unity The Russian Orthodox Church The Social Institutions Gender Index Sami Women Forum (from Sami) Sovetskoe Khoziaistvo (Russian), State-Managed Farm in the Soviet Union Subjective Well-Being Ukraine Cultural Fund United Kingdom The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights United Nations United Nations Development Programme United Nation Population Fund United States of America United States Developmental agency United States National Endowment for Democracy Russia Public Opinion Research Centre Vkontakte, a Russian Social Media World Economic Forum World Health Organization Women’s International Democratic Federation Women’s Union of Russia World Values Survey Report (Journal) Women of the Whole World (Journal) Women of the Whole World (from Russian, Zhenshchiny mira)

List of Figures

When the Private Remains Nonpolitical: Gender Roles, Sexual Liberation, and the Example of Armenia Fig. 1

Mother Armenia, Wikimedia Commons, Photo: Armineaghayan

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General Trends in Gender Inequality in Post-Soviet Central Asia Fig. 1 Fig. 2

Fig. 3

GDI in Central Asia (Source Human Development Report, 2014, 2019) GIIs for selected Central Asian countries in 2008, 2014 and 2018 (Source Human Development Reports, 2010, 2015, 2019) The GGGI and its components in Central Asia during 2006–2018, where 1 refers to full equality and 0 refers to extreme inequality. a GGGI dynamics in Central Asia; b GGGI political empowerment sub-index; c GGGI economic participation and opportunity sub-index (Source World Economic Forum)

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LIST OF FIGURES

Valkyries and Madonnas: Constructing Femininity During the Russo-Ukrainian War Fig. 1

The cover of the book I Am Sowing into Your Eyes (2022) by the author of the Angy Kreyda hit Liudmyla Horova combines the Valkyrie, Madonna and Witch archetypes (Artist: Oleksiy Chebukin)

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Women’s Activism in Ukraine: Artistic Method in Early Civic Documentations of the Ukraine-Russia War Fig. 1

Sketch for the animation film in development “Displaced Garden,” Dir. Kateryna Voznytsia, yutopia films, https://yut opiafilms.info/Displaced-Garden. Shared with permission of the filmmakers

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List of Tables

General Trends in Gender Inequality in Post-Soviet Central Asia Table 1 Table 2 Table 3

Table 4

SIGI for Central Asian countries in 2014 SIGI for Central Asian countries in 2019 Gender-based attitudes and biases in social norms based on waves 6 and 7 of the World Values Survey (WVS6 and WVS7) GII ranks and components in 2014 for selected Central Asian countries

101 102

106 112

Female Parliamentarians in Armenia: From Traditional Theme-Takers to the New Theme-Givers? Table 1

Women elected to parliament in Armenia, 1995–2018

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Post-Soviet Women: New Challenges and Ways to Empowerment-Introduction Ann-Mari Sätre, Vladislava Vladimirova, and Yulia Gradskova

Purpose and Theoretical Premises This volume explores the challenges that women face, their positions in changing societies, the negotiation of their roles and their responses to change and ways to achieve women’s empowerment. The regional focus is on countries in the territory of the former Soviet Union. With this volume, we fill a gap in the published knowledge on recent politics, ideology, identity and activism in relation to gender and to women

A.-M. Sätre (B) Institute for Russian and Eurasian Studies, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden e-mail: [email protected] V. Vladimirova Institute for Russian and Eurasian Studies/Department of Cultural Anthropology and Ethnology, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden e-mail: [email protected] Y. Gradskova Centre for Baltic and East European Studies/Department of Gender Studies, Södertörn University, Huddinge, Sweden e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 A.-M. Sätre et al. (eds.), Post-Soviet Women, Sustainable Development Goals Series, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-38066-2_1

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that have been seriously impacted by conservative politics and resurgent nationalism. By ‘conservative politics’, we refer to attempts to limit women’s rights as undertaken by governments, political movements and religious authorities. That contradicts each state’s fundamental responsibility to protect its citizens—men or women or children—as well as several international obligations, amongst others the Sustainable Development Agenda, where Sustainable Development Goal 5 stipulates gender equality and empowerment of women. We also explore women’s responses to conservative politics and shed light on women’s agency to improve their lives and society. Many post-Soviet countries claim that they also pursue the implementation of UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), including policies for gender equality and women empowerment. But we identify two kinds of contradictions in their approaches to SDG5: on the one hand, in legislation, attitudes and actions intended to implement gender equality1 and create preconditions for women’s empowerment, and on the other hand, in conservative gender ideologies and policies. Such contradictions are not unique for this region, as civil society activists warn that ‘social and political forces in many parts of the world are actively conspiring to hold women and girls back … to constrain civil space are increasing—and disproportionately affecting feminist groups’ (Mathews & Nunn, 2019, p. 27). This anthology tackles some of these contradictions by examining the diversity of ideas, policies and practices of women’s equality and empowerment, and the hindrances to those in different post-Soviet countries. This publication is inspired by Mary Buckley, who collected images of the first tumultuous post-Soviet decade in her anthology Post-Soviet Women: from the Baltic to Central Asia (1997).2 Buckley followed up on developments in the decade after the breakdown of the Soviet Union. We have a similar ambition, but our focus is on a generation later. Following Buckley, we want to understand how women in the post-Soviet region live, how their situations have changed, and what new opportunities and threats they are encountering. By bringing together contributions by scholars who live in or frequently travel to the region, we reveal the gendered processes that characterize the post-Soviet space. In this book, we recognize that women’s lives and practices are shaped by the interactions of dominant political ideologies, official legal documents and state governance, social institutions, economic relations, historical legacies, cultural patterns and individual aspirations. Of course

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women’s lives are not entirely predetermined, and group and individual agency play a significant role, even in authoritarian states. We discuss multiple instances of women resisting societal restrictions and impositions on their freedom. We also analyse formal institutions, informal practices and civil activism that empower women and can contribute to improving their lives in the long term. Our conceptualization contributes to knowledge building initiated by critical research of SDGs that departs from earlier developmental approaches to gender equality that are grounded in mechanistic individualist understandings of society and target women empowerment primarily on the level of individual women (Mathews & Nunn, 2019). At the time of writing this introduction, it is more than a year since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began. Most of the contributions to this volume were well under way before the invasion, and our work was seriously interrupted by the war, which has posed theoretical and emotional challenges for the editors and contributors. Many chapters and conclusions have been rethought, and the contents of this book now include a contribution on the role of women in war-torn Ukraine in 2022. Moreover, some of the contributors live in countries and contexts where freedom of speech is limited and have had to adjust their writing accordingly to avoid taking personal risks. Since the start of this project, we have been split between two contradicting tendencies: (1) to collect new empirical data and produce an analysis of the changing conditions and lives of women in the post-Soviet space, in keeping with organizing principle of Buckley’s anthology: her volume strongly implies that the category of ‘post-Soviet’ holds continuous theoretical relevance and points to common features shared amongst post-Soviet societies; and (2) to problematize the category of ‘postSoviet’. In keeping with the latter, we acknowledge criticisms that the category of ‘post-Soviet’ is too narrow and limits understanding of the diversity of processes in the region to the model of a single country, Russia (Sakwa, 1999). Another criticism is that this category overestimates the significance of Soviet history and distracts attention from the ongoing diversity of transformations in different countries, as well as distracts from continuities with pre-Soviet histories (Platt, 2009). Many scholars and other citizens of countries in the region object to the ‘post-Soviet label’ as irrelevant to their identities and as forcefully imposed on them, first by Sovietization and now by global scholarship and politics that perpetuate negative stereotypes and stigmatization (Holland & Derrick, 2016).

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These contradictions become more pronounced in the context of conservative politics and nationalism, which tend to objectify invented notions of history and tradition in order to mobilize a population by creating a shared group identity. In such contexts, the term ‘Soviet’ can be employed in group identity formation, either as a positive reference to historical heritage or as a negative referent to forcefully imposed domination that must be resisted through the mobilization of pre-Soviet or alternative traditions. The war in Ukraine has further exacerbated the contradictions surrounding the post-Soviet notion. In earlier publications, scholars applied the ‘post-Soviet’ concept to emphasize the commonalities amongst states and to relate these to larger international processes and issues. For them, however, ‘post-Soviet’ is a concept that includes a range of diverse states and societies; that is, ‘post-Soviet states [and] post-Soviet societies to varying degrees and in different ways’ (Holland & Derrick, 2016, p. 9). Our goal is neither to affirm nor to reject the use of the term ‘post-Soviet’. We wish to contribute to the current scholarship that stresses and reveals the diversity of the post-Soviet region and affirms the self-recognition and freedom of identity formation, especially regarding women and gender. We problematize the trend of some scholars who focus on Russia and claim that they can extend their findings to other regions (Tomohiko, 2015). In their intellectually challenging reflections on the similarities and synergies between post-socialism and post-colonialism, Sharad Chari and Katherine Verdery problematize the hegemonic knowledges of the Cold War and of development. In their view, the ‘posts’ in post-socialism and post-colonialism can become a common platform for solidarity, powerful social critique and the potentiality of more just global social order (Chari & Verdery, 2009). This post-colonial and post-socialist knowledge should be grounded in ‘work by “natives”, as analysts of their own condition, in their own terms’ (Chari & Verdery, 2009, p. 29). One aim of this volume is to support the decolonization of knowledge production about women in post-Soviet countries (Hundorova, 2023; Kassymbekova & Marat, 2022; Tlostanova, 2010). Our editorial vision is led by values and critical scrutiny of democracy, gender equality, women empowerment and sustainability, but we do not seek top-down normative perspective. Instead we invite authors to reveal and analyse diverse perspectives on gender equality and women’s empowerment (the objectives of SDG5), emphasizing women’s views. In this anthology, we also

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avoid employing a single theory or vision of how developments and changes in gender relationships and women’s lives must be depicted. When planning this collection in September 2020, at a workshop organized by Uppsala University in cooperation with Södertörn University, we were particularly interested in bringing in the voices of a new generation of researchers and addressing the challenges of women’s empowerment in different post-Soviet states. Three chapters in this volume provide a critical analysis of different mechanisms of repression of women in Russia, including the impacts of conservative politics on women’s rights.3 Three more chapters discuss various aspects of women’s agency and activism in Russia. Nine chapters explore gender politics and diverse practices in different post-Soviet countries, namely Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Ukraine and areas (the Baltics and Central Asia).4 Despite the outspoken efforts of the Soviet political regime to create a society with unified values, cultural norms and social institutions, women’s lives varied significantly in different republics and social groups during the Soviet period. These differences greatly increased after 1991. The chapters in this book show how gender regimes have evolved and transformed since the end of the USSR’s policies. The authors explore how different countries have reclaimed the gender values and patterns imposed by Soviet policies or have moved away from them. Thus, this book reveals the increasing political, cultural and social diversity in the region that was once occupied by the USSR and its effect on women. Our hope is that understanding this diversity can both contribute to projects of knowledge decolonization and to adjusting strategies for implementation of SDG5 in this particular region. Some of the authors study state ideologies, whilst others question these ideologies by discussing alternative values and women’s practices. Thus, this volume not only compiles new empirical knowledge but also provides a fresh approach to the study of gender-related processes and activisms using diverse research optics. Our ambition is to provide a scholarly perspective on developments in different parts of the former Soviet Union, although we do not have chapters on all post-Soviet countries. The approaches taken by the different authors vary; most contributions rely on field work and interviews and, in other cases, data has been collected from archives or social media. Both quantitative and qualitative assessments of gender (in)equalities are provided. The conclusions of different chapters are not necessarily consistent. We are not attempting to

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systematically compare developments, although the reader can see similarities and differences between countries. Debates are ongoing, and we view the region as being in flux: developments are under way, and their direction may change at any time. By employing predominantly qualitative methodology, this anthology counteracts the dominant tendency to evaluate SDGs implementation through quantitative measures and technocratic approaches. Critical scholarship of SDG has pointed out to the limitations and confusions that this tendency has caused (Mathews & Nunn, 2019, p. 33).

Thirty years After the Breakdown of the Soviet Union The period from the breakdown of the Soviet Union to the mid-1990s has been covered well by Buckley (1997), who accounts for some differences between regions that were already visible at that time. It might be expected that such divergences would be more obvious after another 25– 30 years have passed, but this is not necessarily the case. Are the trends, images or attitudes from the Soviet past still visible today? What has changed, and what similarities remain? We find evidence of diverse developments in different parts of the former Soviet Union. Some countries have shown considerable interest in gender equality and the implementation of SDG5: Lithuania was the first post-Soviet country to adopt gender-equality legislation in 1999, the law on equal rights and equal opportunities for men and women. This was followed by Ukraine in 2005, after the first Maidan events. Kazakhstan adopted a similar law in 2009, Georgia in 2011 and Estonia in 2013, but many countries in the region have not issued their own laws on equal opportunities. In Russia, genderequality law has never gone further than a first reading in Parliament, which occurred in 2004. The Istanbul Convention (2011) condemning violence against women was signed by several countries in the region, but was ratified only by Estonia (2016), Georgia (2017), Moldova and Ukraine (2022). The laws making up the Convention were intended to improve the situation of women. Russia did not sign the Istanbul Convention. During the Soviet period, hardly any women held leadership positions within decision-making political bodies (which, at that time, were mainly connected to higher structures of the Communist party). Since the end of the Soviet era, women have reached quite an elevated level in higher

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politics in the post-Soviet region. In Estonia, women held the positions of both president and prime minister in 2022. Lithuania has a long tradition of female presidents starting as early as in the 1990s. In Georgia and Moldova, women were elected presidents in 2018 and 2021, respectively. Ukraine had its first female prime minister, Yulia Tymoshenko, in 2007. In Russia, the third highest position—the head of the parliament’s higher chamber—is now a woman. The most recent revolution in the post-Soviet region occurred in Armenia in 2018, resulting in an increased number of women in parliament. However, the proportion of women in the parliaments of many countries in the post-Soviet region is generally lower than it was during the Soviet period which enjoyed quotas, even though it has increased slightly in recent years. In the Baltic states, legacies from the Soviet period—including those related to gender norms and ideologies—are now viewed as particularly unattractive. In other settings, legacies have survived or are not a matter of simple rejection or adoption. During the 2010s, the Russian geopolitics of ‘unity with Russia’ (through both security alliances and soft-power cultural projects such as ‘Russian world’) influenced gender policy in other countries in the region. For example, there were attempts in Kazakhstan to review the country’s commitments to equality, including a change to gender-equality law in 2021 (see Kamidola, 2021). Nevertheless, the situation appears to have changed in Kazakhstan after February 24, 2022. Russia’s aggression against Ukraine has influenced different states’ positions on gender equality and the protection of women’s rights. Ukraine not only applied for membership in the European Union, but— in the context of a strengthening civil society and women’s activism— ratified the Istanbul Convention in July 2022.5 Voices on the need to strengthen gender equality have become more prominent in Kazakhstan as well.6 Moreover, it cannot be said that each specific geographical area has its own particular gender regime. Although similarities do exist, there are also differences within the Baltics and within Central Asian and Trans-Caucasian countries. Women’s positions on the Russian labour market seem surprisingly similar to those in the late Soviet period, in a number of ways. Women continue to work in the same fields as earlier. Women’s wages are still about 30 per cent lower on average than those of men, which is similar to the inequality of 30 years ago and in the Soviet time (Ashwin & Bowers, 1997; Katz, 2001; Kazakova, 2007; Sätre, 2001, 2019). Nevertheless,

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the Sustainable Development Report for 2022 indicates a slight improvement of gender equality in the Russian Federation (Sachs et al., 2022). However, as the Sustainable Development Report (Sachs et al., 2022) shows too, although women have their own incomes and careers, this does not necessarily result in more gender-equal relationships within their homes; thus, women still experience a ‘double burden’ (Sätre, 2001). The concept of the ‘working mother’ has survived, despite the occasional— and repeated—discussion on women being ‘pushed back to the stove’. The Ukrainian sociologist Tetiana Zhurzhenko noted similar tendencies in the Ukrainian labour market in the early 2000s, although the ‘working mother’ stopped to be an official ideology (Zhurzhenko, 2008). After Mary Buckley published her important anthology, many books on post-Soviet and ‘post-socialist’ women and gender were written. In the context of a neoliberal economy and precarity, a certain degree of “glorification” of the socialist gender order has been noted (see e.g. Hinterhuber & Fuchs, 2021). This “glorification” is accompanied by discussion on the difficulty of achieving political representation for women in the context of ‘a conflictual relationship to gender equality’ in the region (Johnson et al., 2021, p. 437). Some parts of previous gender hierarchies in politics, in the family and regarding leadership positions at the workplace have been shown to be persistent (Gradskova & Asztalos Morell, 2018). In our view, however, these similarities cannot be primarily attributed to a shared Soviet history or the assumed dominant role of Russia in the region. To understand local developments, we need further decentred research that can provide a detailed analysis of the factors causing specific phenomena in specific countries. Institutions Matter Focusing on the effects of reforms and changes in legal rules often results in a misunderstanding of post-Soviet development. Therefore, SDG Index Ranking, Gender Equality Index and other statistical tools that are grounded in quantitative study of formal positions of women in Post-Soviet states should be interpreted with care. Although such a focus is important, it may be equally important to study norms and attitudes, and whether these have changed. Whilst women’s political representation in state institutions such as parliaments and various ministries is an important step towards increasing gender equality, it does not ensure a radical

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transformation towards gender equality or the weakening of patriarchal values and male domination. What influence do women have on states’ politics, and what attitudes do various post-Soviet societies have regarding women’s social roles? One of the authors of Mary Buckley’s book, Olga Lipovskaya, who wrote a chapter on women’s groups in Russia, argued that the grassroots activity that is necessary for democracy was hindered by Russian society’s hierarchical organization and mentality (Lipovskaya, 1997). In Douglass North’s (1990)7 terms, the survival of ‘informal institutions’ may slow down democratization. This perspective emphasizes that an analysis cannot be limited to the definitions of different political regimes; rather, the issue of how to make democracy work should be addressed (Putnam, 1993). Institutional theory focuses on how hierarchical institutions can survive and hinder change; in this volume, it is used to examine why and in what context the survival of Soviet values, attitudes, behaviour and enforcement practices can be seen.

New Challenges to Gender Equality in Post-Soviet Countries We have identified two main trajectories: first, the Russian trajectory, which is based on promoting traditional family values whilst simultaneously embracing Soviet values such as ‘the working mother’; and second, the trajectory that can be seen in the Baltic states, which is to adopt the values of the European Union whilst viewing legacies from the Soviet time as unattractive. On this basis, trajectories that fall between these two main directions can be identified. In this book, we aim to highlight the impact of conservative politics and their different forms on women; therefore, we focus on the trajectory based on promoting traditional family values. Traditional Family Values Women’s groups in Russia underwent flourishing development in the 1990s. A women’s party emerged in the Russian parliament, and questions on women’s rights were raised—to some extent, at least. However, the situation has changed significantly since 1999. Although specific women’s issues such as employment discrimination and reproductive rights were on the state agenda in the 1990s, no problems have been perceived as being specific to women since 1999. That is, problems since

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then have not been viewed in terms of gender, and there has been no prowomen agenda (Cook, 2007). Since the early 2000s, Russian legislation has tended to downplay women’s rights and gender equality. It has been noted that some of the conservative reforms in Russia, such as those restricting abortion rights, have been initiated by women (Muravyeva, 2018). It was also a woman who took the initiative to promote the law decriminalizing violence in the family in Russia (Johnson et al., 2021). Furthermore, as was the case before 1991, ‘Western’ liberal and democratic thinking and ‘Western’ ideas on individuality, minorities, women and LGBTQ+ rights have come under suspicion; gender as a concept has been rejected by the Russian state as a part of ‘Western values’, whilst feminist groups are often treated like other forms of opposition to the system. In the Russian context, the activities of feminist groups have been increasingly framed as a threat to ‘traditional values’ and culture—a framing that was already very clear in the case of Pussy Riot in 2012 (Turbine, 2015). Furthermore, the development of women’s rights has been hindered by increasingly harsh restrictions on NGOs in Russia. It has become more difficult to work for women’s rights in the political and social sphere. At present, we observe that women’s organizations in Russia are divided in their support for ‘traditional values’, with one side promoting and adhering to traditional family values, whilst the other side works for the improvement of women’s rights (Sätre, 2021). In 2014, Putin introduced so-called ‘traditional values’ to the discourse on social policy and linked ‘family health’ to ‘national health’ to enable stability and social development in the future (Putin, Address to the National Assembly, 2014). Russian social organizations are being mobilized to promote conservative gender politics. Nevertheless, based on a study of Putin’s speeches in 2000–2020, Johnson et al. (2021) identified statements with a range of attitudes—including anti-LGBTQ+, traditional, ‘Soviet’ and genderequality statements—that found support amongst different groups in Russian society. However, these scholars showed that Putin’s statements embracing gender equality were dominated by a gender-stereotypical/ Soviet view; for example, the concept of a ‘Soviet working mother’, which is compatible with women playing an active role in the labour market and in the public sphere, has dominated Putin’s pronouncements. Furthermore, the researchers found that Putin’s remarks on gender equality have

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constituted an important part of his efforts to balance different elite interests (economic, cultural, etc.) in order to enlist mass support—including from female elites. A particular challenge to women took place in March, 2022, when the Women’s Union of Russia (WUOR) made a statement supporting the war on Ukraine. With this statement, this official women’s organization reinforced its previous position from the Soviet period—namely, its role in supporting state politics. In the Soviet era, this support took the form of assisting in establishing socialism; in Putin’s Russia, the WUOR supports a society based on traditional family values. Russia’s stance was expressed half a year later in a presidential decree8 stating that Russians should adhere to the ideology of traditional values. The beginning of the fullscale invasion of Ukraine was accompanied by a reinforcement of Russia’s conservative politics and further restrictions of the already limited opportunities for independent women’s activism in Russia. As some chapters in this book indicate, the beginning of the ‘special military operation’—the official name of the invasion in Russia—further strengthened ideas about mothers’ responsibility for bringing up patriots and strengthened ideas about the importance of traditional values in ‘Russian civilization’. Women commonly face many challenges when improving gender equality. Such challenges include gender stereotypes, the revival of conservative political agendas, public opinion on women’s roles in society and anti-gender initiatives supported by the church and by governments. Promoting sound policies and enforceable legislation for the promotion of gender equality and the women empowerment, several contributors to this volume report on views about women’s roles in society and on critical—even hostile—attitudes towards gender-related discussions and discourse on how women’s rights are deteriorating. There are nationalist and conservative organizations that wish to marginalize women by emphasizing their reproductive function and subordinate position. Conservative trends in states’ gender policy are not necessarily equivalent to deteriorating gender equality on all levels. One way to evaluate women’s positions in society is by looking at indexes that measure gender equality. The existing information comes from the pre-war time and tells that the gender backlash in Russia is not clearly reflected in all gender equality indexes; even if some indexes show that attitudes have shifted slightly in a conservative direction during 2011–2017 (see data by the World Value Surveys 6 and 7). Sustainable Development Reports for 2020 and 2022 also show deterioration in Russia, particularly in ‘demand for

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family planning satisfied by modern methods’, and in Kazakhstan, where both demand for family planning and women education is decreasing (Sachs et al., 2022). The comparison shows no change between these years in gender-equality tendencies in the Baltics and Belarus, where gender equality has been growing, and in other Central Asian countries, where the only growing indicator of gender equality is women’s education whilst equal economic opportunities and political representations are in stagnation (ibid.). But how do conservative politics regarding women’s rights differ between countries in the region, and what role does religion play? ‘Traditional family values’ are promoted in Russia, with the Christian Orthodox Church as one of the most important actors in this endeavour. However, Russia’s ‘traditional values’ differ in part from the Central Asian understanding of ‘traditional values’, and Russia’s conservative politics differ significantly from those of Central Asia.

Ways to Empowerment? According to Amartya Sen (1984), the core of the concept of empowerment is the ability of the individual to control her own destiny—that is, agency. Agency refers to people’s ability to act towards the goals that matter to them. Sen argues that this aspect of freedom is a vital ingredient of social change. Measures of empowerment include education, health, political representation and labour-force participation. The SDG5 has also instrumentalized these measures into targeted actions.9 In 2019, the gender indexes for Kazakhstan, Ukraine and Russia were somewhat similar in terms of life expectancy and expected years of schooling (UNDP, 2020). However, the Human Development Index (HDI) in both Kazakhstan and Russia was lower for men than for women, due to the men’s shorter life expectancy and fewer years of schooling. Women’s labour-force participation was higher in Kazakhstan (62.7%) than in Russia (54.8%) in 2019, although this value had fallen for both countries (UNDP, 2020). In other words, the difference between women’s and men’s labour-force participation has increased, and women have lost ground in terms of their general position on the labour market—another economic indicator of empowerment. The OECD Development Centre’s Social Institutions and Gender Index (SIGI) is a cross-country measure of discrimination against women in social institutions (OECD, 2019). According to this measure, Estonia

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has the lowest level of discrimination in the post-Soviet region. However, most post-Soviet countries—except for parts of Central Asia—were classified as low gender discrimination countries in 2014 and 2019. Evidence suggests that gender-based discrimination in terms of civic rights has decreased in Central Asia; that is, there is less gender-based discrimination in terms of access to citizen rights, voting and access to justice. By improving this measure, Kyrgyzstan, for example, improved its status from medium to low gender discrimination. Can anything be said about relationships and correlations between authoritarianism and democracy and women’s position in society? No, the situation is more complicated than such simple correlations can reveal. Here, it is necessary to limit the scope in order to highlight tendencies that may correlate with authoritarian or democratic developments. However, a negative relationship between authoritarianism and women’s empowerment can be identified. The abovementioned measures of women’s empowerment provide some indication of developments in this area. For example, they show that education levels tend to be relatively high for women in the postSoviet region in general, whilst the low levels of discrimination reported in public life indicate that women do hold positions in the public sphere. Such public positions provide women with the opportunity to claim their rights and can be seen as a first step to empowerment. Through negotiations, actors in unequal positions may expand their space of agency, which can lead to empowerment without a questioning of the dominant power. In authoritarian states, agency is more complicated, and openly challenging the state’s leadership or the conservative part of society and claiming rights is difficult. Furthermore, activism can lead to increasing repression and punishment, as it has in Russia and Belarus, where feminist groups are classified as opposing the state. Although Soviet women were active in claiming their social rights through the official structures of trade unions, comrade courts and women’s councils (see Ilic, 2009; Zhidkova, 2012), the opportunity to develop independent women’s organizations did not appear until the end of the state socialist system (see Buckley, 1997). Women’s NGOs created in cooperation with Western partners became the main form of women’s activism in the 1990s and early 2000s (see e.g. Gradskova, 2017; Hemment, 2007; Shakirova, 2015). When assisting in democracy and defending the rights of women, non-governmental associations became easy targets for the new authoritarianism in Belarus and Russia. For

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example, the Russia’s state took control over NGOs’ finances as early as in 2006 and later declared some NGOs to be ‘foreign agents’, which severely hindered the activities of many women’s organizations (Gradskova, 2017; Salmenniemi, 2008; Temkina & Zdravomyslova, 2014). However, the post-Soviet region continued to give birth to very radical forms of activism, some of which—such as the Ukrainian-born FEMEN— have spread to other nations, including Western countries (Ackerman, 2014; Zychowicz, 2020). The punk prayer by Pussy Riot in Moscow in 2012 attracted a considerable amount of attention, and the Belarusian revolution in 2020 had a clearly female face (Gapova, 2020). Finally, as Tamara Martsenyuk has shown, many Ukrainian women have armed themselves in order to defend their country from Russian aggression (Martsenyuk, 2022). Independent feminist networks have been particularly active in declaring feminist resistance to the war (and to the Russian state), including the formation of the international Feminist Anti-War Resistance network (see Biktimirova & Kravtsova, 2022). Although agency has become increasingly dangerous in some authoritarian states, feminist reactions and protests against conservative policies in the countries of the region under study have spread through social media, street protests and female festivals. The different dimensions of challenges and empowerment accounted for here provide a structure for this book, which is divided into three themes: women’s positions, women’s negotiations and women’s agency.

The Structure of This Book: Its Organization and Chapters This anthology is organized according to the three themes listed above. Part 1, titled ‘Women’s positions in post-Soviet societies’, concentrates on women’s positions in changing societies and analyses how conservative policies on women’s rights, perceptions of gender equality, ideology and public attitudes to gender equality have developed since the Soviet period. In Part 2, ‘Negotiating women’s roles’, the authors engage with competing attempts to change women’s roles in society. Part 3, ‘Women’s agency, new movements and activisms’, explores how female activists perceive, resist and respond to transformations in the politics, ideology and practices affecting women’s lives.

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Part 1: Women’s Positions in the Post-Soviet Societies The first part of this book consists of six chapters: one on Armenia, one on the Baltics, two on Central Asia and two on Russia. Chapter “From Defending Women’s Rights in the “Whole World” to Silence About Russia’s Predatory War? The (Geo)politics of the Eurasian Women’s Forums in the Context of “Traditional Values”” by Gradskova and Chapter “Debates on the Domestic Violence Prevention Law in Russia—Pro and Contra” by Lukovitskaya report on conservative tendencies in gender policy in Russia. Chapter “When the Private Remains Nonpolitical: Gender Roles, Sexual Liberation, and the Example of Armenia” by Bennich-Björkman and Chapter “General Trends in Gender Inequality in Post-Soviet Central Asia” by Kudebayeva discuss perceptions of gender equality and ways of measuring inequality. Finally, Chapter “Women’s Rights in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan: In the Grip of Conservative Re-traditionalisation and Neoliberal Capitalism” by Zhussipbek and Nagayeva and Chapter “Why Was There No FEMEN in the Baltic States? Some Preliminary Observations” by Kott focus on ideology and gender relationships. In Chapter “From Defending Women’s Rights in the “Whole World” to Silence About Russia’s Predatory War? The (Geo)politics of the Eurasian Women’s Forums in the Context of “Traditional Values””, Yulia Gradskova explores a recent attempt of the Russian authoritarian state to lean on Soviet forms of using women in order to achieve new conservative and imperialist goals. Her chapter explores similarities and differences between state-supported women’s organizations during the Soviet period and those in contemporary Russia, including within the context of the militarization. Examples include the state-social organization Women of Russia and the transnational Russian ‘soft-power’ network, the Eurasian Women’s Forum. The limited opportunities for public discussion and for a focus on gender equality at the federal level in Russia are reflected in the attitudes of the population. Although the church may have contributed to such attitudes, there are strong conservative elements in Russian society as well, including within civil society. In Chapter “Debates on the Domestic Violence Prevention Law in Russia—Pro and Contra”, Elena G. Lukovitskaya provides detailed information on the progression of domestic violence laws and the shifts and nuances of public opinion on this theme in Russia over the past decades. She analyses Orthodox and

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Russian state conservatism and the claims made in the name of ‘traditional values’, which may not resonate as strongly with the polling majority as they do with an active and vocal minority. Challenging the family and—indirectly—kinship relations and role divisions between women and men may prove to be a controversial aspect of empowering post-Soviet women. This is illustrated by Li BennichBjörkman in Chapter “When the Private Remains Nonpolitical: Gender Roles, Sexual Liberation, and the Example of Armenia”, ‘The private remains non-political: gender equality in a non-Western context—the example of Armenia’. By analysing perceptions of gender equality and gender roles amongst the elites in Armenia, Bennich-Björkman suggests a dualistic perception of gender equality. Women having their own income and career is not leading to more gender-equal relationships in the home, as demands on women come from both the public and private spheres. In Chapter “General Trends in Gender Inequality in post-Soviet Central Asia”, ‘General trends in gender inequality in post-Soviet Central Asia’, Alma Kudebayeva observes the current situation and dynamics of gender inequality as measured by a few different indexes in four countries of Central Asia. These indexes reveal some improvements in gender equality and some deteriorations, with the latter occurring relatively recently in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. There is a lack of data for Uzbekistan. Only Kazakhstan exhibits a steady decrease in gender inequality, according to all the measures described in this chapter. Gender discrimination in Central Asia appears to be present to varying extents within families, whilst it is less present in the public sphere— at least in Kazakhstan. However, as Kudebayeva points out in Chapter “General Trends in Gender Inequality in Post-Soviet Central Asia”, inequality in the private sphere—such as in unpaid care work—can spill over into the public sphere, leading to gender gaps in labour incomes. Kudebayeva reports that women in Central Asia simply have less time to engage in politics and so forth, which may explain why women are less inclined to take on more demanding jobs as leaders in legal institutions, politics or businesses. Thus, this book’s contributions on Armenia and Central Asia provide strong support for the view that inequalities between women and men can be explained by the different roles attributed to women and men in the family—an unwritten norm that has survived from Soviet times. In Chapter “Women’s Rights in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan: In the Grip of Conservative Re-traditionalisation and Neoliberal Capitalism”,

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the first of the two contributions on ideology, gender relationships and neoliberalism Galym Zhussipbek and Zhanar Nagayeva present retraditionalization in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan as a form of reaction against neoliberalism in the 1990s. On the other hand, in Chapter “Why Was There No FEMEN in the Baltic States? Some Preliminary Observations”, Matthew Kott shows how the Baltics embrace neoliberal values because they want to be part of the West, whilst rejecting any kind of feminism that could be connected to Soviet legacies. In Chapter “Women’s Rights in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan: In the Grip of Conservative Re-traditionalisation and Neoliberal Capitalism”, Zhussipbek and Nagayeva provide insights into Kazakhstani and Kyrgyzstani women, showing how they are subject to pressures of various kinds. On the one hand, these women play a role in the labour market; on the other, they experience pressure to go back to their ancient cultural and religious roots from before Soviet times. The authors examine the role of Islam in Kazakhstan and discuss two phenomena that have come to characterize the post-Soviet period in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan: first, the revival of ‘national traditions’, or conservative re-traditionalization; and second, the development of neoliberal capitalism. They inquire into what interactions exist between these two phenomena and what adverse effects they have on women’s rights. The traumatic experience of neoliberal reforms in a relatively conservative society such as Kazakhstan or Kyrgyzstan plays a significant role in the further development of conservative politics and re-traditionalization. These authors report that conservative re-traditionalization can be seen as both a reaction to and a backlash against the difficult experience of the transition period. In Chapter “Why Was There No FEMEN in the Baltic States? Some Preliminary Observations”, Kott wonders why, despite many of the preconditions that led to the foundation of FEMEN in Ukraine seeming to exist in post-Soviet Baltic societies, similar events did not occur in the latter. What made societies in the Baltics different from the society in Ukraine and, later, in other post-Socialist and Western European societies in which certain women felt the need to embrace the techniques and ideas of FEMEN? By examining social developments in the Baltic states and an under-researched aspect of the underlying ideology of FEMEN, Kott sheds light on why Baltic societies did not join the ‘new’ feminist activism embodied by FEMEN and Pussy Riot. Applying a historian’s view to recent events, the author offers a preliminary explanation for

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what is essentially a counter-factual—and therefore ahistorical—exercise of clarifying why something did not happen. Part 2: Negotiating women’s Roles The second part of this book continues to discuss the transformation of women’s roles and positions in post-Soviet countries. The four chapters in this part are united by their interest in or relation to different kinds of representations, with ‘representation’ being understood in two different ways. Chapter “Being a Woman and Russian National Identity: Discourses and Representations Through the Lenses of Russian Conservative and Nationalist Organizations” by Alexandra Brankova and Chapter “Female Parliamentarians in Armenia: From Traditional Theme-Takers to the New Theme-Givers?” by Ani Grigoryan primarily focus on the transformation of representations of women’s roles in the context of Russian nationalist movements and Armenian legislative institutions. Brankova shows that Russian nationalists embrace the conservative Orthodox imagery of women as subjected to domestic roles and family care, whilst Grigoryan describes Armenian official gender-equality ideology as striving to oppose conservative ideas centred on women’s domestic roles. In both cases, a notion of ‘tradition’ is operationalized to justify the desired ideals—in the former, as a positive association with a history that is being reclaimed and, in the latter, as a Soviet and pre-Soviet history that must be overcome by a move to more progressive cosmopolitan ideals. In Chapter “Valkyries and Madonnas: Constructing Femininity During the Russo-Ukrainian War”, which focuses on women’s empowerment in war-torn Ukraine through female images in social media, Kateryna Boyko discerns symbols and representations that refer to older shared ideas of femininity and female roles, along with innovative symbolism and attributes. She traces how innovation and creativity transform older iconographic canons to create new images that reflect the war mobilization of an entire society, in which women’s agency is expanded into military roles and activities of different kinds, including acting within the army, performing humanitarian aid, searching for refuge, caring for families and surviving, and empowering men.

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All three chapters (“Being a Woman and Russian National Identity: Discourses and Representations Through the Lenses of Russian Conservative and Nationalist Organizations”, “Female Parliamentarians in Armenia: From Traditional Theme-Takers to the New Theme– Givers?” and “Valkyries and Madonnas: Constructing Femininity During the Russo-Ukrainian War”) describe women’s representation also in a different sense of the term, referring to the level of women’s participation in different spheres of society. Grigoryan directly addresses the question of the inadequate representation of women in the Armenian legislative system, despite the quickly spreading ideology of women’s equality in that country. In Boyko’s study, Ukrainian women claim space and new roles for themselves in the war by creating and popularizing new images, whilst questioning or developing older iconic representations and examining the limitations to their agency. Brankova shows that Russian nationalists are predominantly males, who attempt to restrain women’s agency and question women’s right to be represented in public institutions that make decisions on state and society. In this part, the authors reveal and analyse competing representations of women and women’s roles in different spheres of society. They show how the notion of the ‘traditional’ is constructed in different contexts around societal stereotypes in order to legitimize certain representations over others. Tradition is a powerful figure of speech that refers to a shared imagined historical, cultural, spatial and kinship identity. The participants in the research discussed in these chapters do not question tradition, even when they depart from it in search of new roles and empowerment. For this reason, in order to explain the common thread in these chapters, we introduce the notion of ‘negotiation’ as an analytical tool that well captures the practices of empowerment described in this part of the book. Here, negotiation does not primarily refer to the textual practice of reaching a consensus that accommodates diverse positions and interests. Rather, we understand negotiation as a set of diverse practices aimed at expanding the field of agency of actors that tend to be in unequal positions. In our view, negotiation goes beyond the notion of resistance, as it leads to empowerment without a direct questioning of the structures of dominant power. Activism, on the other hand, strives to achieve more tangible societal transformation and is the subject of the chapters in Part 3 of this book. In the last chapter of Part 2 (Chapter “Women Cultivating Love in the Belarusian Countryside”), Aliaksandra Shrubok presents an ethnographic

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study of elderly women in the rural periphery of Belarus who attribute great importance to their gardens. The study shows how, through gardening, these women negotiate their continuous significance within a society that has subjected them to economic and social marginality and exclusion due to their age, low income, the decaying rural infrastructure and economy and the outmigration of younger and more active members of society to urban centres. Elderly women who would have played the role of care providers for grandchildren in the Soviet era are now seen as unneeded. Due to uneven male/female life expectancies, most of these elderly women are also widows and have thus lost their role as the family care provider—one of the primary expectations for female life in the countryside. Gardening and care for plants have become an important sphere of activity for these women, allowing them to both provide care and experience love. Gardening is also a field in which the elderly women can oppose loneliness and economic and infrastructural decay, whilst elevating their social status by engaging in the morally meaningful activity of gardening labour. Part 3: Women’s Agency, New Movements and Activisms The third part of this book explores how inequalities, war and some recent transformations in politics, ideology and practices on women’s lives are challenged and resisted by active women in different countries. These chapters’ discussions on women’s activism cover a broad range of interpretations of women’s actual needs and priorities, as well as the tactics and political alliances women may adopt. Thus, the contributors to this part of the book look at different meanings of women’s agency. It would be impossible for a single book to provide a full and comprehensive overview of different aspects of women’s activism in various geographical locations; instead, this part brings attention to the diversity of activisms: its forms, methods, theoretical underpinnings, social imaginaries and political implications. This part of the book consists of five chapters highlighting different aspects of women’s activities aimed at claiming and defending their rights, voicing their concerns and dealing with the effects of the war and social injustices. Women’s agency can be followed on different levels and in different frames; examples include claiming the rights of indigenous communities, documenting ongoing war, fighting poverty and advocating women’s right to live without family violence. Nevertheless, to varying degrees, all these reflections of women’s

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agency lead to an expression of the need for women’s freedom and to a questioning of the existing gender norms and institutions in the relevant states and communities. Part 3 contributes to knowledge that is of huge significance to the implementation of SDG5. Chapter “‘They Beat Us, We Fly’: Indigenous Activism Among Women in the Russian North” by Elena Liarskaia and Vladislava Vladimirova, focuses on the activism of Nenets and Sami women in the Russian North. The authors show how these indigenous women play an important role in claiming cultural rights, in the context of the complex and contradictory legacies of the Soviet politics of emancipation. This chapter also discusses the role of broader international cooperation, which has contributed to the formulation of an advanced feminist agenda in the case of the Sami women. Chapter “Women’s Activism in Ukraine: Artistic Method in Early Civic Documentations of the Ukraine-Russia War” by Jessica Zychowicz, examines the work performed by Ukrainian female curators, writers and researchers to communicate about the Russia-Ukraine war with broad audiences, starting from 2014. Employing methods from anthropology and gender studies, Zychowicz explores several civic initiatives aimed at promoting dignity, self-sufficiency and empathy to populations affected by military destruction. She reveals how the studied artist-activists have been able to challenge Russian disinformation campaigns. In particular, this chapter focuses on three initiatives: an international art exhibition on the war in East Ukraine, two cultural NGOs based in Donbas and an annual summer school held in Donbas. Chapter “Generations of Feminist Translations: Connecting Russophone Academic and Activist Feminist Translation Debates Across the 2000s and 2010s” by Dinara Yangeldina, discusses digital feminist activism by Russophone women a decade ago, in connection with an earlier generation of feminist translators in Russia (1990–2000s). This chapter focuses on the role of translation (of predominantly Anglophone feminist texts) in the mediation of foreign feminist idioms within Russophone post-Soviet feminist scenes. In particular, Yangeldina explores discussions on the translatability of intersectionality. Through close reading of online discussions, the author shows that this online activism illustrates the growing diversity of women’s activism in Russia, as well as the growing interest in ‘international’ feminist theories. Chapter “Balancing Between Global Trends: What Is Happening with Women’s Empowerment in Azerbaijan?” by Humay Akhundzade

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examines changes in gender politics in Azerbaijan in the context of interactions between international, state and national feminist actors. Based on an analysis of legal documents, interviews and online feminist publications, the author argues that Azerbaijan is increasingly debating gender-related problems, including domestic violence, and that its society is responding to issues involving women’s empowerment in a variety of ways. Finally, the author concludes that—despite becoming ‘more dynamic’—the gender agenda does not openly challenge the conservative part of Azerbaijani society. Finally, Chapter “Women’s Agency During the Conservative Wave in Russian Social Policy” by Ann-Mari Sätre, focuses on forms of women’s activity in Russia that are not openly political or oppositional. Using rich interview material, the author explores the activism that is positioned somewhere between confrontation of conservative discourses and complete subordination to them. This chapter shows that many women in Russia actively engage in organizations that aim to secure wellbeing and overcome poverty, in part due to the survival of informal Soviet institutions and beliefs about women’s responsibility to enact social welfare. Women who are active in the social sphere take different approaches depending on whether they support ‘going back to traditional values’ or wish to work for another agenda.

Notes 1. Authors in this anthology use the terms ‘gender equality’ and ‘women’s equality’ in different ways. In the Introduction, whilst we emphasize the relevance of this volume to SDG5, we follow the normative interpretation of the term that carries in our view the purpose and conceptualization of SDG. Later in the anthology, Grigoryan follows the Gender Equality Index definition, which similar to SDG index ranking permits gender equality in different states to be measured and then compared along several quantifiable criteria, such as education level, profession, employment, salary and so forth. In contrast, Vladimirova employs a notion of equality that is culturally defined and depends on indigenous people’s values of the complementarity between men’s and women’s roles in society. For this reason, we do not provide a shared definition. In the introduction, ‘gender equality’ is also used as a generic term that loosely refers to formally and informally improved life possibilities and conditions for women that lead to female empowerment.

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2. In line with our ambition to provide a space for diverse voices and perspectives, this book has a broad geographical scope, designated herein using the loose geographical term ‘post-Soviet’. More than 10 of the 15 countries situated in the former Soviet space are discussed in this volume. 3. These chapters contribute knowledge relevant to targets 5.1 and 5.2 of SDG5, namely ending discrimination against all women and elimination of violence against women (SDG Tracker). 4. These chapters provide more substantial knowledge about the levels of implementation of SDG5 Targets 5.A (give women equal rights to economic resources), 5.5 (women’s participation and leadership at all levels of decision-making in political, economic and public life) and 5.C (adopt policies and enforceable legislation for the promotion of gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls) (SDG Tracker). 5. https://www.coe.int/en/web/istanbul-convention/-/ukraine-ratifies-theistanbul-convention. 6. https://astanatimes.com/2022/06/kazakhstan-committed-to-promotinggender-equality-and-womens-empowerment-agenda/. 7. ‘Institutions’ refer to all the restrictions humans have created to enable interaction in society. Formal rules can be changed by political decisions; however, informal rules—such as the behavioural norms that are rooted in society—are not quickly changed. 8. 09.11.2022 № 809. http://publication.pravo.gov.ru/Document/View/ 0001202211090019. 9. Respectively target 5.B, 5.6, 5.5 and 5.A.

References Ackerman, G. (2014). Femen. Polity Press. Ashwin, S., & E. Bowers. (1997). ‘Do Women Want to Work?’ In Buckley (Ed.), Post-Soviet Women: From the Baltic to Central Asia (pp. 21–37). Biktimirova A., & Kravstova, V. (2022). Feminist Translocalities, Baltic Worlds, 1–2, 93–103 https://balticworlds.com/feminist-translocalities/ Buckley, M. (1997). Post-Soviet Women: From the Baltic to Central Asia. Cambridge University Press. Chari, S., & Verdery, K. (2009). Thinking Between the Posts: Postcolonialism, Postsocialism, and Ethnography After the Cold War. Comparative Studies in Society and History, 51(1), 6–34. Cook, L. (2007). Postcommunist Welfare States: Reforms in Russia and Eastern Europe. Cornell University Press, Paperback 2013.

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Gapova, E. (2020). The ‘Urban Revolution’ in Today’s Belarus and Why Women are Leading, Recorded lecture. https://educatoroutreach.uchicago. edu/2020/12/03/the-urban-revolution-in-todays-belarus-and-why-womenare-leading-elena-gapova/ Gradskova, Y. (2017). Russia – A Difficult Case for Gender Equality?. In E. Blomberg, Y. Gradskova, Y. Waldemarson & A. Zvinkliene (Eds.), Gender Equality on a Grand Tour (pp. 239–316). Brill. Gradskova, Y., & Asztalos Morell, I. (2018). Gendering Postsocialism. Old Legacies and New Hierarchies. Routledge. Hemment, J. (2007). Empowering Women in Russia. Indiana University Press. Holland, E., & Derrick, M. (2016). Introduction. In E. Holland & M. Derrick (Eds.), Questioning post-soviet (pp. 5–16). Kennan Institute. Hundorova, T. (2023). How Peripheries Talk Amongst Themselves or Ukraine Eurocentrism and Decolonization. Krytyka. https://krytyka.com/en/art icles/how-peripheries-talk-amongst-themselves-or-ukraine-eurocentrism-anddecolonization Hinterhuber E. M., & Fuchs, G. (2021). Neoliberal Intervention: Analyzing the Drakuli´c – Funk– Ghodsee Debates. In K. Fábián, J. Johnson & M. Lazda (Eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Gender in Central-Eastern Europe and Eurasia (pp. 28–40). Routledge. Ilic, M. (2009). What Did Women Want? Khrushchev and the Revival of the Zhensovety. In M.Ilic & J. Smith (Eds.), Soviet State and Society under Nikita Khrushchev (pp. 104–121). Johnson, J. E., Novitskaya, A., Sperling, V., & Sundstrom, L. M. (2021). Mixed Signals: What Putin Says about Gender Equality. Post-Soviet Affairs, 37 (6), 507–525. Kamidola, A. (2021). Anti-gender’ Bill and Kazakhstan’s ‘ Catch Up’ with Global Conservative Backlash. The Foreign Policy Center. https://fpc.org.uk/antigender-bill-and-kazakhstans-catch-up-with-global-conservative-backlash/ Kassymbekova, B., & Marat, E. (2022). Time to Question Russia’s Imperial Innocence. Ponar’s Eurasia. https://www.ponarseurasia.org/time-to-que stion-russias-imperial-innocence/ Katz, K. (2001). Gender, Work and Wages in the Soviet Union: Legacy of Discrimination. Palgrave Macmillan. Kazakova, E. (2007). Wages in a Growing Russia: When is a 10 percent Rise in the Gender Wage Gap Good News? Economics of Transition, 15(2), 365–392. Lipovskaya, O. (1997). Women’s Groups in Russia. In Buckley (Ed.), Post-Soviet Women: From the Baltic to Central Asia. Martsenyuk, T. (2022). Women’s Participation in Defending Ukraine in Russia’s War. Quarterly Magazine of the Center for Global Cooperation Research. https://www.gcr21.org/publications/gcr/gcr-quarterly-magazine/qm-1/ 2022-articles/qm-1-2022-martsenyuk-womens-participation-in-defendingukraine-in-russias-war

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Mathews, H., & Nunn, M. (2019). Women on the move: Can we achieve gender equality by 2030? In I. Ohno, J. W. McArthur & H. Kharas (Eds.), Leave no one behind time for specifics on the Sustainable Development Goals. Brookings Institution Press. Muravyeva, M. (2018). ‘Should Women Have More Rights? - Traditional Values and Austerity in Russia’ Austerity, Gender Inequality and Feminism after the Crisis. Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung. North, D. (1990). Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic Performance. Cambridge University Press. OECD. (2019). SIGI OECD 2019 regional report for Eurasia. OECD. Platt, K. M. (2009). The post-soviet is over: On reading the ruins. Republics of Letters: A Journal for the Study of Knowledge, Politics, and the Arts, 1(1), 1–22. Putnam, R. D. (1993). Making democracy work. Civic traditions in Modern Italy. Princeton University Press. Sachs, J., Schmidt-Traub, G., Kroll, C., Lafortune, G., Fuller, G., & Woelm, F. (2020). The Sustainable Development Goals and COVID-19. Sustainable Development Report 2020. Cambridge University Press. Sachs, J., Lafortune, G, Kroll, C., Fuller, G., & Woelm, F. (2022). Sustainable Development Report 2022. From Crisis to Sustainable Development: The SDGs as Roadmap to 2030 and Bey. Cambridge University Press. Sakwa, R. (1999). Postcommunist Studies: Once Again through the Looking Glass (Darkly)? Review of International Studies, 25(4), 709–719. Salmeniemi, S. (2008). Democratization and Gender in Contemporary Russia. Routledge. Sätre, A-M. (2001). Women’s and Men’s Work in Transitional Russia: Legacies of the Soviet System. Post-Soviet Affairs, 17 (1), 56–79. Sätre, A-M. (2019). The Politics of Poverty in Contemporary Russia. Routledge/ Taylor & Francis Group. Sätre, A-M. (2021). Women’s Responses to the Conservative Turn in Russia and Russian Social Policy. Journal of International Women’s Studies, 22(11), 3–15. SDG Tracker. Sustainable Development Goals. Gender Equality. https://sdg-tra cker.org/gender-equality Sen, A. (1984). Resources, Values and Development. Basil Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Shakirova, S. (2015). Gender Equality Policy in Kazakhstan and the Role of International Actors in its Institutionalization. In Y. Gradskova and S. Sanders (Eds.), Institutionalizing Gender Equality Historical and Global Perspectives (pp. 209–224). Lexington Books. Temkina, A. & Zdravomyslova, E. (2014). Gender’s Crooked Path: Feminism Confronts Russian Patriarchy. Current Sociology, 62(2), 253–270.

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Tlostanova, M. (2010). Gender Epistemologies and Eurasian Borderlands. Palgrave. Tomohiko, U. (2015). The Contribution of Central Eurasian Studies to Russian and (Post-) Soviet Studies and Beyond. Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History, 16(2), 331–344. https://doi.org/10.1353/kri.2015.0020. Turbine, V. (2015). Women’s Human Rights in Russia: Outmoded Battlegrounds, or New Sites of Contentious Politics? European Politics, 31(3), 326–341. UNDP. (2020). Human development report. UNDP. http://hdr.undp.org. Zhidkova, E. (2012). Family, Divorce, and Comrades Courts: Soviet Family and Public Organizations During the Thaw. In H. Carlbäck, Y. Gradskova & Zh. Kravchenko (Eds.), And They Lived Happily Ever After (pp. 47–64). CEU Press. Zhurzhenko, T. (2008). Gendernye rynki Ukrainy. EGU. Zychovicz, J. (2020). Superfluous Woman. University of Toronto Press.

Women’s Positions in the Post-Soviet Societies

From Defending Women’s Rights in the “Whole World” to Silence About Russia’s Predatory War? The (Geo)politics of the Eurasian Women’s Forums in the Context of “Traditional Values” Yulia Gradskova

Abstract The aim of this chapter is to explore certain similarities and some differences between the Soviet women’s organizations on the one hand and state supported women’s organizations in Russia now on the other. The Soviet propaganda was well known for presenting Soviet women as fully enjoying equal rights with men. Ideas on equality were used to create a positive image of the country abroad, as well as to gain alliances for the Eastern bloc. This chapter also explores the work of the contemporary pro-governmental Women’s Union of Russia (heir of the Committee of Soviet Women)—and the new institution promoted by Russia that was declared to enable international cooperation around women’s issues: the Eurasian Women’s Forum. In this chapter I show that

Y. Gradskova (B) Centre for Baltic and East European Studies, Södertörn University, Huddinge, Sweden e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 A.-M. Sätre et al. (eds.), Post-Soviet Women, Sustainable Development Goals Series, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-38066-2_2

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in the context of international sanctions due to the annexation of Crimea, international condemnation of Russian authorities’ attacks on LGBTQ+ rights and women’s NGOs, and in particular, after the beginning of the Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the Russian government once again attempted to use women’s organizations as an important (geo)political instrument. In the late 1990s, when I returned to Moscow after finishing my Master studies at the Central European University (CEU) in Budapest, I volunteered for one of many women’s NGOs that were active in Russia in that period, a hotline, and also started to attend different events organized by various foreign and Russian foundations in support of women’s NGOs. There, I met several older women, probably in their sixties or seventies, who presented themselves as “veterans of the women’s movement”. I was very surprised when I heard this description for the first time. Did we have veterans of a women’s movement in Russia? Didn’t the history of independent women’s organizations in Russia go back only 5 to 8 years? What kind of “movement” did these women refer to and represent? Now, more than 20 years later, while conducting extensive archival research for my project on the Women’s International Democratic Federation (WIDF)1 and women from the “Third World”, I have slowly realized what movement they were referring to. This chapter was mainly written before the Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24 and had the aim to explore certain similarities and some differences between the Soviet women’s organizations on the one hand and state supported women’s organizations in Russia now on the other. However, the beginning of the war revealed the character of the last more clearly and some of my worst expectations got to be confirmed. Indeed, the organization that the “veterans”, mentioned above, could represent—Women’s Union of Russia, the heir of the Committee of Soviet Women,—showed its open support for the war and the Russian state imperial goals.2 Thus, in what follows I explore not only similarities and differences in between the state supported women’s organizations during the Soviet period and in contemporary Russia, but also analyze the post-Soviet evolution of such organizations. The Soviet propaganda was well known for presenting Soviet women as fully enjoying equal rights with men. Ideas on equality were not only found in internal Soviet publications, but also often were demonstrated abroad as a proof of Soviet achievement in modernization, equality and

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humanism (Gradskova, 2021). Such presentations were used to create a positive image of the country abroad, as well as to gain alliances for the Eastern bloc. Although the contemporary official political discourse in Russia is known as anti-feminist and “traditionalist” (Gradskova, 2020), taking into account the history of the Soviet state’s use of women’s issues for finding geopolitical allies, the question of whether the Russian state has an official political agenda and institutions dealing with women’s issues in the context of broader international political agenda is a complex one. To address this question, I start by reviewing the models of work, cadre politics and geopolitical distribution of the ideas of the Committee of Soviet Women (CSW) and of the Women’s International Democratic Federation (WIDF), of which the CSW was a member. This chapter also explores the work of the CSW’s successor—the contemporary pro-governmental Women’s Union of Russia (WUOR; Soyuz zhenshchin Rossii)—and the new institution promoted by Russia that is intended to enable international discussions on women’s issues: the Eurasian Women’s Forum (EWF; since 2015). In particular, I analyze the WUOR’s and EWF’s political agendas and working methods in order to understand if there are some possible similarities in discourses and practices between the Soviet transnational agenda on women’s rights and the contemporary Russian one. My sources include the archival materials of the WIDF and its Soviet member, the CSW, which are preserved in the State Archive of the Russian Federation (GARF, fond 7928) in Moscow, as well as documents and Internet resources from recent years that are connected to the WUOR and EWF.

The WIDF, the Committee of Soviet Women and Women’s Rights During the Cold War3 For a considerable period of time after the fall of the Berlin Wall, researchers paid very little attention to the WIDF (de Haan, 2010). However, in the last 10 years, gender historians from various countries have published a great deal on this topic, with a focus on several aspects of the work of this organization (de Haan, 2018; Donert, 2014; Bonfiglioli, 2012; Ghodsee, 2018; Valobra & Yusta, 2017). Although many individual member organizations and leaders of the WIDF remain to be explored by researchers, much more information is now available on this organization and on its Soviet member, the CSW.

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From its first days, the WIDF declared its main goals to be the defence of women’s and children’s rights and the protection of peace; however, to most Western observers, the WIDF was primarily a cover organization for the Soviet and Eastern Bloc’s political interests abroad (see e.g. Kanet, 1988). Nevertheless, recent publications on this organization—including my own—show that the WIDF’s more than 40-year history during the Cold War was much more complex than was previously considered (Gradskova, 2021). For example, it can be argued that WIDFmember organizations from many countries had their own outspoken leaders and were quite autonomous in their activities on the national level. Indeed, while benefitting from the WIDF’s transnational solidarity networks, they used the WIDF’s rhetoric selectively (Valobra & Yusta, 2017; Pieper-Mooney, 2013; de Haan, 2018). It can also be argued that, in most cases, Soviet women’s organization lacked the authority to give direct orders to the WIDF leadership and often had to use lobbying and recruitment policies in order to reach its goals. A major transformation of the WIDF occurred in the context of the anti-colonial struggle of the 1950s–1960s. Women’s organizations from dozens of newly independent countries in Africa and Asia joined the WIDF, attracted by its slogans of anti-imperialism, anti-colonialism and anti-racism (Gradskova, 2021; McGregor, 2016). These organizations and their leaders and activists caused the WIDF to become one of the biggest international women’s organizations. By the early 1980s, the WIDF included members from more than 100 countries and dealt with a very broad agenda of women’s political, economic, educational, social and cultural rights. During this period, the WIDF was the initiator of the International Women’s Year, 1975 (de Haan, 2018), and was an active participant in the UN women’s conferences during the UN Decade for Women in 1975–1985 (Ghodsee, 2010). However, the Soviet Union from the beginning had the intention to influence citizens and women’s organizations in other countries, and it never gave up this intention (Gradskova, 2021, pp. 23–63). The Soviet Union used the “rights of women”, as well as anti-racism and anticolonialism, as a weapon against its Cold War adversaries (Matusevich, 2020). The ways and means used by the Soviet Union to realize this intention varied over time and in different political contexts. Below, I look more closely at some of them. The archival collection in Moscow contains more than a hundred folders of classified correspondence between the CSW in Moscow and

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its representative at the WIDF’s Secretariat (first in Paris, and then in East Berlin from 1951 on). These documents contain the following information: • The representatives of the CSW in the Secretariat were Soviet employees receiving a salary from the Soviet state, rather than independent activists. They were selected on the basis of ideological grounds. • The representatives of the CSW were expected to send to Moscow not only official copies of the WIDF’s Secretariat and Bureau meetings’ protocols, but also regular informal reports on the situation in the WIDF’s Secretariat and on conflicts and disagreements among the WIDF leaders. Summaries of these reports were then submitted to the Communist Party of the Soviet Union’s Commission on Foreign Affairs (GARF, 4 7). The summaries often evaluated the positions of foreign female leaders as being “right” or “wrong” based on the perspective of Soviet political and ideological preferences, rather than that of women’s rights or feminist activism. Female leaders with the “wrong” position on important political issues—from the war in Korea (1950–1953) to the war in Afghanistan (after Soviet intervention in 1979)—risked being isolated or even pushed out of their leadership position through the combined techniques of lobbying, pressuring through national Communist Party leadership (if possible) and public criticism during various meetings and events. • International female leaders who were seen as friendly to the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc’s interests received support within the organization; they were also invited to spend holidays (free of charge) or undergo medical treatment in the Soviet Union, the German Democratic Republic (GDR) or other countries under state socialism. The candidates for the WIDF’s top leadership positions— that is, the president or general secretary—were also chosen from such women, with nominations for top leaders mainly being decided in Moscow (see e.g. the report on Hertta Kuusinen, the WIDF president in 1969–1975, in GARF 3 2122, pp. 63–73; Gradskova, 2021, pp. 54–56). • While membership fees were officially the main source of the WIDF’s finances, the Soviet Union contributed its (state) resources to support the activities, people and organizations that were considered

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to be worth it from the perspective of the Cold War competition. In addition to offering free excursions or holidays in the Soviet Union, the Soviet Union provided money for certain publications and events, as well as for travel costs or other opportunities for “friendly” female leaders from the Global South heading to WIDF conferences and meetings. In many cases, the material support for female representatives from Asia, Africa and Latin America was not expressed in the form of paying bills, but rather in using the state and Communist Party infrastructure, such as state airline (Aeroflot) rides, sanatoriums, Black Sea resorts or media facilities. The WIDF employed two specific strategies for creating the positive image of the state socialism that deserves attention. One was the use of the WIDF’s official publication—the journal Women of the Whole World, which was published in several languages—to create an unequivocally positive image of women’s status and women’s rights in countries of state socialism. None of the reports and publications in this journal— which included topics from socialist fashion (see e.g. Zenshchiny Mira (ZM ), 1960, 4:35) to maternity care (for an example of maternity care in Hungary, see WWW , 1975, 2:48–49) and multiple pictures of Valentina Tereshkova, the first female cosmonaut and the head of the CSW in 1968–19824 —discussed any of the problems that women in the countries of the Eastern Bloc might have. Furthermore, the publications in this journal did not indicate discontent how these rights were realized in practice. The second strategy involved the special attention that was paid to the (former) colonial borderlands and to non-Russian and (seen as non-white) ethnic minority women through publications, as well as by organizing events and inviting international guests (Gradskova, 2021). Women from Central Asia—specifically Uzbekistan—received a particularly high level of attention; these women were usually presented as having been totally deprived of any rights and having been “backward” before the Bolshevik revolution and thus as being particularly grateful for their emancipation by the Soviet power and the Russian people (Gradskova, 2021). These women often represented the nomenklatura 5 and thus, were subject to party discipline. One of these women, who was often mentioned in the WIDF publications, was the head of Uzbekistan’s Soviet parliament, Yadgar Nasriddinova (ZM, 1960, 1:12–14). Nasriddinova served as an example of the political significance that native women from former Russian colonies could achieve in the Soviet state.

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The collapse of the Soviet Union not only ended the global visibility of the WIDF along with its periodical publications and big congresses, but also radically transformed both the situation of women and gender ideologies in the post-Soviet space, not least through introduction of market reforms while simultaneously demand for women to work outside of home was dropped. However, to conclude this part of the chapter, it should be noted that the former CSW employees continued to be visible among the representatives of the post-1991 independent women’s movement. Indeed, according to Mary Buckley, who wrote about the WUOR in her chapter in the book Post-Soviet Women, from the Baltic to Central Asia, the main aim of the leaders in the transformed Soviet organizations was “to survive, readjust, consolidate and be successful” (Buckley, 1997, p. 157).

Reconfiguring the Political Agenda: The Russian Authoritarian State and New (Geo)political Strategies Concerning Women As is well known, Soviet women were advised to “return home” during the perestroika period and to prioritize their families and children (Buckley, 1997). During the first years of the transition period, many women in different postsocialist, including post-Soviet, countries lost their job or had to change their profession and radically modify their employment strategies (Einhorn, 1993), while numerous childcare facilities were shut down, including in Russia (Gradskova, 2014). Together to these changes in work and welfare provision, women in Russia—as those in many other post-socialist countries got new opportunities, one of the most important of which was the possibility for creating independent organizations for defence of their rights. Although a large number of independent women’s organizations—NGOs—were founded in Russia, as previous research has shown, many of them encountered financial difficulties in their work as well as met resistance of new political structures (Gradskova, 2017; Hemment, 2007; Salmenniemi, 2008). Still, some women’s NGOs successfully cooperated with foreign donors, some even established networks inside Russia (e.g. the network of crisis centers; see Saarinen et al., 2014) and became important actors at the local and regional levels. However, as it is known, in the mid-2000s, the growing preoccupation of the Russian state with the decreasing childbirth rate and

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its fear of radical anti-government protests led to reinforcing of the state propaganda for “traditional family” as well as more authoritarian regulations of the public life, making it almost impossible for NGOs, including the women’s ones, to receive financial support from abroad.6 The new political expectations of the state were connected to the depoliticization of the NGOs; it was reflected even in change of the official title of the social organizations that dropped the word “non-governmental” and started to be called non-commercial organizations (NKOs7 ). The NKOs were seen by the state as aimed to solve difficult social problems and relied on financial support from the state and on volunteers’ engagement (Gradskova, 2017; Salmenniemi, 2008; on changes with respect to women’s organizations in Russia see also Chapter 16 in this volume). In the early 2010s, the state and the Orthodox Church jointly began to openly support the “traditional family values” further restricting possibilities of women’s independent activism (see Gradskova, 2019; Moss, 2017). In the discussion below, I take a closer look at the little studied yet remarkable topic of the Russian state’s politics with respect to women, which involve the attempt to (re)create an all-Russian women’s organization presenting itself as defending women, the WUOR. This organization, which is similar to the CSW in its functions, was expected to help the state in realizing its goals like promoting “traditional values”, increasing birth rate, developing patriotism (up to, as I already indicated above, mobilizing women for support of the war against Ukraine). The attempt was made in combination with starting a new form of transnational activity centered on women’s issues: the Eurasian Women’s Forum (EWF). The first two EWFs were held in St. Petersburg in 2015 and 2018; the third EWF took place in St. Petersburg in October 2021.8 Despite the word “Eurasian” in their title, the first two EWFs attracted participants from a much broader geographical range across almost all the continents, rather than being limited to Russian allies in the Eurasian Union. Thus, I am particularly interested in the EWFs’ general approach to women’s roles and activism, as well as their goals and working methods. However, I will start from the WUOR, the successor of the CSW, and its place in the politics of the Russian state and the construction of the EWFs.

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The Women’s Union of Russia and Its New Mission in the Late 2010s After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the CSW changed its name to the Women’s Union of Russia (Soyuz zhenshchin Rossii) and began to function as an independent women’s organization and as an NGO. Despite enormous losses in finances and international prestige, the organization preserved a considerable amount of its cultural and social capital, not least in the form of expert knowledge and contacts inside the (only partly renewed) post-1991 political elite (Kryshtanovskaia, 1995). All of this was important in allowing the organization’s new leadership, led between 1991 and 2006 by Alevtina Fedulova, a former employee of the CSW, to create a new political party named “Women of Russia”. In 1993, the party was quite successful in the parliamentary elections.9 However, this party can hardly be seen as new or independent; according to Carol Nechemias, the roots of the party lay in the “top-down politics of the Communist past rather than in the new independent women’s organizations” (Nechemias, 2000, p. 207; also see Kryshtanovskaia, 1995). While this party lost the next parliamentary elections and never became a parliamentary party again, the leaders of the WUOR continued to be closely connected to top-level state politics. For example, starting in 1996, the Union’s leadership included Ekaterina Lakhova, a close aid of the Russian president Boris Yeltsin. In the context of democratization and improved relationships with the West, Lakhova was behind the introduction of the concept of “gender” into the Russian political lexicon on a high level (Lakhova, 1997). However, starting in the mid-2000s and against a background of growing authoritarianism, the WUOR moved closer to the side of the government: Lakhova, the new leader of the WUOR from 2006, was at the same time a part of the leadership of the pro-presidential party “United Russia” that supported more conservative politics toward women (see introduction to this volume). Lakhova also became “United Russia” representative in the Parliament.10 In 2018, a new period in the development of the WUOR began. That year, Vladimir Putin gave the WUOR official status as a “statesocial organization” (gosudarstvenno-obshchestvennaia); this indicated full rupture with WOUR’s past as a “non-government” organization, NGO, in the 1990s. According to the WUOR’s statute, which is published on its webpage, this new status “allowed the Union to expand its opportunities for the realization of social initiatives while preserving the spirit of the women’s movement of Russia”.11 The statute of the organization

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declared the “improvement of the status of women in society, as well as of their role in political, economic, social and cultural life of the country, defence of their interests” to be the WUOR’s main goal. However, paragraphs 4 and 5 of the statute explicitly express the WUOR’s commitment to the state’s political goals, stressing that the WUOR “contributes to the realization of the state’s family policy and to the strengthening of the institute of family” and “to the realization of the demographic policy of the Russian Federation and to the protection of maternity and childhood.”12 Paragraph 10 is even more explicit with respect to the WUOR’s support of the Russian state politics on “strengthening the family”, while the last part of the text, paragraph 12, demands the “rebirth of moral and spiritual values and preservation of cultural traditions”. These paragraphs imply that the WUOR, together with the Orthodox Church and Russian government (in particular, the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Social Affairs) is a public actor responsible for the realization of conservative family politics in Russia. At the same time, it is noticeable that parts of the WUOR’s statute indicate that the organization is working for women’s rights and equal opportunities, not least through the WUOR’s support of international documents on the rights of women. Indeed, paragraph 7 states that the WUOR contributes to the realization of the UN’s Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), while the next two paragraphs note the importance of forming “public opinion for the acceptance of the politics of equal rights, freedoms and opportunities” and of the “active involvement of women in the management of social and state affairs and the advancement of women in decision-making positions”. Such an eclectic programme opens up opportunities for many different activities, especially those that could be presented to the UN and other transnational organizations as activities in support of women’s rights and the advancement of women. At the same time, this programme can be seen as corresponding to the Russian conservative agenda and could be used for anti-abortion campaigns and anti-LGBTQ activities, as well as for the promotion of education on “family values ”(see more on “family values” in Gradskova, 2020) instead of civic or sexual education. As I will show further, such a programme, which is full of internal contradictions and inconsistencies, makes it possible for the WUOR to communicate with diverse women’s organizations inside the county and abroad, and to participate in the Eurasian Women’s Forums.13

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The programme for the WUOR’s activities, which is titled Equality, Development and Peace in the 21st Century, has seven chapters and starts with a chapter titled “Strong family means a stable state”. However, following the same eclectic design, the third chapter of the programme is called “Equality of rights and opportunities of men and women”, while other chapters describe activities aiming for the development of the countryside, international peace, sustainable development, spiritual culture and health. Here, I will focus on Chapters 1 and 3. The first chapter—“Strong family means a stable state”—discusses the defence of the rights of the family and the responsibilities of parents. Although it briefly mentions the equal distribution of housework, this chapter mainly develops ideas about the centrality of the family for the Russian state. Like the parts of the WUOR’s statute that mention equal opportunities, Chapter 3 seems to be written from a completely different perspective than Chapter 1 and focuses on women’s political participation, equal pay for equal work and the fight against job market discrimination. It also condemns violence against women, including domestic violence. Thus, like the statute, the programme allows different strategies of action—from those aimed at supporting the Russian state’s anti-gender and “family values” campaign to the discussion of the (moderate) advancement of women with the representatives of the UN and international organizations. The document is also intended to show that the WUOR is well connected with regional women’s organizations. The member organizations of the WUOR are presented on the WUOR’s official website as fairly uniform units; each administrative part of Russia has its own regional organization. Although the website demonstrates certain differences in the activities of these member organizations, most of the activities correspond with the state’s strategy on the involvement of the population in voluntary work and on support for the family. For example, the WUOR member organization in the Republic of Bashkortostan14 is presented through an online seminar on creating a community environment in the organization, information on a volunteer movement supported by the women’s council of the Tatyshlinsk region, an online contest titled “Young family 2020” and a photography contest on the topic of “My mother”.15 A female activist from the Arkhangelsk region is presented on the WUOR’s website as someone who can combine professionalism at the workplace with being a dedicated caregiver—a woman who corresponds with the traditional feminine role (khranitelnitsa domashnego ochaga).16 Finally, the WOUR member

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organization from the Novosibirsk region is presented through information about a special magazine the Novosibirsk organization produced for the 30th anniversary of the WUOR and an exhibition dedicated to the same event. In addition, the website contains information about a celebration of the anniversary of the Honorary President of the regional organization—a person who was active in the CSW as well.17 Based on its webpage materials, it appears that the WUOR has certain similarities and differences when compared with its precursor, the CSW. First of all, unlike the CSW, the WUOR has a developed regional structure, which was previously absent. Also, it can be assumed that at least some of the WUOR’s local participants have had previous experience participating in independent NGOs and have some knowledge of feminist theory or of international conventions and declarations on women’s rights. Thus, some of the WUOR’s participants in various parts of the Russian Federation may not fully agree with all of the WUOR’s declarations. Moreover, the WUOR’s activities are quite diverse; some can be seen as contributing to social security, while others may be helpful to women and their families. However, the WUOR’s activities cannot be viewed as those of an independent organization focused on women’s rights; rather, the WUOR’s programmes and goals visibly support the Russian state’s conservative agenda with respect to “spiritual health” and “family values”. WUOR’s new status as being associated with the state indicates that this organization is expected to play an important role in state politics by pacifying independent women’s activism within the country. At the same time, the WUOR can be used by the government as an organization that nominally represents “women” (and does not directly represent the state) for various political purposes within and outside of the country. Following Hemment’s research on the statemobilized youth movement in Russia, WUOR can be defined as a state-mobilized women’s organization (Hemment, 2020). Promoting Businesswomen and “Traditional Family Values”: The Russian State’s International Agenda for Women Without having access to any documents about the EWF aside from those that are officially available, it is very difficult to say to what degree the experiences and glory of the WIDF have inspired contemporary Russian decision-makers at the state level. Still, the material on WIDF activities

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presented above—in combination with the WUOR’s new status as a statesocial organization, acquired in 2018—suggests a scenario that is very reminiscent of the Soviet past. In this part of the chapter, therefore, I take a closer look at the official documents, speeches and other material found on the EWF’s website in order to explore in more detail the discourses and practices of these forums, which have been popularized as a transnational meeting space. In particular, I am interested in how interpretations of “women’s interests”, “needs” and “demands” allow the Russian authorities to combine conservative ideas on “family values” with claims of improving women’s status. The first EWF took place in St. Petersburg on September 24–25, 2015. Its realization seems to be particularly important for Russia in the context of diplomatic problems following annexation of Crimea in 2014. However, the EWF materials do not notice the annexation as an event for attention. According to the EWF website, the forum was convened following an initiative by Valentina Matvienko, who had been the Chairwoman of the Council of the Federation (the higher Chamber of the Russian Parliament) since 2011.18 Even though the title “Eurasian” suggested that the 2 days of meetings in St. Petersburg would be aimed primarily at participants from the countries bound by the Eurasian Economic Union (i.e. Russia, Kazakhstan, Belarus, Kyrgyzstan and Armenia), the first meeting was already said to have brought together about 1000 representatives from most of the world’s continents. In fact, representatives from about 80 countries and from several international organizations such as the World Health Organization (WHO) attended the meeting. This breadth of participation suggests that the word “Eurasian” in the title refers to the place of meeting—that is, St. Petersburg, the center of an imagined Eurasian space—rather than to the political union of several post-Soviet states. It indicates the Russian state’s global geopolitical ambitions in its work with women. Such a broad representativity of countries outside of the territory of the former Soviet Union is very reminiscent of the WIDF congresses from the Cold War period. However, unlike the WIDF’s most successful years in the 1960s– 1970s, the participants of the first EWF did not seem to include progressive activists and defenders of women’s rights, comparable to Angela Davis or Funmilayo Ransome Kuti 50–60 years ago (Gradskova, 2021). Still, the international orientation of the first EWF’s discussion platforms was intended to indicate that Russia wants to re-establish its role as an international speaker on women’s issues and on a range of other topics of global

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importance. Indeed, according to the forum’s website, the first EWF centered on four discussion platforms: “Women and power: the agenda of sustainable development”; “Women in the changing economy—possibilities and challenges”; “Women in the formation of the global health strategy”; and “Women in the development of humanitarian cooperation and charity”. While the organizers attempted to create platforms that could get the attention of an international audience, the problems affecting many women in Russia, including housing, workplace discrimination, unemployment, poverty, domestic violence and racism, did not receive much attention; the conference programme does not mention them. The second EWF took place in St. Petersburg in September 2018. Its organizational committee was once again headed by Valentina Matvienko, along with a Deputy Chairwoman of the Council of Federation, Galina Karelova. The members of the organizing committee included male and female members of governmental institutions at different levels, including Georgiy Poltavchenko, the Governor of St. Petersburg; Olga Vasilieva, the Russian Federation’s Minister of Education and Science; and Ekaterina Lakhova, who was presented as a member of the Council of the Federation’s Committee on Federation and Regional Politics (her leadership in the pro-governmental WUOR was not mentioned). The guests of the forum included several high-level international female leaders, including the General Secretary of FIFA, Fatma Samura and female members of government from Bahrain, Kazakhstan and Uganda. Also the BRICS Women’s Business Alliance received a lot of visibility.19 Some of the international guests supported not only the Russian government’s neoliberal economic strategies, but also its political conservatism. For example, one of the forum’s speakers was Nadejda Remy-Silanina, a French politician of Russian origin, who has expressed, in her electoral programme and interviews, her sympathy for the French right-wing politician Marine Le Pen, as well as for Euroscepticism and anti-immigration demands.20 The forum agenda, however, did not pay much attention to the problems of underprivileged, working class or migrant women. Still, the forum continued to present its activities as being “focused on strengthening the social and economic role of women”.21 Valentina Matvienko, a high-level Russian politician known for her support for the conservative agenda, including the infamous law against “propaganda of non-traditional sexual relationships to minors” in 2013

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and the introduction of the concept of “traditional family” into the Constitution of the Russian Federation in 2020,22 played a key role in the forum’s activities: she opened the forum’s plenary session and chaired the plenary assembly. However, as in the case of the Soviet representatives in the WIDF, Matvienko’s main role was to present the state politics for an international audience, rather than to express or respond to the concerns of Russian women or critical independent activists. In addition to a focus on Matvienko, the materials published on the EWF webpage offer attention to Gulnaz Kadyrova,23 Russia’s first female Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade.24 Kadyrova, one of the few high-level Russian participants of the EWF who is not ethnically Russian, seemed to be given special visibility in order to indicate support for multiculturalism and equal opportunities for women in the Russian Federation independently of ethnic background. This emphasis shows some similarity with the role assigned to Central Asian women in the WIDF’s activities during the Cold War period (Gradskova, 2021, pp. 105–111). The documents adopted by the second EWF (Itogovyi dokument, 2018)—like those produced by the WIDF and CSW during the Cold War (Gradskova, 2021)—widely used references to the UN declarations and human rights. For example, the final document of the second EWF, which was published in September 2018, began with a reference to the 70th anniversary of the UN’s adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The document also stated the importance of respecting the CEDAW convention and the documents of the Beijing conference of 1995 (p. 1) and demanding “equal rights of men and women as an obvious part of human rights” (p. 1). However, unlike the Cold War documents that stressed the importance of rights for working women, this final document stresses the special role of women in “the upbringing of children and protection of family values” (p. 3), which suggests a more conservative interpretation of women’s roles. The final document of the EWF seems to be mainly aimed toward the advancement of a specific type of woman—one who is presumably more affluent and better educated than the average Russian woman and who is pursuing a career as a civil servant or businesswoman. Hence, the elitist character of this document ignores the needs and problems of the majority of women in Russia and thereby reinforces the existing hierarchies. Moreover, the EWF’s final document insists on the development of legislation for the “improvement of the system of protection of family, maternity and childhood” (p. 5)

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and suggests that women be used for the nationalist political agenda of the Russian state.25 As mentioned earlier, the forum participants were addressed by Putin. In his speech, Putin specifically stated that the protection of maternity and childhood is important to Russia and made a patriarchal statement suggesting that women in Russia are treated in a “special way, with tenderness, cordiality and sincerity”. Finally, the speech also unequivocally described women as an important asset of the state, rather than as independent political actors, while the “traditional values” were described as central to the world’s future. The analysis of the EWF website revealed many similarities with the Soviet organization of state-managed work for women’s rights worldwide. Quotations from foreign guests shown on the website almost exclusively comprised pleasant words addressed to the organizers and leaders of the forum.26 However, the advice for women that the EWF website published during the pandemic is particularly remarkable from this perspective. The website suggests that, although a woman’s main responsibility is to care for her family, sometimes—to a limited extent—some of her tasks can be delegated to her husband due to the extraordinary situation of the pandemic.27 Thus, it is possible to say that the EWF’s official materials show considerable similarity to the Soviet materials aimed for women abroad from the Cold War period. In particular, the EWF’s materials stress the important role of the state and interpret women’s involvement in social activism as a political resource for the state. However, unlike the Soviet state’s strong defence of women’s rights in its publications aimed for international women during the Cold War period, the documents Russia produces reveal a strange mixture of adherence to “traditional family values” on the one hand and the advancement of female entrepreneurs mixed with rhetoric taken from the international agenda on gender equality on the other. After February 24, the materials published by the EWF online did not change much in character and the EWF did not publish any comments or reflections concerning the war, thus choosing simply to ignore its cruel and devastating reality.

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Conclusion The material examined in this chapter shows that women’s issues once again seem to be taken up by the Russian government as an important geopolitical instrument. Indeed, Russia’s international visibility and its contacts with new political and cultural allies abroad seem to be one of the primary goals of the EWF. The recreation of the state-dependent women’s organizations as WUOR and founding the EWF made it possible for the Russian state to invite influential foreign women to Russia in the name of the Russian women; it also made possible to have unofficial, but important conversations concerning Russian economic interests and Russia’s conservative political agenda abroad. Bringing some internationally significant women to Russia and reporting worldwide about the EWF was particularly important for the Russian government in the context of international sanctions due to the annexation of Crimea, international condemnation of Russian authorities’ attacks on LGBTQ rights and women’s NGOs and criticism of a lack of attention in Russia to gender equality and domestic violence issues. The EWF documents indicate that most of the acute problems of women in Russia (including domestic violence and lack of possibilities to have independent organizations) are ignored by the forum’s organizers. Meanwhile forums’ discussions about women’s issues are rather limited by those that can be beneficial for Russia’s external visibility, including promoting cooperation between countries, support for families as well as promoting female leaders in business and international trade. Thus, while the organizers of the EWFs never refer to the Cold War’s WIDF, certain similarities in their agendas (i.e. the protection of cooperation, motherhood and children) and tactics (invitation of influential foreign women in hope for their public support of the inviting country) are clear. In conclusion, it is important to note that, unlike the Soviet discourse of modernization and equal rights, the contemporary Russian state’s approach to women’s issues consists predominantly of conservative and anti-modern elements, and does not have any radical claims for rights.

Notes 1. The WIDF was founded in Paris in 1945. As an independent transnational women’s organization with the peace and rights of women and children

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2. 3. 4. 5.

6. 7.

8. 9. 10.

11. 12. 13. 14.

15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20.

on its agenda during most of its history (except for 1954–1967), the WIDF had the status of an NGO in the UN. However, the organization was often accused of being a Communist or Soviet “front”. See “Declaration of the Women’s Union of Russia” from March 14, 2022 https://wuor.ru/news/obrashchenie-soyuza-zhenshchin-rossii-87792/. This information comes from my earlier studies, which were strongly based on the archives in Moscow (see Gradskova, 2019, 2021). Tereshkova is now a member of the State Duma (the lower Chamber of the Russian Parliament). Nomenklatura is usually seen as hierarchically organized political class that profited from the system and made important decisions for the Soviet people. The infamous law on “foreign agents” from 2012. Instead of using the term NGOs—which was widely used by the independent women’s organizations in the 1990s—the Russian state increasingly used the term NKOs, starting in the mid-2000s. The non-commercial character of these organizations was very much in tune with the statesupported politics of voluntary movements, which usually involved patriotic rhetoric (e.g. “Nashi”; see Hemment 2017) while also hijacking a major part of NGOs’ rhetoric. However, unlike NGOs, NKOs usually supported the state and often depended on it financially. http://council.gov.ru/events/chairman/120309/. http://www2001.shpl.ru/plakat/index.php%3Fid=3202&sel_id=0.html. In her period of activity before Putin’s presidency, Lakhova was known as a supporter of family planning; in her later period, she was mainly known as one of the authors of Dima Yakovlem law (against the possibility of the adoption of Russian children by American families) in 2012 and for her anti-LGBTQ stance. https://wuor.ru/posts/2332-soyuz_zhenschin_rossii_tseli_zadachi_plani. https://wuor.ru/posts/2332-soyuz_zhenschin_rossii_tseli_zadachi_plani. https://roscongress.org/news/v-sovete-federatsii-sostojalas-prezentatsijanovyh-proektov-soveta-evrazijskogo-zhenskogo-foruma/. News from the regions is presented in the form of a timeline; the information presented for analysis here on three spontaneously chosen regions is from December 2020. https://wuor.ru/wuorbashkortostan. https://wuor.ru/arhangelskaya. https://wuor.ru/wuornovosibirsk. https://eawf.ru/about/tretiy-evraziyskiy-zhenskiy-forum/. Brazil, India, Russia, China and South Africa. https://eadaily.com/ru/news/2018/09/22/vstavay-franciya-parizh-dol zhen-deystvovat-bez-oglyadki-na-bryussel; http://infos-russes.com/wpcontent/uploads/NADEJDA-EUROPEENNES-VERSION-FRA-RUpdf.

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21.

22. 23. 24.

25.

26. 27.

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Marlene Laruelle wrote about the connections between Russian nationalism and the European far right (see e.g. Laruelle, 2019, pp. 116–117; 178–179) https://iacis.ru/News/Parliaments/Galina_Karelova_Women_Agenda_ Development_is_in_Progress_in_Run-Up_to_III_Eurasian_Womens_ Forum. https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/4261578. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mo90RZc51sg. See http://council.gov.ru/events/conference/95972/; also see Kadyrova’s participation in the preparation of the third EWF at https://ros congress.org/en/news/active-preparations-underway-for-third-eurasianwomens-forum-2021/. The document of the Second EWF mentions preoccupation about “spreading of Nazism”; the Declaration of WUOR from March 14 called women to support the Russian invasion of Ukraine using argument of need to fight “Nazism” as well. http://eawfpress.ru/press-tsentr/news/forum/otzyvy-inostrannykh-uch astnits-O-zhenskom-forume/. See article by Yulia Maltseva, titled “Working mom on distance work”, August 27, 2020 https://eawf.ru/press/experts/working-mom-na-uda lenke-ili-missiya-vypolnima/.

References Archive Materials State Archive of the Russian Federation (GARF), fond 7928, Antifascist Committee of the Soviet Woman.

Periodicals Zhenshchiny mira (ZM), 1959–1960. Women of the Whole World (WWW), 1975.

Web Resources Conference programme (first EWF) https://eawf.ru/upload/iblock/cef/cef7cf 6fd6935fa1fd4edab38ad763fa.pdf Women’s Union of Russia website: https://wuor.ru Eurasian Women’s Forum website: https://eawf.ru O tretiem evraziiskom zhenskom forume: https://eawf.ru/about/tretiy-evrazi yskiy-zhenskiy-forum/

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Bonfiglioli, Ch. (2012). Revolutionary Networks. Women’s Political and Social Activism in Cold War Italy and Yugoslavia (1945–1957), PhD Dissertation, Utrecht University. https://dspace.library.uu.nl/bitstream/handle/ 1874/254104/Bonfiglioli.pdf?sequence Buckley, M. (Ed.). (1997). Post-Soviet Women: From the Baltic to Central Asia. Cambridge University Press. de Haan, F. (2010). Continuing Cold War Paradigms in the Western Historiography of Transnational Women’s Organizations: The Case of the Women’s International Democratic Federation (WIDF). Women’s History Review, 19(4), 547–573. de Haan, F. (2018). The Global Left-Feminist 1960s. From Copenhagen to Moscow and New York. In Ch. Jian, M. Klimke, M. Kirasirova et al. (Eds.), The Routledge Handbook of the Global Sixties. Between Protest and NationBuilding (pp. 230–242). Routledge. Donert, C. (2014). Whose Utopia? Gender, ideology and human rights at the 1975 World Congress in East Berlin. In J. Eckel & S. Moyne (Eds.), The Breakthrough: Human rights in the 1970s (pp. 68–87). University of Pennsylvania Press. Einhorn, B. (1993). Cinderella goes to market. Verso. Ghodsee, K. (2010). Revisiting the United Nations Decade for Women: Brief Reflections on Feminism, Capitalism and Cold War Politics in the Early Yars of the International Women’s Movement. Women’s Studies International Forum, 33, 3–12. Ghodsee, K. (2018). Second World, Second Sex. Duke University Press. Gradskova, Y. (2014). Family and social change in Russia. In Z. Rajkai (Ed.), Family and Social Change in Socialist and Post-socialist Societies. Change and Continuity in Eastern Europe and East Asia (pp. 36–82). Brill. Gradskova, Y. (2017). Russia, a Difficult Case for Gender Equality? In E. Blomberg, Y. Gradskova, Y. Waldemarson & A. Zvinkliene, Gender Equality on a Grand Tour (pp. 239–320). Brill. Gradskova, Y. (2020). Recovering Traditions? Women, Gender, and the Authoritarianism of “Traditional Values” in Russia. Baltic Worlds, 13, 31–36. Gradskova, Y. (2019). Sleduyushchei pochtoi vyshliu vse [I send everything with the nest post]. In L. Kleberg, T. Lane & M. Sa Cavalcante Shuback (Eds.), Words, bodies, memories (pp. 399–414). Södertörn University. Gradskova, Y. (2021). The Women’s International Democratic Federation, the Global South and the Cold War. Defending the Rights of Women of the ‘Whole World’? Routledge. Hemment, J. (2007). Impowering Women in Russia : Activism, Aid, and NGOs. Indiana University Press.

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Hemment, J. (2020). Occupy Youth! In G. Ekiert, E. Perry, & Y. Xiaojun (Eds.), Ruling by Other Means. State-Mobilized Movements (pp. 166–192). Cambridge University Press. Itogovyi, D. (2018). Vtorogo Evraziiskogo Zhenskogo Foruma. https:// eawf.ru/about/vtoroy-evraziyskiy-zhenskiy-forum/, https://eawf.ru/about/ vtoroy-evraziyskiy-zhenskiy-forum/ Kanet, R. (1988). Soviet Propaganda and the Process of National Liberation. In R. Kanet (Ed.), The Soviet Union, Eastern Europe and the Third World (pp. 84–114). Cambridge University Press. Kryshtanovskaia, O. (1995). Transformatsiia staroi nomenklatury v novuyu rossiiskuyu elitu [Transformation of old nomenklatura into a new Russian elite]. Obshchestvennye Nauki I Sovremennost, 1, 51–65. Lakhova, E. (1997). Gendernaia Politika. Laruelle, M. (2019). Russian Nationalism: Imaginaries. Routledge. Matusevich, M. (2020). Soviet Anti-Racism and Its Discontents: The Cold War Years. In J. Mark, A. M. Kalinovsky, & S. Marung (Eds.), Alternative Globalizations: Eastern Europe and the Postcolonial World (pp. 229–250). Indiana University Press. McGregor, K. (2016). Opposing Colonialism: The Women’s International Democratic Federation and Decolonization Struggles in Vietnam and Algeria 1945–1965. Women’s History Review, 25(6), 925–944. Moss, K. (2017). Russia as the Savior of European Civilization: Gender and the Geopolitics of Traditional Values. In R. Kuhar & D. Paternotte (Eds.), AntiGender Campaigns in Europe: Mobilizing Against Equality (pp. 195–214). Rowan & Littlefield. Nechemias, C. (2000). Politics in Post-Soviet Russia: Where Are the Women? Demokratizatsiya, 8(2), 199–218. Pieper Mooney, J. (2013). Fighting fascism and forging new political activism: The Women’s International Democratic Federation in the Cold War. In J. Pieper Mooney & F. Lanza (Eds.), De-centering Cold War history (pp. 52–73). Routledge. Saarinen, A., Ekonen, K., & Uspenskaia, V. (2014). Women and Transformation in Russia. Routledge. Salmenniemi, S. (2008). Democratization and Gender in Contemporary Russia. Routledge. Valobra, A., & Yusta, M. (Eds.). (2017). Queridas Camaradas. Historias Iberoamericanas de Mujeres Comunistas. Miño y Davila.

Debates on the Domestic Violence Prevention Law in Russia—Pro and Contra Elena G. Lukovitskaya

Abstract Based on an analysis of official and non-official statistical data, this chapter discusses the spread of domestic violence in Russia. Contradictory processes are taking place in Russian society. On the one hand, the topic of domestic violence is being discussed and recognised, and attitudes to domestic violence have become less tolerant due to the activity of NGOs, independent media, flash mobs against violence in social networks and some governmental deputies. On the other hand, a draft law against domestic violence that was placed on the state website for discussion was sharply criticised by conservative actors representing part of the Orthodox community and the Moscow Patriarchate. An analysis of the comments on the draft law shows that the conservative part of Russian society aligns with the proposed state policy that the generalised ‘West’ is imposing immoral laws approving LGBT marriages, destroying families and taking children away from families. The current political system requires the draft law to be approved by the president in case it causes a public split. Despite public opinion polls showing that the majority of the population approved

E. G. Lukovitskaya (B) NGO “Novgorod Gender Center”, Veliky Novgorod, Russia e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 A.-M. Sätre et al. (eds.), Post-Soviet Women, Sustainable Development Goals Series, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-38066-2_3

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the adoption of the law, in 2019 discussion of the draft on domestic violence was frozen in the State Duma. According to the Gender GAP Report 2021 and its formal indicators of gender equality, Russia has moved down from 49th place in 2006 to 81st place in 2021 (WEF, 2021). The Russian Federation Government has undertaken several programmes in the interests of women (Turoma & Aitamurto, 2016); however, there is still no state law on gender equality. In 2017, the Russian government adopted the ‘National Strategy of Actions for Women’ for the years 2017–2022; however, this strategy involves a shift from a gender equality policy towards a policy promoting the traditional role of women in the family and society, with a focus on traditional values and large families. This strategy excludes the previous sections on gender education and increasing the political activity of women; it also does not refer to UN documents stating that Russia has not yet adopted a law on domestic violence prevention. There have been many indications in Russia of a conservative development with respect to gender policy, with the anti-violence law providing one example. This chapter examines the situation around domestic violence in Russia, including the history of proposed laws against domestic violence, difficulties with statistics and the negative attitudes and active lobby actions of the Russian Orthodox Church, especially in the context of the draft version of the law that was promulgated in 2019– 2020. The chapter is based on materials up to the beginning of 2022 and includes an analysis of statistics, the results of different polls and an analysis of the media and other comments on the draft law.

Domestic Violence Statistics in Russia The reliability of domestic violence statistics is a problematic issue in Russia. Many cases of domestic violence are not registered by the police; furthermore, about 80% of women retract their statements on violence. The Ministry of Internal Affairs has admitted that it does not have specific methods for counting domestic violence cases, which has been confirmed by a comprehensive analysis of the Moscow Crisis Centre (Pisklakova-Parker & Sinel’nikov, 2020). By law, domestic violence cases are defined as ‘private prosecution cases’. From a juridic perspective, the initiation of a case against a violator depends on the will of the victim. However, it can be a very challenging

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decision for a woman to resist her violator and initiate a criminal case. The victim must also act as a prosecutor, present evidence, formulate an accusation and obtain a conviction of the violator. For this reason, the overwhelming majority of private prosecution cases fall apart on two counts. A case might fall apart because of a failure to fulfil the court’s requirements to correct an application’s shortcomings, which is often due to the legal incompetence of the woman in question. Or, the partners in a case might reconcile for one reason or another. According to judicial statistics, nine out of ten cases are terminated due to reconciliation of the partners. The Consortium of Women’s Non-Governmental Organisations, which includes more than 100 organisations throughout the country, has verified that a huge number of criminal cases are not included in the relevant statistics.1 There are three main sources of data on violence against women in Russia: official statistics (i.e. administrative data), social surveys and statistics from crises centres. According to official statistics by Rosstat (2016), there were 64,421 cases of violent acts committed against a family member in 2016, of which 49,415 were against women (27,090 of whom were spouses) and 11,652 were against children. In 2017, the Russian Federation partly decriminalised violence in the family, shifting simple battery by close persons from a Criminal Code offense to an Administrative Code offense, as long as it is the first time such a violent act is reported to the police. For the first act of domestic violence, a violator receives a fine of up to $150, 15 days’ arrest or 120 days of community service. It seems reasonable to assume that the sharp decline in the number of crime victims experiencing violent acts committed against them by a family member in 2017 can at least partly be explained by this decriminalisation. In 2021, 32,790 cases were reported, of which 24,799 were against women (12,810 of whom were spouses) and 6,298 were against children (Rosstat, 2021). The Moscow Crisis Centre (Outcomes, 2020) published a report on the work of an all-Russian helpline for domestic violence victims. The report reveals that only a small fraction of domestic violence victims seek police help and that the number of calls has increased during the pandemic. The report also provides the following information: • 48,900 helpline requests were received in 2020, which is 42% more than in 2019 before COVID. • 75% of the women who called were physically abused.

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• The majority of women (60.9%) had one or two children. • Almost every fifth applicant was pregnant or on maternity leave. • 71% of the women who called had not asked for help from the police; of those who had applied to the police only 4% were satisfied with the police help. • Only 2.8% of the women went to court. In 2017, the Consortium of Women’s Non-Governmental Associations launched the Assistance Centre for Domestic Violence Victims project (Report of the Consortium, 2017). The project reported that more than 2,000 women throughout the country had turned to the Assistance Centre for help and that their lawyers had handled more than 200 cases. Thus, based on official and non-official statistics, it can be seen that the problem of domestic violence is serious in Russia. In general, according to various sources, about 20,000–48,900 women per year are subjected to domestic violence in Russia and about 700 women die every year at the hands of intimate partners. According to the World Values Survey report, the number of people who believe that a husband should not beat his wife under any circumstances has decreased from 67 to 61.3% in Russia from 2011 to 2017 (WVSR). This shows an upward trend in tolerance of violence over the last decade. Moreover, the official statistics have decreased due to the decriminalisation of the first beating, with numerous domestic violence cases now being hidden from public.

The Case of Domestic Violence Law in Russia History of Campaigns Against Domestic Violence in Russia Discussion of domestic violence as a social problem began in the early 1990s, when the first crisis centres were established. The first of these was the Crisis Psychological Centre for Women in St. Petersburg, which was established in 1992. The Moscow Crisis Centre was then created in 1995 and it provides information assistance through the All-Russian Helpline for Women and connects specialists from different regions to form an informal national network. Based on their gained experience, these specialists collected statistics, carried out the first studies in this field in Russia and gradually formed an awareness of the legislation. Several

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attempts (in 1996, 1997, 1999, 2016 and 2019) to enact a law against domestic violence have failed to pass. Given the level of domestic violence in Russia, it seems essential to apply juridic measures to decrease violence and mitigate its consequences. Indeed, such a discussion has been going on in Russia for over 20 years. Nevertheless, in 2022, Russia was the only country in the Council of Europe that had neither adopted a special law on the prevention of and protection against domestic violence nor signed the Istanbul Convention (2011) of the Council of Europe on preventing and combating violence against women. Defining the problem of domestic violence legislation has been an important political aim of the women’s movement for three decades. Existing Russian laws only partially protect people who are subjected to domestic violence. Most of the specialists note that proving a case of domestic violence is extremely difficult under the current legislation. The problem here is that the Russian justice system considers violence committed in the public sphere to be a much greater danger than a similar action committed at home between relatives. The Consortium of Women’s Non-Governmental Associations (Ershova & Aivazova, 2013) remarks in its report that this viewpoint reflects the thinking that domestic violence is not a crime against society but a private matter within the family. A unified state structure that directly dealt with the problem of violence against women—namely, the Interdepartmental Commission on Domestic Violence, Sexual Violence and Human Trafficking—ceased to exist in 2005. At present, activities related to a wide range of gender issues are entrusted to the State Duma Committee on Family, Women and Children and to the Ministry of Social Development and Health, for which domestic violence issues are not a priority. The latest version of the law that was finalised in 2019 implies the possibility of creating specialised social services to help with the adaptation and rehabilitation of domestic violence victims. Such services should provide not only urgent social and psychological assistance to the victims but also medical help, legal assistance and pedagogical and economic services. Unlike the draft laws in the 1990s, the 2019 bill proposes a very important component: the provision of protective orders and punishment for their failure. Protective orders would prohibit the perpetrator of domestic violence from contacting the victim in person, in writing, by phone or by the Internet. This limitation is valid for up to 1 year. In addition, the court has the right to oblige the offender to leave the common

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home for the duration of the protective order, albeit only if the offender has the opportunity to live in a different dwelling. In addition, the judicial authority may prohibit the offender from finding out where the victim is. The document has several individual preventive measures: in particular, the perpetrators will be registered and sent to psychological programmes. At a press conference in December, President Putin (2019) sent a signal to the Russian ruling elite about the necessity of the law in a public discussion and showed his ambiguous attitude towards the law: What is my attitude on this matter? It’s mixed. You can’t make love by force … I’m against any violence, including in the family and, of course, primarily against children and women … Is this law necessary? Let’s discuss calmly, in public, all this must pass such a test.

According to the president’s signal, a public discussion of the draft law was organised by the State Council. But the initial draft law was modified according to suggestions from the General Prosecutor’s Office and the Ministry of Internal Affairs, amongst others, and was then submitted for discussion to the State Duma and posted for public feedback on the State Council website on November 29, 2019. Russian citizens were allowed to give feedback on the draft law within 17 days. The mentioned modifications changed the essence of the law. The fundamental principles of the law as prepared by an NGO included ‘Observance and respect for human rights’, but the public version had another principle—‘Family support and preservation’ (art. 4). It seems reasonable to assume that these changes in principles are one of the factors that influenced the emergence of many negative public comments on the law. Public Comments on the Draft Law for Domestic Violence Feedback comments on the draft law in 2019 were studied by the author using a content analysis method. In total, an astonishing 11,186 comments were received as public feedback. Of these, a sample of 311 comments were taken for analysis—approximately 100 comments from the beginning, from the middle and from the end of the discussion—in order to identify the main arguments of the opponents and defenders. A content analysis of these comments revealed that the law’s opponents showed much greater solidarity and activity than its supporters—82% of

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the sample comments were against the draft law and just 18% supported the law. Nevertheless, the law’s commentators are not a representative sample of Russian society in terms of gender, age and social status. Rather, they mostly represent the active conservative part of society. The version presented by the State Council was criticised by both the defenders and opponents of the law. The authors of the bill made critical comments on the latest version, which was presented for public discussion—‘…the main thing was left out—physical violence, and there was also nothing left about the persecution of the victim’, ‘…the theses regarding partners who are not officially married have not been finalised; a mild punishment is enacted for violating the protective orders’ (RIA 8.12.2019). The authors of the draft called the published version of the draft law ‘the result of flirting with radical conservative groups’ (Meduza, 30.11.2019). The Orthodox community presented a well-organised public campaign against the draft law; it reacted to the bill’s publication with the following actions. The Family Policy Analytical Centre2 (2019) published a critical report on the law on December 1, 2019 and the Moscow Patriarchate (2019) gave a statement condemning the law on December 4, 2019. Furthermore, a service was conducted against the law in the Kadashi temple, named ‘Prayer Standing for the Family’, on December 21, 2019. Public actions against the law were organised in different Russian cities, whilst negative commenting on the draft law was simultaneously organised on the State Council website. These actions show how professionally the Orthodox community organised its negative feedback to the draft law. During the post-Soviet time, the community has become a well-organised and influential social institute that engages in cooperation with transnational organisations and international experts, especially with the World Congress of Families and ProFamilia.

The Role of the Orthodox Church in Russia Activation of religions is one of the most remarkable tendencies in postSoviet Russia. In this sense, Russia is a post-secular society (Stoeckl, 2016); that is, a new reality has been formed in which religion is an active factor. Religious organisations are actively involved in public discussions on politics, economics, education and healthcare, and they have an impact on social, political and cultural processes.

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The importance of the Orthodox religion to the Russian population is clearly shown in many opinion polls. In a representative sample taken in 2007, no less than 68% of Russians connected their identity with Orthodoxy, whilst 5% connected with Islam (Lebedev, 2015, p. 100). There is no question which religious organisation is dominant amongst Russian religious organisations: it is the Russian Orthodox Church. Stoeckl (ibid, p. 13) classifies the Russian Orthodox Church as a traditionalist organisation, in comparison with fundamentalist or liberal organisations. Traditionalists differ from other religious actors in their strategic involvement in politics, amongst other characteristics. They rely on conservative religious and political institutions in their countries, attract political and civil society figures to their side, form international alliances, resolve conflicts in the courts and participate in political discussions. In post-Soviet times, the Russian Orthodox Church has become an active actor in conservative rhetoric in Russian society. The concept of conservatism has many possible interpretations and is under continuous debate. Robinson (2020) has proposed that four different and connected variations of Russian conservatism can be distinguished: namely, Orthodox/Slavophile, civilisational, isolationist and official conservatism. Here, I concentrate on one of these variations: Orthodox conservatism. According to Robinson (2020), Orthodox conservatism recognises the sacred role of Orthodoxy in the history of Russia. This form of conservatism is based on the idea of moral decay in the West, manifesting as individualism, rationalism and materialism, in contrast to Russia, which preserves the true faith and Christian values. From the perspective of Orthodox conservatism, Russia’s mission is to save the West (ibid, p. 16). It appears that, during the cracked cultural order that ensued after the Soviet period, it became possible for the Orthodox Church to have an increasing impact on society. A kind of pro-Orthodox consensus was established in Russia during this period of religious revival, along with the population’s approving attitude towards Russian Orthodoxy and its organisations (Furman & Kääriäinen, 2007). The pro-Orthodox consensus illustrates the fairly high level of trust of the population in Orthodox institutions. According to a 2017 poll by the Levada Centre, no less than 48% of Russians said that the Church is ‘quite trustworthy’, ranking it next after the president, the army and the FSB. In the same poll, 44% of the respondents believed that religious organisations ‘should support public morality’ and should ‘satisfy

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the moral needs of believers’ (Levada Centre, 2017). The polls showed that 50–80% of Orthodox respondents agree with the statement that ‘it is necessary to promote the unification of all Christian churches and organisations to preserve Christian values in the modern world and Russian society’ (Kublitskaya, 2009).

The Orthodox Church as a Political Actor The focus of this chapter is on the Orthodox form of conservatism—that is, on how the Russian Orthodox Church offers its view on traditional values and to what extent this view is accepted by the Russian people. This issue is further developed in this section by examining the discourse on traditional values that is offered by the Church and the state. At the end of the 2000s, the Kremlin changed its terminology. President Putin’s earlier priorities of rising prosperity and progress were complemented—if not replaced—by traditional values, external threat, solidarity and national pride in the country’s glorious past. The support of traditional values became a common discourse of the state and the Orthodox Church, with traditional values being mentioned in public discourse in the messages of both the President of Russia and Patriarch Kirill. When addressing the State Council of the Russian Federation in 2013, the president spoke about Russia’s transnational policy to promote and protect traditional values, by this concept referring to ‘the value of a traditional family, genuine human life, including religious life, not only material life, but also spiritual, the values of humanism and the diversity of the world’ (Putin, 2013). In his message to the World Congress of Families in Italy, Patriarch Kirill (2019) underlined ‘the importance of strengthening the traditional institution of marriage, birth and moral education of children’, ‘the need to protect the fundamental rights of parents’ and the importance of ‘the family as a God-blessed union of a man and a woman founded on a solid foundation of faith and love’. The website pravoslavie.ru outlines the main characteristics promoted by the conservative movement: the lack of family control by the state, non-interference of the atheist community in the affairs of believers, refusal of abortion and euthanasia and rejection of LGBT and gender ideology. According to Metropolitan Nikon of Ufa (2016), ‘traditional values are religious values. And this unites us’. Although the concept of

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‘traditional values’ is not clearly defined and remains open to wide interpretation, the core of this concept is traditional morality, family as such and ‘family values’ (Quenoy & Dubrovskiy, 2018, p. 94). According to Gradskova (2020), the ideology of traditional values has turned out to be a useful tool for the state, allowing it to build social control over sexual, reproductive and social behaviours. The strengthening of the authoritarian and conservative tendencies of the state can be seen in a number of prohibitive laws that have been adopted since the end of 2000. Some of the first of these laws included: • 2011: A law introducing a waiting time before abortion and a law banning homosexual propaganda; • 2012: A law about foreign agents, prohibiting foreign financial support for NGOs; • 2013: A law increasing responsibility for insulting believers’ feelings. The amendments made to the Russian Constitution in 2020 are indicative in this regard, with some amendments being closely connected to the suggestions of the Orthodox Church. For example, the Constitution emphasises that the family is ‘a God-blessed union of a man and a woman, based on a strong foundation of faith and love’, and there is an amendment about the ancestors who ‘conveyed to us ideals and faith in God’ (article 67, clause 2 of the Constitution, 2020). It appears that the ‘traditional values’ thinking of the Russian Orthodox Church mostly concentrates on the family. An analysis of the Church’s statements shows that it considers that a family should be heterosexual and that duties within the family should be distributed in a traditional way. According to the Final Document of the X General Church Congress on Social Service (Final Document…, 2021), abortions are objected to and a large number of children per family should be supported. The family should be autonomous from the state and NGOs, which should not interfere in families’ affairs; this refers to the education of children,3 relations inside families and so on. Such an opinion of autonomy implies that, in the case of domestic violence, families should solve their problems on their own. The Orthodox Church has argued publicly that it does not recognise the actuality of domestic violence in the country. Furthermore, as the Church claims that the law on domestic violence ‘destroys families’, the state is

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trying to find a consensus with the Church. In this context, state institutions are attempting to correct the law draft to please its opponents and postpone its advancement. Arguments of the Opponents of the Law on Domestic Violence The presence of a pro-Orthodox consensus in Russian society and the alignment of the Orthodox conservative agenda and the state have led to a situation in which their voices sound louder than the voices of defenders of the law. The group of opponents to the law includes not only the majority of the Orthodox community but also the Head of the Human Rights Council. Furthermore, it includes the Children’s Ombudsman— who should, it would seem, protect abused family members’ rights. However, as previously noted, the most active and influential actor against the law is the Orthodox Church community. The statement of the Moscow Patriarchate (2019) mentions eight times that the proposed law contradicts ‘Russian traditional spiritual and moral values’ and repeats twice the idea that the law would not contribute to solving the state’s demographic problems: …the concepts of ‘domestic’ and ‘family violence’ were historically constructed by representatives of radical anti-family ideologies, such as feminism, who deliberately set themselves the goal of deconstructing the family, family life and all traditional values associated with them. (ibid.)

The Moscow Patriarchate statement regarding the law relies mostly on the Familypolicy.ru report (2019). The report by the Analytical Centre very quickly gave negative feedback on the draft law against domestic violence, arguing that the law will destroy Russian families: Applying the norms of the law will cause significant damage to the family, motherhood and fatherhood in practice and will create for families conditions of unjustified destruction, causing the separation of children from their parents ... the law is a threat to the state and to public security. As a result, the constitutional principle of protecting the family, motherhood and fatherhood is violated. A kind of ‘punishment’ is introduced for creating a family, having and raising children.

The family as an object of protection—rather than a person or a child—is a refrain in the public statements of Patriarch Kirill when discussing the

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law. In the Christmas TV interview with the Patriarch, a journalist asked the Patriarch about the actuality of domestic violence in Russia. The Patriarch avoided answering the presenter’s question and focused on the fact that the bill is a Western trend and that it is necessary to protect the family from outside intrusions: ‘The very concept—domestic violence—is something borrowed from the outside, from abroad’, he argued (Patriarch, 2020). The Patriarch recalled the influence of various Communist Party organisations on the family in Soviet times, which, according to the Patriarch, did not lead to anything good. The President of Russia repeated the same idea at a press conference (Vedomosti, 2019). Statements that the law contradicts family values and destroys the family are repeated in many of the publications of Orthodox organisations. The group of bill opponents include many varied organisations; however, most are or were once Orthodox.4 A group called Parental Resistance (2019) has published an emotional petition against the proposed law on its website. Both the Moscow Patriarchate and Orthodox NGOs have adopted the Russian state’s method of labelling public organisations receiving grants from other states as ‘foreign agents’ and thereby giving them a negative public image. In their reports about the law against domestic violence, they inform5 their readers that the Ministry of Justice of Russia has entered the Moscow crisis centre into the register of foreign agents (Community Commissioner, 2019). Indeed, the crisis centre known as the Anna Centre, which has been successfully working with domestic and sexual violence since 1993, was included on the list of ‘foreign agents’ in 2016. In 2020, another public project named Violence.No (with the website Nasiliu.net ) received the same label. As a result, these organisations have less financial capacity, significantly more reports to complete in order to comply with government regulations and a less favourable image amongst the population. As mentioned earlier, during the period of public feedback on the draft law for domestic violence prevention, opponents of the law were able to submit their arguments to the State Council’s website. These arguments were collected and analysed by the author using a content analysis method. The opponents consider that the law: (1) Leads to the destruction of the family (i.e. via separation of children from their parents in the case of violence) and traditional values of Orthodox families, which is against the constitution;

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(2) Promotes Western immorality (e.g. ‘a lot of genders’ and homosexual families); (3) Leads to a decrease in demographic growth, which is contrary to government policy; (4) Duplicates existing laws. These arguments are similar to those in the public documents against the bill, which were published by the Orthodox leaders and community. The opponents of the proposed law emphasise the importance of protecting the family and the traditional values of Orthodox families. In their argumentations, they include an image of the enemy—a generalised, dissolute West, promoting the cult of sin and encroaching on Russian traditional values. The legalisation of homosexual marriages in several Western countries has become a convenient target for attacks on Western morality by Russian conservatives and a way to switch attention from internal social, political and economic problems. The leadership of the Church demonstrates its loyalty and full support for the state. The public policies of the Orthodox Church and that of the Russian state overlap in many ways, especially in relation to the family. The state assists Orthodox organisations through presidential grants (Kozlov, 2015) and by promoting the leaders of Orthodox organisations to government posts; for example, the Children’s Ombudsman is the former leader of a public Orthodox foundation named Pokrov. One of the foundation’s key activities is preventing and reducing the number of abortions and promoting traditional family values (Chernova, 2020). Arguments of the Defenders of the Law on Domestic Violence The Russian public appears to have become increasingly more concerned about domestic violence. In 2002, 43% of Russian respondents argued that a husband beating his wife is a private family matter and that no one should interfere in it (Gorshkova & Shurigina, 2003). In 2020, however, Russians recognised the importance of the domestic violence problem: 79% of respondents believed that a law is needed to guarantee protection for women from husband or partner violence, whilst 61% of respondents considered that violence against women is a serious problem in Russian society (Levada, 2020). The group defending the draft law includes women’s NGOs, feminist communities such as the SotsFem Alternative, some deputies in

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the State Duma, the liberal media and many crisis centres in Russia. Numerous groups have been created in social networks explaining the causes and unacceptability of domestic violence. The ground was laid for a serious conversation about domestic and sexual violence by the ‘#I’m not afraid to say’ flash mob on Facebook, which was launched by the Ukrainian feminist Anastasia Melnichenko (Skibitskaya, 2016) on July 2016 and swept through the post-Soviet space. The flash mob collected a relatively large audience on Facebook and the Vkontakte (VK) social network (1028 VK subscribers in 2017) and drew the media’s attention to domestic violence and sexual violence in general. The history of all the draft laws illustrates the gradual institutionalisation of practices for dealing with domestic violence in Russia—from discussions of the domestic violence problem at conferences and summer schools to the creation of well-organised crisis centres. The first draft laws in the 1990s reveal attempts to anchor the already established and functioning social and legal practices of working with domestic violence in the country, based on both international experience and the experience of non-governmental crisis centres in the country (mainly created with grants from international funds). The results of Russian population representative polls by the Russia Public Opinion Research Centre (VCIOM, 2019) showed that only 8% of respondents considered hitting a spouse to be possible ‘under certain circumstances’, 40% of respondents knew families with cases of beatings, 50% believed that even the first case of domestic violence cannot be forgiven and 39% were ready to forgive. 80% of women were in favour of adopting the law versus 57% of men. Women spoke more than men about the inadmissibility of domestic violence (94% of women vs. 85% of men). According to this poll, the majority of Russians were in favour of adopting the law against domestic violence: 70% of Russians considered it to be necessary to adopt a law on preventing domestic violence. Only 7% of the respondents were against the law, and 90% were convinced of the inadmissibility of any physical violence in the family. According to the Levada Centre’s survey (2020), the majority of Russians (79%) believed that a new law was needed that guarantees a woman protection from domestic violence. The opposite opinion was shared by 16% of the respondents. Researchers and experts still consider the most important obstacle to solving the domestic violence problem to be an absence of political will (Kozkina, 2019). There is no state policy at the federal level that defines the problem of domestic violence as a

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serious obstacle to the observance and realisation of women’s rights as part of human rights. The process of comprehending the issue of domestic and sexual violence and sexual harassment was launched by journalists from the liberal media and had a serious impact on the public consciousness, especially amongst youth. The liberal Russian media has published many topical analytical articles on domestic violence. For example, Meduza reported that the Ministry of Internal Affairs recorded 21,390 cases of domestic violence against women in 2018, and that more than 60% of criminal acts against children occur in families (Vilisova, 2020). Russian public opinion has been influenced by incidents of violence against women that became known throughout the country. Examples include a case of mutilation (Khaletskaya, 2018); long years of physical and sexual violence against sisters by their father (Sergeev, 2022); and the murder of a graduate student by her partner (BBC News, 2019). A great deal of attention was paid to these incidents in the Russian media, and a new wave of discourse developed to defend domestic violence victims. According to our analysis, the Kommersant (a socio-political newspaper with a strong business block, the second most cited amongst the sampled comments in Russia) and related media published 456 articles using the concept of ‘domestic violence’ from January 2015 to November 2022. The media has addressed topics with titles such as ‘The rape culture’ (Life, 2016), ‘Are we experiencing a moral revolution?’ (Rossiyskaya Gazeta, 2017), ‘What do thousands of posts about violence have in common?’ (Meduza, 2016) and ‘“#I’m not afraid to say” is not about women, but about how to find the strength to be weak’ (Novaya Gazeta, 2016). These titles show the diversity of media approaches to the problem of violence; they also demonstrate that Russian society is changing and that these changes are taking place in the moral sphere of certain groups of the population. Most of the media noted that the flash mob ‘#I’m not afraid to say’ demonstrated a positive trend that is developing in society. When complex moral problems can be publicly discussed, a society learns to analyse complex psychological topics. Defenders of the law understand that the existing laws do not work and that ‘working, uncastrated law that will effectively punish violators and prevent violence’ is needed. The main types of arguments for the law are as follows:

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(1) Violence has nothing in common with the family and human life— ‘we need crime prevention, not corpse descriptions’; ‘the quality of families is important, not the number’. (2) ‘Traditional values’ and ‘family affairs’ should not be excuses for violence—‘beating is not a tradition’. (3) Domestic violence is a specific type of violence, which is why its victims require specific measures of protection and support. Similar laws have been proven to be effective in other countries. (4) Domestic violence—both physical and psychological—traumatises not only adults but also children who may be the victims or witnesses of this violence. Their life is ‘ruined in childhood’. As shown by these arguments, the defenders of the law describe the importance of human rights and a dignified life for everyone. An active grassroots movement, social networks, public organisations and liberal media have supported the enactment of the law in Russia. The media and social networks have spoken out to a wider audience, and new formulations for ongoing ethical discourse have been articulated. The results of attitude surveys in Russia indicate that attitudes about domestic violence have been changing since the 1990s.

Conclusions Women in Russia still need their rights to be protected, especially in connection with the problem of domestic violence, which is not diminishing. Over the past three decades, a couple of contradictory trends can be seen in Russian society. Although the polls show that the population as a whole has positive attitudes towards the domestic violence law and is ready to adopt it, part of the public opposes the law. The essential factor having negative impact on situation with domestic violence law in Russia is active public work against the law of Moscow Patriarchate and affiliating organisations. The negative position of significant religious figures and the lack of political will are reducing the likelihood of the law being adopted. The state is balancing between two public opinions: the polling majority and the active minority. On the one hand, adoption of the law largely depends on the dialogue with the Orthodox leaders—which are categorically opposed to the law—and on the political will of the state. On the other hand, opinion polls and publications in the media show

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that the general population is becoming concerned about various manifestations of domestic violence. Slowly but surely, a new ethic is being formed in Russian society.

Notes 1. https://wcons.net/novosti/ne-popali-V-statistiku-pochemu-mvd-ne-sch itaet-postradavshih-ot-domashnego-nasilija-dazhe-esli-oni-ubity/. 2. The founders of the Analytical centre are transnational organisations: the World Congress of Families, the interregional public organisation For Family Rights, and the Foundation for Support of Family and Demography in the Name of St. Peter and Fevronia. The last-mentioned is connected to the Moscow Patriarchate. The Foundation represents the World Congress of Families. 3. Orthodox organisations create online ‘classical’ education for Orthodox families. 4. The Orthodox movements here are Forty Forties and the Union of Orthodox Citizens. The parental organisations are Parental Resistance, which fights against juvenile technologies, vaccinations and digital fascism, the Association of Parental Committees and Communities (Moscow), the Union of Patriotic Parenting Organizations (St. Petersburg), the Parents’ Committee, the National Association for Family Education, the Family Education Community named Classic Conversations and the Analytical Centre. The information agencies include, amongst others, Ivan Chai, Katyusha, Red Spring and Tsargrad. 5. Petition Against the Domestic Violence Law https://www.rodotpor.ru/ net-feministkam/ (parental rebuff).

References BBC NEWS. (2019, November 10). Heinous murder of St. Petersburg University graduate student: famous historian pleaded guilty (p. 14). https://www. bbc.com/russian/news-50365730. Accessed January 28, 2023. Bashkortostan Mitropoly News. (2016). https://prav-news.ru/ufa/?id=153452 Chernova N. (2020, July 1). Mother of all Russia /Matushka vseya Rusi. Novaya gazeta. https://novayagazeta.ru/articles/2020/07/01/86097-mat ushka-vseya-rusi. Accessed August 25, 2021. Community Commissioner. (2019). Community Commissioner for Family Protection (obschestvenniy upolnomochenniy po zaschite sem’i). Retrieved May

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29, 2020, from https://ouzs.ru/news/yuridicheskoe-zaklyuchenie-na-zak onoproekt-o-profilaktike-semeyno-bytovogo-nasiliya-v-rossiyskoy-fed/?sph rase_id=801610 Ershova E., & Aivazova S. (2013). Domestic violence: Social and legal aspect. Study guide. M. (2017). Retrieved from https://wcons.net/o-konsorciume/ o-nas/Constitution (2020) Full text of amendments to the Constitution. What are we voting for? Retrieved May 29, 2020, from http://duma.gov. ru/news/48045/ familypolicy.ru Advocacy group. (2019). Analytical report “For a legal analysis of the draft law “On prevention of domestic violence”.” Retrieved May 29, 2020, from https://www.familypolicy.ru/read/2307 Final Document of the X General Church Congress on Social Service. (2021). (Itogoviy document X obschetcerkovnogo s’ezda po sotcial’nomu slujeniu). Retrieved May 29, 2020, from http://www.patriarchia.ru/db/text/583 0517.html Furman D., & Kääriäinen K. (2007). Religiosity in Russia in the 90-s of the XXbeginning of the XXI century. New churches, old believers, old churches, new believers: Religion in post-Soviet Russia (pp. 6–87). Letnii sad. Gorshkova, I. D., & Shurigina I. I. (2003). Violence against wives in Russian families. Research materials presented at the conference at Moscow State University. M.V. Lomonosov and the Gorbachev Foundation. Retrieved February 1, 2023, from http://www.womenmsu.msu.ru/apendix/bookall. pdf Gradskova, Y. (2020, December 21). Recovering traditions? Women, gender, and the authoritarianism of “traditional values in Russia. Baltic Worlds, vol. XIII: 1 Special Issue: Women and “the People” (pp. 31–36). RBC. https://www.rbc. ru/politics/21/12/2015/5676c4f69a79470a9c3bc1a9 Levada-Center (2017, October 12) Institutional trust. Retrieved February 1, 2023, from https://www.levada.ru/2017/10/12/institutsionalnoe-doveri e-3/. (2020, April 4). Russians are ready to raise their hand against domestic violence. Retrieved February 1, 2022, from https://www.levada.ru/2020/04/07/ros siyane-gotovy-podnyat-ruku-na-domashnee-nasilie/ (2021, April 16). Relogiosity during pandemic. Retrieved February 1, 2022, from https://www.levada.ru/en/2021/04/16/religiosity-during-thepandemic/ Kocharyan, M., Petukhova, E., & Marikyan, M. (2019, December 8). Who and why opposes the law on domestic violence. RIA Novosti. https://ria.ru/201 91208/1562071651.html Kozkina, A. (2019, December 16). If the state wants to identify the problem of violence against violence, it is necessary to allocate money for this. Report of the “Justice Initiative” on the world experience in combating domestic

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violence in the family. Mediazona. https://zona.media/article/2019/12/ 16/domashnee-nasilie-doklad. Accessed January 28, 2023. Kozlov, V. (2015, December 21). Orthodox organizations became the main recipients of presidential grants. RBC. https://www.rbc.ru/rbcfreenews/64e 8af509a79477948d63509 Kublitskaya, E. A. (2009). Features of religiosity in modern Russia. Sotsis, 4, 96–107. Lebedev, S. (2015). Pro-Orthodox consensus in Russia at the beginning of the twenty-first century as a phenomenon of the religious situation. Scientific Result: Series of Sociology and Management, 1, 14. http://rrsociology.ru/en/ journal/annotation/376/ Meduza. (2019, November 30). The final version of the bill on domestic violence came as a surprise to its authors. https://meduza.io/feature/2019/ 11/30/opublikovannyy-sovetom-federatsii-zakonoproekt-o-domashnem-nas ilii-stal-neozhidannostyu-dlya-ego-soavtorov-oni-nazvali-dokument-revera nsom-v-storonu-fundamentalistov National strategy of Actions for Women. (2017, March 8). Retrieved February 1, 2023, from https://mintrud.gov.ru/docs/government/179 Outcomes 2020: Domestic Violence and Women’s Health. Retrieved February 1, 2022, from https://www.facebook.com/anna.center.ru. Message from February 13, 2021. Parental Resistance. (2019). Petition against domestic violence law. Retrieved February 1, 2022, from http://rodotpor.ru/net-feministkam/ Patriarch. (2019). Patriarch Kirill against attempts to defame traditional values. The world must refuse plant the cult of sin. Retrieved February 1, 2022, from https://tsargrad.tv/news/patriarh-kirill-protiv-popytok-oporochit-tradicion nye-cennosti-mir-dolzhen-otkazatsja-ot-nasazhdenija-kulta-greha_192203 Patriarch. (2020). Christmas interview of Patriarch Kirill in First State TV Channel. Retrieved March 29, 2020, from https://youtu.be/6O_Lj-blVts Patriarchate. (2019, December 4). Statement of the Patriarchal Commission on Family Affairs, Protection of Motherhood and Childhood in Connection with the Discussion of the Federal Draft Law “On the Prevention of Domestic Violence in the Russian Federation”. Retrieved February 1, 2023, from http://www.patriarchia.ru/db/text/5541276.html (it should be save) (2006). President’s Message to the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation. Retrieved February 1, 2023, from http://kremlin.ru/eve nts/president/transcripts/23577 (2013). Message of the President to the State Council of Russian Federation. Retrieved February 1, 2023, from http://kremlin.ru/events/president/ news/19825

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(2019). The domestic violence law should be adopted after a calm discussion. Retrieved February 1, 2023, from https://www.1tv.ru/news/2019-12-19/ 377703-zakon_o_domashnem_nasilii_nuzhno_prinimat_posle_spokoynogo_o bsuzhdeniya_schitaet_vladimir_putin Pisklakova-Parker M., & Sinel’nikov A. (2020). Staying alive: Violence against women in Russia. Information and methodological centre “Anna”. Quenoy du I., & Dubrovskiy D. (2018). Violence and defence of “Traditional Values” in Russia. In O. Oliker (Ed.), Religion and Violence in Russia. Context, Manifestation and Policy. A Report of the CSIS Russia and Eurasia Program (pp. 93–116). CSIS. Report of the Consortium of Women’s Non-Governmental associations for the period from 01/01/2017 to 12/31/2017. Retrieved May 29, 2020, from https://wcons.net/assets/files/domashnee-nasilie.pdf RIA Novosti Khaletskaya, I. (2018, October 22). History of Margarita… (In Russian). RIA Novosti. https://ria.ru/20181022/1530984510.html Robinson, P. F. (2020). Russia’s emergence as an International Conservative power. Russian Conservatism: An Ideology or a Natural Attitude? https:// eng.globalaffairs.ru/articles/russias-conservative-power/ Rosstat. (2016, 2017, 2021). https://rosstat.gov.ru/folder/13807 Sergeev, S. (2022, July 14). Mikhail Khachaturian was accused culturally. Kommersant. https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/5459717 Skibitskaya, J. (2016). The truly scary stories were on closed pages. Meduza / Po-nastoyaschemu strashnie istorii bili na zakritih stranichkah. Retrieved February 1, 2022, from https://meduza.io/feature/2016/07/08/po-nastoy aschemu-strashnye-istorii-byli-na-zakrytyh-stranichkah Stoeckl, K. (2016). Lecture. Post-secular conflicts and global struggle for traditional values (In Russian). Retrieved February 1, 2023, from https:// cyberleninka.ru/article/n/postsekulyarnye-konflikty-i-globalnaya-borba-zatraditsionnye-tsennosti/viewer Turoma, S., & Aitamurto, K. (2016). Renegotiating patriotic and religious identities in the post-soviet and post-secular Russia. Transcultural Studies: A Journal in Interdisciplinary Research, 12, 1–14. VCIOM. (2019). Russia Public Opinion Research Centre: A bad world or a good quarrel? Analytical review. Retrieved February 1, 2022, from https:// wciom.ru/index.php?id=236&uid=10077 Vedomosti. (2019, December 19). Putin comments on domestic violence law for the first time. Press release of Vedomosti. Retrieved February 1, 2022, from https://www.vedomosti.ru/society/news/2019/12/19/819 162-zakon-o-nasilii Vilisova A., & Shevelev I. (2020). Opponents of the domestic violence law say that they will be evicted from the house without trial, and the child will be taken away if they do not buy him a toy. It is not true. Meduza / protivniki

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zakona o domashnem nasilii govoruat, chto iz doma budut viselyat’ bez suda, a rebenka otnimat’, esli ne kupit’ emu igrushku. Eto ne Pravda. https://med uza.io/slides/protivniki-zakona-o-domashnem-nasilii-govoryat-chto-iz-domabudut-vyselyat-bez-suda-a-rebenka-otnimat-esli-ne-kupit-emu-igrushku-etonepravda WEF. (2021). Global Gender GAP Report 2020. World Economic Forum. https://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_GGGR_2021.pdf WVSR, World Value Survey Report. https://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/WVS DocumentationWV7.jsp

When the Private Remains Nonpolitical: Gender Roles, Sexual Liberation, and the Example of Armenia Li Bennich-Björkman

Abstract Could the postmodern development of slowly but persistently dissolving dualistic gender and sexual equality roles become the “new normal” in parts of the world outside the West, parts that have been shaped by very different cultural and historical experiences from those of many other cultures? Based on the example of post-Soviet Christian Armenia, this chapter argues that this is unlikely. There is no linear trajectory from dualism to holism in terms of gender equality or sexual liberation, just as there is no linear transitional development from authoritarian rule toward democracy. These equalities are perceived, filtered, and practiced through the prism of the position and importance, or relative unimportance, of the family institution and of kinship structures more broadly. In contrast to the Northern European holistic equality, in which the private is political, the dualistic view is both modern and traditional. Open to less differentiation between the sexes in the public sphere, the dualistic gender equality view strongly espouses family responsibilities that are significantly defined by the separation of gender roles in the private

L. Bennich-Björkman (B) Department of Government, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 A.-M. Sätre et al. (eds.), Post-Soviet Women, Sustainable Development Goals Series, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-38066-2_4

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sphere. Distinct gender roles within the family will continue to be desirable, as they demarcate what constitutes a family. This is also evident in the strong condemnation of any public expression by sexual minorities that challenges or offers alternatives to the family institution. However, and interestingly, modern perceptions on choice and freedom seem to exist when it comes to privately living your sexual preferences.

Introduction “The personal is political”—in 1970, Carol Hanisch coined this slogan, which has stayed with the feminist movement ever since. Implying that personal and private experiences and conditions affect women’s public and political roles, and vice versa, her message and that of those who followed in her footsteps pointed toward finally dissolving the artificial boundary between private life, work, and political engagement. This “holistic” view of gender equality must be at the core of the empowerment and liberation of women, they claimed, making who takes care of the children, cooks the food, and plans the family’s weekend and vacations into political issues, not only private choices. What goes on privately in the family in particular echoes in the public sphere. Similarly, feminist icon American Supreme Court Judge Ruth Bader Ginsburg noted in a radical formulation that it is only “when fathers take equal responsibility for the care of their children” that genuine liberation for women can become a reality (Rosen, 2019, p. 13). However, in this chapter, with the example of postSoviet Armenia, I will show that the “dualism” that lies in the separation of the private and public continues to exercise a dominant influence over thoughts and behavior, not only when it comes to gender roles but also when another vulnerable group is discussed, namely sexual minorities. Whereas for women, the public sphere today represents the modern and the private home the traditional, for sexual minorities it is the other way around. In the seclusion of the private, liberation and empowerment may take place, whereas in the public, traditional roles should be respected and upheld. In this, it is reasonable to believe that Armenia resembles not only many other post-Soviet and post-communist countries, but also developing and transitional states elsewhere, where gender and sexual liberation lives side by side with more kinship based and traditional norms (Fig. 1).

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Fig. 1 Mother Armenia, Wikimedia Commons, Photo: Armineaghayan

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Holistic and Dualistic Equality It is only in a tiny part of the world that the holistic norm has started to spread widely. Northern Europe is the prominent example of such an area, where values of individualism, equality, and self-expression have paved way for this development, identified by sociologist Inglehart as part of a grand post-materialist or postmodern value shift shaping affluent welfare states since at least the 1960s (Inglehart, 1997). Consequently, men are increasingly sharing responsibility for household chores and rearing children in Northern Europe, where state policies have actively contributed to the development of “making daddy pregnant” and a new masculine role (Bergqvist et al., 2016; Cedstrand, 2011; Klinth, 2002). Same-sex couples are also allowed to marry and adopt children, and as well in the public as privately it is modern, not traditional, norms that openly prevail. While women have become more visible in the public sphere of society as the rising tide of gender equality has moved women in non-Western and Western countries out of the domestic sphere and into the public one, traditional gender roles still persist in private life in much of the world (cf. Inglehart & Norris, 2003). Almost everywhere, responsibility for the family and children are still the tasks of women (Hopcroft & McLaughlin, 2012). Many women are therefore treated, and behave, according to “modern” values in the public sphere and “traditional” ones in the private (Hagqvist et al., 2017). “Young people today have become much more open-minded about gender roles—it shows up in their attitudes about pronouns, politics, and sports. But in one area, change has been minimal. They are holding onto traditional views about who does what at home,” wrote Claire Miller (2020) in a recent New York Times article about young American couples. A recent 40-country study also showed that in countries with highly egalitarian values, maternal burnout is more common, explained by the discrepancy between values and actual behavior in the private sphere (Roskam et al., 2022). With the egalitarian values also comes more of comparisons between women and men, whereas in less egalitarian ones, the comparisons mostly lie within the sexes: “(M)others belonging to more egalitarian societies are more likely to compare themselves to fathers, and therefore suffer more from gender inequality in parenting than mothers from less egalitarian societies, who by contrast compare themselves more readily to other mothers, and

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will therefore be less at risk of parental burnout.”(Roskam et al., 2022, p. 160). Hence, parallel to the holistic view of gender equality and as added here, sexual equality, there thus exists a dualistic alternative, which in fact still continues to separate the public and private spheres instead of treating them as linked. In this dualistic understanding, whereas in the public sphere, gender roles are slowly withering away, in the private, they are upheld and even cherished. And interestingly enough, similar, distinct differentiation, of the public and private spheres is as well perceptible when it comes to the question of sexual minorities, and the freedom they should enjoy, as this article will show. However, in their case it is the public sphere which should be safe-guarded for traditionalism, and the private which should be a sphere of modernity, choice, and even freedom, since it takes place away from the public eye. Against this background, an intriguing question with implications for the prospects of women’s—and men’s—future empowerment both in terms of gender roles and as sexual beings with various sexual preferences is to understand the rationale not for the holistic but for the dualistic equality norm. After all, as anthropologist Joseph Henrich (2020) recently and convincingly showed, the West, which gave birth to the holistic one which is most prominent today in Scandinavia, represents a culturally deviant path historically from most of the world. This is primarily reflected in the weak position of kinship organization, which was actively undermined by the Roman Catholic Church, and the strong individualism that has arisen as a consequence of weakened family structures (cf. Fukuyama, 2011). By minimizing the influence of predetermined gender and hierarchical roles over hundreds of years, even a millennium, in favor of individually chosen lifestyles and roles, the West is, in short, different (Henrich, 2020). An alternative route to the holistic gender equality, embedded in the “personal is political” worldview is thus as argued here the dualistic one, upholding gender roles within the private sphere while accepting, even embracing, the dissolution of distinct roles between women and men in work life, power positions, and the public sphere in general. But why, one may ask, does sexual liberation follow an opposite trajectory? Below, the rationale behind dualistic gendered and sexual equality is illustrated by survey and in-depth interview data from transitional and post-Soviet Armenia in the South Caucasus.

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The Context: Armenia Influenced by Asia and Europe Armenia is a nation shaped by the influence of the Ottoman Empire and the Middle East, but also of Christianity and Europe (Shahnazaryan et al., 2016). After independence in 1991, a post-Soviet “mild” authoritarianism was established, which was challenged in 2018 by the Velvet Revolution. The Revolution bore the signs of a generational reaction against the establishment, identified as representatives of a post-Soviet culture of inertia and less modern and tolerant ways of thinking and behaving. The protesters themselves emphasized the need for a real democratic turn in Armenia, with human rights—including gender equality, individual self-realization, broad social and political participation, and respect for the LGBTI community—as prominent features. The Velvet Revolution, unlike the Rose Revolution in Georgia in 2003 and the Orange and Euromaidan revolutions in Ukraine in 2004 and 2014, respectively, did not solely express disappointment with systematic state corruption and lagging economic development, though these were important triggers of the uprising. “European values” played a clear role in the Armenian discourse, and the identity-building European Neighborhood Policy of the 2000s and its Eastern Partnership (initiated in 2009), in which Armenia is one of six countries included, have put Europe and European values on the Armenian political map. A kind of Europeanization is ongoing, and the highly educated younger generation who partially supported the Velvet Revolution is a post-materialist one with values that emphasize tolerance, rights, and equality, values closely aligned with those sometimes described as fundamentally European (see Iskandarian, 2018, p. 477). Today, women’s organizations such as the Women’s Resource Center1 and others are striving to empower women and generally improve their conditions, and the LGBTI community has organizations that voice their concerns and strive for equal treatment and changed legislation.2 Ongoing debate and action are helping strengthen the position of women and of vulnerable minorities more broadly, primarily sexual minorities. Still, how Armenians distinguish and perceive the public and private spheres, and public and private roles and behavior, continues to significantly structure gender equality ambitions and the empowerment of sexual minorities. The perceptions, orientations, and values—that is, the political culture—of Armenian elites are at the center of the analysis (for the

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concept of political culture, see Almond & Verba, 1963). The focus is on mentalities and culture rather than practice and behavior because “culture matters, and indeed it matters a lot,” as Inglehart and Norris (2003, p. 8) rightly note. Getting to know how people think about and perceive the world, what values they embrace, and how they evaluate developments opens avenues into mental realities that surround us and affect practice. As opinion leaders and drivers of reform, elites have the tools to shape and influence societies, while not denying that the orientations of the broader population also play a significant role in most polities today. Drawing on material from two elite surveys conducted in cooperation with Caucasus Research and Resource Center-Armenia (CRRC-Armenia) for the author in 2017 and 2019, and from personal conversational and semi-structured interviews in 2019, the analysis combines general orientations with nuanced explanations that elaborate on figures of thought, existing value patterns, and mentalities. The analysis centers the sharp distinctions drawn by the elites between public opportunities and private power, formal rules and informal norms, and gender roles as biologically driven or socially constructed in order to highlight the dualistic perception of gender equality.

Studying Elites Studies examining values and attitudes among the elite are considerably rarer than those focusing on ordinary citizens. For that reason, political scientist Robert Putnam (1973) shifted his focus, in a pioneering work, from mass-level values to the state of elite affairs when comparing British and Italian members of parliament (MPs). Putnam’s followers include Steen (1997), who studied the Baltic States’ elites after independence in 1991, and Rohrschneider (1999), who investigated how East and West German parliamentarians differed in mentality in the reunified Germany. In 2019, Post-Soviet Affairs dedicated a double issue to the values and perspectives of Russian elites, with a focus on Russian foreign policy (Werning Rivera & Zimmerman, 2019). The Armenian elites, together with their approaches, values, judgments, and attitudes, were first studied through surveys conducted with fixed response alternatives in spring 2017 and followed up one year after the Velvet Revolution, in spring 2019, including about 200 respondents each time.3 The questionnaire was designed by the author in close collaboration with CRRC, which conducted the survey on-site in

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Yerevan. As the follow-up approached, certain revisions were made. For example, questions about sexual minorities, considered too sensitive in the Armenian context during the first round, were added. Semi-structured conversational interviews were conducted with a sample of the roughly 200 respondents to the 2019 survey and with additional respondents considered part of the elite. Thirty-five respondents were interviewed in spring and summer 2019 in a process that deepened insight into the perspectives on which the survey focused, in a more discursive and logical manner.4 These interviews provided insight into the state of the arguments, influential discourses, and framing of the issues, advancing our understanding of the norms characterizing how Armenian elites view life and the world. Many of those interviewed in conversational form belonged to the cultural and media elites, as members of the political and economic elites often declined such follow-up. Our main aim was to gain an overview of the dominant values and beliefs of Armenian elites regarding gender equality; secondarily, a shorter section of the interviews addressed views of another vulnerable group, namely, sexual minorities. How was the dualistic view of gender equality constructed, and does it spill over to perceptions of sexual minorities? “Elite” is operationalized as those occupying high-ranking positions and influential posts in politics, the central bureaucracy, business, the media, and culture (cf. Werning Riviera & Zimmerman, 2019). Certain individuals were assessed as having personal platforms as opinion shapers, and were accordingly included. People were asked to name others whom they regarded as influential in their sectors, and the original participant list was augmented in a snowball sampling process. In the political sector, MPs who chaired parliamentary committees and partisan groups, chairs and leaders of all political parties that participated in elections, members of the executive committees of various political parties, heads of local government agencies, and directors and heads of political think tanks were selected. In the economic sector, the respondents included individuals in high positions in government ministries of finance and culture as well as CEOs of large companies, and in the cultural sector, well-known artists and authors were approached. The selected media elite included heads of major broadcast channels and companies as well as influential journalists. The study was designed as a longitudinal study, not a systematic panel, of the elite in which the individual participants might differ between occasions one and two, but still hold the same positions.

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Who were the respondents? Nearly all respondents in both 2017 and 2019 were university educated. In terms of religion, more than 80% were Christian and members of the Armenian Apostolic Church, and about half were actively practicing. The gender distribution was 32% women and 68% men in both 2017 and 2019. By sector, the sample included more women in the media than the culture sectors. The age distribution ranged from “under 33” to “over 60 years old,” meaning that the respondents included individuals shaped during the Soviet era (the “Soviet” generation), those who became adults in the first decade after the disappearance of the Soviet Union (the “post-Soviets”), and young people born after 1990 and who became politically and socially active in the 2000s and 2010s (the “Velvet Generation”). Of the 2019 sample, 27.5% were aged 18–35 years and members of the Velvet Generation, 31% were aged 36– 45 years, and about 35% were aged 46 years and over. All those surveyed and interviewed have consented to being part of the study.

The Armenian Elites on the Position of Women in the Public Sphere When the Armenian elites consider the opportunities of women in work life, the legalistic perspective is prominent and often cited. There are no legal barriers to women’s participation and discrimination is not allowed on the basis of sex, making a significant number of respondents conclude that the work sphere is gender equal. That belief rests indirectly on the conviction that the individual determines her own destiny, thereby dismissing the significance of social structures. Female theater director Lusineh Yernjakyan, who identified as a fighter for women’s rights, argued that Armenia cannot be like Europe, that it has its own traditions that can also enable women’s emancipation. In a legalistic manner like that noted above, she emphasized that “one can go as far as one wants,” implying that there were no legal or formal obstacles to women’s advancement (interview, Yernjakyan). Other respondents similarly emphasized that there were no formal barriers or legal discrimination against women, explaining why a majority (over 80%) in both 2017 and 2019 considered their own professional spheres equally accessible to women and men, even though they were overwhelmingly male dominated. Concerning work life, there was interesting agreement regarding the rights of both women and men to a job. Shahnazaryan, Badasyan, and

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Molvud (2016) wrote about the development from compulsory labor market quotas during the Soviet era, even as women were expected to be mainly responsible for children and the home, to a push in the 1990s for women to have the right to remain outside the public sphere, which is now slowly beginning to give way to other tendencies, as we just saw. To the classic survey question in this context as to whether men should have preferential rights to jobs during times of high unemployment, capturing the male breadwinner model, an absolute majority—up to 81%—answered in the negative. This indicates a modern, not traditional, view of gender roles when it comes to earning one’s own income and thus a certain individualism. That women are considered capable, even more capable, and better-educated than men, as shown in the quotation below, may have contributed to such a view: If we take into account women’s educational level and activity in postSoviet times, then we should note that today they should have a firmer position both publicly and in the administration, as men have started to study worse, are tempted by easy money, and some are even lazier and seem to play chess in their yards all the time. I notice that men’s activity is declining and women’s activity is increasing. (interview, Melikyan)

Much more seldom mentioned, particularly in the conversational interviews, was the importance of informal norms and the extent to which they—despite formal equality—tend to limit women’s opportunities for a career or a secure life. “Glass ceilings” were seldom mentioned. The few who discussed them in one form or another argued that formal rules were emphasized even though resistance to making the status of women equal to that of men was embedded in the conservative and traditional mentalities that remain dominant (interviews, Tadevosyan and Khachatryan). Turning to another part of the public sphere, political representation, until the Velvet Revolution, the representation of women in Armenian politics was around ten percent, making Armenia one of the world’s states with the lowest representation of women. Since then, numbers have risen to around 25%, but female ministers, possessing a position of genuine power, are still very few. In the first “Velvet” government after snap elections in December 2018, there was only one female minister, disappointing many supporters of the uprising and the Civil Contract Party. In this way, Armenia continues to resemble other transitional societies

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where, even though women vote in large numbers, their presence as fullor part-time politicians remains limited (cf. Chhibber, 2003). However, a majority (55%) of the 2019 survey respondents considered the small number of women in Armenian politics to be a problem: “It is a huge problem. On the one hand, I am disappointed that Armenia’s current government has also failed to meet expectations: not enough women ministers, insufficient gender balance in the government” (interview, Giragossian). Zaruhi Hovhannisyan, a lawyer involved in the Coalition to Stop Violence Against Women, had also hoped that, after the Velvet Revolution, more women would be involved in government, parliament, and the justice system, but the Revolution has not lived up to her expectations: “The gender stereotype, that women should submit to men, the stronger sex, is entrenched but that must change” (interview, Hovhannisyan). Still, a majority (58%) did not support the introduction of gender quotas in Armenian parliament as a way to increase the numerical representation of women: Women’s political participation … is low, why? I think that lies within the logic of political parties and there is nothing intentional. Maybe women are not interested in it. The deputy president of parliament is a woman, so I see no problem in this regard. And I really think that Armenian society is ready to have a woman prime minister—that is, wide layers of society are ready for it. (interview, Ghazareh)

Armenian Elites on Gender Roles in the Private Sphere Turning to elite perceptions of gender roles in the personal and private sphere, in the family and child rearing, the situation shifts from a more modern to an overall traditional one. In the most private and intimate relationships, in the family, sex roles are most pronounced and traditionalism most strongly manifest. In the conversational interviews, these perceptions were explored in great detail: No matter how much I regard myself an advanced woman, I think that equality between men and women is not realistic, at least in Armenia. From the very beginning, we have had women’s role in the family and at work as well as men’s. It is our life. We cannot be like Europe, where women’s and men’s roles are equal. (interview, Yernjakyan)

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Many respondents emphasized that Armenia is influenced by the East, by Asian values and only some European ones, and that this ancient Christian nation has its own ways of doing things and of organizing the central unit of society, the family: However much we say that we are bearers of a European culture, the Middle East has set its stamp on us. I don’t know whether it is something genetic in us or is the result of living under the Ottoman Empire and having been invaded by Arabian, Mongolian, and Tatar peoples. (interview, Poghosyan)

Poghisyan, executive director of the Political Science Association of Armenia, said this apropos that Armenia has a rather traditional view of women and sexual minorities. At the same time, he hastened to say that Armenia was far different from Saudi Arabia or Pakistan: Armenia is not fundamentalist and women have a relatively prominent role, as pointed out by the respondent below: My wife has two children, she is a successful businessperson and has her independence, but at the same time, she has her husband and her obvious place in our relationship, and that is called the family. (interview, Hakobyan)

Respondents considered men and women to be destined for different roles in the family and in society outside the home, believing this to be based on biological factors. In 2019, 66% of the survey respondents agreed to some or a great extent with the statement that “biological differences between women and men predestine them for different roles in society”; 83%, a large majority, agreed that men and women should have different roles in the family. However, divergent voices were heard as well: “So women are mainly ascribed the role of servants, who cannot have leading positions but must carry the burden of the family. These are unwritten norms, but extremely stable, that regulate behavior,” explained Nvard Manasyan, regretting the strict roles ascribed to women and men in Armenian society. During the wedding ceremony in the church, the woman is asked if she agrees to marry. Her opinion is thus important. Her role in the family is also essential. There are functional divisions in the family. (interview, Adibekyan)

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Whereas the role of women in the family was often touched on, as in the quotation above, the respondents seldom addressed the role of men in the family or the expectations of them. Women had to consent to marriage, instead of just being married off, and this was considered to give them real influence, a powerful position, clearly suggesting a traditional as opposed to modern or postmodern view of gender roles in the private sphere. In this context, domestic violence was also touched on as integral to relations between men and women in contemporary Armenia, although legislation criminalizing such violence is in place. One respondent alluded to the social as opposed to legal control that once existed during Soviet times but now is gone, a type of control that better protected women and children than does legislation, according to the respondent: During the Soviet Union we had a person in every neighborhood who was responsible for controlling the situation, we also had trade unions and party unions. Suppose a man slaps his wife, then he could be expelled from the party. What I mean is that in this case we had the so-called tovarishski’ sud [Russian, “the comrades’ courts”], so aside from legal mechanisms we had societal pressures creating leverage of influence—for example, you knew it was not good to beat you wife. So it created an atmosphere—I do not say that we admired it but … . Legislation has not changed much. Nowhere is it written that it is allowed to beat wives, but it is accepted among many people in society that if a woman has done something bad, that she should be beaten. (interview, Solyan)

Summing up so far, while women’s career opportunities and even to a certain extent their positions in the public sphere of politics have been championed, this has not spilled over to the private sphere and has not affected women’s role in the family. Armenia thus clearly exemplifies a dualistic as opposed to holistic perception of gender equality, in which having one’s own income and career is not leading to more evaluation of gender-equal relationships in the home and in which demands on women are coming from both the public and private spheres. Traditional and modern elements coexist, whereas postmodern values embracing a parallel change in the role of men toward one of caring do not appear to have struck a chord among Armenian elites.

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Perceived as Threatening the Family Institution: The LGBTI Community What, then, are the perceptions of sexual minorities as articulated by Armenian elites? At the core of holistic equality and a broadened agenda regarding the rights of sexual minorities lies the family institution and its strong position in Armenian society. As long as this basic unit remains protected and intact in its ability to structure gender relations and fulfill the reproduction of society, progressive changes elsewhere, in other societal spheres, can be accepted and even advocated. The lack of controversy about women working outside the home and the perception that the lack of women in the public sphere of politics is a problem indicate precisely that. When it comes to sexual minorities, acceptance and freedom for those concerned is instead conditioned on keeping manifestations of attraction and love private, so that open challenges to the traditionally formed family institution are not influencing the public sphere. Particularly, that is true when it comes to influencing children. Therefore, same-sex marriage is highly opposed, as is the idea that same-sex couples could adopt children, opposed by an overwhelming majority of 70–77% of the respondents: There is resistance from within society so social beliefs have not transformed and we have a new government that at least does not target sexual minorities. Previously, political officials and party representatives would actually publicly target them, and we do not have that any more. (interview, Shirinyan)

Homosexuality is considered a personal choice, rather than an innate sexual orientation, by nearly 40% of the Armenian elites in the 2019 sample. The perception of homosexuality as a choice could be interpreted to mean that people either choose to accept their orientation or not, rather than that people choose their orientation per se, but nevertheless much indicates that what many meant by “choice” was the latter. Of the survey respondents, 25% explained homosexuality with reference to biological factors (i.e., genes and hormones). Part of the dominant discourse, dominant since it was echoed in most survey answers and by respondents in the conversational interviews, involved weighing children’s interests against the desire of LGBTI people to publicly “proselytize” for their lifestyle. Among the elites, many (57%)

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believed that homosexual men and women should not be allowed to work with children as teachers. In other words, a public office such as that of a teacher, should be prohibited to sexual minorities. The view that sexual minorities proselytize for their orientation by organizing was recurrently expressed. Instead of adopting the perspective that, by organizing, LGBTI people are daring to claim a space in the public sphere, not hiding or being ashamed of who they are, most respondents interpreted this as provocative “marketing,” almost of an ideology. That indicates an interesting perception on that there exists a kind of market-like competition between hetero- and homosexuals, as well as other sexual minorities, rather than a potential co-existential possibility. At the same time, very few (one percent) still believed that homosexuality itself was caused by propaganda: Representatives of these minorities should still understand that they should not promote their lifestyle. I think propaganda is reasonable in a society, but it should not cross the line. (interview, Zolyan)

Similar beliefs emerged in many of the face-to-face interviews, namely, that sexual minorities are marketing and proselytizing for a lifestyle, which is not considered acceptable. Importantly, this “lifestyle” is an alternative to the traditional family with its distinct gender and age roles. What the family institution promotes in terms of societal responsibility, including for the future, might decline when couples live without children and outside traditional structures. More than 75% of respondents believed that open manifestations such as Pride parades should be banned: “I am against Pride parades: they bother me, trespass in my private sphere, put my kids in a weird position, and push their agenda on me. I never tell anyone how I live, and I let them do the same. I am tolerant in that sense” (interview, Yernjakyan). In the dominant discourse within Armenian elites in relation to atrisk groups such as sexual minorities, “aggressive” minority groups that want to enter the public space are contrasted with a “tolerant” majority society that wants to “live and let live.” As long as those minority lives are kept private, and do not publicly threaten the family institution, they are tolerated if not accepted. Here, the private sphere is the cradle for more modern or even postmodern behavior, whereas in the public, traditional values prevail. It is the opposite of what was believed when it came to gender roles.

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Conclusions Could the postmodern development of slowly but persistently dissolving dualistic gender and sexual equality roles become the “new normal” in parts of the world outside the West, parts that have been shaped by very different cultural and historical experiences? I have argued in this chapter, based on the example of post-Soviet Christian Armenia, that this is unlikely. There is no linear trajectory from dualism to holism in terms of gender equality or sexual liberation, just as there is no linear transitional development from authoritarian rule toward democracy. These equalities are perceived, filtered, and practiced through the prism of the position and importance, or relative unimportance, of the family institution and of kinship structures more broadly. Traditional and modern perceptions coexist, the former dominating the private sphere when it comes to women but not to same-sex relations, the latter the public concerning women liberation, whereas the opposite is true for sexual one. When gender issues arise, or a different but still related issue in that it touches on intimate relations, family, and children, namely, that of same-sex orientation and sexual behavior, strong resistance is put up. In contrast to the Northern European holistic equality, in which the private is political, the dualistic view is both modern and traditional. Open to less differentiation between the sexes in the public sphere, the dualistic gender equality view strongly espouses family responsibilities that are significantly defined by the separation of gender roles in the private sphere. One major characteristic of the dualistic view is that the postmodern redefinition of masculinity and the role and responsibility of men is not part of the equation. Here, the private sphere will remain largely nonpolitical, and most resistant to change. Distinct gender roles within the family will continue to be desirable, as they demarcate what constitutes a family. This is also evident in the strong condemnation of any public expression by sexual minorities that challenges or offers alternatives to the family institution. However, and interestingly, modern perceptions on choice and freedom seem to exist when it comes to privately living your sexual preferences. Summing up, whereas the Northern and Western European holistic equality trajectory will probably remain unique for a considerable time ahead, predominantly influencing Southern and Central Europe, the dualistic route is more adapted to promoting equality, both gender-wise

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and sexually, in cultures where kinship and family continue to exist as fundamental units of society.

Personal Interviews M (male) and F (female) • Lusineh Yernjakyan (F). Director, Yerevan Chamber Theater, June 2019, Yerevan. • Ashot Melikyan (M). Journalist and Chair of the Committee to Protect Freedom of Expression, 3 June 2019, Yerevan. • Benyamin Poghosyan (M). Executive Director of the Political Science Association of Armenia, political appointee, 10 July 2019, Yerevan. • Davit Hakobyan (M). Head of Yerkir Media, 10 June 2019, Yerevan. • Zaruhi Hovhannisyan (F). Lawyer and PR Coordinator of the Coalition to Stop Violence Against Women, 29 July 2019. • Aghasi Tadevosyan (M). Anthropologist, National Academy of Sciences of Armenia, public intellectual, 8 August 2019, Yerevan • Souren Zolyan (M). Parliamentary Commission on Artsakh, mediator Karabakh, former rector, Yerevan State Linguistic University, July 2019, Yerevan. • Arman Hayrapetyan (M). Founder, Tumo Dilijan Center (education), June 2019, Yerevan. • Tevan Poghosyan (M). Chair, International Human Development Center, 10 July 2019, Yerevan. • Tigran Tumasyan (M). USAID senior education specialist, June 2019, Yerevan. • Alexander Markarov (M). Professor of Political Science, Deputy Vice-Rector for International Cooperation and Scientific Policy, Yerevan State University, 17 May 2019, Yerevan • Nvard Manasyan (F). UN specialist on women, gender equality, and human rights, 16 July 2019, Yerevan. • Anahit Shirinyan (F). Independent foreign policy analyst, 18 July 2019, Yerevan. • Richard Giragossian (M). CEO of the Regional Studies Center think tank, 1 July 2019, Yerevan. • Anush Khachatryan (F), Official, United Nations Development Programme (Women), 16 November 2018, Yerevan.

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• Gohar Shahnazaryan (F). Women’s Resource Center of Armenia, 9 November 2018, • Nvard Margaryan (F). PINK-Armenia, 12 November 2018.

Notes 1. Interview with Gohar Shahnazaryan, Women’s Resource Center, Yerevan, 9 November 2018. 2. Interview with Nvard Margaryan, PINK Armenia, Yerevan, 9 November 2018. 3. I commissioned the surveys, which were performed by the Caucasus Research and Resource Center (CRRC) in Armenia, and the sampling methods and questionnaire were designed jointly with CRRC. The project was funded by the Swedish Research Council (VR) and its Committee for Development Research. 4. I conducted the interviews jointly with the research assistant for the project, PhD student Ani Grigoryan, at the National Academy of Sciences of Armenia. At my request, Grigoryan also conducted interviews of her own, held in Armenian. Our joint interviews were conducted in English or Armenian, interpreted by Ani Grigoryan.

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Hagqvist, E., Gådin, K. G., & Nordenmark, M. (2017). Work–family conflict and well-being across Europe: The role of gender context. Social Indicators Research, 132(2), 785–797. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-016-1301-x Hanisch, C. (1970). The personal is political. In S. Firestone & A. Kroedt, Notes from the Second Year. Women’s Liberation. Henrich, J. (2020). The weirdest people in the world. How the West became psychologically peculiar and particularly prosperous. Allan Lane. Hopcroft, R. L., & McLaughlin, J. (2012). Why is the sex gap in feelings of depression wider in high gender equity countries? The effect of children on the psychological well-being of men and women. Social Science Research, 41(3), 501–513. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssresearch.2011.12.006 Inglehart, R. (1977). The silent revolution. Changing Values and Political Styles Among Western Publics. Inglehart, R. (1990). Culture shift in advanced industrial society. Princeton University Press. Inglehart, R. (1997). Modernization and postmodernization. Cultural, economic, and political change in 43 societies. Princeton University Press. Inglehart, R., & Norris, P. (2003). Rising tide. Cambridge University Press. Iskandaryan, A. (2018). The Velvet Revolution in Armenia: How to lose power in two weeks. Demokratizatsiya, 26(4), 465–482. Klinth, R. (2002). Göra pappa med barn. Den svenska pappapolitiken 1960–1995 (Make Daddy Pregnant. Swedish Paternity politics 1960–1995). Borea. Miller, C. C. (2020, February 11). Young men embrace gender equality, but they still don’t vacuum. New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/ 02/11/upshot/gender-roles-housework.html Putnam, R. D. (1973). The beliefs of politicians. Princeton University Press. Rohrschneider, R. (1999). Learning democracy: Democratic and economic values in Unified Germany. Oxford University Press. Rosen, J. (2019). Conversations with RBG. Ruth Bader Ginsburg on life, love, liberty, and law. Henry Holt and Company. Roskam, I., Gallée, L., Aguiar, J., Akgun, E., Arena, A., Arikan, G., Aunola, K., Bader, M., Barham, E. J., Besson, E., & Beyers, W. (2022). Gender equality and maternal burnout: A 40-country study. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 53(2), 157–178. Shahnazaryan, N., Badasyan, E., & Molvud, G. (2016, June 10–12). From the Cinderella of Soviet Modernization to the Post-Soviet Return to “National Traditions”: Women’s Rights in Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia. Paper presented at PONARS conference, Helsinki.

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General Trends in Gender Inequality in Post-Soviet Central Asia Alma Kudebayeva

Abstract The downfall of the Soviet Union induced an extraordinary social and economic transition in the Central Asian countries. Although women in Central Asia had achieved substantial improvements in their economic and social well-being during the later Soviet years, this progress was inverted in several cases after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The reverse shift can be partially explained by the economic transitions experienced by the countries in that region, private sector development, substantial migration flows and, to some degree, a reinforcement of patriarchal traditions. This chapter examines the current situation and the dynamics of gender inequality, as measured by a few different indexes in four countries of Central Asia. It also estimates the gender differences in subjective well-being in these countries. The comparative analysis is followed by a discussion of the reasons for inequality in the region, along with policy recommendations for achieving inclusive growth and women’s empowerment.

A. Kudebayeva (B) KIMEP University, Almaty, Kazakhstan e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 A.-M. Sätre et al. (eds.), Post-Soviet Women, Sustainable Development Goals Series, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-38066-2_5

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Introduction Overview The downfall of the Soviet Union induced an extraordinary social and economic transition in the Central Asian countries. Although women in Central Asia had achieved substantial improvements in their economic and social well-being during the later Soviet years, this progress was inverted in several cases after the collapse of the Soviet Union. This reverse shift can be partially explained by the economic transitions experienced by countries in that region, private sector development, substantial migration flows and, to some degree, a reinforcement of patriarchal traditions. This chapter examines the current situation and the dynamics of gender inequality, as measured by a few different indexes in four countries of Central Asia. It also estimates the gender differences in subjective well-being in these countries. This comparative analysis is followed by a discussion of the reasons for inequality in this region, along with policy recommendations for achieving inclusive growth and women’s empowerment. Background After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Central Asia experienced a sharp decline in economic growth during the 1990s. Starting in the early 2000s, the economies of Central Asian countries began to recover, with a steady increase in their economic growth rates. Gender equality problems in these countries have been studied in international surveys. In 2019, an Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) report (2019) analysed the effects of gender discrimination in Central Asian countries and labelled it as an increasing social problem. Gender discrimination is not only costly for women, who are denied full access to economic, political and social life, but also a cost for their families, communities and national economies. The Social Institutions Gender Index (SIGI) report from 2017 for Eurasia estimated that such discrimination induces a loss of 8% of the regional level of investments, reduces women’s average years of schooling by 16% and decreases labour force participation by 12%. As a result, at the current level of discrimination, the 2017 regional income in Eurasia has been reduced by 7.5%, for a loss of USD 39 billion. According to these calculations, achieving gender parity in social institutions by 2030 would increase the

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regional gross domestic product (GDP) growth in Eurasia by 0.4% every year from now until that date, which would represent a gain of USD 2,961 per capita. Research Focus Few studies have examined the causes of gender gaps in Central Asian countries, and the available analyses focus on the 1990s and the first decade of the 2000s. For example, Blunch (2010) examined the incidence and determinants of the gap between the genders’ earnings in Kazakhstan, Macedonia, Moldova, Serbia, Tajikistan and Ukraine, based on household data from 2009. The study found substantial gaps in favour of males. Khitarishvili (2016) explored the different dimensions of gender inequality and their dynamics in five countries in Central Asia from the Soviet era until 2014, paying a great deal of attention to gender disparities in labour markets. The study reported that changes in the well-being of women during the post-Soviet years were negative, based on certain indicators of gender inequality, partly due to the economic shocks experienced by countries in the region (e.g. private sector growth and significant migration flows) and partly due to the strengthening of patriarchal traditions. Sattar (2012) pointed out that the relative advantage held by Eastern Europe and Central Asia over other regions in terms of gender equality was eroded in the 1999–2009 period. Moreover, based on data from 2005, Sabarwal and Terrell (2008) found that the main reasons for the sub-optimal size of female-owned firms was that such firms encounter capital constraints and constraints in opportunities when choosing industries. The researchers evaluated 26 Eastern European and Central Asian countries at the firm level to evaluate performance gaps between maleand female-owned businesses. Ferrant et al. (2014) examined gender differences in unpaid care work by region, including Eastern Europe and Central Asia. They found that gender inequality in unpaid care work is the missing link in the analysis of gender gaps in labour outcomes, such as labour force participation, wages and job quality. In comparison, Ishkanian (2003) studied the impact on gender equality of the transition from a planned economy to a market economy in the regions of Caucasus and Central Asia in the 1990s. Rocheva and Varshaver (2017) investigated the gender dimension of migration from Central Asia to the Russian Federation, with a focus on Kyrgyzstan. However, to the best of our knowledge, no comparative research has been done on gender inequality in terms of

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well-being and on changes in gender gaps after 2015 in the countries of Central Asia. Moreover, there is a lack of research on gender inequality in terms of life satisfaction and subjective well-being (SWB). The main aim of this chapter is to observe the current situation in four countries of Central Asia by examining the level and dynamics of gender inequality in these countries. The specific research objectives are: (1) to compare various measurements of gender equality and women’s empowerment from secondary data for Central Asian countries in order to explain the reasons for gender inequality in the region; (2) to estimate gender differences in SWB and define their cause; and (3) to consider policy recommendations to achieve inclusive growth and women’s empowerment. The next section of this paper provides an exploration of the dynamics of gender inequality measures in Central Asian countries. The subsequent section discusses facts from the World Values Survey and the gender gaps of SWB in Central Asian countries.

The Dynamics of Gender Inequality Measures in Central Asia Gender Inequality Measures in Central Asia This section employs available measurements of gender equality and women’s empowerment by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the OECD to perform a comparative analysis of countries of Central Asia (Branisa et al., 2014). Gender inequality is associated with deprivation in human development due to inequality. No country has attained low inequality in human development without diminishing the deprivation coming from gender inequality. Spending on women’s equality and boosting both women’s living standards and women’s empowerment are important steps in the human development agenda. For this reason, the Human Development Reports introduced the Gender Inequality Index (GII) in 20101 and the Gender Development Index (GDI) in 2014. The GII reflects gender-based inequalities in three dimensions. Reproductive health is measured by maternal mortality and adolescent birth rates; empowerment is measured by the share of seats held by women in Parliament and by the attainments in secondary and higher education of

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each gender; and economic activity is measured by the labour force participation rate for each gender.2 The GDI measures gender inequalities in the achievement of three basic dimensions of human development—health, knowledge and living standards —using the same indicators as the human development index (HDI).3 The GII is not calculated for Turkmenistan and is calculated for Uzbekistan only for 2018, while the GDI is not estimated for Turkmenistan due to a lack of data. Graphs of the GDI index for Central Asian countries (Fig. 1) show that no major deterioration in gender equality occurred during 2013–2018, except in Tajikistan. The deterioration in the GDI for Tajikistan can be explained by the following: the estimated gross national income (GNI) per capita, which is a component of GDI is five times less for females than for males, while the expected years of schooling and mean years of schooling are shorter for females than for males. Figure 2 depicts the GII during 2008–2018 and illustrates a decreasing trend in the period from 2008 to 2014. This trend was somewhat reversed in 2014–2018 for Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. However, as observed by Mukhopadhyay et al. (2019), overall progress against gender inequality has been slow on the global scale since 2010, which can be interpreted as a plateau being reached. Only Kazakhstan is experiencing steady improvement in gender equality. A decomposed analysis of the GII sheds light on the reasons for the lower achievements in the reduction of gender inequality exhibited by Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan (Appendix 1). Maternal mortality ratios are high in Kyrgyzstan, with 45 deaths per 100,000 live births; furthermore, the country has the lowest GNI per capita. Tajikistan

Fig. 1 GDI in Central Asia (Source Human Development Report, 2014, 2019)

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has high adolescent birth rates, which may be explained by the increasing influence of religious norms in that region. On the other hand, the share of female seats in Parliament is the highest for Kyrgyzstan, which illustrates the activity of women in this country. In Kazakhstan, the labour force participation rates are 1.15 times larger for men than for women, while they are 1.41 times larger in Kyrgyzstan and 1.3 times larger in Tajikistan. Moreover, Kazakhstan had the highest female labour force participation rate (67.7) in the region in 2014. The 2019 Human Development Report classifies Kazakhstan as having high gender equality, Kyrgyzstan as having medium–high equality and other Central Asian countries as having medium equality, based on numerical values in the GDI. One of the causes of gender inequality can be discrimination against women in social institutions. Social institutions related to gender inequality include long-lasting norms, values and codes of conduct that find expression in traditions, customs and cultural practices, as well as informal and formal laws. These institutions influence human behaviour by framing gender-relevant meanings, forming the basis of gender roles and becoming guiding principles in everyday life. By influencing the distribution of power between men and women in the private sphere of the family, in the economic sphere and in public life, they constrain the opportunities of men and women and their capabilities to live a life they value (Sen, 1999). Accounting for these social institutions is necessary in order to understand the outcome of gender inequality

Fig. 2 GIIs for selected Central Asian countries in 2008, 2014 and 2018 (Source Human Development Reports, 2010, 2015, 2019)

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and the deprivation women experience. Moreover, neglecting such institutions would mean neglecting a major factor that may be related to development. It can be argued that the SIGI, which was constructed by the OECD’s Development Centre, provides a relevant tool for analysis in the present context. The SIGI’s variables quantify discriminatory social institutions such as unequal inheritance rights, early marriage, violence against women, and unequal land and property rights. The SIGI is a cross-country measure of discrimination against women in social institutions—both formal forms of discrimination, such as laws, and informal ones, such as social norms and practices. Gender-based discrimination in countries is classified from very low to very high. The SIGI includes five categories of discriminatory social institutions, thus covering major socio-economic areas that affect women’s lives. These five categories are discriminatory family law, restricted physical integrity, son bias , restricted resources and assets, and restricted civil liberties (OECD, 2014, p. 5). The category of discriminatory family law identifies social institutions that limit and restrict women’s decision-making power and status in the household and the family. Restricted physical integrity captures social institutions that limit and restrict women’s and girls’ control over their bodies. Son bias captures unequal intra-household investments in the care, nurture and resources allocated to daughters and sons. Restricted resources and assets captures women’s restricted access to and control over economic and natural resources and assets. This includes discriminatory laws, which deny women access to land, property and credit; discriminatory customary practices in the allocation or purchase of land, natural resources and other property; negative attitudes towards women’s formal work and entrepreneurship; and social norms dictating that women’s property ownership or access to credit should be mediated by men. Restricted civil liberties captures restrictions in women’s access to, participation in and voice in the public and social spheres. Based on the above-mentioned dimensions, Kazakhstan was classified as a country with low gender-based discrimination in 2014, while the other countries of Central Asia were classified as countries with a medium level of gender-based discrimination (see Table 1). Data is not available for all dimensions of the SIGI for Turkmenistan (Table 1). In all Central Asian countries, legislation gives equal rights to men and women; however, the implementation of legal norms in practice favours men (OECD, 2014). A decomposed analysis of the SIGI in 2014 reveals

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that all these countries, except for Tajikistan, have social norms restricting the mobility or movement of girls and women and limiting their access to public space—despite the fact that these norms are not based on any formal laws. The practice of women having to move to and live in their husband’s house and not being permitted to work is common in all the countries in question, including rural parts of Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. Moreover, Kyrgyzstan was ranked as a country with high gender discrimination in the sub-indexes of son bias and restricted resources and assets.4 Methodological changes occurred in the calculation of the SIGI between 2014 and 2019,5 making a direct comparison between these years difficult (Ferrant et al., 2020). Table 2 illustrates the SIGI for 2019. It can be seen that Kyrgyzstan has reduced its level of gender discrimination, joining Kazakhstan as a low gender-discriminating country, as far as its social institutions are concerned. This change can be explained as follows: Kyrgyzstan has low discrimination in the Restricted Access to Productive and Financial Resources (RAPFR) sub-index (28.8%, see Table 2). This nation has implemented public measures to protect women’s property and non-land assets rights, particularly within the context of inheritance. Moreover, Kyrgyzstan has the best score among Central Asian countries in the secure access to formal financial services indicator. The government of Kyrgyzstan is supporting gender-based approaches in credit institutions (2015–2017 National Action Plan on Gender Equality). Furthermore, Kyrgyzstan has low discrimination in civil liberties within the context of Central Asia. Kyrgyzstan has mandatory legislated quotas under which party lists of candidates for national and local elections must contain no fewer 30% of candidates of either sex. Kyrgyzstan also has legal protection from sexual harassment. The 2019 SIGI (Table 2) shows lower rates for Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan but ranks Tajikistan as the highest in gender inequality. Again, there is a lack of data to construct aggregate indexes for Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan. News from Turkmenistan indicates that there have been tougher rules and fewer freedoms for women since May 2022, when women were banned from undergoing certain cosmetic procedures or sitting in the front seat of a car.6 However, a decomposition of the 2019 SIGI by its components reveals a more detailed picture. For instance, gender discrimination in civil liberties decreased in all of the analysed countries between 2014 and 2019, such as in access to citizenship rights, voting rights and access to legal services. However, no

Source OECD (2014)

Low Medium Medium N/A Medium

SIGI category

0.1196 0.1598 0.1393 N/A 0.1475

SIGI value

0.28 0.188 0.318 0.17 0.248

Sub-index: Discriminatory family code

SIGI for Central Asian countries in 2014

Kazakhstan Kyrgyzstan Tajikistan Turkmenistan Uzbekistan

Table 1

0.22 0.38 0.41 0.33 0.30

Sub-index: Restricted physical integrity 0.113 0.262 0.508 N/A 0.188

Sub-index: Son bias

0.41 0.59 0.20 0.20 0.59

Sub-index: Restricted resources and assets

0.60 0.50 0.40 0.60 0.50

Sub-index: Restricted civil liberties

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Low Low Medium N/A N/A

Kazakhstan Kyrgyzstan Tajikistan Turkmenistan Uzbekistan

Source OECD (2019)

SIGI category ▲

22.5 23.2 32.4 N/A N/A

SIGI value (%) ▼

SIGI for Central Asian countries in 2019

Countries

Table 2

22.4 28.7 47.8 29.8 42.2

Discrimination in the family (%)

14.4 16.6 20.2 N/A N/A

30.6 28.8 34.1 N/A N/A

Restricted physical Restricted access integrity (%) to productive and financial resources (RAPFR) (%)

21.8 18.0 25.1 N/A 23.5

Restricted civil liberties (%)

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substantial improvement in discrimination within the family has been shown. For example, the female-to-male ratio of time spent on unpaid care work is 2.2 in Kazakhstan and 1.7 in Kyrgyzstan. Moreover, the involvement of fathers in child support and educational responsibilities is shown to be low (Multi-indicator Cluster Survey on Kazakhstan, 2015). Some statistics indicate that only 6.6% of children under 5 years of age receive support from their fathers in early childhood education. In regard to Tajikistan, the Asian Development Bank (ADB, 2016) has stated that the parental authority system discriminates against daughters in education: boys are supported by their parents in education, whereas girls often quit school to take care of siblings or sick family members, among others. The traditional custom is for wives to move in with the husband’s family; however, the increased male labour migration often results in situations in which women are expelled from the husband’s family while the husband is abroad (IPHR et al., 2017). This classification once again shows that, although Kazakhstan tends to consider more factors related to gender inequality compared with other countries in Central Asia, it still needs to reduce gaps in key areas. In particular, Kazakhstan ranks relatively low in the sub-index of restricted resources and assets, which measures property, economic opportunity, equal wages and other factors, and for which it ranks in the middle. Although Kazakhstan ranks highly in civil liberties, restrictions are placed on women’s mobility and access to work outside the home in some rural areas (OECD, 2019). The next measure of gender empowerment is the Global Gender Gap Index (GGGI). The 2006 GGGI illustrates the gap between men and women in four main aspects: economic participation and opportunity, educational attainment, health and survival, and political empowerment . GGGI statistics indicate that there is greater equality among women and men in Kazakhstan than in the other countries of the region (Fig. 3). According to this measure, Kyrgyzstan experienced a deterioration in women equality in 2010; subsequently, its GGGI stabilised. In Tajikistan, the GGGI declined in 2011 and even more after 2016. There has been no data for Uzbekistan since 2008. Deterioration in the GGGI for Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan in 2010 and 2011 might be explained by the late effects of the global financial crises in 2008 and 2009. Moreover, the second revolution in Kyrgyzstan and the ethnic conflicts of 2010 might have affected gender inequality through a decrease in economic opportunities for women in the labour market. The labour participation rate of women decreased from 55% in 2000 to 48% in 2018 for Kyrgyzstan

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and remains lower than that in many transition economies (World Bank, 2019). Decomposition of the GGGI by its components reveals the almost equal situation of Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan in terms of the political empowerment sub-index, while Kazakhstan exhibits better opportunities for women in the economic participation and opportunity sub-index. It can be concluded from the GGGI index that the gender inequality indicators for Central Asia show some improvement until 2011–2012, after which slight reverse tendencies can be seen for Kyrgyzstan, while a clear reduction in gender equality in Tajikistan has occurred since 2016. As noted in the previous discussion on the SIGI, the effects of restrictions in social institutions have a significant impact on gender equality. The author explored gender-based attitudes and biases on social norms in Central Asian countries based on data from waves 6 (2010–2014) and 7 (2017–2020)7 of the World Values Survey (see Table 3). The World Value Survey provides information about the social norms and stereotypes in the region. Such norms tend to strengthen power relationships that restrain the possible roles of women and men, resulting in social inequality. Norms also tend to influence prescribed expectations of masculine and feminine roles with respect to what is considered socially acceptable and what is condemned. For the period 2010–2014, two thirds of respondents in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan—and even more in Uzbekistan—replied ‘agree’ or ‘strongly agree’ to the statement ‘Men make better political leaders than women do’. However, some years later, in 2017–2020, the belief in women’s ability in politics had improved in Kazakhstan, while a change in the opposite direction had occurred in Kyrgyzstan. The reduction in gender-based biases was substantial in Kazakhstan compared with other countries in the region. In 2010–2014, the belief that men are better in business than women was not as strong in Kazakhstan as in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, and this difference increased towards the end of the decade. People in all Central Asian countries except for Kazakhstan strongly favoured higher education for boys over girls. Other questions presented in Table 3 reveal strong conservative values in Central Asian countries, with milder attitudes on average in Kazakhstan than in other countries. Changes in attitudes were only recorded in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, and these countries seemed to shift in opposite directions, with Kazakhstan becoming more tolerant and Kyrgyzstan more conservative.

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Fig. 3 The GGGI and its components in Central Asia during 2006–2018, where 1 refers to full equality and 0 refers to extreme inequality. a GGGI dynamics in Central Asia; b GGGI political empowerment sub-index; c GGGI economic participation and opportunity sub-index (Source World Economic Forum)

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Table 3 Gender-based attitudes and biases in social norms based on waves 6 and 7 of the World Values Survey (WVS6 and WVS7)

Kazakhstan Kyrgyzstan Tajikistan Uzbekistan

Kazakhstan Kyrgyzstan Tajikistan Uzbekistan

Men make better political leaders than women do (agree or strongly agree) %

Men are better business executives than women (agree or strongly agree) %

University is more important for a boy than for a girl (agree or strongly agree) %

WVS6

WVS7

WVS6

WVS7

WVS6

WVS7

64.1 63.6 N/A 75.5

49.7 70.5 74.5 N/A

47.9 55.7 N/A 66.9

44.2 70.0 66.4 N/A

21.7 41.0 N/A 48.6

27.8 54.0 51.7 N/A

It is justifiable for a man to beat his wife (never justifiable) %

Men should have more right to a job than women (agree or agree strongly) %

Abortion is justifiable (never justifiable) %

WVS6

WVS7

WVS6

WVS7

WVS6

WVS7

63.3 62.6 N/A N/A

54.9 76.1 22.7 N/A

45.3 45.8 N/A 59.1

48.6 70.7

39.6 55.3 N/A N/A

35.0 76.2 21.7 N/A

62.9

Source Constructed by the author based on WVS6 and WVS7; https://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/ WVSOnline.jsp

As far as Kazakhstan is concerned, despite an improvement in all measures of gender empowerment in comparison with the other countries of Central Asia, problems still exist in this country. For example, the ratio of women’s to men’s wages was 66% in 2015, and only a small improvement (to 66.7%) occurred in 2017.8 Regional disparity in gender wage gaps also exists. The highest gaps are in oil-rich oblasts such as Mangistau, Atyrau and Batys-Kazakhstan, followed by regions dominated by the mining industry, such as Karaganda and Pavlodar. However, some progress has occurred. In 2011, the proportion of women in Parliament (Mazhilis ) was 16.9%, and the share of women in Local Representative Bodies (Maslikhats ) was 17.8%. In 2019, the proportion of women in Mazhilis and Maslikhats respectively increased to 27.4% and 22.2%.9

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In addition, there are significant gaps in progress related to violence against women in Kazakhstan. Based on a 2015 survey, violence against women was common, with 16% of women aged 18–49 who have or have had a partner having experienced physical and/or sexual abuse. Also, in general, 60.2% of women aged 15–49 stated that they had been physically abused by a husband or partner at some point in their life. It appears, however, that the rates of physical abuse of women are higher in Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan than in Kazakhstan (Hayes & Randa, 2021). The conclusion that can be drawn from this analysis of the gender inequality indicators is that, after some improvement in gender equality and empowerment at the beginning of the 2000s, the development of Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan began to reverse. Essential factors that act against gender equality and women empowerment include fewer economic opportunities for women, less female participation in the labour force, high adolescent birth rates (in Tajikistan) and high maternal mortality rates (in Kyrgyzstan), discrimination of women inside the family and violence against women at home (in all the countries). Finally, as shown in Table 3, rather strong gender-based attitudes and biases in social norms are indicated for all countries except for Kazakhstan. Discussion The deterioration of gender inequality in the Central Asian countries over the past decade—except for Kazakhstan—has been explained as being due to a return to traditional norms and customs and the continued double burden of women. Examples include bride kidnapping, which can negatively impact women’s labour force participation in Kyrgyzstan (Arabsheibani et al., 2021), the payment of bride price and women’s traditional roles that include housework and caring for their families (Barrientos & Kudebayeva, 2015). However, in the traditionally nomadic culture of Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan, women historically worked alongside men in herding animals, although each gender had different roles. Consequently, Kazakh and Kyrgyz women are characterised as being less conservative in dress and production roles than women from neighbouring countries such as Uzbekistan and Tajikistan (Hiro, 2009). This history may shed light on Kyrgyzstan’s and Kazakhstan’s better performance in gender equality. In addition, the less authoritarian Kyrgyzstan is in a better position in terms of women’s empowerment than the more authoritarian Tajikistan

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and Uzbekistan. However, the less democratic Kazakhstan has achieved greater gender equality than the more democratic Kyrgyzstan through better economic performance. For example, according to the World Bank, the GDP per capita in 2021 in Kazakhstan was almost five times higher than that in Uzbekistan, 7.8 times higher than that in Kyrgyzstan and 11.2 times higher than that in Tajikistan. Better economic development improves human development indicators such as maternal mortality and neonatal mortality, further reducing gender inequality indexes, as in Kazakhstan. Since January 2022, Kazakhstan has demonstrated a gradual movement towards democratic reforms; for example, on 12 March 2022, a rally for women’s rights in Kazakhstan was held in Nur-Sultan. This was the first peaceful feminist rally in the capital, sanctioned by the authorities. Kane and Gorbenko (2016) compared the post-colonial impact of Soviet policies on gender equality in two Central Asian countries. They reported that Uzbek women were more likely to cover their faces, and that the Soviets launched high-profile campaigns to stop women from wearing a veil. However, the Soviets generally preserved the centuriesold community associations known as mahallas. These local patriarchal networks held onto the importance of gender conservatism, which was then adopted by the new power-holders after independence. Kazakh networks developed differently than Uzbek ones. This was almost inevitable, due to the huge loss of population in Kazakhstan during the famine of the 1930s or migration, as well as the increased influx of Slavic settlers. Such a sharp decline in the population clearly influenced the composition of local networks in Kazakhstan, causing changes in gender-related patriarchal traditions. In conclusion, the decline in gender equality indexes in Uzbekistan and Tajikistan confirms these nations’ return to more traditional norms and customs in gender relations. Meanwhile, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan have historically had different attitudes to women than other Central Asian nations and now demonstrate improvements in women empowerment compared with other Central Asian countries. However, this trend has recently started to reverse in Kyrgyzstan in certain aspects of gender equality, and Kyrgyz attitudes to gender-related issues have become more biased in recent years.

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Estimations of Gender Differences in Subjective Well-Being A range of scholarly works have examined SWB from numerous angles; however, only a limited set of studies have been conducted in Central Asia. A study by Schnepf (2010) is an exception; it investigates gender differences in well-being in transition countries at the end of the 1990s. The results from selected transition countries with respect to both financial and social measures indicate that men are better off than women in these countries. Furthermore, women’s SWB is often significantly worse than that of men. Summing up the data from post-Communist countries, the study reveals that the percentage of women reporting low SWB is about 5% higher than the percentage of men. This result appears to be related to the increased long-term unemployment among women, who often struggle to find an acceptable job, which places them in a disadvantaged position compared with men in transition countries (Schnepf, 2010). Such a situation is probably related to traditional family values. Data and Methodology The data used in this subsection was obtained from wave 6 of the World Values Survey (WVS6), which was conducted in 2011 for three Central Asian countries: Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan. Data for Tajikistan was not available for WVS 6; therefore, WVS 7 data was applied for Tajikistan. The sample sizes for each country consisted of 1500 households. Life satisfaction was used to measure SWB for two reasons. First, life satisfaction is ranked on a 10-point scale; secondly, it replicates a relatively rational assessment of well-being and is consequently considered to be more reliable than other measures (Diener, 2006). Life satisfaction is measured as ‘a subjective appreciation of one’s life as a whole’, and the question used to measure SWB was ‘All things considered, how satisfied are you with your life as a whole now?’. The answer is given as a number from 1 to 10, with 1 being ‘dissatisfied’ and 10 ‘satisfied’. The three main explanatory factors in life satisfaction are household income, financial satisfaction and social capital. Household income is measured with an ordered scale of income intervals. The variable financial satisfaction is constructed based on a subjective evaluation of the household’s financial situation. Social capital is calculated from three variables: an index of civicness, trust in people and social participation.

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Results and Discussion The author calculated the SWB for women and men using the Central Asian data from wave 6 (and wave 7 for Tajikistan) and determined the difference between the two values.10 It was found that women’s SWB was higher than that of men in 2011 in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. In Kazakhstan, significant factors affecting women’s SWB included: satisfaction with the financial situation of the household, satisfaction with one’s state of health, being a part-time, self-employed worker and being retired. In Kyrgyzstan in 2011, the SWB of women was higher than that of men. Significant contributors were freedom of choice in one’s own life and a subjective opinion about one’s health and employment status. In Uzbekistan, the results for 2011 were different. The SWB difference was negative, indicating that women had a lower state of well-being than men. The main contributors to this difference were the average differences between the level of each observable variable, including household income, state of health, freedom of choice, having more children, being married, being self-employed, being retired and being a student. Indicators of bad health significantly reduced the SWB of Kyrgyz and Uzbek women compared with that of men. In Tajikistan in 2019, although higher education among Tajik women increased their SWB compared to men, men were found to be having a higher level of well-being than women. It must be noted, however, that Tajikistan’s data is from 8 years later and is thus not totally comparable. Even though the previous section showed that gender inequality indicators are deteriorating in all the countries of Central Asia except for Kazakhstan, it is possible to find both negative and positive factors affecting the level of well-being in these countries. A significant factor that contributes to gender gaps in Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan is freedom of choice, meaning that the respondent feels that she or he has control over her or his own life. Other significant factors are state of health, level of education and employment type. It is also worth mentioning the impact of freedom of choice on SWB. Loss of control over their own lives in three of the studied countries seems to lead to decreasing well-being for women.

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Conclusions This study used measurements of gender inequality in the 2010s from the GDI, GII and GGGI to examine trends in gender inequality in the Central Asian countries of Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. These indexes reveal some improvements in gender equality as well as some deterioration, with the latter especially occurring during the more recent period in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. The OECD’s SIGI was explored and discussed for these Central Asian countries and was found to indicate that discrimination against women within the family has worsened in Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. There is a lack of data for Uzbekistan. Only Kazakhstan exhibits a steady decrease in gender inequality according to all the measurements described above. The essential factors having a negative impact on gender equality and women’s empowerment were found to be fewer economic opportunities for women, high adolescent birth rates (in Tajikistan) and high maternal mortality rates (in Kyrgyzstan). Discrimination against women within the family was a factor in all the studied countries, and there were high levels of gender-based biases in the social norms of all countries except for Kazakhstan. The gender differences in SWB indicate that women feel better off than men in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan but worse off than men in Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. The main factor increasing the gap in favour of men is the wider freedom of choice that men have. Other factors include the state of health, education and employment type. Kazakhstan exhibits clear achievements in the reduction of gender inequality during 2006–2019. However, a great deal remains to be improved. A 2015 survey in Kazakhstan revealed that violence against women was common, as it is in other Central Asian states. On the other hand, some positive efforts can be seen in Kazakhstan: in 2020, the punishment for rape and domestic violence against women was increased. No substantial improvement in discrimination within the family is apparent in any Central Asian country, according to the SIGI statistics. There is a need for action in all the countries of Central Asia to provide women with equal access to jobs and to reduce the traditional restrictions imposed on women, in order to reduce gender inequality and increase women’s freedom of choice. In general, there has been no deterioration in women’s access to education or healthcare for women in Central Asian countries; however, more attention should be paid to violence in the family and discrimination in family-based social norms and traditions.

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This research has been funded by the Science Committee of the Ministry of Education and Science of the Republic of Kazakhstan (Grant No. AP19679799)

Appendix See Table 4. Table 4

GII ranks and components in 2014 for selected Central Asian countries

Countries

Kazakhstan Kyrgyzstan Tajikistan

GII Maternal Adolescent rank mortality birth rate ratio

52 67 69

26 75 44

29.9 29.3 42.3

Female seats in Parliament (%)

20.1 23.3 15.2

Population with at least some secondary education (%)

Labour force participation rate (%)

Female

Male

Female

Male

95.3 94.5 95.1

98.8 96.8 91.2

67.7 56 58.9

77.9 79.5 77.1

Note Maternal mortality ratio is expressed in number of deaths per 100,000 live births, and adolescent birth rate is expressed in number of births per 1,000 women aged 15–19

Notes 1. This report refers to data compiled for 2008. 2. The GII can be interpreted as the loss in human development due to inequality between female and male achievements. It ranges from 0, which indicates that women and men fare equally, to 1, which indicates that one gender fares as poorly as possible in all measured dimensions. 3. A GDI of 1 indicates absolute gender parity. Countries with an absolute deviation from gender parity of less than 2.5% are considered to be countries with high equality in HDI achievements between women and men (see Fig. 1). 4. CIA, http://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-fact-book/fie lds/2018.html (Accessed March 29, 2019). 5. As of 2019, the SIGI has a new structure with four dimensions rather than five. For changes, see the OECD (2019). 6. https://www.bbc.com/russian/news-61496678.

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7. 8. 9. 10.

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http://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/wvs.jsp. https://taldau.stat.gov.kz/ru/Search/SearchByKeyWord. https://kazstat.github.io/sdg-site-kazstat/en/5-5-1/. The author used the so-called Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition method to calculate differences in SWB between women and men for four Central Asian countries. These calculations can be obtained from the author upon request. For the method, see Blinder (1973) and Oaxaca (1973).

References Asian Development Bank (ADB). (2016). Tajikistan—Country Gender Assessment. Arabsheibani, G. R., Kudebayeva, A., & Mussurov, A. (2021). A Note on Bride Kidnapping and Labour Supply Behaviour of Kyrgyz Women. Economic Systems, 100885. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecosys.2021.100885 Barrientos, A., & Kudebayeva, A. (2015). Social Transfers and Women’s Labour Supply in Kyrgyzstan (Brooks World Poverty Institute Working Paper No. 215). https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2704450 Blinder, A. S. (1973). Wage Discrimination: Reduced Form and Structural Estimates. The Journal of Human Resources, 8, 436–455. Blunch, N.-H. (2010). The Gender Earnings Gap Revisited: A Comparative Study for Serbia and Five Countries in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, 1–30. Branisa, B., Klasen, S., Ziegler, M., Drechsler, D., & Jütting, J. (2014). The Institutional Basis of Gender Inequality: The Social Institutions and Gender Index (SIGI). Feminist Economics, 20, 29–64. https://doi.org/10.1080/135 45701.2013.850523 Diener E.2006. Guidelines for National Indicators of Subjective Well-Being and Ill-Being. Journal of Happiness Studies, 7 , 397–404. https://doi.org/10. 1007/s10902-006-9000-y Ferrant, G., Pesando, L. M., & Nowacka, K. (2014). Unpaid Care Work: The Missing Link in the Analysis of Gender Gaps in Labour Outcomes. OECD Development Centre, 12. Ferrant, G., Fuiret, L., & Zambrano, E. (2020). The Social Institutions and Gender Index (SIGI) 2019: A Revised Framework for Better Advocacy (Working Paper No342, 84). OECD Development Centre. Hayes, B. E., & Randa, R. (2021). Parts Unknown: Risk Factors of Intimate Partner Violence in Azerbaijan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Moldova. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 36(5–6), 3346–3368. https://doi.org/10.1177/ 0886260518772105 Hiro, D. (2009). Inside Central Asia: A Political and Cultural History of Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkey, and Iran. Overlook Duckworth, Peter Mayer Publishers Inc.

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International Partnership for Human Rights (IPHR), Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights, the Public Foundation Nota Bene. (2017). He Left His Footprint on My Life—Domestic Violence in Tajikistan: Time to Right the Wrongs. https://issuu.com/sorbon/docs/14.03_dv_eng.compressed Ishkanian, A. (2003). VI. Gendered Transitions: The Impact of the Post-Soviet Transition on Women in Central Asia and the Caucasus. Perspectives on Global Development and Technology, 2(3–4), 475–498. Kane, D., & Gorbenko, K. (2016). Colonial Legacy and Gender Inequality in Uzbekistan. Current Sociology, 64, 718–735. https://doi.org/10.1177/001 1392115599583 Khitarishvili, T. (2016). Gender Inequalities in Labour Markets in Central Asia. http://www.eurasia.undp.org/content/dam/rbec/docs/ Mukhopadhyay, T., Rivera, C., & Tapia, H. (2019). Gender Inequality and Multidimensional Social Norms (Working Paper). United Nations Development Programme, Human Development Report Office, New York. Oaxaca, R. (1973). Male-Female Wage Differentials in Urban Labor Markets. International Economic Review, 14, 693–709. OECD. (2014). SIGI Methodological Background Paper. OECD. http://www. oecd.org/dev/development-gender. Accessed 20 August 2022. OECD. (2019). SIGI 2019 Regional Report for Eurasia. OECD. Rocheva, A., & Varshaver, E. (2017). Gender Dimension of Migration from Central Asia to the Russian Federation. Asia-Pacific Population Journal, 32, 87–136. Sabarwal, S., & Terrell, K. (2008). Does Gender Matter for Firm Performance? Evidence from the East European and Central Asian Region. SSRN Electronic Journal. Sattar, S. 2012. Addressing the Gender Gap in Europe and Central Asia. Knowledge Brief—The World Bank, pp. 1–4. Schnepf. S. V. (2010). Gender Differences in Subjective Well-Being in Central and Eastern Europe. Journal of European Social Policy. University of Southampton. http://www.sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav Sen, A. (1999). Commodities and Capabilities. Oxford University Press. UNDP. (2010). Human Development Report. New York. UNDP. (2014). Human Development Report. UNDP. UNDP. (2015). Human Developmen Report. New York. UNDP. (2019). Human Development Report. UNDP. http://hdr.undp.org/en/ data. Accessed 9 May 2021. World Bank. (2019). Kyrgyzstan Country Profile. World Bank. https://data.wor ldbank.org/country/kyrgyz-republic

Women’s Rights in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan: In the Grip of Conservative Re-traditionalisation and Neoliberal Capitalism Galym Zhussipbek

and Zhanar Nagayeva

Abstract Two phenomena have characterised the period of independence in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan: conservative re-traditionalisation, which is understood as a ‘return to the roots’; and a painful period of neoliberal reforms and the emergence of local adaptations of neoliberal capitalism. The aim of this chapter is to show the negative impact of these two phenomena on women’s rights, arguing that conservative re-traditionalisation and neoliberal capitalism appear to be mutually supportive, particularly in their creation of an environment for the oppression of women. The negative outcomes of radical neoliberal reforms have not only dramatically increased women’s vulnerability but also laid the grounds for legitimizing conservative re-traditionalisation. Many factors,

G. Zhussipbek (B) Department of Social Sciences, Suleyman Demirel University, Kaskelen, Almaty, Kazakhstan e-mail: [email protected] Z. Nagayeva Suleyman Demirel University, Kaskelen, Almaty, Kazakhstan © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 A.-M. Sätre et al. (eds.), Post-Soviet Women, Sustainable Development Goals Series, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-38066-2_6

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such as the thinning of social policies, the emergence of consumerist culture and ‘sexualized strategies’, have placed women at the centre of discussions about national identity, culture and values. It is argued that re-traditionalisation can also be seen as a reaction and backlash against the traumatic experiences of the transition period of neoliberalisation. This chapter examines the features of neoliberal capitalism in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan that pose challenges to women’s well-being and rights. It posits that an interaction between re-traditionalisation and neoliberalism hinders the development of women’s rights, such as through the reappearance of polygamy. Overall, radical neoliberal reforms and the emergence of local models of neoliberal capitalism have prevented Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan from creating a system based on social democracy. The consequences are the intersectional oppression of women and slow development of women’s rights.

Introduction As constituent parts of the former Soviet Union, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan underwent a considerable amount of modernisation during the Soviet period. Kazakh and Kyrgyz women enjoyed state-protected rights to education, employment and social protection, while many harmful traditional practices were officially prohibited. After the collapse of the Soviet system, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan opened their doors to the outside world and experienced ‘shock therapy’1 prescribed by neoliberal reformers. The political elites of both countries attempted to create a functioning market economy with all its major specificities within a very short period. Moreover, at the formal gender-politics level, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan officially declared gender equality and tried to implement some gender-egalitarian policies. In 2006, Kazakhstan was the first Central Asian country to establish a national entity to promote gender equality: the National Commission on Women, Family and Demographic Policy. Adopted in 2009, the Law on State Guarantees of Equal Rights and Opportunities for Men and Women governs gender policy. In 2016, the Concept of Family and Gender Policy was adopted up to 2030 to ensure equal rights for all and to prevent gender-based discrimination and gender imbalances. Kyrgyzstan has an extensive legislative base guaranteeing gender equality, with its civil, penal, labour and family codes proclaiming equal rights for men and women. The Kyrgyz Republic’s first long-term National Gender

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Strategy on Achieving Gender Equality by 2020 was adopted in 2012 in compliance with the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women. Due to the effects of globalisation, openness to the outside world and the development of different views and ways of life as diverse as hipsters, feminist groups, ecological activists, conservative religious groups and liberal-minded communities, society in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan has become increasingly diverse in recent decades. However, although the trend of diversification is hardly reversible and serious advancements have been made in developing women’s rights, the independence period in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan has been marked by the [re-]emergence and persistence of formidable obstacles to protecting and developing women’s rights. For example, the literature highlights the existence of systemic, structural constraints to developing women’s rights in the post-independence period, ranging from an ‘informal relativist’ attitude towards the universality of women’s rights (Corcoran-Nantes, 2005; Kandiyoti, 2007; Zhussipbek & Nagayeva, 2020) to local versions of neoliberal capitalism (Nazpary, 2002; Satybaldieva, 2021). In our view, two phenomena that are seemingly antithetical to each other have come to characterise the post-Soviet period in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. The first phenomenon is the revival of ‘national traditions’ or conservative re-traditionalisation (to denote the main thread, we name this phenomenon ‘conservative’). The second phenomenon is the development of neoliberal capitalism. The main aim of this article is to analyse the interaction between these two phenomena and their adverse effects on women’s rights. In this paper, we try to understand why some groups in these countries turned against women’s rights after the 1990s and what role was played by the neoliberal reforms of the transition period, especially in the 1990s. The traumatic experience of neoliberal reforms, which became more than evident in the gender relationships within relatively socially conservative societies such as Kazakh or Kyrgyz society, is playing a significant role in the further development of conservative politics and re-traditionalisation. However, these processes should not be seen as overwhelming. Recent research also indicates that detraditionalisation and individualisation processes can characterise Kazakhstani society (Kabylova, 2022).

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We discuss women’s rights in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan in three steps. First, after touching on the complexity of contemporary Kazakhstani and Kyrgyzstani societies, we analyse the phenomenon of conservative re-traditionalisation. Second, we look at the negative effects of neoliberal reforms, such as the emergence of ‘chaos’ and the vulnerability of women. Third, we explain the model of neoliberalism in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan and its challenges for women’s rights. Fourth, we discuss in what sense re-traditionalisation can be seen as a reaction to neoliberal reforms and try to conceptualise the interaction between retraditionalisation and neoliberal capitalism through the prism of women’s rights. Finally, we shed light on the model or version of neoliberalism in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan and its effects on women’s rights. Overall, we argue that conservative re-traditionalisation and neoliberal capitalism—and their interaction in particular—have created conditions for the oppression of women in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. This chapter aims to contribute to discussions on the development of human rights and women’s human rights and to search for an inclusive and genuinely emancipatory response of the Kazakhstani and Kyrgyzstani people to the challenges of neoliberal capitalism, which have been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. National and Religious Revival There are some notable similarities between Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. Both were historically populated predominantly by nomadic and seminomadic people with identical languages, culture and religion, and both have a similar Soviet past and post-Soviet neoliberalisation experience. The populations of both are composed of similar groups of ethnic and religious minorities. However, there are also considerable differences between these two countries. While Kazakhstan is characterised as a consolidated authoritarian (at least until 2022), hydrocarbon-producing country with the highest GDP in its region, Kyrgyzstan is the most democratic country in the Central Asian region and has a relatively weak economy that is very dependent on the remittances of migrant workers. Experts (Beysembayev, 2021; Doolot, 2021) emphasise that society in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan is becoming increasingly diverse, in a transformation of values that began after the collapse of the Soviet Union and has significantly accelerated over the past years. New forms of identities and social groups have emerged due to globalisation, digitalisation, the

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growth of new post-Soviet generations and the long-term results of transition to capitalism reforms. Therefore, it is becoming more challenging to solve the fundamental dilemma of choosing between tradition and modernity for women in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. The 2020 World Values Survey ranked Kazakhstan in the middle of the traditional versus secular-rational values dimension, giving the nation a position closer to the East European countries than the other Central Asian countries (The Inglehart, 2020).2 Moreover, research on the values of Kazakhstani society conducted by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation in 2019 showed that it is misleading to argue that traditionalism and conservative religiosity are powerful notions that are filling the vacuum left by the post-Soviet period. So-called European values appeal to Kazakhstani citizens, and these values influence social changes (Tsennosti, 2020, pp. 10–11, 76). Nevertheless, according to the 2020 World Values Survey, Kyrgyz society has become more traditionalistic than it was in 2015 (The Inglehart, 2020). For example, McGlinchey (Central Asian, 2021) has drawn attention to the rise of nationalistic populism and social conservatism in Kyrgyz society precisely because Kyrgyzstan is not a consolidated authoritarian government—since there is less need for populism in consolidated autocratic regimes. Furthermore, a relatively liberal state policy on religious associations has contributed to the creation of a civil society around conservative religious communities (Usenov, 2020). Nonetheless, to generate a more holistic understanding, it is important to note that the acceptance of self-expression values (vs. survival values) has increased in Kyrgyzstan. In other words, despite the rise of various conservative state and non-state actors in recent years, Kyrgyzstan is home to the most vibrant democratic and pluralistic forces in Central Asia; for example, a number of feminist and LGBTQ groups function in Bishkek. It can be argued that the younger generations are more diverse and open to challenging both traditional values and Soviet-inherited gendered roles.3 Still, there are many women and girls in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan whose rights are seriously violated in the name of tradition, conservative religious interpretations and various patterns of authority and subordination. The Soviet regime wanted to eradicate ‘backward’ traditionalism and other relics of the past to prompt the people of the Central Asian region to embrace socialist modernity. However, the collapse of the Soviet system and the emergence of new states signalled not only the end of Soviet ideology but also the embracement of hegemonic discourses

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on cultural authenticity and the mobilisation of tradition as a tactic of governance (Borisova, 2020, p. 158). Seeking to consolidate internal power and legitimise their authority, the authorities in the post-Soviet period resorted to conservative discourse and the invocation of tradition. The ruling elites, who were trying to distance themselves from the Soviet period and legitimise their power, regarded national traditions as an integral part of their national heritage (Ileuova, 2021). The capitalisation on ‘national traditions’ is needed to mobilise a nationalistic force. The revival of traditions—known as re-traditionalisation—articulates respect for so-called authentic national values and the observance of traditions, while normalising social conservatism. Borisova’s (2020) analysis of the creation of a certain kind of modern citizen in Tajikistan can also be applied to Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. This model of a modern citizen has a twofold orientation: to the future and to the past. The future orientation does not break with the need to honour tradition; instead, it is rooted in a specific understanding of tradition, which is aligned with economic needs and can be adjusted to suit developmental projects (Borisova, 2020). Furthermore, although patterns of authority and subordination are important and kinship terms are used to express hierarchy and respect, in fact, the relations among kin are negotiated and shifting (Light, 2018, p. 5). Kazakhs and Kyrgyz perceive the Soviet period as a period of loss of traditions, religion and language, which has caused many to view the post-Soviet independence period as the revival of national culture, traditions and religion (Finke & Beyer, 2019; Weller, 2014). Grassroots re-traditionalisation has led to a paradoxical situation in which some harmful traditional practices that seriously violate women’s rights and were denounced by the Soviet system have become ‘rehabilitated’ from Soviet-promoted emancipation and are now presented as ‘inherently authentic’ (see Zhussipbek & Nagayeva, 2020). As bitterly described by Kazakhstani sociologists, a December meeting that took place in South Kazakhstan in 2020 to discuss the problems of women’s rights, including bride price, which has become overwhelming in the region, occurred on the very same day in December when, 100 years ago, the Soviets denounced and prohibited this harmful traditional practice (Ileuova, 2021). A few studies have analysed the roots of today’s problems with women’s rights—specifically in the Soviet emancipation policy,

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which destroyed the internal modernisation process that could otherwise have developed organically in the Central Asian context outside of Soviet-imposed emancipation (see e.g. Gradskova, 2019, 2020).

Neoliberal Reforms: The Emergence of ‘Bardak’ (Chaos), Systemic Inequality and the Vulnerability of Women Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan can be viewed as avant-garde countries in the post-Soviet area in terms of their neoliberalisation (Appel & Orenstein, 2018; Satybaldieva, 2021). Neoliberal ideas became hegemonic among policymakers in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan in the 1990s. In fact, Kyrgyzstan was regarded as the poster child for economic and political reform in Central Asia in the 1990s (Connerly, 2000) and became one of the biggest recipients of international aid and loans in the region. Kazakhstan also embarked on marketisation reforms and economic liberalisation starting from its first days of independence. One of its main aims was to attract Western investments in the hydrocarbons sector. Notably, Chevron Corp. and the Kazakhstani government signed an agreement in April 1993 to create a Chevron-led consortium to develop Tengis, one of the world’s largest oilfields. In the early 1990s, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan became the objects of coercive pressure from international institutions and foreign advisors in their rapid neoliberal transition. The shift from the Soviet system to capitalism was not only fast but also abrupt, since the Western advisors were driven by the fear that neoliberal restructuring—the so-called shock therapy—might precipitate powerful opposition from disaffected groups (Dale & Fabry, 2018). Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan implemented voucher privatisation in a very short time period. In 1994, when voucher distribution was started, 60% of large enterprises were privatised in Kazakhstan, and 50% of medium and large enterprises were privatised in Kyrgyzstan (Appel & Orenstein, 2018). The collapse of the Soviet system meant the destruction of the former life of the entire population, along with bardak (lawlessness, chaos) caused by an abrupt transition to a market economy. A sense of frustration, the search for survival and a new homeland (millions of people out-migrated in the 1990s) were the most common feelings among the population (Nazpary, 2002; Rigi, 1999). The promise by neoliberal

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reformers of fair governance and prosperity could not be realised. Instead, the outcomes of the ‘shock therapy’ were chronic austerity and unemployment, massive internal and external migration, and deep and widening inequality (Nazpary, 2002; Rigi, 1999). By the end of the 1990s, the neoliberal reforms had led to the following results: the cutting of social services and programmes, legal protection of the ‘new rich’ and decreased taxes for them, and a halt to investing in production (Sanghera & Satybaldieva, 2021). The agricultural sector suffered from these reforms the most, resulting in a massive exodus from the countryside to cities. Kazakhstani analysts have emphasised that the neoliberal understanding of the state contributed to the partial destruction of society: people became alienated from each other, indifferent to political life and entrapped in searching for different survival strategies (Ileuova, 2021; Mazorenko, 2020). Neoliberal capitalism created the grounds for the oligarchic and authoritarian consolidation of post-Soviet regimes (Sanghera & Satybaldieva, 2021). As Nazpary (2002) points out, after the collapse of the Soviet system, the former Soviet elites—far from suffering a loss of their dominance—gained not only greater power but also wealth by implementing a ‘chaotic mode of domination’ legitimised by privatisation. Even in Kyrgyzstan, which was led by a democratic president who was a physics professor, the President of the Kyrgyz Republic’s Academy of Sciences and not a member of the Soviet nomenklatura (the people whom the Communist Party approved of and appointed to positions of authority), many transition projects—including privatisation—led to property looting and the emergence of a class of oligarchic property owners (Oroskulov, 2018). Women in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, like those in many postSoviet countries, faced many forms of discrimination and exploitation in the transition period, which was characterised by the male-dominated expropriation of wealth, gendered dispossession and violence, and sexualised strategies (Nazpary, 2002; Rigi, 1999). The population in general suffered from lawlessness and criminality, which were propelled by massive unemployment, dispossession and the under-financing of police (Nazpary, 2002). Young women in particular experienced a great deal of suffering. Shockingly, a British anthropologist who conducted field research in the mid-1990s in Almaty commented:

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Without exaggeration, every young woman I spoke with told me a dramatic story of violence, to herself, a relative, a friend, a friend of a friend, a neighbour, or a classmate. Less dramatic physical and verbal harassment was part of the daily experience of most young women. (Nazpary, 2002, p. 45)

An analysis by Pickup (2002) of privatisation in Russia can also be applied to Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan (comments by Rigi [1999], who undertook research in Kazakhstan, are referred to below and support this claim). The neoliberal reforms in the 1990s made women less privileged in their access to formerly state-owned property, which was privatised, re-owned and redistributed by influential networks of men. Here, it is useful to conceptualise the so-called influential ties of the new rich and the support ties of the dispossessed. The former networks were the engines for accumulating formerly state-owned resources, whereas the latter ensured survival; however, there was overlap between these networks (Pickup, 2002). These different kinds of networks were gendered. During the period of massive privatisation, small networks of men privatised the former state property as their own corporate property (Rigi, 1999). However, the support networks, which did not have the same level of access to state property as the more well-endowed men’s groups, provided security—generally, for women. Overall, the process of wealth differentiation during the transitional period in the 1990s was dominated by influential networks of men (Rigi, 1999). On the other hand, massive unemployment, the termination of social programmes and the withdrawal of the state from family life resulted in the renegotiation of household roles (Pickup, 2002), which pushed many women to become engaged in ‘non-traditional’ economic activities. For example, the great majority of chelnoks (shuttle traders) and street traders in the 1990s were women. In parallel to neoliberal restructuring, affluent local groups and pockets of foreigners who capitalised on the transition economy started to emerge in the big cities of Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. Subsequently, a consumerist culture began to take hold amid massive dispossession and the ridiculously low income of ordinary citizens. ‘Under such conditions, a considerable section of young and attractive women, who lack wealthy and influential relatives to provide economic security for themselves and their poor families, have no other choice than sexualised strategies’ (Rigi, 1999, p. 141). These ‘sexualised strategies’ included finding a good job by responding to an employer’s sexual demands; finding a wealthy

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husband; finding a ‘sponsor’—that is, a lover who would provide financial support; and ordinary sex work (Rigi, 1999, p. 141; Nazpary, 2002, p. 90): For many young women without rich parents, the only way to access the pleasures offered by the ‘free’ market is to transact their own bodies. Although sexual strategies are seen by women who practice them as survival strategies, the wider population consider them as significant elements of chaos. (Rigi, 1999, p. 141)

To conclude, many factors, such as the disappearance of the state’s support from family life, which resulted in a renegotiation of household roles; a lack of decent and lawful incomes; a drop in birth rate; the appearance of networks of rich men; the emergence of consumerist culture; extreme individualism; moral disorientation; and ‘sexualised strategies’ put women at the frontline of many discussions concerning national identity, culture and values. Overall, one of the roots of conservative retraditionalisation in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan can be searched for in the transition (to a market economy) period’s destruction of political, social and economic life caused by neoliberal reforms.

The Neoliberal Capitalism Model in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan and Its Challenges for Women’s Rights It has been argued that the moral and philosophical vision of neoliberal capitalism is based on the assumption that the free market is the key to achieving peace, maximum productivity and wealth. In this fundamental form, the free market is seen as a kind of panacea to all the problems of modern society (Whyte, 2019). There are, however, context-specific neoliberalisms. When looking through the prism of geographical political economy, it can be seen that the variegated nature of neoliberalism—or systemically produced geo-institutional differentiation—is at the heart of a reformulated conception of neoliberalisation (Brenner et al., 2010). Regarding the model of neoliberalism in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, first, it can be argued that neoliberalism is tied to ‘national’ customs and embedded in the local ‘culture of money’, which is conceptualised in the form of social norms and customs that are characterised by networks of reciprocity and exchange (Urinboyev & Svensson, 2013). These networks

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have become strongly influenced by neoliberal capitalism. For example, wedding ceremonies, the bride price and many other customs have been shaped by capitalistic transformations. Second, an oligarchic model of neoliberal rentier capitalism has been built in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. Neoliberal commodification of money, land, natural resources and labour has deeply transformed the economies of these countries (Sanghera & Satybaldieva, 2021). Third, in this model, capitalism is characterised by weak social protection, the weak status of labour associations and low standards of protecting the rights of employees, even though Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan are constitutionally declared to be social states. In this model, the judiciary becomes an important site of struggle for the ownership and control of existing assets and for the ability to extract economic rent (Sanghera & Satybaldieva, 2020). Moreover, the subservience of the government to the financial sector at the expense of the protection of citizens’ human rights (e.g. the rights to housing, health and a clean environment) becomes apparent. Fourth, capitalism in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan is gendered and male-dominated, with relatively weak welfare provision for women. In her analysis of Asian capitalism, Campbell comments that ‘privatisation and cuts scythed public childcare provision—a massive redistribution away from children and women’ (Campbell, 2015, p. 82), and this can also be applied to Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. As a manifestation of neoliberal logic in Kazakhstan, which is a hydrocarbon-rich country, the share of healthcare expenditure in 2017–2019 was around 3.7% of the GDP, which is significantly lower than that in other countries with a similar level of development. In addition, monthly payments to women on parental leave are unreasonably low in comparison with the actual cost of living, making a second income necessary. Many women must do underpaid work to raise their children, especially if they are single mothers. Gulzada Serzhan, one of the founders of the women’s human rights group Feminita, has described a widespread perception in Kazakhstani society that a woman can get a good job only if she is ‘free’ and has a place to leave her children. All of this results in the economic dependence of women (Mukhitkyzy, 2020). The main obstacle preventing women in Kazakhstan from going to work and causing them to stay at home is the lack of caregiving facilities and services for children, the elderly and other people for whose care the women are responsible. In fact, a majority (62%) of temporarily unemployed women are ready to work if their

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caregiving needs are provided for (Nugmanova & Salimzhanova, 2020). According to Nugmanova and Salimzhanova (2020), an increase of only 1% in governmental expenditure on preschool education and services would increase women’s employment by 6.8%, the number of preschool facilities by 5.3% and the number of children in preschool by 51%; moreover, an increase in the state’s expenditure on social programmes of 1% would increase women’s employment by 8.6%. Women entrepreneurs struggle with unreasonably high rents and interest rates, which are among the highest in the world, imposed by banks and micro-finance organisations.4 In Kyrgyzstan, most borrowers are rural women (in 2015, their share was about 62%); in Kazakhstan, urban working and urban middle-class women are disproportionally targeted by mortgage loans (Satybaldieva, 2021). Women burdened by hefty mortgage loans (including many single mothers) have organised numerous protests in both countries in recent years. It can be argued that the unethical policies of banks and micro-finance organisations have made the women of Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan into modern-day slaves (Sanghera & Satybaldieva, 2021; Satybaldieva, 2021). Special research on micro-finance organisations in Kazakhstan has suggested that micro-loans have only led to modest improvements in the socioeconomic status of the clients and have had almost no effect on their political empowerment (Bayulgen, 2015). We argue that the main reason for this phenomenon is that these institutions function as the agents of financial exploitation. The following comments by Smith (2008) about the negative effects of neoliberalism on women’s rights can be applied to the women of Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, who have achieved formal equality: …women still face gendered occupational segregation in the workplace, a gendered wage gap, ‘glass ceilings’, over-representation among part-time and low-wage workers, the double burden of unpaid care work and wageearning, and inadequate work supports such as childcare and paid parental leave. (Smith, 2008, p. 131)

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Conservative Discourse, the Patriarchal Concept of Honour and the Effects of the Transition Period The conservative Kazakh and Kyrgyz discourse is based on traditional masculinity, gender oppositionality and patriarchal honour (see e.g. Nagyz qazaq, 2016; Aqan, 2017; Kyrgyz ayali, 2018). This discourse aligns with patriarchal Islamic interpretations. As Duderija (2016) notes, gender oppositionality and patriarchal honour are the two main pillars of patriarchy in the Muslim context in general. Islam has become an integral part of Kazakh and Kyrgyz traditions. Moreover, as a result of Soviet policy, being Muslim has been paradoxically transformed into part of the ethnically defined national identity. The conservative discourse is noticeable in mainstream Kazakh and Kyrgyz media and literature. Both the Kazakh and the Kyrgyz conservative discourses are ethnically nationalistic, and this nationalism has an explicit gendered nature. Overall, as Thibault’s (2016) research on Tajikistan shows, the conservative nationalist discourse in all Central Asian states has an inherently gendered nature. Also, in the Kazakh and Kyrgyz context, the conservative discourse assumes the form of a veneration of the previously discredited nomadic past, which has led to a ‘neonomadic’ revival and appreciation of the old nomadic past (Belafatti, 2019). However, regardless of the claims about nomadic egalitarianism, neo-nomadism works to undermine the idea of gender equality and strengthens discourses justifying patriarchal oppression (Belafatti, 2019). In Kyrgyzstan, conservative Islamic rhetoric and the demonstration of adherence to Islamic values have become normal in political life, since politicians are eager to employ religious slogans to maintain their image and obtain support from the religious electorate (Usenov, 2020). However, in Kazakhstan, an overt appeal to religious values in the political realm is not welcomed and, in contrast to Kyrgyzstan, civil society is less diverse and less shaped by religious groups. The conservative discourse employs certain attributes or characteristics rooted in patriarchal understandings as the markers or yardsticks of inherent or authentic Kazakhness or Kyrgyzness (Aqan, 2017; Belafatti, 2019; Kyrgyz ayali, 2018; Nagyz qazaq, 2016). Positive and negative personality traits can be gender biased. For example, treason and dishonesty are somehow ‘feminine’, while the opposite—bravery, honesty or loyalty—are ‘masculine’. Furthermore, the conservative discourse tries

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to normalise and re-popularise certain proverbs and idioms despite their obvious misogynistic and gender-abusive meanings; for example, ‘it is a sign of doomsday if a woman becomes a ruler/boss’. A discourse analysis of conservative Kazakhness and Kyrgyzness implies that, first, female sexual behaviour and female modesty are equivalent to the ‘nation’s honour’; and second, the state must be proactive not only in its social policy but also in its observance of ‘public morality’ and ‘decency’. Interestingly, in late 2017, the Kazakhstan authorities gave in to the demands of conservative groups and sent a social media celebrity named Baizakova to jail for three days on charges of hooliganism for—according to the conservatives’ view—violating the rules of decency (Kumenov, 2018). In recent years (in 2019 and 2021), in response to the public events organised by various feminist groups in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, some conservative groups and opinion leaders have attempted to counteract the feminist message both publicly and online. The bases of conservative discourse—namely, gender oppositionality and the patriarchal concept of honour—were fundamentally shaken during the period of neoliberal reforms in the 1990s. Conservative writers argue that the chaos of the 1990s was caused not only by the destruction of the social and economic system but also—and even more—by the previous loss of ‘authentic’ national values. For example, Ysqaqbay (2014) presents a discourse from conservative writers about the assimilatory policy of the Soviet system and lost national values that marked the post-Soviet period: ‘We ended up prioritising only materialistic issues. The generations of “dubara” (someone who has lost one’s authenticity and been assimilated), who do not know and understand national traditions, culture, character came to life’ (p. 7). We argue that conservative re-traditionalisation in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan can be seen as a kind of backlash of many (not necessarily socially conservative) people against the adverse effects of neoliberal reforms such as the emergence of sexualised strategies, consumerist culture and extreme individualism. The dramatic increase in insecurity has led many to seek refuge in religion, traditions and extended family networks. Re-traditionalisation, or the revival of national culture and religion, has come to be regarded as an escape from the repercussions of the ‘wild’ capitalism of the 1990s and early 2000s. To paraphrase Dale and Fabry (2018, p. 243), we argue that, although the conservative discourse in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan garners support

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from individuals who are protesting against the experiences of dispossession, disenfranchisement and humiliation caused by neoliberalisation, overall, this discourse can positively interact with neoliberalism to some extent, such as in viewing women as objects, which will be discussed below.

Interaction Between Re-traditionalisation and Neoliberal Capitalism Although re-traditionalisation and neoliberal capitalism appear to be antithetical, or at least not easily correlative phenomena, close inspection reveals them to be mutually supportive, including in their creation of an environment for women’s oppression. For example, a combination of both can be seen in the image of a woman who is ‘hardworking in the office’ but ‘obedient and serving all her in-laws at home’ (see Zhussipbek & Nagayeva, 2020), which is a manifestation of double oppression. A similar interaction can be seen in the phenomenon of a lack of social programmes defending women’s social and economic rights: worsening economic conditions may induce girls and women to submit to the inferior position prescribed by patriarchal traditions. For example, some women may be forced to marry at a relatively early age and against their free will; poverty is also one of the reasons why some women choose to become a second wife or lover. Moreover, many women who suffer from domestic violence or other types of abuse cannot afford to leave their abusive partners and/or in-laws and must endure the oppressive environment because of the fear of economic hardships and social stigma. Although polygamy is officially illegal, it has emerged as an informal institution in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. For example, it has been suggested that 2% of marriages in Kazakhstan in 2014 involved polygyny; however, this share is likely to have grown (Thibault, 2021). There are different views concerning the re-emergence and re-legitimisation of polygamy: it has been described as being due to women’s worsening economic conditions and to opportunism (Ryskulova, 2021; Thibault, 2021), a result of conservative religious interpretations (Zhussipbek et al., 2020) or as a strategy for some women to retain independence in their relationships (Thibault, 2021). We argue that polygamy can be analysed through the prism of the interaction of re-traditionalisation with neoliberal capitalism in the specific Kazakh or Kyrgyz model of capitalism. In other words, polygamy is not only a result of the revival of patriarchal

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tradition, legitimised by conservative religious interpretations; but it is also a capitalistic phenomenon. This practice displays the material success and productivity (a key neoliberal idea) of a man who is not necessarily religious; even irreligious bureaucrats are engaged in polygamy since it is a manifestation of their social status. Polygyny has acquired a cosmopolitan, even glamourous, character in oil-rich Kazakhstan (Thibault, 2021). Polygamy, whether in a patriarchal or capitalistic context, objectifies and even commodifies a woman, since she is seen as an object through which the social status or material success of a man is manifested. As such, polygamy can be seen as an amalgamation of traditions, patriarchal religious interpretations and neoliberal capitalist logic. Hence, the opposition of the Kazakh and Kyrgyz conservative discourse to neoliberal dispossession is not a fundamental rupture but an inflection.

Conclusion Women’s rights in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan have become negatively affected by conservative re-traditionalisation, economic vulnerability caused by the collapse of the Soviet welfare system and appropriation of the political and economic landscape by neoliberalist reformers who denounced the effective social policy. The adaptation of neoliberalism to the Kazakhstani and Kyrgyzstani environment has caused serious obstacles and problems hindering women’s rights. Some of these problems, such as the precariousness of women employees, women’s low-wage and deadend jobs, and the increased ‘double burden’ of women, especially young women, at the home and office, are common to most post-communist countries. Conservative re-traditionalisation can be seen as a reaction and backlash against the traumatic experience of the transition period. Because Islam is accepted as an integral part of national culture and conservative discourse is relatively popular in society, phenomena such as polygamy and the revival of patriarchal norms and traditions are more peculiar to Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. Overall, the two seemingly antithetical phenomena of re-traditionalisation and neoliberalism can be seen to interact to hinder the development of women’s rights. Women’s rights include economic and social rights; therefore, economic and social policies are key measures that can assist in realising or undermining women’s rights. More importantly, it is necessary to achieve a cultural transformation by developing human-rights-friendly new discourses on culture, family and gender, in order to build a more

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inclusive and egalitarian society. Doing so is primarily the task of internal actors. The Soviet regime terminated such a process by eliminating the progressive national intelligentsia (i.e. progressive Alash-Orda and Jadid intellectuals in the early twentieth century) and the educated strata. Each state must somehow solve its own social security. The neoliberal reforms prevented Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan from creating a system based on social democracy. One outcome is that the responsibility for social safety is left to family networks and rich people—resulting in polygamy as a possible outcome.

Notes 1. As Sanghera and Satybaldieva (2021) explain, ‘shock therapy’ was abrupt and extensive market reforms implemented at the behest of international financial institutions and development agencies. Major economic sectors, including oil and gas, minerals, finance, real estate, retail and construction, were privatized and deregulated. 2. According to Thibault (2021), while Kazakhstani society is considered to be relatively socially conservative, its regulation of sexual practices and marriage blends liberal lifestyles with patriarchal outlooks. 3. These are the observations of the first author during his 12-semesterslong (Spring 2016–Fall 2022) teaching a course on human rights to approximately 800 Kazakhstani and other Central Asian students. 4. As of December 2022, the bank lending rate in Kazakhstan was 16.5% and that in Kyrgyzstan was 13%.

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Borisova, E. 2020. ‘Our Traditions Will Kill Us!’: Negotiating Marriage Celebrations in the Face of Legal Regulation of Tradition in Tajikistan. Oriento Moderno, 100. Brenner, N., Peck, J., & Theodore, N. (2010). Variegated Neoliberalization: Geographies, Modalities, Pathways. Global Networks, 10(2), 182–222. Campbell, B. (2015). After Neoliberalism: The Need for a Gender Revolution. In S. Hall, et al. (Eds.), After Neoliberalism: The Kilburn Manifesto. London: Lawrence & Wishart. Central Asian (neo) Conservatism: National Identity, Civic Freedoms, and the Challenge of Protecting Women’s and Minority Rights. (2021). Central Asian Bureau for Analytical Reporting. https://cabar.asia/en/central-asianneo-conservatism-national-identity-civic-freedoms-and-the-challenge-of-pro tecting-women-s-and-minority-rights Connerly, J. (2000). Caught Between a Dictatorship and a Democracy: Civil Society, Religion and Development in Kyrgyzstan. Fletcher Journal of Development Studies, XVI. Corcoran-Nantes, Y. (2005). Lost Voices: Central Asian Women Confronting Transition. Zed Books. Dale, G., & Fabry, A. (2018). Neoliberalism in Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union. In D. Cahill, M. Konings, M. Cooper, & D. Primrose (Eds.), The Sage Handbook of Neoliberalism. Sage. Doolot, A. (2021, April 15). Sezon- 4. Traditisii i modern-1 [Season-4, Traditions and Modernity-1]. Post-Sovetistan. https://paperlab.kz/podcast/pos tsovetistan-e1-s4 Duderija, A. (2016). The Custom (urf) Based Assumptions Regarding Gender Roles and Norms in the Islamic Tradition: A Critical Examination. Studies in Religion/sciences Religieuses, 45(4), 581–599. https://doi.org/10.1177/000 8429815596549 Finke, P., & Beyer, J. (2019). Practices of Traditionalization in Central Asia. Special Issue of Central Asian Survey. Central Asian Survey, 38. Gradskova, Y. (2019). Soviet Politics of Emancipation of Ethnic Minority Woman. Springer. Gradskova, Y. (2020). Opening the (Muslim) Woman’s Space—The Soviet Politics of Emancipation in the 1920s–1930s. Ethnicities, 20(4), 667–684. https://doi.org/10.1177/1468796820905030 Ileuova, G. (2021, April 15). Sezon- 4. Traditisii i modern- 1 [Season-4, Traditions and Modernity-1]. Post-Sovetistan. https://paperlab.kz/podcast/pos tsovetistan-e1-s4 Kabylova, M. (2022). Uyat Emes or the Process of De-Shaming in Kazakhstan. In H. Thibault & J. Caron (Eds.), Uyat and the Culture of Shame in Central Asia. Palgrave Macmillan.

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Kandiyoti, D. (2007). The Politics of Gender and the Soviet Paradox: Neither Colonized, Nor Modern? Central Asian Survey, 26(4), 601–623. Kumenov, A. (2018, January 25). Kazakhstan: Morality Mavens Monitoring Women. Eurasianet. https://eurasianet.org/kazakhstan-morality-mavens-mon itoring-women Kyrgyz ayali kandan bolush kerek? (2018). https://www.facebook.com/ustatv. kg/videos/219072975868925/ Light, N. (2018). Kyrgyz Genealogies and Lineages: Histories, Everyday Life and Patriarchal Institutions in Northwestern Kyrgyzstan. Genealogy, 2(4). https:// doi.org/10.3390/genealogy2040053 Mazorenko, D. (2020, December 23). God, kogda gosudarstvo zayavilo o sebe vnov’ [The Year the State Declared Itself Again]. Vlast. https://vlast.kz/avt ory/43048-god-kogda-gosudarstvo-zaavilo-o-sebe-vnov.html Mukhitkyzy, A. (2020, November 11). Raboty po domu stalo v razy bol’ she [Housework Has Become Much More]. Azattyq. https://rus.azattyq.org/a/ pandemic-has-exacerbated-women-s-economic-dependency/30939821.html Nagyz qazaq qyzy qanday bolu kerek [What Should a Kazakh Girl Be?] (2016). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYFclGZjkZQ Nazpary, J. (2002). Post-Soviet Chaos Violence and Dispossession in Kazakhstan. Pluto Press. Nugmanova, M., & Salimzhanova, A. (2020, November 21). Economic Inclusion and Exclusive Gender Aspects. Conference “Inclusive Discourse Today: The Models of Inclusion”. Friedrich Ebert Foundation Kazakhstan, Nur-Sultan. Oroskulov, T. (2018, December 11). “Oshibki prezidenta. Askar Akayev” [President’s Mistakes]. Sputnik-kg. https://ru.sputnik.kg/analytics/20181211/ 1042386466/oshibka-prezidenta-askar-akaev.html Pickup, F. (2002). Local Level Responses to Rapid Social Change in a City in the Russian Industrial Urals (PhD Dissertation). London, LSE. Rigi, J. (1999). Coping with the Chaos (Bardak): Chaos, Networking, Sexualised Strategies and Ethnic Tensions in Almaty (PhD Dissertation). SOAS, University of London. Ryskulova, N. (2021, April 3). Ne odna. Pochemu zhenshchiny v Kyrgyzstane soglashayutsya na rol’ vtoroy zheny [Not Alone. Why Women in Kyrgyzstan Accept to Be Second Wife]. BBC-Russian. https://www.bbc.com/russian/ features-56595200 Sanghera, B., & Satybaldieva, E. (2020). Selling Debt: Interrogating the Moral Claims of the Financial Elites in Central Asia. Capital & Class, 1– 24. https://doi.org/10.1177/0309816820943174 Sanghera, B., & Satybaldieva, E. (2021). Rentier Capitalism and Its Discontents: Power, Morality and Resistance in Central Asia. Palgrave Macmillan.

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Satybaldieva, E. (2021, February 5). Online Workshop on Social and Cultural Meaning of Money in Central Asia. https://roehampton-ac-uk.zoom.us/u/ kyuZGSO4m Smith, A. M. (2008). Neoliberalism, Welfare Policy, and Feminist Theories of Social Justice. Feminist Theory, 9(2), 131–144. The Inglehart Welzel World Cultural Map. (2020). https://www.iffs.se/media/ 23025/cultural-map-2020_eng.pdf Thibault, H. (2016). Female Virtue, Religion and State Ideology in Tajikistan. CERIA Briefs 10. https://www.centralasiaprogram.org/blog/2016/01/04/ female-virtue-religion-and-state-ideology-in-tajikistan Thibault, H. (2021). The Many Faces of Polygyny in Kazakhstan (CAP Paper 255). Tsennosti Kazakhstanskovo Obshestva v Sotsiyologicheskov Izmerenii [The Values of Kazakhstani Society in the Sociological Dimension]. (2020). Friedrich Ebert Foundation Kazakhstan. Almaty: Deluxe Printery. Urinboyev, R., & Svensson, M. (2013). Corruption in a Culture of Money: Understanding Social Norms in Post-Soviet Uzbekistan. In M. Baier (Ed.), Social and Legal Norms. Ashgate. Usenov, A. (2020, November 12). Kyrgyzstan mezhdu religiyey i svetskostyu [Kyrgyzstan Between Religion and Secularism]. Central Asian Analytical Network. https://www.caa-network.org/archives/21022 Weller, R. C. (2014). Religious-Cultural Revivalism as Historiographical Debate: Contending Claims in the Post-Soviet Kazakh Context. Journal of Islamic Studies, 25(2), 138–177. Whyte, J. (2019). The Morals of the Market: Human Rights and the Rise of Neoliberalism. Verso Books. Ysqaqbay, M. (2014). Qayta Zhangan Zhuldyzdar [Reborn stars]. KhanTangri. http://adebiportal.kz/upload/iblock/3ca/3cac001731947895c0f40 a16877d99e0.pdf Zhussipbek, G., & Nagayeva, Z. (2020). Human Rights of Daughters-in-Law (Kelins) in Central Asia: Harmful Traditional Practices and Structural Oppression. Central Asian Survey, 39(4). https://doi.org/10.1080/02634937. 2020.1850423 Zhussipbek, G., Achilov, D., & Nagayeva, Z. (2020). Some Common Patterns of Islamic Revival in Post-Soviet Central Asia and Challenges to Develop Human Rights and Inclusive Society. Religions, 11(11), 548. https://doi. org/10.3390/rel11110548

Why Was There No FEMEN in the Baltic States? Some Preliminary Observations Matthew Kott

Abstract From 2008 to 2015, the FEMEN movement emerged from post-Soviet Ukraine to become a phenomenon recognised worldwide and inspiring local offshoots in a dozen countries, first in Eastern Europe, then Western Europe, and eventually as far afield as North Africa and the Americas. Throughout this period, however, no real attempt was ever made to establish a local FEMEN branch in any of the Baltic States of Estonia, Latvia, or Lithuania, even when many of their neighbours had them. This chapter seeks to explore why this was so when many of the preconditions that led to the foundation of FEMEN in Ukraine seemed also to exist in the post-Soviet Baltic societies as well. What made the Baltics different from both those post-socialist and those Western European societies where certain women felt the need to embrace the techniques and ideas of FEMEN? Both socio-political developments in the Baltic States, as well as the under-researched aspect of the underlying ideology of FEMEN shed light on why Baltic societies did not join the “new” feminist activism embodied by FEMEN and Pussy Riot. By

M. Kott (B) Institute for Russian and Eurasian Studies, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 A.-M. Sätre et al. (eds.), Post-Soviet Women, Sustainable Development Goals Series, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-38066-2_7

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presenting three cases that compare and contrast with FEMEN’s activities, some preliminary explanations are offered for why this could be. The feminist activist group FEMEN was founded in Ukraine, where it developed its particular form of public protest in 2008.1 After an initial phase focussing solely on Ukraine, FEMEN began expanding its network of liked-minded activists abroad. During the early years, from around 2009 to 2011, this expansion was mainly confined to neighbouring countries of the former USSR (particularly Russia and Belarus), or other post-socialist countries in former Eastern Europe (e.g. Bulgaria). In its second wave of expansion, when international interest for FEMEN was at its greatest, the movement inspired the founding of chapters across Western Europe, North and South America, and even made inroads by recruiting allies in North Africa in the wake of the Arab Spring. During this second period of growth, the centre of gravity of the FEMEN movement shifted away from Ukraine to north-western Europe: countries like Germany, Netherlands, France, and Sweden. After the crackdown in Ukraine on FEMEN by the Yanukovych government in 2013, founding members of FEMEN went into exile in Western Europe (France, Germany, and Switzerland), and the primary headquarters of the movement was officially moved from Kyiv to Paris (FEMEN, 2015, pp. 12–20). As a long-time observer of both the growth and development of FEMEN—I was first alerted to their existence by a Ukrainian student of mine around 2008/2009—and of the transformations of the postSoviet Baltic States (Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania) to Nordic-oriented members of the EU, I was somewhat puzzled by the fact that during neither of these phases did there seem to be any significant attempt to bring FEMEN to the eastern Baltic littoral. Despite the fact that FEMEN was established in countries similar to where the Baltic States were coming from (e.g. Ukraine, Russia, and Belarus), and in countries like they aspired to be (e.g. Germany, Sweden, but also Canada), and even reached into countries on the fantastic periphery of the Baltic imagination (e.g. Mexico, Brazil, and Tunisia), the Balts seemed impervious to the lure of this new-style performative feminist activism. In order to help understand why this puzzled me, and how I suggest it could be explained, I have chosen some illustrative cases—which received significant attention in the media at the time—that can shed light both on the Baltic context, and what can possibly be seen as the underlying cause

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of this unresponsiveness, namely the premises that underpin FEMEN’s ideological worldview. To support my line of argumentation, I combine the use of various contemporary sources and some more recent interviews with my reading of the literature by and about FEMEN.

Blonde Ambition: Internalising the Neoliberal Paradigm During the Crisis of Masculinity Many of the conditions of post-Soviet transformation that directly produced angry young feminist rebellion that FEMEN embodies could also be found in the Baltic States during the turbulent 1990s and 2000s. Economic shock therapy dismantled not only the pillars of the agroindustrial economy, but it also deprived mainly male industrial workers of their former pride of place in the socio-economic hierarchy. The winners of the transformation were often women, who already had the skills and occupied roles that were more useful in a service and information economy: women on average had higher levels of education, and dominated in services, commerce, public administration, education, and research. Male life expectancy plummeted as alcoholism, crime, and suicide rose, further exacerbating the demographic imbalance that made, for example, Latvia the most female-dominated country in the world (McGuinness, 2010). The Baltic States also experienced the post-Soviet sexualisation of the public space and accompanied by the objectification and commodification of women’s bodies. Naked or scantily clad female forms suddenly became ubiquitous in advertising, and like gambling—which also had been officially suppressed by the state in Soviet times—all forms of sexual gratification were made available to the (predominantly male) post-Soviet consumer through pornography, strip clubs, and prostitution. The new zeitgeist was not only “sex sells”, but also “sex for sale”. This became a trap for the more vulnerable women in an economy with a rapidly disappearing social safety net for those less equipped to navigate the transition. Due to the exotification and Orientalisation of Eastern European women in the Western European male imaginary (as evidenced in the predatory “documentary”, Buy Bye Beauty, by Swedish filmmaker and performance artist Pål Hollender in 2001), the Baltic States, like Ukraine and Moldova, also became for a time lucrative hunting grounds for human traffickers supplying the prostitution networks of the wealthier

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parts of Europe, as portrayed in the 2002 motion picture by Swedish director Lukas Moodyson, Lilya 4-Ever. The breakneck pace of neoliberal transformation in the Baltics produced many losers, just like in Ukraine. In contrast, however, there were some groups that can be seen to have benefited disproportionately from Lithuania’s, Latvia’s, and particularly Estonia’s rapid transition from Soviet republic to EU member state. Amongst those were those young people born in the mid to late 1980s and the early 1990s. This cohort grew up with little to no experience of the Soviet system, just as the world was opening up to the Balts. They learned English in school and were able to work or study abroad with relative ease as they reached adulthood, thanks to EU accession in 2004. Especially for young, educated women, the EU provided an escape from the systemic misogyny and the unfavourable demographics of their home countries. As such, the neoliberal model that was imposed on the post-Soviet Baltic societies rapidly and enthusiastically by their “Europeanising” elites became internalised as the norm for much of this age cohort. This whole system was shaken to its core in the global financial crisis of 2008–2009. Property bubbles burst, debts accrued to pay for private consumption were called in by the faltering banks that had previously handed out money to all and sundry, and unemployment shot up as the Baltic economies tumbled. As acolytes of neoliberalism, the Baltic governments embarked on austerity programmes, cutting back the already severely curtailed social safety net. In Latvia, Prime Minister Valdis Dombrovskis came to office in 2009 with the explicit agenda for imposing an “internal devaluation”, which in reality was a cut in public sector salaries across the board, from top civil servants to already underpaid rural schoolteachers. The Latvian electorate rewarded Dombrovskis by re-electing him to head the government for another term, and the later EU rewarded him by approving him as a Commissioner.2 When the economic crisis was at its worst in 2009, the Ukrainian activists of FEMEN were gearing up their protests with their campaign, “Ukraine is not a brothel!”, which gained them their first global media attention. Around the same time, an ambitious woman in Latvia, Marika Gederte, ¸ was thinking: “I was so tired, you know, every day opening the computer and reading the newspapers and just reading about problems. We decided… let’s do something nice. And I asked myself the question: what can I do for my country? And this is what I did… We are very proud to be blonde” (BBC, 2010).

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Gederte’s ¸ solutions to the problems facing her country were not to take to the streets in protest, to expose and criticise the failings of the system, but to arrange a Blonde Parade (Blond¯ınu g¯ ajiens ). Like “good fairies”, smiling blonde women would provide society respite from their woes, celebrating a particular kind of femininity, while at the same time collecting money for charitable ends, namely, to provide aid to underprivileged families with children. For three years, from 2009 to 2011, the “Go Blonde” festival took place in Riga, drawing attention from global media. By reinforcing stereotypes of women in a sea of blonde hair and pink t-shirts, the organisers sought to resist economic pessimism while fighting poverty. The state was not to be called to account for its austerity politics; instead, society was to forget its sorrows by indulging en masse in the male gaze, and private donations were to alleviate the consequences of the neoliberal dismantling of state-provided welfare. This commodification of women for charitable purposes, organised by women themselves, is testament to the degree to which many Latvian women had internalised a neoliberal worldview: “The BBC’s Damien McGuinness, who attended the festival, says that this might not be everyone’s idea of female emancipation but if the aim was to bring a smile to recession-weary Latvians, the idea certainly worked” (BBC, 2010). This response to the crisis, using an NGO (Latvijas Blond¯ınu ¸ asoci¯acija, the Latvia chapter of the International Association of Blondes) to organise a “fun” entertainment event to raise money for charity, reveals important differences between where Latvia’s society (and perhaps the Baltic societies more generally) were at this point, in comparison to Ukraine and the conditions that created FEMEN. The “Go Blonde” parades and festival can be viewed as a typically neoliberal response to a global crisis of neoliberalism: in encouraging non-state actors to respond to societal issues ostensibly within the remit of a functioning welfare state, it focussed on individual qualities and the “apolitical” private sphere for inspiration and solutions, rather than addressing systemic injustices and challenging the complicit political elites to fix failings of the public sphere caused by the uncritical adoption of the neoliberal socio-economic model that had fuelled the global economic crisis, at the same time as it dismantled the welfare state’s mechanisms for lessening the blow of such crises. As one commentator for the portal Jezebel.com acerbically summed it up: “Male Gaze to Fix Latvian Economy” (Ryan, 2011). This interpretation was not

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very well received in Latvia, even in the more liberal press (e.g. V¯ıtina, ¸ 2011). Symptomatically, as the economic crisis alleviated, the impetus for the “Go Blonde” phenomenon faded away. Gederte ¸ shut down her Blonde Association in 2012 (Kasjauns.lv, 2012), with the “Go Blonde” (www.gob londe.lv) website winding down some time thereafter. The Twitter and Facebook profiles for “Go Blonde” continued a semi-lethargic existence, making sporadic posts as late as 2019—now usually in Russian, suggesting a different subsection of Latvia’s society was the target audience than under Gederte’s ¸ leadership. In the collective Latvian consciousness, these events are almost completely forgotten; a casual survey of the author’s acquaintances suggests that it has gone the way of many pop culture phenomena that seem absurd and hard for people today to believe they were ever a “thing”. The International Association of Blondes apparently still exists—at least as of November 2019. According to the website (www.interblondesassoci ation.org), it is headquartered in Bulgaria, with Latvia still listed as its only international offshoot. Furthermore, the Association’s “Oath of the Blondes” includes such problematic statements as “I swear to never forget… to love ‘Viking’ men…; to keep my hair blond, my skirt short, my legs long, and my eyes blue – like radical fighting weapon of the association; to don’t [sic] strain my mind, so my hair won’t get black…” (International Association of Blondes, n.d.). The language of this “oath” flirts with various sexist (women should not think too much) and far-right (Vikingness) tropes, producing an almost racist, misogynist mirror image of FEMEN’s “sextremist” ethos (see below). Reinforcing the impression of affinity, or at least toying, with the white supremacist idealisation of Nordic identity, on the website there is even an application form to join a “Vikings Club”. Whether Gederte ¸ and the other founders of the blonde movement in Latvia back in 2009 shared the ideologically retrograde views currently expressed by the International Association of Blondes is not known. Part of the answer to the question posed in the title of this text must therefore be that Latvia and the Baltics were in a completely different situation than Ukraine, Russia, and Belarus in the first, post-Soviet phase of geographic expansion of the FEMEN movement. For two decades, the overarching political project had been to “return to Europe” after a half-century of Soviet dominion, which meant gaining membership to the main Euro-Atlantic structures as soon as possible, whatever sacrifices

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needed to be made. This process of accommodation to the requirements for membership in the European Union and NATO brought significant positive changes for these societies—including better public accountability, healthier democracy, and greater human security than in any other former republics of the USSR—and perhaps offered other avenues for eliciting societal change than in corrupt, rent-seeking, (semi-) authoritarian polities further east. At the same time, many people in the Baltic States internalised the neoliberal values that their Western political mentors proselytised, as they assumed doing so was part of the requirements of their “schooling in Europeanness”, to paraphrase a concept from Dace Dzenovska (2018). As has been noted by Brigitte Young, gender politics and neoliberalism within the EU since the 1990s were intertwined in a particular way that not only sought to bring European women out into (or keep them in) the workforce, while reducing the infrastructure of the welfare state and thereby increasingly individualising the very functions in society that allow women to contribute economically as equals, such as childcare: Women are thus in the process of finally reaching the long awaited abstract equality with men – not in terms of wages, but in respect of an abstract notion of individualism that is free at last from reproductive activities… As is obvious, the increasing individualisation of women has benefits as well as pitfalls. Women benefit from labour market integration. However, they lose from the neoliberal focus on “pure” individualisation… Women would be made more equal to men in this process, but only at the cost of being equally exploited within the neoliberal system of global capitalism. (Young, 2000, p. 95)

Because they were at a different phase of societal development than in, for example, Ukraine at the time, the desperate, visceral anger of the FEMEN movement did not resonate. Instead, women’s activism in the Baltics took more neoliberal forms during the global economic crisis, as this was the values system that they had just embraced as modern and emancipatory. As Eve Annuk has observed regarding women’s issues, “in today’s Estonian context, neoliberalism is the intellectual background by default, and therefore there is no discussion about it: you just have to fit in with it” (Annuk, 2019, p. 414).

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Flash in the Pan: Political Parody of FEMEN in the Service of Patriarchy In the second phase of FEMEN’s internationalisation, circa 2011 to 2015, as already mentioned, the centre of gravity of the whole FEMEN movement shifted to countries that had never been part of the old Sovietdominated bloc (Huffington Post, 2012; RFE/RL, 2012b). These could be Western European countries with a tradition of radical protest politics since the watershed of 1968, such as Germany and France; countries where entrenched, conservative elites, revolutionary traditions, and experiences of authoritarian politics in living memory fed grassroots protests on women’s issues, such as Spain, Mexico, Brazil, and, arguably even Tunisia and Turkey; or countries where progressive politics and even feminism were seen as mainstream, but that the political elites lacked vision and become complacent in, such as the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, and Canada—where both Anglophone and Francophone (Québécois) branches of FEMEN were founded. Indeed, in many of these countries, it was reactions to the drawn-out crisis of the aforementioned neoliberal socio-economic system, perpetuated in one form or another by governments in most countries since the 1980s, regardless of their formal self-identification on the political spectrum, that prompted women to adopt FEMEN’s method as a form of protest. To some extent, the performative protests of FEMEN were perfectly synchronised with the rise of internationalised media and social media on the Internet, where emotive images and video clips quickly “go viral”, gaining recognition value (but not necessarily resonance or meaning) far beyond the original context of the event in question. For this very reason, the preponderance of scholarship on FEMEN (mainly in the fields of feminist studies and media and communications) has focussed on their methods, with its heady mix of inverted symbolism, shock value, dissonance, theatricality, and manipulative titillation (e.g. Balanza, 2015; Chevrette & Hess, 2019; El Helou, 2015; Jensen, 2013; Khrebtan-Hörhager, 2015; Labahn, 2015; Osminkin, 2017; Reestorff, 2014; Thomas & Stehling, 2016; Veneracion-Rallonza, 2014; Zychowicz, 2015, 2020). To some extent, this shows that FEMEN as a movement was a victim of the success of its main idea: while attracting converts, supporters, and imitators around the world, FEMEN did not just become a brand (as they wished), but also a signifier that risked become detached from its original meaning, like a meme. To paraphrase Marshall McLuhan,

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the medium was becoming the message in much of the world’s attempt to make sense of FEMEN. Another incident, this time in Estonia in autumn of 2013, illustrates the drift towards FEMEN-as-meme. In September 2013, an Internet presence appeared for a group that called themselves “Fläshime” (from the English to flash, ‘to expose oneself publicly’), with a Facebook profile and a website. Still photos and short video clips were published of young women in various locales around Tallinn exposing their bare chests in public during daylight. The photos and videos included messages that indicated a political motive, but the identities of the women involved were often obscured, for example, by them wearing dark glasses or face coverings, or the photos being edited (e.g. cropped). Over a period of a couple weeks, new posts with photos and videos were posted, generating increasing media, and therefore public interest. The information was also spread via Delfi, the leading internet news portal in Estonia (e.g. Fläshime, 2013a, September 24; 2013b, October 4). The website explained that the group sought to criticise how the city was run and that this new movement was a Tallinn version of FEMEN.3 Media attention for this mysterious new group was intensified by effective use of FEMEN’s methods as a model: the press was tipped off about coming events, in order to ensure that there would be coverage for new, presumably provocative protests. The culmination was announced for October 10, when the mystery behind Fläshime would be revealed. Video footage from October 10 shows journalists and cameramen assembled at the appointed place and time. A woman with a megaphone and a coat with fancy epaulettes appeared, leading line of young women in dark trench coats. On the first woman’s command, the others opened their coats, to reveal not bare flesh, but identical yellow t-shirts proclaiming that Fläshime was actually a PR campaign in support of the candidacy of Reform Party politician, Valdo Randpere, for mayor of Tallinn in the upcoming municipal elections. Randpere himself then popped up, took the megaphone and made a short campaign speech. It soon also became apparent that the organiser of the flashing actions was Kirki Kubri, a businesswoman best known for her erotica shop, Ulakas Kaunitar (Kroonika, 2013). Thus, Fläshime was revealed not to be confrontational feminist shock activism, but an attention-grabbing stunt for a male politician, organised by a commercial actor in the business of selling sex. While Randpere later

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tried to present the whole thing as a humorous joke, this, like his stunt, fell flat (Roots, 2013). Randpere’s Reform Party came in third in the municipal elections, while the incumbent mayor Edgar Savisaar’s Centre Party retained its majority (ERR, 2013). What does the Fläshime episode say about the receptivity of Estonia, and broader Baltic society to the FEMEN movement in 2013? This was at the time that FEMEN was being decoupled from its primary association with post-Soviet women, and taking on, often through provocation, matters relevant to women in other parts of the world. For example, they protested against the powerful conservative clergy’s religious restrictions of women’s freedoms—most controversially by acts seen as desecrating Catholic churches or the Quran (The DW, 2014; Euronews, 2013; Local, 2012; RFI, 2014, 2015); they embraced LGBT rights and fought for abortion rights (FEMEN, 2013; Kuruvilla, 2017; RFI, 2014), along with continuing to protest rape, domestic violence, prostitution, and dictatorial regimes. Such topics were seriously and hotly debated in Western Europe and the Americas. FEMEN’s attacks on Sharia law provoked a backlash amongst some Muslim feminists and earned FEMEN accusations of racism and Islamophobia (El Helou, 2015; Naili, 2013). In Estonia, however, these actions against patriarchy and religious oppression had little resonance. It was difficult to mobilise public opinion on issues of rape and domestic violence in the post-Soviet Baltics as these matters were still considered part of the private sphere and surrounded by taboos (cf. Reingardiene, 2003). In addition to the predominant combination of neoliberal and culturally conservative views on traditional gender roles in these post-Soviet societies (cf. Annuk, 2019, p. 414),4 the prevalence of political homophobia made LGBT rights unpopular, and it would be a few years still until the refugee crisis put Islamophobia on the public agenda (Kott, 2016). What was left, then, was the forms of FEMEN’s actions: using topless women and media manipulation to promote political slogans. This is what Randpere learned from FEMEN, and how he sought to instrumentalise its performative methods to boost his own political brand. As a feminist critic, artist Fideelia-Signe Roots, pointed out, Randpere distorted FEMEN’s methods for what amounted to a reinforcement of the dominance of patriarchy (Roots, 2013). This is somewhat ironic, considering that Randpere had fled the Soviet Union in 1984 to seek asylum in Sweden—a country generally known for its progressive implementations

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of feminism, and where in the early 2010s, FEMEN gained a prominent activist in an artist and former Green politician, Jenny Wenhammar. As such, one might expect that he would be relatively well-informed about FEMEN, and feminism in general. This makes his twisting of the FEMEN concept to further his own political agenda seem even more Machiavellian. Roots, in a critical opinion piece in the daily newspaper Eesti Päevaleht, claimed that Randpere’s actions signalled that women are not to be taken seriously in politics, they are to be objectivised and made fun of. She reminded readers of recent related instances, such as when finance minister Jürgen Ligi (also of the Reform Party) had previously belittled fellow party member, and later prime minister, Kaja Kallas by emphasising her youth and her beautiful eyes. In her opinion, Randpere’s behaviour dehumanised women, reducing them to the status of flora and fauna. Echoing Foucault’s ideas on biopower, she concluded: A woman’s body is safe as long as it is in the service of society and men, for example, giving birth to children or participating in the porn industry. Such a strictly defined body is under the control of the patriarchate. When a woman decides over her own body, as Femen activists do, it becomes dangerous for the current regime. (Roots, 2013)

FEMENist Angst This begs the question: is it FEMEN that is seen as incongruent with Baltic society at this time, or is it feminism per se? Despite having successfully “returned to Europe”, the Baltic societies—even Estonia, which tried to rebrand itself as “Nordic”—lagged behind Western Europe with regard to issues surrounding what feminism was and why it—and gender equality more generally—was needed. One issue is that the concept of “feminism” was at the time perceived negatively in the former Soviet bloc (and in many cases still is, but this is perhaps slowly changing, as the women’s protests in Poland against limiting abortion rights suggest). According to Jessica Zychowicz, “feminism”—and by extension, “FEMEN”—were “bad words” in post-Soviet Ukraine (Zychowicz, 2011). Prior academic work (Goloubeva & Hanovs, 2002) and anecdotal evidence from some Baltic interviewees, suggest that this was also true for Estonia and Latvia as well.5 For example, the aforementioned artist, Fideelia-Signe Roots, describes how, during the

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1990s, in Estonia that feminists were depicted as “ugly, angry, and ludicrous”. According to Roots, those women who dared to call themselves feminists or raise feminist issues were branded with hostile epithets: the conceptual artist Mare Tralla was called a “disgusting woman” (a label she embraced and subverted), while the journalist, academic, and activist Barbi Pilvre was called an aggressive feminist “guard” (valve, with connotations of keeping watch). According to Roots, the situation began to change somewhat in the 2010s.6 Roots herself became somewhat of a front figure for this shift, whereby more and more younger women openly declared themselves feminists. An important event in this context was Roots, 2011 performance piece, Angst: 161 km bare breasted. In this work, Roots traversed a route, mainly on foot, from Tartu in southern Estonia to the village of Karepa in the north, where she culminated with a theatrical monologue on women’s rights on the grounds of the Karepa Kalame Farm Museum. The five-day journey and final act were filmed, and the video was later exhibited at the contemporary art museum, Kumu, in Tallinn in 2012 (Roots, 2011). In general, Roots’ walk for women’s rights was received positively, although more with amusement at the display of public nudity, than enthusiasm for the cause. At one stage, however, the local authorities had her detained by the police, reflecting the fact that the artist’s activity was perceived by some members of the public as provocative. The perceived hypocrisy of this reaction is problematized by the artist in her commentary. The word “angst” in the title of the work can be read as referring to both the existential threats experienced by women in a patriarchal society, but also the fear felt by the agents of patriarchy when free-willed female bodies “misbehave” and break the confines of the patriarchal norms to which they are assigned.7 By opting to enter the public space with her breasts exposed not for the sexual gratification of the male gaze, but to attract attention to women’s issues, Roots was adopting and adapting the performative methods of FEMEN. It would thus be more legitimate to call Roots, not the aforementioned Fläshime, as the attempt as a localised version of FEMEN in Estonia. She was labelled as a “boob feminist” or “celebrity feminist” for her attention-grabbing performance.8 Hence also the authority with which Roots could criticise the Fläshime parody in the Estonian press. Nevertheless, Angst was a one-off performance, and it did not lead to imitators or the formalisation of a FEMEN branch or similar offshoot in Estonia. There simply was no impetus from below amongst young women

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in Baltic societies to engage in the type of radical performative feminism embodied by the activism of groups like FEMEN and Pussy Riot.9 Part of the societal inertia regarding the appeal of this performative activist feminism stems from the Soviet legacy (Annuk, 2019, p. 413). During Soviet times, feminism was portrayed as a problem for the rest of the world, particularly the capitalist West; in the USSR under communism, women were said to already enjoy full rights, hence there was no need for “feminism”. This was, however, despite the obviously macho, male-centred cult of the industrial worker that yoked Soviet women of the dual burden of both full-time employment and full-time responsibility for the home. Older women would thus continue to be sceptical of the need for feminism, based on their disappointment with the empty rhetoric of women’s rights recalled from Soviet propaganda. Younger Baltic women, raised in the neoliberal, but still more open climate of post-Soviet society, as evidenced by the examples of “blonde” activism mentioned above, might take this one step further by internalising the individual nature of women’s emancipation in the neoliberal worldview, hence the lack of interest in more collective, gender-wide perspectives on the problems facing women. Finally, the Baltic context was somewhat different from that of Ukraine, Russia, or Belarus, in that the Baltic countries had had active and successful diasporas in the West during the Cold War, which produced proportionally more significant numbered of educated, enthusiastic returnees who brought with them really lived understandings of Western ideological constructs. Thus, Roots mentions that an important mentor for her was the American-Estonian cultural scholar, Tiina Kirss, who supervised Roots’ MA and PhD projects, and who also brought “fresh feminist ideas” into Estonian academia.10 This perhaps made some of the more visually oriented performative foci of FEMEN’s political actions seem to miss the point of feminism for Baltic women; indeed, some commentators from the wider Eastern European region 2014), or even called FEMEN a derivative, superficial “pop” (Szymanska, ´ “cover version” of Western feminism (Konradova, 2013).

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“Because Lenin Said So”11 : Marxism in FEMEN’s Ideology At a deeper level, there may be another aspect of the Soviet legacy in the Baltic societies that makes FEMEN’s variety of feminism have less resonance, and therefore, less appeal. This has to do with a part of FEMEN that has received much less attention than its photogenic performative methodology, namely, its ideological underpinnings. Political movements ground their actions in justifications based on ideology. Ideologies can be complex, bringing together threads from a variety of other existing ideologies, which, when combined with situational and contextual factors, create a synthesis that is unique to a particular movement. In this respect, FEMEN is no different: its ideological underpinnings combined with the circumstances of post-Soviet Ukraine in the early 2000s to create the activist form of feminism that informs and legitimates their actions, which they termed “sextremism” (FEMEN & Ackerman, 2013). What are the sources of this ideology, however? In one of the earliest accounts of the origins of FEMEN in their own words, the core members discuss the thinkers and works that have influenced and shaped their ideological worldview. One of the formative works—the founding group’s “Bible” (FEMEN & Ackerman, 2013, p. 56)—was August Bebel’s Woman under Socialism, a classic of Marxist feminism, dating originally from 1883 (FEMEN & Ackerman, 2013, pp. 55, 69). As French scholar Galia Ackerman noted, in Bebel the young feminist Marxist rebels of FEMEN found the “scientific basis” for their struggle for women’s rights (FEMEN & Ackerman, 2013, p. 17). According to Anna Hutsol, they also derived inspiration from other Marxists, whether Marx and Engels themselves, from the post-war Italian Left, including the Brigate Rossi (FEMEN & Ackerman, 2013, pp. 51–52), the ideas of Angela Davis and the Black Panthers, or the Mouvement de libération des femmes in France (Goujon, 2017, pp. 138–139). As Anna Hutsol herself poses the question: “Why Marxism?” She then answers: We liked the idea that people are born equal and should remain so. The idea that everyone can develop his abilities, his creativity, instead of having to submit to the fate that capitalist society imposes on him. We also had a certain nostalgia for the Soviet Union. Stalinist repression belonged in

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the distant past, while the last Soviet decades appeared to us as a period of relative happiness. Of course, we were deluding ourselves, since the end of the Soviet regime had coincided with our childhood, and childhood, by definition, is a time of happiness. Anyway, each of us found it difficult to cope with unfettered capitalism, myself included. My father was out of work, my mother had become a poor peasant, I had to work in the market to pay for my studies while some students, children of the nouveau riche, came to college in cars purchased by their parents. But my parents weren’t duffers. It was unfair that some were getting richer while others were social rejects! Yet to begin with, when I was asked to join a left-wing philosophical circle, my first reaction was: “You’re crazy Commies!” I was then immediately shown that the Soviet system had nothing to do with Marxist theory. (FEMEN & Ackerman, 2014, p. 41; cf. FEMEN & Ackerman, 2013, pp. 50–51)

The prominence accorded to a “reclaimed” Marxism (FEMEN & Ackerman, 2013, p. 17) could be problematic outside of certain segments within the post-Soviet space. Particularly in the Baltic States, whose national narratives today are built around the centrality of their people having suffered under Soviet rule (cf. Šnore, 2008), the whole ideology of Marxism is profoundly illegitimate, even for feminists.12 As Arturs Maurinš ¸ observed in 1997: …In Latvia, as in other post-Soviet countries, the feminist movement clearly will not gain popularity in the nearest future; it will need to overcome more than a little prejudice and narrow-minded provincialism. Fifty years of Soviet ideology have also left a lasting impression. In both theory and practice, Marxists still seek to subordinate the women’s issues to the class struggle and their global ambitions, to their class and party based ideology… The emancipation of the Soviet woman from the family unequivocally served to subjugate her even more strongly to brutal exploitation of the patriarchal state. For this reason, emancipation for Soviet women prompted associations with that which she already had— namely, a heavy burden of work outside the family (equality with men!) and pitiful pay. In the consciousness of our society the view has taken root that activities aimed specifically at women are something once initiated by the Communists, and therefore lack real meaning in Latvia anymore. There is also the widely held view that feminism is a threat to the cultural values

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of the nation, indeed, to its very existence. Thus, during this period as we “enter Europe”, it will be from there [i.e. Western Europe] that we will also receive modern ideas and concepts of feminism. (Maurinš, ¸ 1997, pp. 28–29)

In hindsight, Maurinš ¸ was correct in his assumption that Balts would, for a very long time, prove impervious to anything that resembled Marxist feminism, while being somewhat more open to the neoliberalised gender equality rhetoric officially emanating from the EU (Blomberg et al., 2014; Young, 2000). After FEMEN shifted its base of operations from Ukraine to the West, this core Marxism was also probably seen as a liability if emphasised too openly, hence it was toned down. For example, all mentions of Bebel disappeared from the foundational myth of FEMEN in the 2015 Manifesto of the organisation (FEMEN, 2015). Nevertheless, even if not so obviously, the Marxist ideological basis for FEMEN’s self-embraced “sextremism” is evident in their actions. As an example of this, we can take the spectacular action by FEMEN in August 2012, as a reaction to the trial of the members of Pussy Riot that threatened to send to prison in Russia for offending the sensibilities of Orthodox Christian believers. In broad daylight, the members of FEMEN arrived at the site of a large wooden cross in a park near the International Centre for Culture and Arts in central Kyiv. With the slogan “Free Riot” painted over her chest and lacking proper safety equipment, FEMEN activist Inna Shevchenko used a chainsaw to topple the giant crucifix, declaring “No business, not even one as successful as the church, has the right to attack women’s rights!” (Reuters, 2012; RFE/ RL, 2012a) This latter quote, equating organised religion with capitalist exploitation, hints at the Marxism that underpins FEMEN’s ideology. This stunt by FEMEN earned significant publicity, but created a strong backlash. Even if many locals had previously seen FEMEN as largely harmless, and also sympathised with the members of Pussy Riot, the vandalism of the cross was a step too far for many. The wooden cross was not just a Christian symbol, and therefore a legitimate target for FEMEN, who saw in the Pussy Riot case as patriarchal religion repressing activists for democracy and women’s rights. It was also a monument to the memory of the victims of the Soviet NKVD and other Stalinist crimes. Where the Marxist activists of FEMEN saw that they were striking a blow at the symbolic heart of regressive religion—the “opiate of the masses”,

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others would see the callous desecration of the memory of the victims of Soviet totalitarian crimes for cheap PR. If FEMEN had had any resonance in the Baltic States up to then, the movement must have generally lost all credibility in the eyes of the fundamentally anti-Soviet Balts from that point forward.

Conclusions The foregoing discussion has used a handful of selected examples in an attempt to offer some preliminary reasons for why there never developed any branch of FEMEN in the Baltic States, despite the fact that they, as post-Soviet societies, may also have had reason for young women to rise up against structural misogyny and the denial of women’s rights. From these, admittedly anecdotal, pieces of evidence, the following conclusions are drawn. Firstly, that during the early period of FEMEN’s expansion to neighbouring countries of the former Soviet Union, the Baltic societies likely did not respond as Russia or Belarus in that Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania had already progressed much further towards integration with Western models, and as Annuk (2019) noted above, many women there had already internalised a neoliberal way of thinking about the world around them. Later, as FEMEN moved its centre of gravity to activity in the West, these societies did not respond as Westerners, as they were, by comparison with their northern and Western European neighbours, lagging behind in their understanding of what feminism was and why it was still very much necessary. Ironically, two legacies of the Soviet period specific to the Baltic States made the ideological message of FEMEN unattractive. The aforementioned misunderstanding of feminism was rooted in the Soviet-era distortions of the unflattering portrayal of feminism that still shaped how many in these societies viewed feminism and feminists. Further, the individual and collective narratives of national suffering at the hands of the Soviet totalitarian occupation regime that is central to modern Balts’ selfimage make the ideology of FEMEN, based on a claiming of Marxism for a particular form of revolutionary action, simply anathema. Whether these very tentative conclusions are borne out by more systematic research based on a wider range of evidence, however, remains to be seen.

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Notes 1. At the time of writing, the most comprehensive and best scholarly treatment of the FEMEN movement and its context in post-Soviet Ukrainian feminism is Zychowicz (2020). For a more first-hand account of the founding and first phase of development of FEMEN, see: FEMEN & Ackerman (2013, 2014). 2. There is a significant body of scholarly literature on the austerity policy responses of Baltic governments to the global financial crisis of 2007–8, much of it highly critical. A typical example of the scholarship on the topic is Sommers and Woolfson (2014). 3. The Internet Archive (web.archive.org) has preserved snapshots of the website flashime.ee from 2013. 4. Blomberg et al. (2014, p. 239), however, argue that this was also a time when adopting progressive, “Nordic” feminist policies could be seen as complementing the elites’ striving to appear successful in their countries’ “Europeanization” into more liberal and democratic societies. 5. Cf. e-mail interview with S.-F. Roots, response from 4 July 2020, answers B1, B4. 6. E-mail interview with S.-F. Roots, response from 4 July 2020, answer B4. See also: Annuk (2019). 7. Cf. e-mail interview with S.-F. Roots, response from 4 July 2020, answer C6. 8. E-mail interview with S.-F. Roots, response from 4 July 2020, answer C5. 9. E-mail interview with S.-F. Roots, response from 4 July 2020, answer C6. 10. E-mail interview with S.-F. Roots, response from 4 July 2020, answer B3. 11. From an observation by Roots about the true status of women in the USSR: “… it was not always the case in real life because long traditions of suppressing women did not stop only because the laws were changed or because Lenin said so” (e-mail interview with S.-F. Roots, response from 4 July 2020, answer B4). 12. Cf. e-mail interview with S.-F. Roots, response from 4 July 2020, answer A9.

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BBC. (2010, May 29). Latvia Blondes Hold Festival to Beat Recession Blues. BBC News. https://www.bbc.com/news/10191164 Blomberg, E., Waldemarson, Y., & Žvinkliene, ˙ A. (2014). Gender Equality Policies: Swedish and Lithuanian Experiences of Nordic Ideas. In N. Götz (Ed.), The Sea of Identities: A Century of Baltic and East European Experiences with Nationality, Class, and Gender (pp. 225–246). Södertörn University. Chevrette, R., & Hess, A. (2019). “The FEMEN Body Can Do Everything”: Generating the Agentic Bodies of Social Movement through Internal and External Rhetorics. Communication Monographs, 86(4), 416–437. https:// doi.org/10.1080/03637751.2019.1595078 DW. (2014, March 12). Femen Activist Trial in Cologne. DW. https://www.dw. com/en/topless-femen-activist-goes-on-trial-in-cologne/a-18107858 Dzenovska, D. (2018). School of Europeanness: Tolerance and Other Lessons in Political Liberalism in Latvia. Cornell University Press. El Helou, M. (2015). From Ideology to Dogma? A Discussion about Femen, Aliaa Elmahdy, and Nudity in the Arab World. Kohl: A Journal for Body and Gender Research, 1(2). http://kohljournal.press/from-ideology-to-dogma-2/ ERR. (2013, October 21). In Estonian Municipal Elections, Center Party Holds onto Power in Tallinn, Right-Leaning Parties Prevail in Tartu. ERR. https://news.err.ee/108527/in-estonian-municipal-electionscenter-party-holds-onto-power-in-tallinn-right-leaning-parties-prevail-in-tartu Euronews. (2013, December 20). Shock at Femen Activist’s Topless AntiCatholic Protest in Vatican. Euronews. https://www.euronews.com/2013/ 12/20/shock-at-femen-activists-topless-catholic-protest-in-vatican-city FEMEN. (2013, March 12). FEMEN In Gay We Trust [Video]. Vimeo. https:// vimeo.com/61607099 FEMEN. (2015). Manifeste. Les éditions Utopia. FEMEN, & Ackerman, G. (2013). Femen. Calmann-Lévy. FEMEN, & Ackerman, G. (2014). Femen (A. Brown, Trans.). Polity Press. (Original work published 2013) References to digital edition. https://ebo okcentral.proquest.com/lib/uu/detail.action?docID=4029890 Fläshime. (2013a, September 24). Fotod: Eesti naised fläshivad oma rindu, et viidata Tallinna murepunktidele. Delfi.ee. http://publik.delfi.ee/news/ini mesed/fotod-eesti-naised-flashivad-oma-rindu-et-viidata-tallinna-murepunkt idele?id=66783249 Fläshime. (2013b, October 4). Päevafläsh: Pealinn kruusaaukudest vabaks! Delfi.ee. http://naistekas.delfi.ee/elu/probleemlood/paevaflash-pealinn-kru usaaukudest-vabaks?id=66841947 Goloubeva, M., & Hanovs, D. (Eds.). (2002). Women in Baltic Societies: Past and Present. NIMS. Goujon, O. (2017). Femen: Histoire d’une trahison. Max Milo. Hollender, P. (Dir.). (2001). Buy Bye Beauty [Film]. Self-produced.

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Veneracion-Rallonza, M. L. (2014). Women’s Naked Body Protests and the Performance of Resistance: FEMEN and Meira Paibi Protests against Rape. Philippine Political Science Journal, 35(2), 251–268. https://doi.org/10. 1080/01154451.2014.965876 V¯ıtina, ¸ K. (2011, May 30). Š¯ı gada “blond¯ınu ¸ g¯ajiens” sapulc¯ejis visvair¯ak dal¯ıbnieˇcu. IR.lv. https://ir.lv/2011/05/30/si-gada-blondinu-gajiens-sapulc ejis-visvairak-dalibniecu/ Young, B. (2000). Disciplinary Neoliberalism in the European Union and Gender Politics. New Political Economy, 5(1), 77–98. https://doi.org/10. 1080/1356346005000199 Zychowicz, J. (2011). Two Bad Words: FEMEN & Feminism in Independent Ukraine. Anthropology of East Europe Review, 29(2), 215–227. Zychowicz, J. (2015). Performing Protest: FEMEN, Nation, and the Marketing of Resistance. Journal of Ukrainian Politics and Society, 1(1), 79–104. Zychowicz, J. (2020). Superfluous Women: Art, Feminism, and Revolution in Twenty-First-Century Ukraine. University of Toronto Press.

Negotiating Women’s Roles

Being a Woman and Russian National Identity: Discourses and Representations Through the Lenses of Russian Conservative and Nationalist Organizations Alexandra Martin Brankova

Abstract The Russian conservative turn and the masculinization of Russian national identity have affected women’s positions and their roles in the imagined community of the nation. The chapter explores how Russian nationalist organizations portray women and womanhood within Russian national identity discourses and representations. The study compares four nationalist and conservative groups: the Eurasian Youth Union, the Izborskii Club, the Russian Imperial Movement, and the Russian National Unity. The cases selected juxtapose more imperially oriented nationalists (the Eurasian Youth Union and the Izborskii Club) with their far-right, ethno-nationalist counterparts (the Russian Imperial Movement and the Russian National Unity). Digital media enhances the visualization of national identity discourses and the reach of nationalist media production to wider audiences. National identity discourses

A. M. Brankova (B) Institute for Russian and Eurasian Studies (IRES), Department of Informatics and Media, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 A.-M. Sätre et al. (eds.), Post-Soviet Women, Sustainable Development Goals Series, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-38066-2_8

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are critically analyzed within Russian nationalist new media ecologies focussing on their web channels, blogs, and social media. While far-right groups depict women through anti-abortion discourses and in terms of their reproductive functions for society, imperial nationalists have more complex and multi-layered notions of womanhood in terms of cultural, social, and political roles.

Background: Women As Part of Russian National Identity Discourses The role of women has undergone a reconceptualization within the Russian national identity after the fall of the state socialist system. While the egalitarian image of women in the labour force or education was seen as a point of distinction from the West during the Soviet period (Kay, 1997), contemporary Russian views offer a return to traditional family roles as an essential discourse of cultural differentiation. The postSoviet period marked a discursive shift in the function of women in society. Images of Soviet working women were replaced with narratives of women’s duty to the nation seen in terms of their reproductive functions and their responsibilities towards a husband, along with specific conceptualizations of beauty, fragility, and fashion (Kay, 1997; Porteous, 2018). The emphasis on traditional family roles and the juxtaposition with liberal, Euro-Atlantic structures further enhances the importance of women in Russian national identity. Presidential speeches emphasized that love for the country is reflected through love for a family as childcare predominantly remained a womanly duty while references to paternity leave were largely absent (Attwood & Isupova, 2018; Rotkirch et al., 2007). Pro-life and conservative groups have been engaged in promoting family and nationalistic values, in close alignment with the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) (ibid.). Gendered discourse and imageries are often utilized when constructing the notions of the national self and its external others. For instance, Riabova (2020) explains that masculine traits such as strength, integrity, courage, and the urge to defend women are accepted as Russian civilizational identity values while being scrutinized in European, liberal spaces. This perspective is echoed in earlier studies suggesting that the contemporary Russian national identity is undergoing a process of masculinization and cultural conservatism (Dogangun, 2020; Riabova, 2020; Riabov & Riabova, 2014). Women often remain

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secondary in a wider nationalist discourse—a masculine terrain where they have little agency (Thomson, 2020). Therefore, a more in-depth inquiry is required when assessing the roles and representations of Russian women and womanhood in nation-building processes. This chapter analyzes how the imageries, traits, and societal roles of women in the Russian Federation are constructed by four conservative and nationalist organizations: the Eurasian Youth Union (Evraziiskii Soiuz Molodezhi, ESM), the Izborskii Club (the Club), the Russian National Unity (RNU), and the Russian Imperial Movement (RIM). This comparative study aims to provide an in-depth inquiry into how these organizations portray women within Russian national identity discourses and representations. Previous studies have focussed on macro state perspectives when assessing the communicated roles of women (Attwood & Isupova, 2018; Dogangun, 2020; Riabov & Riabova, 2014), while others have briefly referred to the influence of nationalist and conservative groups (Rotkirch et al., 2007) but have not developed a detailed account of their narratives. Assessing the discourses of these nationalist and conservative circles is important since they have an impact on the larger cultural, nation-building, or state agenda-setting processes. This chapter is intended to provide a nuanced account of the gendered images communicated in competing or overlapping national identity discourses. Thus, the contribution of this chapter is twofold: a womencentric study in this area will not only enrich the literature on Russian nationalist and conservative groups but also help in the development of more elaborate and nuanced perspectives on how women are viewed in Russian nation-building processes and discourses.

Navigating Across Russian Nationalist Ecosystems and Discourses Conservative and nationalist circles are currently key contributors to a larger political discourse and the search for national identity. For instance, Bassin and Pozo (2017, p. 2) point out that the Eurasianists and their aligned organizations, which include the ESM, play an important role in shaping notions of Russian national identity since their images and ideas “have spilled over from academic discourse” into official policies, popular culture, and the larger Russian blogosphere. The Izborskii Club serves as a platform for a reconciliation of Soviet (Red) and White imperial nationalist views and aims at providing a larger cultural and civilizational element

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to the state apparatus (Laruelle, 2016a, 2016b). The Club also expresses a range of ideas, mixing political Orthodoxy and Slavophile thought with Eurasianism (Tsygankov, 2016). It endorses anti-Western, conservative values, but also has a more active mobilization objective (Laruelle, 2019). The contemporary neo-Eurasianists project views Russia’s identity as culturally and geographically distinctive, being characterized by spatial rather than ethnic elements (Kalinin, 2019). Russia’s Eurasian identity accentuates a metaphysical, civilizational significance—as a bridge between the East and the West, a bearer of the Orthodox faith and conservatism, consisting of a multi-ethnic national body (Arbatova, 2019; Morozova, 2009). These assumptions have led to tensions between neo-Eurasianist and ethno-nationalist groups (Allensworth, 2009). Other ethno-nationalist, extreme far-right organizations, such as the RIM and the RNU, are still active in public, digital spaces and have strategic militarist functions. The RNU, which emerged from the Pamyat movement at the beginning of 1990s (Sokolov, 2008), is an ultranationalist organization specializing in paramilitary training and ethnonationalism, dwelling on anti-Semitic iconography and ideology (Jackson, 1999; Laruelle, 2021; Sokolov, 2008). Curiously, the RNU experienced a certain revival in 2014 as an actor promoting Russian nationalism in Eastern Ukraine and based on the RNU’s former reputation and fame (Laruelle, 2019). The RIM is another example of an ultranationalist, far-right organization. It attracts nationalists with its Orthodox and imperialist views (i.e. the God-Tsar-Nation triad) and was involved in training volunteers for the war in Ukraine through its Imperial Legion (Holzer et al., 2019). In 2020, the organization was listed by the U.S. State Department as a terrorist group due to its involvement in training white supremacists and neo-Nazis in Europe. Despite the existing antiextremism law, the RIM has utilized social media channels for the active recruitment of volunteers for the war in Ukraine without censorship by the Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology, and Mass Media (Roskomnadzor).

Aims and Methodological Choices This chapter investigates the discourses of womanhood among four nationalist organizations by focussing on their discursive formations across a range of texts, in order to obtain a better understanding of the groups’ polyphonic views and the symbolism of their representations. The

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overall aim of the chapter is to explore how women are portrayed and represented in Russian national identity discourse. The chapter further compares and contrasts the discursive construction of womanhood as part of the nation-building processes between more imperially oriented nationalist groups (ESM and Izborskii Club) and their far-right, ethnonationalist counterparts (RNU and RIM). The organizations were also selected for their well-developed new media channels as well as the digital communication of their narratives and symbolism with audiences. This makes the organizations key actors in the Russian nationalist new media ecology. Thirdly, all four groups were involved in the war in Ukraine and demonstrated strategic activation in both digital and non-digital spaces. Data from the official public and open digital channels of each organization (ESM, Izborskii Club, RNU, and RIM) was collected. Data collection began with the official websites of the entities and was then further extended to social media (VKonktakte, VK) and blog spaces. The analyzed data included the organizations’ “About Us” website section, manifestos, values statements, interviews, blogs, and journals published by the movements. An additional search was carried out with the following keywords: “woman” (zhenshchina), “women” (zhenshchini), and the root of these words (zhenshchin), to avoid examples in which the ending of the word was changed by case declensions. Materials were collected and analyzed for the period 2018–2020 (before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine). Individuals’ comments on social media or discussion forums were excluded from the dataset due to ethical considerations. During the data collection period, the website of the RIM was closed down and a new one was created. The Wayback Machine tool was utilized to gather web archives from the initial website of the organization but this might have affected the amount of collected data.

Theoretical Assumptions and Analysis National identity is regarded as a product of discourse and social practices, within which a variety of polyphonic voices compete. Identities are subject to historicization; they are dynamic and are never singular. The narrativization of the self is produced at specific institutional and historical sites (Hall, 1996). These paradigms relate to Michel Foucault’s views of discursive formation as a “principle of dispersion and redistribution … of statements” in a spatial–temporal coordination where statements are defined by the logic of the formation (1968, p. 121). Foucault

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defines discourse as a “group of statements … made up of a limited number of statements for which a group of conditions of existence can be defined” (p. 131). Truth can be understood as a discursive production of knowledge regimes and historical periods. Building on notions from Benedict Anderson (2006) and Stuart Hall (1992, p. 292), the nation is understood as an imagined political formation, a symbolic community with a specific “system of cultural representation” that are communicated through discourse. Ozkirimli (2017) classifies such assumptions as the so-called discursive and cultural turn of nationalist theories. A constructionist and discursive approach to representation is adopted in this study since such an approach captures the meaning of larger units of analysis that operate across a variety of texts, narratives, and groups of images (Hall, 1997, 2013). This study assumes that women have a key function in establishing national projects as the carriers of discursive and symbolic meaning. Yuval-Davis and Anthias’s work (1989) provides a key theoretical contribution to the understanding of the gendered nature of ethnic and national projects. In their key work Women-Nation-State (1989, p. 7), they propose five major forms of female participation in ethnic and national processes: • Biological reproducers of members of ethnic collectivities; • Reproducers of the boundaries of ethnic/national groups (through choices of sexual relations and marriage); • Active transmitters of the national culture and ideological reproduction; • Symbolic signifiers in ideological discourses on the construction, reproduction, and transformation of ethnic/national categories; and • Participants in national struggles (economic, political, and military). Later, in Gender and Nation (1997), Yuval-Davis clarifies that women play a role in all three dimensions of nation-building: the genealogical construction of the origins of people (Volknation); the symbolic cultural dimension of the nation (Kulturnation); and the civic-territorial boundaries (Staatnation). Anthias and Yuval-Davis’ categories are highly relevant to the current study and are operationalized in the discourse analysis when assessing the

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content themes in the data. The women-centric approach of the framework and its multidimensional focus make it suitable for analyzing female representations in nationalist discourse. Furthermore, I argue that it is essential to include further cultural elements in the analysis and to assess the representation of women in national identity discourses referring to key female figures in the historical past, folklore, literature, and other elements of Russian culture, as transmitted through digital media channels and iconography. Indeed, Anthias and Yuval-Davis’ theories provide the tools to identify how women participate in the construction of the national body; however, they omit the means of determining how the image of women is represented through reservoirs of cultural symbols and how female and male imageries are juxtaposed in national identity. The symbiosis between male and female representations requires attention in the Russian case since it is an important part of specific discursive themes such as conservatism, messianism, and political Orthodoxy. Ruth Wodak et al.’s (2009) methodological approach for national identity-centric critical discourse analysis (CDA) was applied. The data analysis stage includes three elements: the assessment of (1) discursive themes in accordance with Yuval-Davis and Anthias’ categories, (2) discursive strategies of identity formation (of construction, justification, transformation, or dismantling), and (3) the linguistic means and forms of realization in the communicated discursive roles, imageries, and characteristics of women.

The Eurasian Youth Movement: Mother Eurasia and Women as Participants in the Conservative Revolution and Third Russia Through Beauty and Childbirth For the ESM, women are not only conceptualized as the biological reproducers of the nation, but are also seen as keepers of the social order in the nation. The catechism of the ESM states that women should be “beautiful and tender”. They are also the biological reproducers of the nation, as they should “give love to a man and life to strong, ruddy children” who “scream loudly and sharply”. Using biblical motifs and an allegory, women are qualified in their publications as the “greatest treasure of the secret garden”. Women are further understood to play the role of reproducers of clan and tribe boundaries or norms (“…do not deviate from

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the laws of the clan, give love and affection to the beautiful and strong people of your tribe”). In this sense, the “tribe” is used as a synonym for the nation although the term demonstrates closeness between members in a clan-based imagined community. Here, women are not only portrayed as the biological reproducers of the nation through childbirth but are also shown as having key functions in establishing the social order and code of conduct. The pathos of speech is elevated and formulated as an order. Yuval-Davis’ five categories are enriched by adding an extra layer in which women are active guards of behavioural codes. In the ESM rhetoric, the image of women is constructed in contrast to the role of men. Men are portrayed as fighters who “have to be smart and brave”, while manhood is understood as a willingness to “understand the truth, kill, fight and die for higher ideals… A man’s calling is to burn”. This militaristic tone relates to a discursive strategy of transformation, where the overall aim of the organization is the establishment of a Third Russia (or Rossia-3), induced through a “conservative revolution”. Thus, the discursive notion outlines the role of females not only as biological reproducers of the collective but also as a support for a specific revolutionary struggle through childbirth. Laruelle (2004) states that the concept of the “conservative revolution” derives from Aleksandr Dugin’s writings, in which the traditional idea of Eurasia is distorted by German geopolitical principles and occult discourses about Russia’s national mission. Laruelle (2019, p. 102) also explains that the conservative revolution perspective is constitutive of the “Russian thought” (Russkaja mysl’ ) originating from the Slavophiles and the works of Iurii Samarin. Iurii Samarin was a key Slavophile thinker who depicted the importance of Orthodoxy and conservative nationalism (Diec, 2020). Discursive strategies of transformation that aim at establishing a new identity are applied across a variety of ESM’s sources through references to the darker past of the 1990s and liberal order, with the intention of moving towards a leap to a third (presumably better) Russia (Rossia3). However, women do not seem to have a designated political agency in this process, demonstrating their secondary role in the ESM’s political struggle. According to Dugin, whose writing is also intertextually referenced on the ESM website as section Rossia-3, post-Soviet Russian history developed in three distinctive periods. The first period, or First Russia (1991–1999), was dominated by a liberal “Russophobic” ideology and by Westernizers while the second period, or Second Russia, started

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with Vladimir Putin’s arrival in office and the emergence of patriotism. Post-2012 marked the beginning of the Third Russia with Putin’s return to power. This period is depicted under the equation “patriotism – liberalism”. The annexation of Crimea is portrayed as a moment of ideological significance. The disintegration of the USSR and the first two periods is outlined through a particular disaster topos and crisis tonality. The Chechen wars, the 1991 coup, and regional separatism are seen as moments of weakness for the state where topos of history as a teacher was utilized. A different tonality is applied when the Third Russia is introduced, involving a return to sovereignty and strength. The ESM sources state: Our grandfathers have built and defended a great empire but our fathers have betrayed, sold, and failed her.

As shown in the quotation above, despite the involvement of women in WWII and the Soviet labour force, only the grandfathers—not the grandmothers—are seen as the defenders and builders of the Soviet State. A female pronoun is used when referring to the empire (ee), which they call “Mother Eurasia” (Mat’ Evrazia). For the ESM, the Motherland is not Russia per se but Eurasia, and their call is for activism and proactive involvement in the (intra-)national struggles and her protection. This element can be seen in the iconography of the ESM, in which a woman dressed in traditional attire with Eurasian motifs holds the flag of the movement.1 Mother Eurasia is a multi-ethnic—rather than monoethnic—figure that captures symbolic cultural elements from both Russia and Central Asia. The black flag with the “star of absolute expansion” refers to the decision of the ESM to follow the path of “imperialists of the newest type” (imperostroiteli noveyshevo tipa 2 ). These conceptualizations of the state as a mother are highly significant for populist discourse—not only in Russia, but also in Europe. Riabov (2020) claims that the concept of the Motherland is one of the most important symbols in the Russian nationalist movements when establishing the image of the other and the legitimization of exclusionary practices. The ESM portrays women in a secondary role but still assigns them significance in the national process. The ESM’s image of women is based on the feminine characteristics of beauty or a warm smile, but also includes greatness (velichiya) and presumed sacredness in terms of women’s role in enhancing behavioural codes or inspiring revolutionary

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activism. The ESM’s major discursive theme conceptualizes women as reproducers of the nation and supporters of the conservative revolution through childbirth. Their functions are positioned in the frames of motherhood, care, and love towards a husband and family, rather than as active participants in the social and political struggles of the nation. Women are viewed as active signifiers of the culture whose task is to transmit specific values and behaviours while living up to a certain standard of dignity. No identified female representations are explicitly mentioned in the ESM’s references to historical Russian nodal points (e.g. wars, empire rule, science, or labour force).

The Izborskii Club: Russian Women Are Strong and Self-Sufficient “but Should Still Remain Women” The narratives and themes set up by the Izborskii Club develop a more multi-layered image of Russian women through a variety of significant female figures, cultural motifs, and storytelling. In an interview in 2020, Natalya Narochnitskaya3 stated that Russian women are “strong”, “wise”, “self-sufficient”, and “in no way inferior to a man”. She utilizes examples from Russian fairy tales to represent these traits, such as the warrior princess Marya Morevna, the supportive and beautiful princess Vasilisa the Wise, and the warrior woman Nastasya Mikulishna who is also the wife of a bogatyr. Women are active carriers of the motifs and characteristics transmitted in the national culture. These female Russian folklore characters are carefully selected to depict female strength and independence, but also to emphasize their relation with and support for their husbands and other male characters. Unlike the ESM, the Izborskii Club regards women in war as active participants in national struggles and insurgencies, utilizing historic nodal points from WWII. Narochnitskaya applies exclamatory sentences to emphasize the role of women in war, with an emotionally loaded tone: “And what was the contribution of women to the victory in the war! … Let us bow to them!”. According to Narochnitskaya, women deserve recognition for their participation in military struggles and WWII victory. She also points out the different tasks women carried out during the war, such as working in military factories, behind the lines, or in agriculture. However, these functions seem to be forms of secondary support for the

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war effort, rather than demonstrating women’s involvement in the WWII front lines. She does not mention female military personnel on the front lines such as Lyudmila Pavlichenko or the female fighter pilots from the Soviet Air Forces known as the Night Witches. A discursive strategy is applied to accentuate the uniqueness of the national character and to portray Russian women as the epitome of the state and the nation: “Russia is invincible because our women are like that (invincible)”. Similar notions about female involvement in the war in Ukraine appear in another article written for the Club by Vladislav Shurygin. Shurygin tells the story of Elena Ivanovna, who was in charge of administration for the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic. Ivanovna is portrayed as an “Iron Lady” who displayed “diligence and the ability to figure everything out”; a survivor of an organized “terrorist” attack. Shurygin describes Ivanovna’s character using words such as perseverance, adaptability, determination, discipline, focus, and lays out her story through the topos of the threat of emerging Ukrainian nationalism that occurred after the Euromaidan. This discursive theme and topoi became prominent after Russia’s 2022 full scale invasion of Ukraine but they were clearly present in nationalist discourses in earlier publications and periods. This discursive strategy of defence is combined with a disaster topos and alarmist tonality. Elena Ivanovna is also represented as a mother of two daughters, Alexandra (Sasha) and Katya. He tells how Alexandra joined “the resistance and was legendary for her bravery and fearlessness” and for preventing “single-handedly an ugly pogrom” by arresting “two militias”. Despite these occasional examples of female agency and the importance of women in political processes, the Club remains cautious about female emancipation. It actively promotes the traditional family roles of women and warns of the dangers of “the West, liberalism or feminism”. Messianism discourses appear in a variety of the Club’s journal Russian Strategies (Russkie Strategii) issues, and women’s position in society is seen as essential to Russia’s potential geopolitical strategies and its moral mission. This discursive line refers to a variety of biblical texts and adapts them to the contemporary Russian context. Russia is depicted as a universal protector of conservative values and family relations spreading beyond the Earthly realm to universal, “cosmic” domains. One of the strategies published in the journal is the doctrine of the “Russian Ark”, which derives from the biblical story of Noah’s Ark. The Ark is seen as a metaphor for alternative development and values, where Russia is

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portrayed as a distinct spiritual civilization opposing the decadence of the West. This doctrine relates to the larger messianic discourse of Russia’s search for national identity after the fall of the USSR, which envisages the state as a Third Rome and as the heir of the Byzantium Empire, preserving Orthodoxy and morality (Alekseev, 2015; Curanovi´c, 2019; Engström, 2014). The Ark operationalizes a range of allegories from pre-flood biblical elements and relates them to contemporary contexts. These allegories refer to the Minoan and Canaan civilizations as established matriarchies with cults of the Great Mother and the Goddess Astarte, respectively. In contrast, a naturalistic topos is applied to demonstrate the degradation of these ancient societies in which “women priests” carried out “child sacrifices”, adultery was rife, and a variety of sexual expressions were “sacralized”, while these civilizations remained focussed on maritime trade, capitalism, and financial gain. An alarmistic tone is utilized to portray the danger of enhanced female freedom, an implied reference to abortion, reproductive rights, matriarchy, and female cults being associated with feminism. A black-and-white image is portrayed in which the West and Europe are experiencing a decline in morality due to enhanced female centrality and freedoms. This image relates to another stable image of women as the source of primary sin, as the Club attempts to bridge contemporary feminism with primordial, biblical notions of a decline in civilization by using comparisons and allegories. Prohanov’s writings for the Club align with this theme by portraying Russia as a “defender” of “family morality and justice … saving the West from filth”. The West and liberalism appear to be the external other of the Russian self. The discursive strategy of relativization emphasizing the difference between “us” and “them” is applied across a variety of texts published by the Club. In an interview for the Club’s website, Dugin states that feminism has a “challenge” since the “female universe” is qualified in “male terms” and the liberals want to establish this stand as a “legal position”. He classifies it as “a male domination which has included a second sex”. Furthermore, Narochnitskaya views Western feminism as imposing a dilemma onto women: to choose between “building a career or being the mother of the family”, which she qualifies with a range of negative terms such as “totalitarianism”, “very dangerous tendency”, and “deeply disgusting”. Narochnitskaya states that there is no contradiction in Russian culture and folklore, between a “woman’s ability to be equal to a man and her female role … you should never force her to face a

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dilemma – either you are a businesswoman or a wife and mother”. This tropes of comparison are utilized to demonstrate that feminist notions are alien to Russia and those gender inequalities are largely a foreign discourse for female suppression, promoted in the West. However, Narochnitskaya contradicts herself when she later discusses the characteristics of men and women: “man is a will, spirit, honour, and ability to make decisions … And in this, I am convinced, women are objectively inferior to men – it is more difficult for a woman to make decisions, to separate the main from the secondary”. She gives Catherine II as an example of the ability to combine effective decisionmaking with sensible situational assessment, which is viewed as possible yet rather exceptional for a female. The characteristics selected by the Club to describe women are similar to those used by the ESM: “beautiful”, “kind”, and “affectionate”, but also “strong and resilient”. The ideal woman is epitomized by a connection to literature and to “Turgenev’s girls”, who are devoted to “duty, honesty, and [are] ready to share everything with a man”. The “Tyrgenev’s girl” or the female characters as depicted by the author Ivan Turgenev not only represents higher ideals or values in Russian literature but is also a psychological archetype rejecting the traditional role of a woman in society to search for a hero and the highest truth of existence, ready for self-sacrifice (Vasilyev, 2014). A constructive discursive strategy is applied by Narochnitskaya with topoi of lovely, idealistic characters and special elements from Russian culture such as nature, traditions, and customs. The Club has the largest body of materials devoted to negotiating the role of women in the Russian national identity; these were published in a variety of sources such as Russian Strategies journals, articles, and interviews with key members, and other publications. As stated in the “About the Club” description on the website (2020), the Club is deeply invested in developing a multi-layered platform for social conservatism and establishing a new agenda in the Russian media on the “ideological and moral decline of the liberal community”. Women’s roles are situated within this larger discourse in which feminism, abortion, reproductive rights, and frivolous sexual relations are seen as harmful to Russian culture as well as a danger to its demographic reproduction. Females are seen as the biological reproducers of the nation and are relativized towards the image of a man. The West and liberal Europe are portrayed as the external others of the Russian self. Gender inequality and the opposition of the two sexes are largely seen as a hegemonic discourse that is imposed by

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the West and is alien to Russian realities. One distinctive theme in the Club’s discourse is the conceptualization of Russian women in terms of strength and resilience. These conceptualizations relate to women’s roles as participants in military struggles, political processes, and key historical nodal points. Women are discussed as being equal to men but with different characteristics and roles. Unlike the ESM, the Club portrays females as active participants in national, military, or historical struggles by linking them to several strong-willed heroines from Russian folk culture, literature, and WWII history.

The RNU and the RIM: Women Largely Absent or Simply Actors Contributing to the Increase of Fertility Rates Both the RNU and the RIM are on the extreme, far-right end of the spectrum of Russian nationalist entities. Women are largely absent from their discursive formations. Both organizations only mention women as biological reproducers of the nation when discussing larger demographic issues and population decline. Unlike the ESM or the Izborskii Club, the RNU and the RIM relate the role of females to the preservation and multiplication of the ethnic nation. Across three blog posts, the RNU discusses the insufficient “number of children on average per one woman” and “fertility rates”, while mentioning women’s “reproductive behaviour and refusal to bear children” concluding that they “give birth less often”. Women are described in passive voice. The RNU expresses anti-governmental standpoints across a variety of its posts and presents WWII, the 1990s, and “a third failure now” as discursive temporal productions of a national crisis that is negatively affecting the demography of the titular, ethnic nation seen as a “Putin’s failed national project”. Unlike the ESM and the Izborskii Club, the RNU adopts a critical stance towards the government and uses discursive strategies of dismantling, with a crisis topos in which internal constraints are leading the nation towards “extinction”. The blogs published by the RIM contain similar themes and discursive dismantling strategies, which aim at disparaging the existing national identity. Crisis topoi, an alarmist tone, and a sense of danger are communicated to outline a “crisis in the Russian family” and a “lack of will to multiply”, along with terms such as “debauchery” and “infanticide” (referring to abortion rights). More extreme formulations appear

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in the promotion of a brochure published by the RIM titled “Don’t kill”. Negative language and religious references are utilized to outline the breakdown of moral codes. Contemporary societal processes are portrayed in sharp black-and-white contrast, with a topos of disaster outlining a crisis in Russian society marked by poverty, individualism, and substance abuse. The RNU also applies religious representations when portraying women as virtuous. They describe the Russian Orthodox Church’s celebration of women Myrrhbearers. The RNU applies the Orthodox Christian element from the New Testament where female Myrrhbearers are involved with Jesus’ burial and discovering his resurrection. They are depicted by the RNU as an ideal of the “true merits of women”, such as “sacrificial love, modesty, humility, long-suffering … true female virtues”. Women are caregivers in a subordinate position. A similar discursive topos of comparison and disaster is used to construct an image of a contemporary-era fallacy in which these values are seen as outdated and substituted by “stupidity and impracticality”. In historical terms, female emancipation is elaborated by the RNU as an external process that began in the Middle Ages when women “abandoned their family responsibilities, children and husbands” and joined Catholic monasteries. Interestingly, the RNU refers to the Catholic Church and Papal hierarchy as a promoter of the processes of separating women from family duties. The East–West schism and the antagonistic relations between Catholicism and Orthodoxy are constructed through the role of women. An identical idea is observed in the RNU and the Izborskii Club: emancipation or feminism is seen as a risk to family values and demographics. Unlike the ESM or the Izborskii Club, the RIM uses a different reasoning to understand the current state of affairs. It operationalizes historical nodal points from the Soviet period and blames Communism for the emergence of “feminism, godlessness and struggle in traditional family values”. The RIM portrays the socialist past in negative terms and blames it for establishing atheism, female emancipation, and internationalism—all of which are seen as reasons for the current “deviation from Orthodoxy” and the degradation of the ethnic body of the titular nation. Soviet and post-Soviet elites are blamed in blog posts for the Chechen wars and the death of ethnic Russians. These paradigms relate to Russian identity notions that are promoted by the RIM in which the Russian nation has an ethnic character, the imperial past is glorified and Orthodoxy is used as a key identity pillar.

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Unlike the ESM, which views the state as Mother Eurasia, the RIM sees the state as a masculine figure—the Fatherland. As a monarchistnationalist organization, the RIM often mentions the Romanov family and its members under the motto “For Faith, Tsar and Fatherland”. The RIM’s iconography, merchandise, and articles mainly represent Nicolas II, Prince Alexei, Alexander II, and Nicolas I. Catherine II and Elizaveta Petrovna also appear in the RIM’s merchandise but are less visible in the blogs. Women are not discussed in the programme, manifesto, or conceptualizations of RNU or RIM. They lack agency and involvement in societal, political, and national processes. However, in other texts, the RIM views Russia as a “long-suffering, earthly Motherland, Mother Russia”. The state as a Mother is employed when the country is portrayed as struggling, suffering, and needing protection, whereas the term “Fatherland” projects power and strength. Women are portrayed as weaker, requiring protection, and fragile, while males epitomise strength, resilience, and perseverance. Similar framing is communicated by the RNU, which also portrays the state as a male figure. The RNU, whose members wear black uniforms, describes the symbolism behind its choice of colour as being associated with the black robes of “warrior monks”, the “allegiance to the Fatherland”, and the “rejection of vanity and commercialization”. Female figures are not mentioned in the RNU’s descriptions of a “heroic military tradition”, and female uniforms or visuals are not available. Women are absent in the digital representations of the organization. Thus, it can be said that extreme, far-right organizations remain highly masculine spaces in which females are largely absent or excluded. Women’s agency is mainly narrowed down to the role of passive biological reproducers, and women are portrayed as displaying subordinate traits.

Impact of Organizational Membership on Discursive Manifestations Before concluding, it is important to reflect on how organizational membership and female participation affect the discursive manifestations of women’s roles in nation-building processes among the four groups studied. There was no published data on the number of male and female members in each organization. The website of the Izborskii Club lists all its key members and organizational leaders. The leadership of the Club included only two key female figures (out of 59 listed)—namely,

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Natalya Narochnitskaya and Elena Larina (data from 2020–2021). The ESM displayed a slightly larger number of female members on its digital channels, but the main figures and visuals still revolved around key male figures. Finally, the far-right organizations remain male-dominated networks in which females are largely absent. Ethical considerations limit the analysis of the social media participation of individual community members. However, all four organizations display a predominantly male membership, and the discursive constructions discussed above might be affected by male-dominated views and participation.

Conclusion Women’s roles and imageries are key in the discursive construction of the Russian national identity. The digital media communications, visuals, and discourses of four nationalist groups (Izborskii Club, ESM, RIM, and RNU) are assessed. Repeating themes across all four organizations include the role of women as biological reproducers of the nation and the need for demographic change through increasing birth rates. The ESM views women as passive participants in the “conservative revolution” and the establishment of the Third Russia—not only through childbirth but also through the provision of higher ideals and behavioural codes. The Izborskii Club has more multi-layered and complex notions when constructing the function of women in nation-building processes. The Club portrays women as active participants in the military, in national struggles such as WWII, the war in Ukraine, and the labour force. Women are not only seen as beautiful, fragile, and feminine but also as resilient and self-sufficient. Both the ESM and the Izborskii Club depict the West as the external other of the Russian national self. The organizations use transformative discursive strategies of national identity construction in which the dark period of the 1990s and early 2000s is substituted by a new, moral, and civilizational function of the state crucial for the preservation of traditional family units. While the ESM, RNU, and RIM view women as secondary or absent from national and military struggles, the Izborskii Club portrays women as playing an active part in historical struggles and processes. Lastly, the far-right RIM and the RNU have more masculine notions of a Russian national identity in which women are largely absent or are referred to only through their passive functions of reproduction and fertility. These organizations are heavily invested in more extreme

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anti-abortion stands, religious morality claims, Orthodoxy, and polarized language. Unlike the ESM and the Izborskii Club, the RNU and the RIM identify internal others such as current political elites, kleptocracy, corruption, national minorities, the Soviet past in terms of the decline in family values, birth rates, and Orthodoxy. This chapter illustrates that more extreme, far-right, ethno-nationalist organizations marginalize women as holding a subordinate position in national identity construction through their reproductive and caregiving roles for the nation. Civilizationist and conservative nationalist circles develop more elaborate and multi-layered discourses of women in which Russia is viewed as being superior to Western and European cultures due to the special position of women combining both maternal and societal roles forming a messianic identity of the state and nation.

Notes 1. The image is available on the website of the ESM. 2. The literal translation of the Russian word impepoctpoiteli is “empire builders”. 3. Natalya Narochnitskaya is a key member of the Club, a promoter of political Orthodoxy, and a broker between grassroot movements and state institutions (Laruelle, 2019).

References Alekseev, V. V. (2015). The Russian Idea: From Messianism to Pragmatism. Russian Social Science Review, 56(3), 2–17. https://doi.org/10.1080/106 11428.2015.1070624 Allensworth, W. (2009). Dugin and the Eurasian Controversy: Is Eurasianism “patriotic”? In M. Laruelle (Ed.), Russian Nationalism and the National Reassertion of Russia (pp. 104–123). Routledge Publishing. Anderson, B. (2006). Imagined Communities: Reflection on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. Verso Publishing. Arbatova, N. (2019). Three Faces of Russia’s Neo-Eurasianism. Survival, 61(6), 7–24. https://doi.org/10.1080/00396338.2019.1688562 Attwood, L., & Isupova, O. (2018). ‘To Give Birth or Not to Give Birth?’: Having Children in Soviet and Post-Soviet Russia. In M. Ilic (Ed.), The Palgrave Handbook of Women and Gender in Twentieth-Century Russia and the Soviet Union (pp. 413–429). Macmillan Publishers Ltd.

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Bassin, M., & Pozo, G. (2017). The Politics of Eurasianism: Identity, Popular Culture, and Russia’s Foreign Policy. Rowman & Littlefield International, Ltd. Curanovi´c, A. (2019). Conventional Wisdom and Contemporary Russian Messianism. A Critical Verification. MGIMO Review of International Relations, 1(64), 28–44. https://doi.org/10.24833/2071-8160-2019-1-6428-44 Diec, J. (2020). Russian Pan-Slavism and its concept of Europe. In L’Europa dei nazionalisti: Prospettive storiche (pp. 113–124). FrancoAngeli. Dogangun, G. (2020). Gender Climate in Authoritarian Politics: A Comparative Study of Russia and Turkey, Politics and Gender. Special Symposium on Women’s Parties, 16(1), 258–284. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1743923X180 00788 Engström, M. (2014). Contemporary Russian Messianism and New Russian Foreign Policy. Contemporary Security Policy, 35(3), 356–379. https://doi. org/10.1080/13523260.2014.965888 Foucault, M. (1968). The Archaelogy of Knowledge. Editions Gallimard. Jackson, W. (1999). Fascism, Vigilantism, and the State: The Russian National Unity Movement. Problems of Post-Communism, 46(1), 34–42. https://doi. org/10.1080/10758216.1999.11655819 Hall, S. (1992). The Question of Cultural Identity. In S. Hall, et al. (Eds.), Modernity and Its Futures. Polity Press. Hall, S. (ed.). (1996). Questions of Cultural Identity. Sage. Hall, S. (1997). Representation: Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices. Sage. Hall, S. (2013) The Work of Representation. In Hall, S. et al. (Eds.) Representation (2nd ed.). Sage. Holzer, J., Laryš, M., & Mareš, M. (2019). Militant Right-Wing Extremism in Putin’s Russia: Legacies, Forms, and Threats. Routledge Publishing. Kalinin, K. (2019). Neo-Eurasianism and the Russian Elite: The Irrelevance of Aleksandr Dugin’s Geopolitics. Post-Soviet Affairs, 35(5–6), 461–470. https://doi.org/10.1080/1060586X.2019.1663050 Kay, R. (1997). Images of an Ideal Woman: Perceptions of Russian Womanhood Through Media, Education, and Women’s Own Eyes. In M. Buckley (Ed.), Post-Soviet Women from the Baltic to Central Asia (pp. 77–99). Cambridge University Press. Laruelle, M. (2004). The Two Faces of Contemporary Eurasianism: An Imperial Version of Russian Nationalism. Nationalities Paper, 30(1), 115–136. https://doi.org/10.1080/0090599042000186197 Laruelle, M. (2016a). The Three Colors of Novorossiya, or the Russian Nationalist Mythmaking of the Ukrainian Crisis. Post-Soviet Affairs, 32(1), 55–74. https://doi.org/10.1080/1060586X.2015.1023004

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Laruelle, M. (2016b). The Izborsky Club, or the New Conservative Avant-Garde in Russia. The Russian Review, 75, 626–644. https://doi.org/10.1111/russ. 12106 Laruelle, M. (2019). Russian Nationalism: Imaginaries, Doctrines, and Political Battlefields. Routledge Publishing. Laruelle, M. (2021). Is Russia Fascist? Unraveling Propaganda East and West. Cornell University Press. Morozova, N. (2009). Geopolitics, Eurasianism and Russian Foreign Policy Under Putin. Geopolitics, 14(4), 667–686. https://doi.org/10.1080/146500 40903141349 Ozkirimli, U. (2017). Theories of Nationalism: A Critical Introduction (3rd ed.). Palgrave Macmillan. Porteous, H. (2018). A Woman Isn’t a Woman When She’s Not Concerned About the Way She Looks’: Beauty Labour and Femininity in Post-Soviet Russia. In M. Ilic (Ed.), The Palgrave Handbook of Women and Gender in Twentieth-Century Russia and the Soviet Union (pp. 413–429). Macmillan Publishers Ltd. Riabov, O. (2020). The Symbol of the Motherland in the Legitimation and Delegitimation of Power in Contemporary Russia. Nationalities Papers, 48(4), 752–767. https://doi.org/10.1017/nps.2019.14 Riabov, O., & Riabova, T. (2014). The Remasculinization of Russia? Gender, Nationalism, and the Legitimation of Power Under Vladimir Putin. Problems of Post-Communism, 61(2), 23–35. https://doi.org/10.2753/PPC1075-821 6610202 Riabova, T. (2020). “Clash of Masculinities”? Gendering Russian-Western Relations in Popular Geopolitics. In K. Mjør & S. Turoma (Eds.), Russia as Civilization: Ideological Discourses in Politics, Media, and Academia. Routledge. Rotkirch, A., Temkina, T., & Zdravomyslova, E. (2007). Who Helps the Degraded Housewife? Comments on Vladimir Putin’s Demographic Speech. European Journal of Women’s Studies, 14(4), 349–357. https://doi.org/10. 1177/1350506807081884 Sokolov, M. (2008). Russian National Unity: An Analysis of the Political Style of a Radical-Nationalist Organization. Russian Politics & Law, 46(4), 66–79. https://doi.org/10.2753/RUP1061-1940460404 Thomson, J. (2020). Gender and Nationalism. Nationalities Papers, 48(1), 3–11. https://doi.org/10.1017/nps.2019.98 Tsygankov, A. (2016). Uses of Eurasia: The Kremlin, the Eurasian Union, and the Izborsky Club. In M. Suslov & M. Bassin (Eds.), Eurasia 2.0: Russian Geopolitics in the Age of New Media (pp. 63–81). Lexington Books.

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Vasilyev, V. (2014). On the Semantics of the “Turgenev’s Girl” Psychotype. Journal of Siberian Federal University. Humanities & Social Sciences, 7 , 757–764. Wodak, R., et al. (2009). Discursive Construction of National Identity (2nd ed.). Edinburgh University Press. Yuval-Davis, N., & Anthias, F. (1989). Woman-Nation-State. Palgrave Macmillan. Yuval-Davis, N., et al. (1997). Gender and Nation. Sage.

Female Parliamentarians in Armenia: From Traditional Theme-Takers to the New Theme-Givers? Ani Grigoryan

Abstract In 2018, the socio-political landscape in Armenia was shaken by what is now internationally known as the ‘Velvet Revolution’. The revolution stressed the importance of respecting human rights, including women’s rights, and the significance of human rights in establishing a strong, democratic society. This chapter outlines the pattern of women’s participation in the Seventh Convocation at the National Assembly of Armenia elected in the aftermath of the Velvet Revolution in 2018. More particularly, I demonstrate the dynamic transformation of women who were traditionally seen as theme-takers to becoming theme-givers. It is important to underline that this change is related also to the shifting perceptions of women’s traditional roles in society in the aftermath of the revolution. The chapter further explores how women’s involvement in the legislative branch of power has been bridging traditional perceptions and the new discourse of more empowered women that characterizes postrevolutionary Armenian society. This change is particularly reflected in the

A. Grigoryan (B) Department of Political Processes and Institutes, National Academy of Sciences, Yerevan, Armenia e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 A.-M. Sätre et al. (eds.), Post-Soviet Women, Sustainable Development Goals Series, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-38066-2_9

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increasing number of women in legislative, decision-making and executive bodies. Literature suggests that gender quota legislation is ‘a response to demands from the outside’ that is not intended to make a real difference. With the help of discourse analysis, I explore legislative bills and laws pushed forward by women and accepted by the National Assembly of the Seventh Convocation. The analysis addresses the following research questions: (1) the main thematic fields women feel more empowered to act in (2) the extent to which women’s issues are central to the women parliamentarians and finally (3) the degree of confidence with which women parliamentarians act irrespective of the gender roles ascribed to them by society and conservative norms.

Introduction In 2018, the socio-political landscape in Armenia was shaken by what is now internationally known as the ‘Velvet Revolution’.1 The revolution stressed the importance of respecting human rights, including women’s rights, and the significance of human rights in establishing a strong, democratic society.2 The peaceful protests during the revolution were characterized by a high level of women’s participation.3 On the one hand, the revolution was a realization of women’s rights as citizens; on the other, it clearly demonstrated women’s strong will to play a role in decision-making regarding the future of the country. Thus, the power of women, which was effectively revealed during the protests, could serve as a driving force in reforming the very foundations of state- and nationbuilding in Armenia. This would be well within the spirit of Armenian history, as women successfully took part in not only the parliament but also the diplomatic service of Armenia’s short-lived first republic in 1919– 1920.4 Therefore, it is of great interest to study how perceptions of gender roles have altered in the aftermath of the Velvet Revolution, which promised a new paradigm of state-society-individual interaction, as declared by the Prime Minister.5 This chapter examines women parliamentarians’ activity during the Seventh Convocation of the National Assembly of Armenia elected in the aftermath of the Velvet Revolution in 2018. I demonstrate the dynamic transformation that occurred in the role of women who were traditionally regarded as ‘theme-takers’ and are now successively becoming ‘theme-givers’ (Budryte, ˙ 2010). Women have often been ascribed more traditional roles in Armenian society, partly conditioned by an ‘oriental’

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influence and partly by the Soviet history of the republic. Particularly persistent, in my view, is the ‘working mother’ image inherited from Soviet society. Despite expectations that the latter image relates women with the labour market and gives them power to produce societal change, in Armenia women are traditionally perceived as theme-takers—that is, as playing an insignificant role as citizens but a dominant role as mothers and wives (Buckley, 1981; Erh-Soon, 1997). Nevertheless, there has been a slow shift in Armenian society, from a collectivist identity, in which family is of utmost value, to a more individualist perception, in which the assertive woman model is pushed forward. Thus, the revolution was a strong trigger for women to become theme-givers—that is, more self-assertive citizens that can push forward their agenda and bring about positive changes that form the foundations of sustainable social development. This chapter discusses the shifting perceptions of women’s traditional roles in society6 in the aftermath of the Velvet Revolution in Armenia. It further explores how women’s involvement in the legislative branch of power has bridged the gap between traditional perceptions and the new discourse of more empowered women. The chapter aims to shed light on legislative initiatives by women parliamentarians. I identify women’s participation in the legislation and the differences between men’s and women’s participation patterns; I also discuss the important challenges women face in their legislative activity. This focus on the legislative aspect of women’s political engagement is heavily conditioned by the fact that Armenia is a parliamentary democracy, which entails that government and legislation are dependent on representation in parliament (AustenSmith & Banks, 1988; Baron & Diermeier, 2001); therefore, those elected to parliament are empowered to bring about changes. Research Questions An important conclusion of this chapter is that, in comparison with the near past, a larger number of legislative processes after the revolution have been initiated by women. This has added new elements to the agenda of the newly formed parliament, with a focus on human rights and liberties. This research seeks to provide answers to the following questions: 1. What main thematic fields are female parliamentarians most enthusiastic to push forward?

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2. As Åsa Regnér, a top representative of UN Women, tells in an interview, only 20–30 years ago, in order to be accepted as politicians, women had to hide their interest in women’s rights.7 So, I investigate whether female parliamentarians in Armenia publicly announce that they are representing women’s issues and how they justify this. Women’s issue here should be understood as traditional areas of activity, such as care provision (Carroll, 1994, p. 15). Research shows that although women’s issues may fall within the sphere of female parliamentarians’ activities, they still remain critically marginal (Tremblay, 1998). Therefore, the chapter aims at demonstrating to what extent women represent women at the parliament. 3. How are gender equality and women’s rights reflected in women’s legislative behaviour?

Data To address these research questions, I collected data on the legislative initiatives pushed forward by women parliamentarians of the Seventh Convocation (2019–2020). This data includes draft laws and amendments to existing laws. I analyzed the data by applying content analysis in order to reveal the main tendencies of women’s legislative initiatives. The second set of data consists of recorded interviews and briefings. This data mostly provides information about the main areas female parliamentarians have engaged with.

The Gender Gap Increasing women’s participation in politics and granting them a wide array of political liberties is essential to democratic development. Thus, many emerging democracies claim that they create opportunities for bettering women’s political engagement. Statistical data, however, demonstrates that women’s political presence and participation remain quite low worldwide. The Global Gender Gap (GGG) Index measures the extent of gender-based gaps within four key dimensions:

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1. Political empowerment: This dimension rates the presence of women across parliament and ministries, and women as heads of state. 2. Economic participation and opportunity: This dimension rates women’s equal participation in the labour market, financial disparity, access to credit, economic entrepreneurship, disproportionate distribution of child care and household maintenance work. 3. Educational attainment: This dimension rates gender parity in access to and conditions to receive education. 4. Health and survival: This dimension rates equal access to genderspecific healthcare and parity in life expectancy. The GGG Index has tracked progress over time towards closing these gaps since 2006.8 The index scale ranges from 0 to 1, where a rating of 1 means that there is no gender gap. The empowerment score for Armenian women was 0.1189 in 2020; in comparison, it was assessed at 0.099 (and ‘below average’)10 in 2018. Thus, the GGG Index demonstrates only slightly positive dynamics for Armenian women in recent years. Of the 156 countries included in the 2020 GGG Report, Armenia ranks 98th; among the 26 Eastern European and Central Asian countries, it has the third lowest score, with only Hungary and Tajikistan ranking worse than Armenia. On a national level, the gender gaps in the spheres of Economic Participation (0.673) and Educational Attainment (0.998) are the lowest.11 In Educational Attainment, Armenia ranks relatively high at 45th, with a score of 1 in enrolment in secondary and tertiary education, and a score close to 1 in literacy and primary education. In particular, Armenian women have higher attainment than Armenian men in education in the arts and humanities, education, and health and welfare, and come close to men in education in social science, journalism and information, natural sciences, mathematics and statistics. Considerably, fewer women than men attain education in agriculture, forestry and veterinary science; business, administration and law; and engineering, manufacturing and construction. Moreover, only half as many Armenian women have a PhD in comparison with Armenian men. This statistic is of key importance in interpreting women’s Economic Participation index. What is not discussed in the GGG Index Report, but can help interpret the narrow gap between women and men in education and economic participation without overlooking existing inequalities, is that some of the most

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common female occupations, such as teaching, remain among the most underpaid spheres of activity and are therefore less attractive to men. Thus, the unequal salaries of different jobs and the association of particular jobs with gender roles intersect in complex ways to create unequal opportunities and expectations for men and women in their education, career choices and economic wellbeing. Women’s economic equality is further brought into question by the report’s contextual data, which shows that—even though women participate in the Armenian labour force on an equal basis with men—the number of women working part-time jobs is double the number of men in part-time jobs, while the percentages of women founders and managers of companies are respectively 15% and 19%, against 86% and 81% for men. This analysis can perhaps explain why irrespective of the dominance of the Soviet image of ‘working mother’ in present Armenia, women are still mostly perceived as subjugated citizens and attributed the role of theme-takers instead of theme-givers in society. In the sphere of Political Empowerment, Armenia ranks 114th, with 0 years of women in the presidential position, a 0.076 index for women in ministerial positions and a 0.32 index for women in parliament. Gender gaps are small across all countries in terms of Educational Attainment (above 94%) and Health and Survival, with all but three countries (Albania, Armenia and Azerbaijan) having closed at least 97% of the gap. Due to limited space, the sphere of Health and Survival is left out of this study. Table 1 shows the dynamics of female representation in the Armenian National Assembly since Armenia’s independence in 1991: the most recent Seventh Convocation had the highest degree of female participation, with 31 out of 132 participants (23.5%) being women.12 Hence, in the aftermath of the 2018 elections, we have witnessed a rise in the number of women being elected into parliament. For women to be elected to parliament, they must be nominated by a political party as either a member or a representative of a party. The process of nominating and confirming candidacies lacks transparency, as is often the case in mature democracies as well (Bjarnegård & Zetterberg, 2019). Moreover, it is quite difficult to identify general patterns among women nominations, as the professional background of the women that eventually enter parliament varies significantly, ranging from journalism to science. Some female parliamentarians are well known to the public for their careers, while others’ professional achievements are quite modest.

1

1

2 2 6 5 14

1 7 3

2 1

1

1995 1999 2003 2007 2012 2017 2018

1 1 2 7 7

Republic Republican Prosperous ‘My Civil Bright Heritage Faction Party Armenia Step’ Contract Armenia Faction Party Party/ Party Party Faction

Factions/ parties → Years of parliamentary elections ↓

1 2

1 1 3

Armenian Armenian National RevoluCongress tionary Faction Federation Party

Women elected to parliament in Armenia, 1995–2018

Table 1

1 2 1 1

1

7

3 2

2 1 2 1

Armenian Rule United Shamiram NonPeople’s of Labour Party party Party Law Party Party

10 4 7 11 13 19 31

Total number of women parliamentarians

190 131 131 131 131 105 132

Total number of seats

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The slowly changing gender ratio of parliamentary representation in Armenia is a consequence of a greater and more conscious recognition of the need for gender equality in Armenia, which is due to a higher level of educated population, globalization and wider access to information. In the aftermath of the revolution, political elites needed to show their commitment to democratic values—and to women’s rights in particular—if they wanted to receive broad support from their nation and internationally. Various international organizations have played a significant role in this shift by continuously advocating for human rights in Armenia, in line with the UN’s Millennium Development Goals. The Goals identify women’s equal participation in political power and decision-making as a fundamental right at the core of gender equality and women’s political empowerment.13

Theoretical Background Anne Phillips’ (1998) ground-breaking work The Politics of Presence focuses on socially disadvantaged groups and the problems they experience in political representation. Phillips shows how established practices of political representation reproduce the exclusion of marginalized ethnic and gender groups, even in cases when initiatives are allegedly in place to integrate these groups in society: These divisions may themselves be intransigent, but at least they cut across those other axes of division by race or gender or ethnicity, and thereby help secure alliances across different groups. Men can join forces with women to promote policies of sexual equality; white people can join forces with black people to end or eradicate racial discrimination; Catholics can join forces with Muslims to secure conditions for religious toleration. (Phillips, 1998, pp. 22–23)

Phillips also argues that, while cross-group cooperation is of great importance, it is crucial for group identity to be preserved: ‘otherwise increased weight to social identities may block the very alliances that are necessary for change’ (Phillips, 1998, p. 23). Cooperation among—rather than contestation between—groups marked by gender or other signs (e.g. ethnicity, religion) promotes pluralism and generates policies that are balanced, comprehensive and integrative instead of exclusive. Therefore, having increased female representation in elected bodies does not

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merely imply an acknowledgement of women’s rights; it can also lead to improved laws and more efficient procedures for the implementation of these laws. This insight is central to the analysis in this chapter. According to Phillips, a fundamental step by which to increase the political representation of women has been women’s participation— not only as voters but also as elected politicians and parliamentarians. However, as I demonstrate above, women’s participation in state politics and decision-making remains low worldwide. In order to address this tendency, many states have introduced gender quotas (Htun & Jones, 2002), which are designed to ensure that a higher number of women achieve advanced positions in elected bodies. To summarize, gender quotas are assumed to empower women citizens by pushing for a greater number of assertive and politically active female decision-makers (Dahlerup, 2007; Tripp & Kang, 2008). A growing body of empirical data suggests that gender quotas have in fact increased ‘the self-esteem, confidence and motivation of women in general’ (Nanivadekar, 2006, p. 124) and have led ‘to a shift in the political engagement of female constituents’ (Childs & Krook, 2006, p. 111). However, some scholars express doubts regarding whether legislative quotas actually bring about pluralism and promote women’s empowerment, and are concerned that many people perceive quotas ‘as a response to demands from the outside but that is not intended to make real difference’ (Dahlerup, 2006, p. 12). As a backlash effect of gender quotas, some people question female lawmakers’ competence and qualifications to cope with the challenges imposed on them (Zetterberg, 2008). To avoid this and other negative stereotypical expectations, women politicians and parliamentarians seem hesitant to associate themselves with feminist interests (Franceschet & Piscopo, 2008; Rincker, 2009). Such criticisms significantly affect how women position themselves as decisionmakers and in what areas they decide to be active. They also make women in the political arena more conformist and thus significantly reduce these women’s opportunities to become proponents of gender equality and, consequently, theme-givers instead of theme-takers. How, then, should we understand political representation? Does representation refer to the mere presence of women in a legislative body or does it require such women to undertake certain actions—even deliberate ones? According to the political theorist Hanna Pitkin, true representation can be said to occur only when one’s actions, opinions or both correspond to anyone’s wishes, needs or interests. In order to represent, one should

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include in one’s wishes’ the needs and interests of those for whom one acts, and be able to put oneself in their place, take their part, act as they would act’ (Pitkin, 1967, p. 114). Then, to what extent does an increased political representation of women contribute to women empowerment in general? Do political women act for all women, for a particular group of women, or for themselves (Pitkin, 1967)?’. Some scholars suggest that the representation of women can be evaluated on the basis of parliaments’ engagement with women’s issues. Manon Tremblay provides a thorough definition of what women’s issues are by incorporating earlier ideas (Tremblay, 1998). In doing so, she follows Susan Carroll, who considers women’s issues to be areas that can impact a significantly larger number of women than men. In Carroll’s view, such areas are mostly linked to social policies and do not necessarily represent or coincide with feminist ideas and values (Carroll, 1994). Tremblay then reiterates Debra Dodson and Susan Carroll’s suggestion that women’s issues include both women’s rights—which can be close to feminist ideals—and more traditional areas of women’s activities, such as family and care (Dodson & Carroll, 1991). Earlier, Michelle SaintGermain elaborates those women’s issues related to feminism as feminist activism (e.g. pay equity, violence against women and free choice in matters of reproduction), while depicting women’s traditional interests as encompassing those issues that have traditionally been seen as being of interest to women (e.g. family and children, education, health and welfare) (Saint-Germain, 1989). In her ground-breaking study, ‘How women legislate’, Sue Thomas (1994) uses a three-stage model to explore female politicians’ behaviour. First, she examines the sociological characteristics of women in office, as compared with those of their male counterparts, including their educational and occupational backgrounds. Second, Thomas considers women’s attitudes concerning their political roles and the issues they work on. Third, she assesses the impact that women have on the overall political realm. This third stage of exploration is particularly relevant for the present chapter, as I aim to evaluate the impact that female politicians have on the politics of women and gender equality in Armenia (Thomas, 1994, p. 4). The existing research suggests that women’s representation can have a positive effect on internal politics (Atkeson, 2003) in terms of finding solutions to challenges in external politics (Atkeson & Carrillo, 2007) and in the legislature (Schwindt-Bayer & Mishler, 2005). A considerable amount of research argues for the benefit

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of women’s representation in policymaking and legislature, especially regarding empowering women and fighting the masculine bias of legislative organizations (O’Brien & Piscopo, 2019). Finally, in the Beijing Platform for Action (1995), more than 180 governments agreed that ‘Women’s empowerment and their full participation on the basis of equality in all spheres of society, including participation in the decisionmaking process and access to power, are fundamental for the achievement of equality, development and peace’.14

An Overview of women’s Participation in Armenia’s Branch of Government To understand the degree and impact of women’s political participation, a certain amount of contextualization is needed. In post-Soviet Armenia, democratic transformation is not necessarily interpreted by everyone in terms of the exercise of women’s rights. The drafts of new laws, which I discuss below, are indicative of this. While discussing Soviet ideology and its representation of women, Yaroshenko suggests that the dominant perceptions of female roles in the post-Soviet space are largely shaped by the Soviet portrayal of women as standing for love, care and family in society (Yaroshenko, 2002). It was only at the end of the 1970s that a small number of dissidents in the Soviet Union began to question this model by seeking liberation from the oppression of patriarchy under the label of ‘love and care for the family’ (Ayvazova, 1995). The early 1990s were a period of political mobilization, as the Soviet state officially promoted civil society (Temkina & Rotkirch, 1996). Gender inequalities such as occupational discrimination, the exclusion of women from decision-making processes and institutions, and lower payment for jobs predominantly occupied by women were exposed and discussed in the political field. However, it is important to note that—while this happened simultaneously with perestroika in Russia in the late 1980s and early 1990s, for example—gender inequality came into political focus in Armenia no earlier than the early 2000s. During the post-Soviet transformation of Russia, analysts noticed the decline of popular political mobilization against gender inequality and discrimination, even referring to it as ‘demobilization’. Leading scholars in the field view the period of female mobilization in Russia as having more or less ended by 1995 (Temkina & Rotkirch, 1996). As part of mobilization, certain forms of women’s activities such as research and civil activism underwent a process

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of institutionalization through integration in pre-existing organizations such as academic faculties and governmental bodies (Zdravomyslova & Temkina, 2012). Some scholars even assert that during the subsequent ‘demobilization’ a fashion for patriarchate was recovering from the wrecks of socialist past (Ayvazova, 1995), as well as a ‘disregard of the conclusions of gender research in politics’ (Zdravomyslova & Temkina, 2012, pp. 43–44).15 The earliest legislation on quotas for women representatives in Armenia was adopted in 1999. It required that the list of candidates of each political party for the proportional representation election contain no less than 5% women. Even though later laws had different requirements, a small yet steady rise in the number of women elected to parliament was noticeable since 1999. Table 1 shows the number of women from each political party who were elected to parliament during the Seventh Convocation of independent Armenia. The table clearly shows that the dynamics are unstable. An important consideration for the following analysis is that most women entering parliament are normally from the ruling party. On this basis, we can guess, first, that the ruling parties are interested in demonstrating their political intentions to work for gender equality and do so in part by engaging more women in parliament. Second, we can guess that women who would not represent the ruling party if they were to arrive in parliament can expect to be more vulnerable and easily susceptible to criticism, and therefore prefer to refrain from becoming a member of the opposition in parliament. I had difficulty drawing any conclusions about women in the opposition party within parliament, as the topic has not been studied empirically to date. For example, seven women were elected (5.3%) in the 2003 elections, but one was designated as a cabinet minister, leaving six women in parliament (3.8%). In the subsequent parliamentary elections in 2007, the gender quota in the party lists was increased to 15% women, but none of the five women who contested seats in the first-past-the-post system were elected, while 12 women were elected under the proportional representation system. The current quota system was introduced in 2011 and was first applied in parliamentary elections in 2012. It introduced an improved ranking order requirement and thus helped to position women candidates evenly across candidate lists.

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The constitutional amendments adopted in a referendum in December 2015 decreased the Armenian Parliament from 131 to 101 members; together with a new electoral code, these changes came into force in July 2016. Up to four minority representatives can be elected to parliament. The gender quota was planned to be updated once again in 2021 to ensure that at least one of three members of parliament (33%) are women.16 The time limit of this study did not permit following up this process. An important factor in understanding the pattern of female representation in parliament is that Armenia shifted from being a semi-presidential system to a parliamentary republic due to amendments made to the Armenian Constitution in 2015. This move reinforced the position of the parliament in Armenia, transforming it into the country’s strongest decision-maker. One expected consequence of this shift is further empowerment of female politicians, along with parliament’s increased weight in the rule of the state. In the aftermath of the 2017 elections, female deputies from the previous parliament were automatically re-elected. However, the picture drastically changed in 2018. Since then, the new female deputies elected to parliament have predominantly been prior activists and civil society representatives. Moreover, the majority of female members of parliament (MPs) come from civil society and were formerly known as activists.17 They also appear to be educated predominantly in the West, and their age varies from 30 to 45. According to public opinion on social media, the majority of both female and male MPs were elected to parliament because they were followers of Prime Minister Pashinyan. They actively and assertively engage with legislative activity, which can be expected to have an impact on the resulting legislation of Armenia.

Women Parliamentarians in Standing Committees There are 11 standing committees that provide a preliminary review of draft laws and other issues under the jurisdiction of the National Assembly, as the Armenian Parliament is locally named. It is revealing that only one standing committee is chaired by a female MP, who represents the Prosperous Armenia Party.18 This party’s ideology does not significantly build on civil cohesion or gender equality; rather, it holds ideas that overlap with those of the European Conservative and Reformist Parties.19 The female MP referred to above serves as the chair of the Standing Committee on the Protection of Human Rights and Public

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Affairs; women (from the ‘My Step’ faction) also serve as the deputy chairs for the same standing committee and for the committee for State and Legal Affairs. The two standing committees with the greatest proportion of women participation represent areas of societal activity and life that are traditionally associated with female predominance, as discussed earlier in this chapter. For example, the Standing Committee on Health Care and Social Affairs and the Standing Committee on the Protection of Human Rights and Public Affairs share the top place for the highest proportion of women, with five female deputies in each. Interestingly, however, the second place is shared by the Standing Committee on Science, Education, Culture, Diaspora, Youth and Sport and the Standing Committee on State and Legal Affairs—areas that are not traditionally considered to be under the female purview—with four female deputies in each. In the two committees on Foreign Affairs and Economy, female representation is extremely small, while there is only one female MP in the Standing Committee on Defence and Security, whose professional background is in cybernetics and economic management.

Female MP Activities in Legislative Processes Since 2019, 165 laws have been accepted by the Armenian Parliament, 44 of which were initiated by female deputies.20 Notably, almost all of these 44 laws were co-authored with MPs from either the same faction or other factions. These laws regulate areas related to human rights, especially regarding soldiers and officers; concern agriculture, taxes and the criminal codex; and address various administrative violations, among others. More specific examples include the introduction of anti-pandemic measures, the installation of a system of control over phones or the movement of citizens, and a law condemning Azerbaijani aggression against Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh), which was introduced in September 2020. Other examples include a law on organizing a referendum to approve amendments to the constitution and launching a process of renewing the constitutional court. However, this law was cancelled due to the emergency situation and lockdown resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic. Legislative initiatives of female MPs have also been made in regard to amendments to the Labour and Criminal Codex. Women MPs from the ruling faction have also initiated anticorruption measures and steps to strengthening the dialogue between decision-makers and civil society.

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Here, it is important to emphasize that women from the ruling party have even been able to complete a series of hearings on gender equality and on human—and particularly children’s—rights. This can perhaps be interpreted as a positive sign of female empowerment in the sphere of legislature and the formation of a women’s agenda in parliament. However, given the limited number of legal documents that have been issued, and within the general context of Armenia, I interpret this more as a continuity of the Velvet Revolution that puts forward fundamental human rights than as an outspoken feminist agenda. Another law that was initiated by a female representative and accepted immediately after the formation of the Seventh Convocation21 involved an investigation of the tragic events in February and March 2008,22 when a large number of protesters rallied in the centre of Yerevan and were brutally dispersed by security forces. This investigation was one of the promises made during the current ruling party’s election campaign. As revealed in this review of legislative initiatives with women participation, human rights and criminal justice seem to be the dominant areas of female activity in the Armenian Parliament. Hence, on the one hand, the increased representation of women in legislative activities does not seem to be making women’s issues more visible, regardless of the gender quotas. Moreover, even when they avoid public engagement with feminist activism and women’s rights, female parliamentarians are publicly criticized. This criticism reveals the general attitudes on gender roles in Armenian society and the extent to which politics fit into these understandings of women’s roles. On the other hand, as I show above, many initiatives by female MPs are indeed in the spirit of the Velvet Revolution and strive for the recognition of human rights and gender equality.

Conclusion This chapter describes the positive dynamics that occurred after the Velvet Revolution in women’s engagement in legislative processes in the Armenian Parliament. This development reflects a closer interaction between politicians and society, as social issues are taken into better consideration in state governance, and as the parliament represents better societal interests. At the same time, however, only some of the areas associated with traditional women’s issues—such as education and health—have been positively affected by the increase in women’s participation in parliament.

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This research demonstrates that an increasing number of female parliamentarians in Armenia do not focus on all spheres of women’s issues equally. For example, the intricacies of women’s involvement in the labour market—as discussed in this chapter in relation to the GGG Report—and improved conditions for female entrepreneurship have not been addressed by the Armenian Parliament as yet. The most optimistic finding of this chapter is that the vicious circle of women being seen only as theme-takers within the logic of a traditional paternalistic society has been broken in Armenia. Women parliamentarians do take initiative and push to address issues that they consider to be important for creating a more just society. However, this shift has not yet led to significant improvement in gender equality in Armenia. In setting their own agenda, women parliamentarians are constrained from addressing all women’s issues—particularly those issues that are associated with feminism. The analysis of women’s legislative behaviour provided here demonstrates women’s willingness to be theme-givers in society and to take the risk of putting up an agenda that addresses and seeks solutions for more sensitive issues related to women’s wellbeing, such as more equal salaries and the fair sharing of household care. This finding shows that the contemporary Armenian pattern of involving and stimulating women parliamentarians creates more visibility for women’s role and agency in society. The pattern works towards developing a new image of women as empowered risk-takers, who have an important role to play in building a pluralistic, democratic and sustainable society.

Notes 1. Why Armenia ‘Velvet Revolution’ Won Without a Bullet Fired; https:// www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-43948181. 2. Nikol Pashinyan: The Process of Building a Free and Happy Armenia Is Irreversible; https://www.primeminister.am/en/statements-and-mes sages/item/2018/05/25/Prime-Minister-Nikol-Pashinyan-attended-ses sion-of-the-Hayastan-Fund/. 3. What Has Changed After the Velvet Revolution, Heinrich Boell discussions (in Armenian); https://ge.boell.org/en/2019/05/17/inch-e-pok hvel-hayastanowm-tavshya-heghapokhowtyownits-heto. 4. Discussion, Women in Armenian Politics (in Armenian); http://www.ani arc.am/2020/07/29/text-and-video-martuni-event-29-july-ani-center/.

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5. Nikol Pashinyan: The Process of Building a Free and Happy Armenia Is Irreversible; https://www.primeminister.am/en/statements-and-mes sages/item/2018/05/25/Prime-Minister-Nikol-Pashinyan-attended-ses sion-of-the-Hayastan-Fund/. 6. Armenian Women Say They Belong in a Revolution Not the Kitchen; http://gtarchive.georgiatoday.ge/news/10056/Armenian-Women-SayThey-Belong-to-Revolution-Not-Kitchen. 7. Osa Regner o gendernom neravenstve, Inogda mne stydno za svoe pokolenie (in Russian);http://www.eedialog.org/ru/2020/08/ 21/inogda-mne-stydno-za-svojo-pokolenie-osa-regner-o-gendernomner avenstve/ 8. Global Gender Gap Report 2020 (the political empowerment score is 0–1, where 1 is the highest level of representation); http://www3.weforum. org/docs/WEF_GGGR_2020.pdf, p. 5. 9. Ibid., p. 13. 10. Global Gender Gap Report 2018; http://www3.weforum.org/docs/ WEF_GGGR_2018.pdf, p. 11. 11. Global Gender Gap Report 2020; http://www3.weforum.org/docs/ WEF_GGGR_2020.pdf, p. 12. 12. Members of the National Assembly of the Republic of Armenia, Seventh Convocation; http://parliament.am/deputies.php?lang=eng. 13. Promote Gender Equality and Empower Women, Millennium Development Goals; http://www.developmentgoals.org/Gender_Equality.htm. 14. Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, The Fourth World Conference on Women, 4–15 September 1995. https://www.un.org/en/eve nts/pastevents/pdfs/Beijing_Declaration_and_Platform_for_Action.pdf, p. 3. 15. As Temkina mentions (2003), in post-Soviet space, ‘gender’ is used as an umbrella term to predominantly denote women’s rights. It became an umbrella concept for a variety of interpretations of the relations between sexes. It is used as a synonym of ‘women’ or denotes the hierarchy between men and women, relations between the sexes, as well as complimentary roles of men and women (Gender Studies in Post-Soviet Society: Western Frames and Cultural Differences; Author(s): Anna Temkina and Elena Zdravomyslova; Source: Studies in East European Thought, Vol. 55, No. 1, Gender and Culture Theory in Russia Today [March 2003], pp. 51–61 Published by: Springer Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org, p. 56). 16. Gender Quotas Database; https://www.idea.int/data-tools/data/genderquotas/country-view/48/35. 17. The word in Armenian conveys quite negative connotations.

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18. She was eventually dismissed from this position; see Zohrabyan Dismissed as Parliamentary Committee Chair; Controversial Remarks Cited; https://hetq.am/en/article/125901. 19. Armenian Political Party Ideologies; https://political.am/storage/upl oads/files/arm_print.pdf, p. 28. 20. The List of Passed Laws; http://parliament.am/drafts.php?show_sess ion=7&seasonal_session=&AuthorType=2&sel=approved&show_committ ee=0. 21. Draft Law Concerning the Investigation of 1–2 March Events, 2008; http://parliament.am/draft_history.php?id=10407. 22. The Investigation of Events of 1 and 2 March 2008 in Armenia, in Particular the Exact Circumstances That Led to the Deaths; http://assembly.coe. int/nw/xml/XRef/Xref-XML2HTML-en.asp?fileid=12746&lang=en.

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Valkyries and Madonnas: Constructing Femininity During the Russo-Ukrainian War Kateryna Boyko

Abstract ‘We are the Kyiv Valkyries and we will send you all to hell’. This is how armed young women in camouflage from a female territorial defence unit video-addressed the Russian military in late February 2022. The rapid intensification of the Russo-Ukrainian War, ongoing since 2014, to a full-scale invasion, not only posed multiple new challenges for Ukrainian women but also became a moment of crisis that has led to rearticulating of the current femininity models. The chapter focuses on the visual representation of women’s war experience in Ukraine and the implications it had for Ukrainian women’s identity. In particular, it discusses how femininity is constructed through images disseminated via social media during the wartime and what cultural references have been applied, contested and rearticulated there. Semiotic analysis of the visuals shows that Ukrainian women are usually portrayed as a triad—three characters with different functions. First of all, the aggressive, militarist and simultaneously eroticised Valkyrie; then Madonna—a protective figure; third is the Witch—a chthonic entity with

K. Boyko (B) Institute for Russian and Eurasian Studies, Department of Informatics and Media, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 A.-M. Sätre et al. (eds.), Post-Soviet Women, Sustainable Development Goals Series, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-38066-2_10

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supernatural powers able to rule the fate. All the three roles merge in metaphoric visual depictions of Ukraine itself making women a symbol of Ukrainian resistance. The images tend to redefine traditional female roles and emphasise women’s agency and empowerment in the times of crisis. During the first days of the Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine, when the whole world was riveted to a screen, a peculiar series of videos were disseminated online. Young girls dressed in camouflage and equipped with AK-74 assault rifles addressed the Russian military in an intimidating way: ‘You are killing our women, children and elderly. Don’t count on mercy. We are going to kill you all!’ (Viina v Ukraini, 2022). These videos showed young women who joined Kyiv territorial defence units in late February 2022 (Chornomorska Teleradiokompaniia, 2022). The videos were probably made with a domestic audience in mind since almost all the women spoke Ukrainian. The content was immensely important for a nation experiencing an invasion of the world’s secondlargest army (Global Fire Power, 2022). It sent a message: if these seemingly fragile girls can take up weapons with the determination to fight without mercy, then the Ukrainian people are unbreakable. This chapter focuses on the visual representations of women’s war experience in Ukraine. It explores how femininity is constructed through recurring motifs in pictures, posters, paintings, memes, viral photos and murals. It also traces the cultural references that are applied, contested and rearticulated in the wartime mass art. The aim is to assist in understanding the symbolic meaning being ascribed to women in Ukraine during the Russo-Ukrainian War. The war has de facto lasted since the spring of 2014 when Russia annexed Crimea and Russian illegal paramilitaries captured parts of Donbas. However, since 24 February 2022, the scale of the humanitarian tragedy has become unprecedented, with more than seven million refugees spread across Europe (UNHCR, 2022) and millions of internally displaced people in Ukraine (IOM, 2022). The number of civilian casualties is counted in the thousands; multiple cases of atrocities against Ukrainian civilians have been documented, including rape, torture, deportation, shelling and starvation. This radically new situation has increased gender segregation between women and men in Ukraine. A woman can join the army or territorial defence, help as a volunteer or activist, or relocate with family within Ukraine or abroad (Martsenyuk, 2022). However, men have a strong

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social obligation to join the military. Moreover, due to general mobilisation, men cannot leave the country. Families thus face painful decisions regarding whether female and underage family members should search for refuge abroad or stay with their husbands and fathers. In this situation, women are expected to support their families both practically and emotionally: they organise the children’s education, work or search for new employment, acquire new occupations, handle bureaucracy and even learn new languages. Simultaneously, the new traumatic reality has boosted an unprecedented outburst of participatory culture (Boyko & Horbyk, 2022). Dozens of professional and amateur artists have come forth with hundreds of posters, paintings, murals, songs and artistic videos. Such wartime popular art, which is disseminated on social media, aims to mobilise society for resistance and encourage people to stay strong. It has helped Ukrainians to process collective and personal traumas, loss and pain, and to show that the whole country is united in resistance and mourning. Posters and leaflets are classic propaganda tools that were widely utilised during previous wars (Bonnell, 1998; Corbesero, 2010; Edele, 1999; Lopez, 2016; Szurminski ´ et al., 2022). They were also used during Euromaidan and the early phase of this war (Horbyk, 2017a, 2017b). However, unlike the propaganda during the World Wars, which was usually commissioned by state institutions and conveyed state-promoted discourses of femininity, the images discussed in this chapter are mostly decentralised grassroot initiatives by artists, most of whom are women. I argue that the perception of femininity in Ukraine has evolved during the war. Women in Ukraine are now being represented using features associated with both emphasised femininity and dominant masculinity: care, love, sacrifice, aggression and ruthlessness. Visual sources tend to present women in the roles of Valkyries, Madonnas and Witches, which are associated with the traditionally masculine functions of combat, protection and punishment. Ukrainian women have become a symbol of the resistance and an embodiment of Ukraine itself.

Notes on Methodology and Theory In this study, I define ‘femininity’ as a socially constructed notion that encompasses the practices, behaviours and attributes associated with women. It is ‘fluid, variable, and situated in specific social contexts’ (Charlebois, 2011, p. 2). Sociologists approach the notion of femininity

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together with masculinity, by emphasising the hierarchies between them. In her classical work, Raewyn Connell builds on the premise of ‘global dominance of men over women’ (1987, p. 183). Thus, if hegemonic masculinity is constructed as dominating over women and other forms of masculinity, the concept emphasised femininity ‘is defined around compliance with this subordination and is oriented to accommodating the interests and desires of men’ (ibid.). If masculine behaviour is associated with initiative, individualism, control, aggression, capacity for violence and competitiveness, then females are seen as more passive, dependent on others and focused on collaboration (Charlebois, 2011, pp. 21, 41). In Ukraine, the proclamation of independence in 1991, alongside the national revival, transition to market economy and advent of Western mass culture, instigated the development of the new models of femininity. As previous studies show, the most visible models in the public discourse of the 1990–2000s were Barbie and Berehynia (Kis, 2005). The Barbie model is a product of globalisation and is associated with the Western definition of femininity: ‘beautiful and sexy […] a woman-Barbie is designed to be a pleasant man’s toy’ (ibid., p. 119). Inspired by women’s magazines and TV shows, Barbie is presented as charming, well-groomed and dedicated to home and family, without other interests. Berehynia is associated with berehty, meaning to guard and protect; thus, Berehynia—‘the eternal guardian of Ukrainian traditional values,1 national culture and ethnic identity’ (ibid., p. 106)—is a national feminine model constructed to replace Soviet imagery. Berehynia combines matriarchal myths, pagan beliefs and Christian elements meant to indicate the long history and progressive outlook of the Ukrainian nation (Rubchak, 2009). This model suggests a new public duty for women that can be performed from home: to take care of the entire nation because ‘woman’s supreme mission [is] physical and cultural reproduction of the nation through appropriate nurturing [of] the children’ (Kis, 2005, p. 109). This discourse was reproduced by state figures, by representatives of the civic sector, in the media, through monuments and via public holidays; it was equivalent to the very idea of Ukrainian nationhood (see Kis, 2005; Rubchak, 2009). Kis (2005) shows that both these role models imply the exploitation of the female body. Barbie provides male aesthetic and erotic pleasure, while Berehynia provides reproduction for the patriarchal nation state. However, recent studies show that structural changes in Ukrainian society are transforming these role models (Rubchak, 2009) and creating

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others. While the mass media is lagging behind and continues to convey the emphasised femininity discourse (Bulakh, 2015; Kitsa & Mudra, 2020), new role models are confronting the traditional approaches (Zhurzhenko, 2001). The scholarly focus has shifted to social practices that broaden, contest and rearticulate traditional notions of feminine beauty, motherhood and civic duty, such as military service, civic protest and labour migration (Jarymowycz, 2020; Nikolayenko & DeCasper, 2018; Phillips, 2014; Tyldum, 2015). The Russo-Ukrainian War—and especially the Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine—brings horrible trauma and challenges that, together with other crisis tendencies, may destabilise the gender regime (Connell, 1987) and ‘serve as catalysts that induce change in a society’s gender order’ (Charlebois, 2011, p. 16). For this study, materials were collected via social media monitoring (24 February to 31 August 2022). Facebook and Telegram were selected as the most popular forms of social media for news consumption among Ukrainians before and after the invasion, respectively (Detektor media, 2022; Opora, 2022). A total of 478 screenshots depicting female figures were analysed, together with several YouTube videos. However, posters, pictures, illustrations, memes, photos and murals were the focus of this study. The collected material was subjected to an inductive semiotic analysis, inspired by Roland Barthes (Barthes, 1967, 1977), who distinguishes three layers of meaning in the analysis of images: ‘a linguistic message, a coded iconic message, and a non-coded iconic message’ (ibid., p. 36). These layers of meaning coincide with connotative and denotative meanings of the image, in addition to how the linguistic message (which also has denotative and connotative meaning) defines the reading of the whole image. Denotative meaning is the literal meaning of the sign—‘radically objective’, ‘cleared utopianically of its connotations’ (ibid., p. 42). Connotative meaning is the symbolic associative meaning of a sign, connected to the culture, knowledge and history of the group (Barthes, 1967, p. 91). Following a social semiotic approach (Van Leeuwen, 2005), the analysis does not treat the text as a closed isolated system but as embedded in a social context. It explores both the ‘meaning potential’ of the sign (the already-known plethora of meanings) and ‘meaning affordances’ (latent meanings that are yet to be discovered) (ibid., p. 5). The meaning of the sign is never universal but is culture specific (Kress & Van Leeuwen, 2020, pp. 4–5).

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In this study, images were first inductively coded in NVivo, with a special focus on the denotative level of analysis. Next, the connotative meaning of the chosen visuals was analysed manually. Special attention was paid to rearticulating traditional female role models and cultural references, and to conveying stories and discourses of resistance.

Valkyries, Madonnas and Witches: The Faces of Ukrainian Women During the War Most of the analysed images fit into three female roles, each with particular features and attributes. I name them Valkyries, Madonnas and Witches. They resemble the archetypical patterns of Maiden, Mother and Crone, where the Maid is young, beautiful and assertive, the Mother is caring and protective, and the Crone is old, ugly and wise (Gomberg, 2001, pp. 58–59). This triad has been celebrated from ancient times (Dundzila, 1991); however, these roles are now criticised because they tie female development to fertility and heterosexual male desire (Stang, 2021). This empirical section explores the reincarnation of these archetypes under the conditions of the Russo-Ukrainian War. Valkyries: Badass and Dangerous In Norse mythology, Valkyries are divine maidens who guide the souls of the best perished warriors to Odin’s and Freya’s domains. Dozens of images that circulated in Ukraine during the first six months of the invasion directly refer to the maiden warrior archetype: young, insolent, armed, dangerous and eroticised. These pictures usually depict young, beautiful women standing alone against a background of explosions holding various kinds of weapons—assault rifles, guns, Molotov cocktails, knives or anti-tank missile systems. The women may wear camouflage, army uniforms, bulletproof vests and/or elements of the Ukrainian national costume: a vyshyvanka (embroidered shirt) and a wreath of flowers. They may be covered with dust, mud, scratches or bleeding wounds. Their poses convey defiance to the aggressor and physical and mental strength: extending the middle finger or showing their biceps, with a tense posture, a daring stare and/or a provocative smile. Their message can be summed up by the title of a mural by Kostiantyn Kachanovsky, created in Rivne: ‘The beauty won’t tolerate it’. This was a reply to a sexist

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joke by Russian President Vladimir Putin, who suggested that Ukraine accept Russian domination by comparing it with a rape (Bachuk & Chornobryvets, 2022; Chunikhina, 2022). Ukrainian Valkyries are eroticised and, since many of the analysed images were created by female artists, self-erotised. This is done by emphasising their slim figure and tight clothes, which accent their breasts, hips and bare legs, and by dressing them in military uniforms and giving them weapons. Such a combination of vitality and danger—Eros and Thanatos—amplifies the erotic appeal of the images. The figure of a woman representing a city or country is a ubiquitous trope from antiquity. In the Ukrainian case, a series of pictures representing female soldiers as metaphors for different cities was created by Natasha Le and Viktoriya Naumova and shows the unity of Ukrainian regions where everyone shares a story of both resistance and trauma, caused by military invasion. The female soldier is not only a metaphor of resistance. The Ukrainian Ministry of Defence reports that, in July 2022, more than 50 thousand women (22%) worked and fought in the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU). This number is high even compared with the number of women soldiers in NATO member-states (Osadcha, 2022; Zahorodnii, 2022). The importance of female Ukrainian soldiers is emphasised by the state and in the media through multiple stories and photos of young and middle-aged women who have joined the army or territorial defence. Female soldiers have become legendary and their images iconic. One example is the National Guard paramedic Kateryna Polishchuk, whose numerous portrayals are known under the callsign Ptashka (Birdie). She became famous in early May 2022 due to a viral video depicting the defenders of Mariupol singing patriotic songs in the basements of the Azovstal plant (Bukvy, 2022a). The faces of the soldiers were lit only by a smartphone flashlight, but Ptashka’s clear and strong voice defied the brutal, desperate environment of the besieged city and showed the resilience and dignity of Ukrainian soldiers, even in hopeless situations. Pictures of ‘the bird of steel’ Kateryna Polishchuk—one of the symbols of the unbreakable resistance of the Azovstal defenders—are usually realistic and unvarnished. Unlike her pre-war photos, she is portrayed without makeup, with two braids and with mud on her slightly swollen face. Her kind and confident smile is striking. Historical figures, such as Princess Olga, are another category of women warriors. According to the twelfth-century Primary Chronicle,

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Princess Olga ruled in Kyiv in 945–960 AD and is known for burning the town of Iskorosten in revenge for the murder of her husband. In the contemporary narrative of national resistance, the story of Princess Olga is combined with modern female mass culture characters: Daenerys Targaryen and Cersei Lannister from George R. R. Martin’s Game of Thrones book series and its TV adaptation, who are renowned for their ruthlessness. Multiple memes with Princess Olga giving commands to ‘burn them all’ or ‘Bayraktarys’ (a pun referring to both the combat drone Bayraktar in service with the AFU and the dragon command to breathe fire in the Game of Thrones universe) exemplify not only the mobilisation of history for war but also the imaginary of women as equally significant actors on the battlefield as men. In the Ukraine war imaginary, intimate relationships are most often presented as two polarised experiences: abuse followed by vengeance; or equal partnership based on a common struggle against a common enemy. These experiences are reflected in popular art leitmotifs of the Biblical Judith and Klimt’s The Kiss. Judith beheading Holofernes—a popular Biblical plot in Renaissance and Baroque paintings—tells a story of a Hebrew widow who seduces and subsequently kills an Assyrian general to save Israel from oppression. The Ukrainian Judith by Olena Liberti portrays a young girl in national costume holding a knife in one hand and the head of a Russian soldier in the other. Although she looks shocked, the girl is not presented as a victim but as an avenger. Shared experience of resistance is underlined in the portrayal of couples. Romantic stories about military couples have been articulated in several artworks and photos based on Gustav Klimt’s masterpiece, The Kiss (1907–1908). The Ukrainian versions wear military uniform and national dress rather than golden robes. Instead of the flowery meadow from Klimt’s original, some images show a basement with boxed ammo. The tragic connotations of these artworks hint that the embrace and kiss could be the last. Another leading theme is mutual care. Among touching images of a soldier braiding the hair of his female colleague and a civilian couple in the basement sharing sedatives and attending to several cats, a wartime edition of the classical ‘Love is…’ cartoon series suggests a new interpretation of intimacy. Love is ‘when he dedicates every killed occupier to you’, ‘to sleep in turns not to miss an air-raid alert’, ‘to contemplate together how Russian tanks are burning’ and so forth. Thus, during the war, intimacy consists of not only mutual care and respect but also sharing fighting and

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resistance, which may include killing or accepting the chances of being killed. In these ways, female figures in the role of Valkyries personify the resistance of the whole nation on the frontline and in the rear. The Valkyries are depicted as active participants of the common fight, of equal importance as men and as lethal to the enemy. Madonnas: Universal Care In Christianity, the Madonna is associated with ‘maternal devotion or even sacrifice’ (Kristeva, 1987, p. 246), purity, chastity, grace, humility and power (Maunder, 2019; Stang, 2021)—an unattainable ideal imposed on women by traditional patriarchal societies. How are mothers portrayed in the context of the Russo-Ukrainian War? In May 2022, the Mother Day celebrations in Ukraine encouraged society to redefine the traditional image of Mother-Berehynia as a new model: a supporter and guardian of the army, civilians and families. A series of illustrations by Oleksandr Grekhov (Hender v detaliach, 2022) portray women advocating for weapon supplies for Ukraine, helping refugees, joining the army, providing intelligence to the military, helping children with online education and so forth. ‘Today […] someone’s mother made contact from the occupation for the first time. Someone’s— fights on the frontline. Someone’s—waits for her son or daughter from the war. Another—knits camouflage nets. Volunteers. Works and takes care of the family’, wrote the Gender in Details editorial team, encouraging readers to tell about women ‘whose efforts during the war you appreciate’ and to join a flash mob under the hashtag #moЯ_gepo|nЯ (my heroine) to celebrate the leadership and heroism of Ukrainian women. Protection of children is a component of the female heroism praised by society. For example, in the aftermath of the Russian bombing of the Mariupol drama theatre, an artwork by Viktoriya Naumova depicts a young woman covering her children from the fire with her naked body, having nothing for protection but the virtue of a mother’s love. Another painful experience is evacuation. A few images portray women carrying children and luggage on their way through darkness, surrounded by flames or a hostile forest. Here, mothers are presented as home keepers. Children are not the sole attribute of these earthly Madonnas, who are also depicted with flowers (interpreted as symbols of beauty or

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fragility), animals and weapons (assault rifles, Molotov cocktails and antitank missile launchers). These Madonnas are capable of using aggression to preserve life. Images of Ukrainian mothers breastfeeding their babies are sometimes worshipped like icons. For example, a viral photo of Olga breastfeeding her daughter, whom she protected with her body from a Russian missile strike (Shykanova, 2022), was immediately transformed into several images stylised as icons, in which a young woman covered with scratches and bandages is portrayed with a halo or a ray of light pointing at her. The green medical sheet and the golden foil blanket from the photo are changed into blue and yellow garments—the colours of the Ukrainian flag. The same happened with a photo of Tetiana Blizniak breastfeeding her baby daughter in the Kyiv subway while hiding from Russian missile strikes. An icon depicting this young woman was reportedly placed in a church in Italian Naples (Kupriianova, 2022). Such cases raise a mother’s sacrifice and sufferings to the level of sainthood, filling them with spiritual meaning to replenish pain and loss. The fusion of secular and religious is especially striking when analysing the Christian motif of the Intercession of the Theotokos (Pokrova). According to a mediaeval legend, Holy Mary protected Constantinople from the Viking assault by covering the city with her veil (Pankov, 2022). Referring to this legend, Holy Mary is usually depicted in the Orans posture, lifting both hands in the gesture of protection or prayer. The holiday of the Intercession of the Theotokos is the official day of the Ukrainian army, rooted in the Cossack tradition, as well as of the guerrilla resistance against Soviet rule (Bureychak & Petrenko, 2015). The Orans has gained new connotations during the ongoing war. Images from the sample present Holy Mary literally extending her veil over Ukrainian soldiers in the trenches. Another picture is reminiscent of the eleventh-century mosaic from St. Sophia Cathedral in Kyiv. On the golden mosaic background, a female soldier surrounded by a halo stands in the Orans pose protecting a woman with a baby in the foreground. Holy Mary is secularised in a few images as a metaphoric representation of Ukraine: a giant young woman in a folk outfit who covers and protects the AFU or cities with her hands. In the traditional iconography, Holy Mary is rarely depicted with weapons. One of the exceptions is the theme of the Seven Sorrows of Mary, known as Mater Dolorosa in the Catholic tradition and Softener of Evil Hearts in the Orthodox (Kryvda, 2013). Virgin Mary is portrayed

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as sorrowful and in tears, with one or seven daggers or arrows piercing her heart. These daggers are her seven prophesied sorrows (Sutch & Van Bruaene, 2010). Against this background, St. Javelin—an image of Holy Mary carrying a Javelin anti-tank missile launcher—sends a powerful message: the urge to supply Ukraine with weapons (hinting that this is the best way to ‘soften evil hearts’) and a way to cope with trauma and sorrows. The St. Javelin charity campaign was launched on the eve of the fullscale invasion by Canadian marketer Christian Borys to help the Ukrainian war effort. It was inspired by Chris Shaw’s painting Madonna Kalashnikov (2015) (Debusmann, 2022) showing Holy Mary holding a golden AK47. The artist’s intention was to illustrate the controversy of this iconic weapon being used both as ‘the official weapon of conservative Islamic terrorists, and a symbol of freedom and democracy during the Arab Spring’ (Shaw, 2022). In the context of Ukrainian resistance, St. Javelin directs the sorrows piercing her heart against her enemies and shows that wartime grief can be channelled into fury pointed at the aggressor. The viral image was appropriated by local artists particularly in a mural on a residential building in Kyiv (Zhuravliova, 2022), resulting in controversy with the religious community and local authorities. Ukrainian Madonnas are loving, protecting and caring, with superhuman strength and a readiness for self-sacrifice. They shift the mother’s role away from reproduction and the traditional image of Berehynia. In this new reality, the mother’s main function is to protect and support the weak. Care, love and sacrifice are raised to a divine level. Earthly mothers are compared with the Holy Virgin, with her superhuman powers to protect humanity.

Witches: Ruling Fate Throughout history, from Euripides’ Medea to Netflix’s Sabrina, humanity has been preoccupied with women capable of exploiting dark powers. During the Russo-Ukrainian War, appealing and frightening imaginary of witches has been mobilised for the information front. A typical cartoon depicts a dozen young and middle-aged women flying on broomsticks. The caption says: ‘Girls, let’s close the sky’. After initial hopes of NATO establishing a no-fly zone over Ukraine were abandoned, only witches appeared to be capable of doing it.

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Here, three supernatural female figures are discussed: the Konotop Witch, the Motanka doll and Death. The Konotop Witch is the protagonist of an eponymous satirical fiction story by the Ukrainian writer Hryhorii Kvitka-Osnovianenko (1833), in which a witch tricks the corrupt Cossack elite of the town of Konotop through magic. When contemporary Konotop was besieged in early March, a local man approached soldiers on a Russian tank: ‘Do you even know where you’ve come to? This is Konotop. Here, every other woman is a witch. Tomorrow, you won’t get hard anymore!’ (Siogodni, 2022). This viral video praising the ability of Konotop women to rule male sexuality and hurt Russian soldiers was one of a few humorous moments showing the resilience of the Ukrainian people. Later, this event (usually illustrated with a tank or gun with a sagging barrel) was represented in multiple pictures presenting the Konotop witches as women of various ages provocatively laughing at the viewer. Although the idea of using female superpowers to irradicate the enemy with a curse was taken humourously, it did have a therapeutic impact. A song by the Ukrainian band Angy Kreyda (lyrics by Liudmyla Horova) promised ‘the Enemy’ that the ‘Witch’s wish shall be on you’ (Angy Kreyda, 2022). Young women in the video perform rituals associated with witchcraft, such as lighting candles in front of mirrors, putting needles into a voodoo doll and playing with skulls and snakes. Meanwhile, the singer threatens the enemy that his ‘death will not be easy’ and his family will be eradicated: ‘As many steps as you shall take, Enemy, on this land, so many souls death shall take from where your house stands’. Female volunteers used the song in a witchcraft-themed calendar to crowdfund for the AFU. They posed for pictures dressed as witches (Bukvy, 2022b)—somewhat erotised, in stylised folk attire, surrounded by weapons and intimidating witchcraft attributes. The project may look like an erotic calendar for soldiers, but it has an ideological onus. It shows popular support for the AFU while telling stories of women whose everyday volunteer work is valued as highly as supernatural powers (Fig. 1). One of the most interesting cases of the war-induced folk character transformation is the Motanka doll, which is a traditional doll made by winding rags and threads, without the use of a needle. It looks like a female figure in a folk dress with a cross instead of a face. Motanka is a ‘symbol of feminine wisdom, [a] family guardian’ that brings good luck, prosperity and children to the family (Budnyk & Blyznyuk, 2014, p. 19).

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Fig. 1 The cover of the book I Am Sowing into Your Eyes (2022) by the author of the Angy Kreyda hit Liudmyla Horova combines the Valkyrie, Madonna and Witch archetypes (Artist: Oleksiy Chebukin)

Two Motanka images in the sample present women dressed as humansize dolls. The first photoshoot, by Yana Katranyk, is called Self-portrait (April 2022). It shows a Motanka doll in a barren field, silent since it has no mouth, with an axe in its hand—creating a slasher movie vibe. The second, a photoshoot by Ihor Yefimov, presents the wives and fiancées of the prisoners of war from the Azov regiment (July 2022). Young women in white dresses meet a Motanka doll in a burnt outfit. Its face is white, with vertical blood stripes instead of a cross (Kravchuk, 2022). In one of the photos, a girl stands touching foreheads with the bloodied doll, as if meeting an old friend in a tragic time. The frightening transformation of the Motanka symbolises the destruction of the household, embracing one’s trauma and pain, and channelling them into action. In Slavic cultures, Death is depicted as a female character (Guthke & Guthke, 1999, p. 17). In wartime memes, it is presented as a Ukrainian

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ally: a skeleton wearing the traditional wreath and other elements of female folk costume, armed with a scythe, invites Russian soldiers to meet their end. Unlike the traditional depiction of a death that ‘mows’, Ukrainian Death acts selectively and addresses only the enemy, thus symbolising the UAF. For example, a picture by Natasha Le in which a charming lady takes off a mask and reveals her skeleton face refers to the Chornobaivka airfield in the Kherson Region, where the Russian military was repeatedly targeted by deadly Ukrainian strikes. However, death has another side that cannot be fought with humour: civilian casualties. This loss is usually depicted as an absence or void, with ghosts signifying the perished. A remarkable example is a collage by Vika Krokhina (Naidenko, 2022) based on a photo of a completely ruined kitchen in an apartment block. Among the rubble, a transparent cartoonish figure of an older lady is standing. The ghostlike woman in glasses wears home clothes and cooks something on the wreck of a stove. A transparent cat stares into the garden from a windowsill. The meaning is transparent, too: the picture represents lives that are lost forever. Aestheticising death is an attempt to cope with loss and powerlessness after the occupiers’ genocidal atrocities were revealed. A series of images by Olga Wilson shows spectres of women, men and animals, referring to particular episodes during the invasion’s first months (Olga Art, 2022). One of her pictures reinterprets a photo by the Reuters photographer Zohra Bensemra, which became a symbol of the Bucha massacre (Gardner, 2022): a close-up of a dead woman’s hand with a bright red manicure. The woman’s hand and dark blue jacket are covered in mud since the corpse had been lying on the street for over a month. In Wilson’s art piece, a blue rose—a flower impossible in nature—levitates above the palm, which can be interpreted as a beautiful soul passing away. The Witch role focuses on treading the threshold between life and death, normal and supernatural. It breaks away from the pompous Berehynia image. The Witch is a non-systemic actor that bites the enemy with humour, charm and a curse. Grounded in the local mythology, women are represented as potentially coldblooded, merciless and ready to rule fate.

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Conclusions: Paradoxes of Femininity During the War Pictures, posters, paintings, memes, murals and cartoons have become an important part of the grand narrative of Ukrainian resistance in the Russo-Ukrainian War—a transmedia entanglement of official announcements and on-the-spot reporting, reality and myth, events of the past and present, memes and symbols, songs and post stamps, top-down communication management and bottom-up decentralised self-expression (Horbyk, 2020; Horbyk & Orlova, 2022). In this story, women are extensively presented. How are they portrayed? Has the war become the crisis that leads to critique (cf. Koselleck, 2000), challenging and perhaps even subverting the traditional gender order? Women’s contribution on the frontline, in the rear and in the involuntary emigration is emphasised but is not a novel trend. Ukraine’s tradition of highlighting women as active figures during the war dates back to at least World War I and the subsequent war of the newly proclaimed Ukrainian People’s Republic against the Bolsheviks. Back then, images depicted symbolic female figures (e.g. the Bohush Shippikh poster [1917] of a woman fighting a double-headed eagle to protect her baby); photos of female military personnel were also disseminated in newspapers and even on postage stamps (e.g. a stamp depicting Olena Stepaniv from the Ukrainian Sich Riflemen unit [1915]) (Lypovetskyi, 2021; Shvydchenko, 2019). Analyses of images collected from social media during February– August 2022 show that female figures can be divided into three dominant categories: Valkyries, Madonnas and Witches. These roles are not completely new in the Ukrainian public discourse. To some extent, they coincide with the classical Maiden, Mother and Crone, which mainly refer to female generations. In the war context, these roles signify the functions they perform: to fight, to protect and to punish, respectively— functions that can instead be associated with the Ukrainian national model of masculinity (cf. Bureychak, 2017; Bureychak & Petrenko, 2015). The analysed female images showcase a fusion of tradition and presence, routine and the supernatural, and humour and pathos. The women in these images are usually labelled as Ukrainian in an ethnic and civic sense: they wear elements of the national costume, colours of the

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Ukrainian flag or the national coat of arms. Such labels, along with references to history, mythology and Orthodox symbols, make these images culturally and temporally specific. The images present a new canon of femininity that blends aspects that both belong to and contradict the national model of femininity discussed above. During the war, femininity is no longer about reproduction, preserving beauty, taking care of males’ needs or keeping the household cosy. In the new reality, a woman should be proactive, courageous, coldblooded, aggressive, merciless, emotionally strong and capable of violence. Simultaneously, these women convey the message that they want to control their bodies and enjoy their own beauty, leading to a series of eroticised images by female artists and semi-erotic photoshoots of female volunteers. More often than not, these women are portrayed as autonomous self-sufficient agents. Their relationships with men no longer define them. The rare representations of relationships, as discussed in the Valkyrie section, emphasise mutual respect, trust and care for the sake of a common victory. Role models from peaceful times, such as the Barbie model, have vanished. However, the Berehynia model, which was less visible during the pre-war years, has acquired new meaning. All the current models— the Valkyries, Madonnas and Witches—are guardians of their families, cities and villages—guardians of the Ukrainian people. However, whether voluntary or not, they have left their home realm and become visible. In this wartime art, a woman is also a fighter. She is an embodiment of Ukraine itself (which is grammatically feminine in the Ukrainian language). This is not only a nod to the age-old feminine symbols of nations, akin to the UK’s Britannia, the French Revolution’s Marianne or the USA’s Liberty—it is a reflection of a societal transformation towards a greater gender equality that is also based on homegrown historical and cultural roots. Taken together, these contradictory sources contribute to an empowering yet peculiar turn in the construction of femininity, one without a stark contrast between traditional, even archaic, structures and contemporary agencies; it is more eclectic but more flexible and accommodating, more fragmented but with a greater variety of choices and freedoms. Patriarchal femininity is echoed by some sources, yet enwrapped and entrapped with assertive, feminist meanings, which solves the tricky task of subverting it without subverting a society at war. This is the double war that Ukrainian women are determined to win.

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Note 1. Looking at historical, literature and folklore sources, in addition to my personal familiarity with the culture, I can say that Ukrainian traditional values can be simplified to the three ‘F’s’: family, food and farm. Traditionally, although families have been patriarchal, women play a significant role in decision-making, which makes relationships more collaborative and less male dominated. The obsession with delicious food symbolises vitality and hedonism but is also a response to the twentieth-century’s famine traumas. ‘Farm’ stands for a household that embodies the individualism of a small property owner, which is arguably the Ukrainian archetype.

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Women Cultivating Love in the Belarusian Countryside Aliaksandra Shrubok

Abstract This chapter discusses ethnographic material obtained during research in a rural, relatively depopulated area in Central-North Belarus. Older women make up the majority of residents there; many live alone, since their spouses—if any—have passed away, and their children have migrated to bigger cities in search for prosperity. Being in many ways bereft of social networks of mutual care and support, the women concentrate on the (re)production of vegetal life. The careful management that gardening requires enacts local values and meanings of what it is to be a virtuous and self-fulfilled woman. This paper shows the implications of the relations between rural women and plants which reveal the women’s critique of the social changes they encounter and the negotiation of their agency in the situation of overall structural neglect in the post-Soviet time.

A. Shrubok (B) Institute for Russian and Eurasian Studies, Department of Cultural Anthropology and Ethology, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 A.-M. Sätre et al. (eds.), Post-Soviet Women, Sustainable Development Goals Series, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-38066-2_11

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Introduction This chapter discusses ethnographic material from fieldwork conducted in the relatively depopulated landscapes of the Dokšycy district in the Viciebsk region—a rural area in Central-North Belarus. Most of the people dwelling there are older women, who often live alone. Even if the women were married at some point, their spouses are now deceased, and their children have moved elsewhere. The research participants experience a sense of severe loss in major realms of their lives. Located amidst a landscape of badly cultivated or entirely deserted to weeds fields, dilapidated houses and ruins they experience lack of care by local authorities and farm managers. This landscape represents the finitude of many human projects, creating a feeling of ‘ontological insecurity’ (Dupuis & Thorns, 1998; Hockey et al., 2001). Manicured vegetable beds and colourful flower beds, carefully kept by the women in their home gardens, stand in striking contrast to the melancholic landscape of a post-Soviet Belarusian village. Due to outmigration, women feel bereft of social networks of mutual care and support, and in order to fill this void, they concentrate their attention on the (re)production of vegetal life. Gardening is often perceived as ‘an entirely innocent everyday activity, a retreat from the public world of work and politics’ (Bhatti, 1999, p. 181). However, as many studies show, gardens can reveal essential ideas about relationships with culture and politics that permeate and shape specific practices and attitudes towards plants (Bhatti, 2006; Bhatti & Church, 2001; Degnen, 2009; Raisborough & Bhatti, 2007). Gardens are artefactual and act as sites for a human creativity that fashions nature and landscape according to established social and personal frames of reference. Home gardens play an important role in developing and sustaining social identities and homemaking. They require a significant amount of time, labour, effort and money (Bhatti, 1999, p. 184). Domestic gardens make a statement about those who tend them. What people think about home gardens and how they care for plants can tell us about their relationship with a broader social world. Here, I explore home gardening and women-plant relations in today’s Belarusian countryside, with a focus on how older, rural women build and experience their relationships with plants. I consider the implications of these relations between people and plants which (re)create some kind of order—an ontological security, if you will—in a post-social environment. By post-social, I refer to the local perception of the place as depopulated,

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unattractive to younger people and deserted to be taken over by weeds and destruction. I am particularly interested in the relations between rural women and plants in two contexts: the cultivation of a morally meaningful life, and resistance to the economic and social decay of post-socialism. The chapter continues with an introduction to the field site and the historical context of the study’s main interlocutors, two elderly women. Then I present the ethnographic material by offering brief descriptions of the two selected women’s life stories and gardening practice. This section emphasizes the activities that the women describe as meaningful for their roles in society and the value they attribute to their gardens in the present and in relation to their life histories. In the following discussion, I outline three important functions that gardening fulfils in the life of elderly rural women in Belarus as revealed by the ethnography. First, I show how in gardening women create order and beauty that help them live within the material environment of post-Soviet decay. Second, I trace how in their stories, women express their care for plants in affective language similar to that used when talking about one’s children and family. I discuss how gardening creates a meaningful and affective social environment for old women that help them live far from their families. Third, I put forward quotes from interviews that indicate that on some occasions relations to and care for plants are being experienced by women as more reciprocal and fulfilling than with spouses and families. Gardening is thus seen as a source of self-love and self-care. In the concluding remarks, I point out to the important place that home gardening has in the study of women and gender roles in Belarus and globally. I discuss gardening as a field for negotiation of social roles and statuses, of self-cultivation and emotional growth. At the same time, I see gardening in this field study as a form of resistance to political and economic processes that lead to marginalization of the study participants and their material and natural environment.

Neglect, Absences and Various Threads of Insecurity: The Field Site Description In 2019 and 2021–2022, I conducted ethnographic research and interviews in the Dokšycy district of the Viciebsk region. I shared domestic chores, gardening activities and leisure time with local women and took part in social activities with their friends, neighbours and extended families. Forty women were involved in the research; all but three had been widowed by the time of my fieldwork.

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From a demographic perspective, Belarus is a country with an ageing and rapidly declining population (Antipova & Fakeyeva, 2012). Dokšycy district has one of the highest depopulation rates. In 2022, the district’s population was around 21,400 people, including 12,200 living in rural areas (Glavnoe statisticheskoe upravlenie Vitebskoi oblasti, 2022). In comparison, there were almost 36,000 residents in the area in 1996, while the 1970 population numbered 50,200 people (Demoskop Weekly, 2022). Nowadays, there are 267 villages in the district that are mainly inhabited by women above 60 years of age. The gender gap in life expectancy is dramatically wide in Belarus: according to a UN report, women’s life expectancy is 11.1 years higher than men’s, in comparison with the global mean gender gap of 4.6 years (United Nations, 2017). As the World Health Organisation (WHO) reports, this gap can be explained by behavioural factors, such as smoking and alcohol consumption, which result in severe diseases (Luy & Wegner-Siegmundt, 2015). Indeed, Belarus is notoriously ranked as having one of the highest levels of alcohol consumption worldwide (Grigoriev & Bobrova, 2020, p. 805), and the informants of this research made numerous complaints about alcoholism in the village. Official statistics claim that unemployment does not exist in Belarus, and that agriculture is the leading economic sector in the study region. Contrary to the decollectivization in the rest of the former USSR and Eastern Europe, Belarus still follows the Soviet model of collective ownership and centrally managed economy in the countryside (Hervouet, 2021, pp. 61–62). Although the Soviet system of collective and state farms (kolkhozes and sovkhozes ) is believed to remain largely intact in Belarus, many farms have been shut down. Nowadays, only a few farms, factories and forestry enterprises in the district provide employment for rural dwellers. Most people are employed in the towns and come to the village only on holidays, using their parents’ or grandparents’ homes as summer houses (daˇca). Many unemployed people work seasonally, picking berries and mushrooms during the summer and autumn, and selling them to state-run enterprises or individual businesses. The infrastructure in the area is far from extensive, and most local dwellers lack modern amenities, such as in-house water, central heating and bathroom facilities. People use wells to get water and stoves to heat their houses. Although some villages have retail shops, local dwellers usually buy their groceries from mobile shops that come twice a week.

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For many local residents, compared with their past, their present reality is one of loss and destruction. They have become accustomed to an increasing number of absences: the absence of the state and social welfare—including schools, police and healthcare institutions—and the absence of everything that comes with extended kinship and permanent living in the same place. As the collective farms have been closed down, their fields and pastures withdrawn from active agricultural use and buildings bulldozed, new marginal spaces and experiences are emerging. Older people are experiencing the spaces, environments and dwellings where they have belonged becoming deserted. From a phenomenological perspective, these abandoned spaces of destruction are now a form of emplacement from which people engage with the outside world. Spaces framed by the remnants of uninhabited buildings, abandoned grown-up fields and gardens have become an eyesore. These spaces are a constant reminder of the women still living in that area losing control over their own lives and reproduction of meaningful interdependencies between people and between people and nature in the area. In the words of the social anthropologist Mary Douglas, people who belong to abandoned spaces are ‘matter out of place’ and ‘dirt embodied’ since actual human beings are by definition involved in social webs of mutual responsibility, care and protection (Douglas, 1966, p. 34). The marginality of the place is extended to the people. Besides elderly women, the only residents left to live in the environment of destruction, desert and absences are younger men, often without family, with alcohol addiction. Ageing is inevitably connected with declining physicality and, as many of these older women live on their own, they have had to rely on the assistance of their younger male neighbours to deal with conventionally masculine tasks in Belarus (e.g. ploughing, mowing, wood cutting, etc.). Left without other options for help and social support, elderly women are thus forced into social relations that they evaluate as morally pathological and even inducing harm. As one of my interlocutors lamented when her intoxicated neighbour broke into the house during my visit: ‘Oh, that drunk man does it every time. How much I dislike him! Nevertheless, he repaired my bike. Ha! If he weren’t there, I wouldn’t know what to do. If I need something, I ask him’. Many of the women I worked with stressed that they had already experienced a range of political and economic shifts and personal crises. Various experiences of insecurity and vulnerability ran like a red thread

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throughout their biographical narratives: World War II1 and post-war famine, often involuntary and forceful Soviet agrarian collectivization, migration from villages to cities, and agricultural ruination after the collapse of the Soviet Union, to name just a few. The current situation, apparently, could not catch them by surprise. Moreover, they deliberately chose to stay where they were rather than moving to be with their children in the city, even when they were offered that option. One way to deal with this kind of insecurity and marginalization is to engage in an activity that provides some sort of ‘ontological security’ (Bhatti, 1999, p. 184). As philosopher Judith Butler puts it, people desire recognition which makes them ‘socially viable beings’ (Butler, 2004, p. 2). To be recognized in their socially viable capacity, they must reproduce themselves as subjects that conform to dominant social norms and visions of a virtuous life. What are these norms for older Belarusian rural women?

Female Virtue: Hard Work, Care and Self-Sacrifice My further analysis concentrates on gardening as a field of negotiation of women’s agency through the articulation of moral judgments, norms and ideals. These norms and the efforts the women make to perform them fluctuate within a changing social context. This context is importantly influenced by the rhythms of the women’s life course which constitute an important part of the gender and social roles that inform the research participants’ knowledge and practice. Here, I am primarily interested in the adult experiences in their lives—first as wives, mothers and collective farm workers, and then as retired senior women recollecting and narrating their lives. I describe two women—Albina and Lidziya—and analyze their autobiographical narratives. These women were selected because I obtained better knowledge of their lives and spent an extended length of time with them. During the research, Albina was in her early 60s and Lidziya was in her 80s, and their professional and family life trajectories differed significantly. Nevertheless, both are devoted gardeners and share similar moral sensibilities.

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Lidziya Lidziya was 83 when I first visited her house in Kamajsk village, where she has spent most of her life. Born in the 1930s, Lidziya had many warrelated memories and was willing to share her experience of building a life out of post-war ruins. At that time, women were expected to marry in their early 20s and give birth soon afterwards. Lidziya gave birth to three children, but her marriage was not happy. Tiring of her husband’s heavy drinking and domestic violence, Lidziya divorced him after 8 years of marriage and raised her children with no support from their father. She relied on herself, her mother and a little help from the state’s institutions of care. Like many other rural women of her generation, Lidziya has an elementary school education and took on low-paid manual jobs, working her fingers to the bone in the kolkhoz by milking cows, weeding and digging flax, sugar beets and potatoes. As Mukhina and Denisova (2010) point out, the kolkhoz severely imposed high minimal production norms, and whoever was unable to fulfil them was punished, such as by the confiscation of private gardening plots, prohibition from using communal pastures for personal cattle2 and so forth (Mukhina & Denisova, 2010, p. 20). In addition to her employment, which was obligatory in the Soviet Union, Lidziya did all the household work and chores. She often stressed, while showing me her twisted fingers, that all tasks had to be performed manually, ranging from the work in the field to laundry and cleaning the house. The Soviet promise of a modernization that would fill the world with machines and grant jobs with stable wages never came true, and the family’s subsistence largely depended on what she managed to grow on their small plot of land. At the time of my fieldwork, Lidziya still lived in a traditional wooden house without modern amenities and carried out numerous household tasks manually, including gardening. Although Lidziya lives alone and has no cattle to feed, a large part of her garden is still devoted to the cultivation of vegetables. Most of the vegetable beds have been dug up and sown with the help of her extended family, who view such activities as an obligation towards their older family member and as an opportunity for a family reunion. Lidziya carefully looks after the garden, waters the plants and weeds the beds during the vegetative season. In late August and September, bags and boxes filled with potatoes, beets, cabbages, carrots, onions and vegetable marrows, which have been harvested with the assistance of younger kin,

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travel from Lidziya’s garden to the cities where Lidziya’s children, grandchildren, nephews and nieces reside. In this way, she is contributing to their economic wellbeing. During our meetings, Lidziya often expressed melancholy and nostalgia. She referred to her memories of the Soviet time’s blooming fields, well-tended gardens full of fruit and people who were happy, if not affluent. ‘Oh, everything is changing so horribly’, she once told me: When I go to bed in the evening, I think: ‘Oh, I wish I could regain what we used to have!’ Now, of course, there is money, and the authorities give us a good pension. There are enough clothes and food; everything is available. Still, everything is not right, not right… Loneliness. People are sitting at home. There are no people here; the villages are empty of people. Everything is overgrown.

The picture of order and prosperity that was once drawn by Soviet ideology and is now strengthened by its contrast to the present landscape of disorder and Lidziya’s nostalgia takes central place in many of our conversations. As the cultural theorist Svetlana Boym writes about Russia, Soviet nostalgia can be interpreted as a defence mechanism against the rapidly transforming social and economic order and unpredictable future (Boym, 2001). Condemning the chaotic and inefficient production in the remaining collective farms, along with the alcoholism and overarching neglect in the area, Lidziya frequently blames these atrocities on the loose morality and ignorance of the administrators who should be responsible for the district. In her view, it is not the political and economic system imposed by the state that is at fault but individuals in leadership positions and their dissolute behaviour that are responsible and should be blamed for failures: There used to be a collective farm, a tiny one. And then they united half of the world into that farm. One man would be a chairman for a while—and a new one would replace him, and then a new one again! They are villains! They just profit and then leave! And the soil is rich and fertile here. Before, it wasn’t like that—the corn sown here used to grow so high that it could reach the ceiling! Everything has been overgrown with grass now, look! A crazy thing’s going on, crazy thing!

In this quote, Lidziya refers to the policy of uniting smaller farms into one bigger unit as part of centralizing production and its management.

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She also accuses local directors of the collective farm of being profiteers— people who only work for their own gain, not caring for others. Each of them comes to extract as much profit as one can for a short time and then leaves in order to escape accountability. They are presented as (im)moral figures, the opposite to Lidziya’s moral values. In general, people who are locally defined as profiteers are assumed to be exploiting human and non-human resources, ignoring the principles of reciprocity and care for others that ideally should govern social relations (Hervouet, 2021, p. 65). They rank their own interests above community interests and thus violate shared moral norms. Lidziya’s notion of virtue—similar to that of the other interlocutors of this research—is always a function of relations with the broader community. Following Soviet work ethic norms (Lane, 1986), Lidziya describes the young unemployed people living in the villages and the local alcoholics as idlers who lack the will to work. Like the profiteers, they are selfish and dishonest. Younger generations and urbanites—that is, those associated by the research participants with a modern way of life centred around ideas of pleasure and comfort—are considered to possess a inferior morality underpinned by individualism and materialism (op. cit.). In many cases, my interlocutors perceived city dwellers, who are often employed as white-collar workers or otherwise represent new professions unrelated to manual labour, as idlers too: people who do not perform hard manual work do not perform ‘real’ or ‘honest’ work. At the same time, as ageing inevitably brings health issues and a certain decrease of vital energy, the hard-manual work associated with vegetable gardening—albeit praised by Lidziya—has become a burden. Lately, colourful flower beds have begun to take the place of vegetable beds in Lidziya’s home garden. Despite physiological, material and infrastructural constraints, Lidziya has adjusted her gardening activity to carry on gardening as long as possible. Regardless of her new tendency to replace labour-intensive bulbous plants with perennials, Lidziya still has a special affection for particular plants that hold memories of or are connected to her family members. As a result, she continues to maintain a little flower bed of Canna lilies close to her home. Due to the local environment, it is necessary to dig up the plants’ bulbs in the fall and store them somewhere warm for the winter, which requires Lidziya to heat the stove in the barn. Lidziya complains that both digging up the massive bulbs and then keeping them warm has become too physically exhausting for her in the last few years. Still, she

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does not want to give up on Cannas since this exotic species are especially admired by her son. As they were brought from Latvia to Lidziya’s garden by her daughter, Lidziya is the only woman in the village who has Cannas. Albina Unlike Lidziya, Albina lives in a newer house with modern facilities, such as running water, a bathroom and a washing machine. She drives a car, visits the swimming pool in the district capital, uses the Internet and even travels abroad. In fact, Albina is much more modern in her consumption patterns than many of the other older women I came to know during my research. This is clearly manifested in the appearance of her home garden: inspired by the images of gardens promoted in the popular media and scenes she viewed while travelling abroad (mostly to Poland and Latvia), Albina has introduced coniferous plants and flowering shrubs to her garden, and a lawn has replaced the vegetable beds that were once in the front yard. At the same time, Albina still grows potatoes, onions, cabbages and other vegetables in her backyard, where they are not seen by passers-by on the street. Albina considers it extravagant and inappropriate to buy these rather than growing her own. Much like Lidziya’s, Albina’s autobiographic narrative unravels the story of her existential struggle that taught her to endure hardships and became central to her identity. Albina had a difficult childhood. Raised without a father in a very poor family, she was an only child, and her mother had a severe disability, so it was Albina’s responsibility to care for her mother and the household from an early age. Nevertheless, she managed to get an education and build a successful career, starting her professional path as a milkmaid at the collective farm, then being promoted to chief zootechnician (livestock specialist) and finally obtaining a high position in the village council. Albina held this post for 18 years before she retired. Like Lidziya, Albina was almost solely responsible for the household and rearing of children. The dominant ‘double burden’ of female life, that has also been characterized as ‘the working mother’ gender contract by analysts of the Soviet gender order (Temkina & Zdravomyslova, 2003), shaped research participants’ lives. Being a hardworking employee while caring for the family is part of these women’s ‘spiritual DNA’, as Albina puts it.

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Albina, who was nurtured in a household without a father, rushed into marriage at the age of 18 with the idea that it would provide her with security and support and would make her feel like she was ‘hiding behind her husband like behind a stone wall’. Unfortunately, her expectations were never met. Soon after getting married, she was confronted by her husband’s alcoholism, which she coped with throughout his life. Simultaneously, she raised two children, made a career and procured necessary goods for the household amidst an economy of shortages. She never divorced, since she did not want to deprive her children of a father. Considering herself a good Christian woman, Albina often compares herself, half-jokingly, to Saint Mary; she recalls how she first had to take care of her own mother, then of her old parents-in-law and then, more recently, of her husband when he got Alzheimer’s and then suffered a stroke. Albina’s husband was completely dependent on her for a year and a half before he passed away. These reiterated narratives of self-sacrifice, suffering and overcoming are a way for Albina to establish herself as a good and moral woman. When I first met Albina, she had been widowed for a year. Her son had moved to St. Petersburg and periodically made trips to see her, while her daughter resides in Minsk, the capital of Belarus. Unlike most of her peers, Albina has no grandchildren to take care of. Loneliness is a painful issue for her. She can no longer perform caregiving work, which she was accustomed to and which gave her a sense of fulfilment. Suddenly, she found herself no longer needed, with plenty of spare time. Albina’s life trajectory thus shifted from loving and caring for family members to having an affective attachment to and caring for plants. As she explains, she never had time for herself: she always had to work, to look after the house, the meals, the children, her husband and other kin. Now, a widow and alone, it is her turn. ‘I grow plants because I love them, not because I have to’, she says. Albina finds cultivating tomatoes to be the most satisfying of her gardening endeavours. After her husband passed away, she decided it was time to take care of herself, not others, and purchased a contemporary polycarbonate greenhouse, where she began to grow a variety of tomato sorts. The greenhouse provides Albina with various opportunities. It is large enough for her to grow tomato seedlings for some of her neighbours and acquaintances and enables her to successfully produce crops that are not suitable for the local environment. Last but not least, Albina takes

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great satisfaction in growing tomatoes, and it supplements her current lifestyle, both materially and emotionally.

Discussion Gardening and Order Lidziya and Albina repeatedly complain about bezkhozjajstvennost —that is, mismanagement and neglect in the area. The messy environment and unmaintained spaces to which these women are emotionally attached and physically rooted in are a source of anxiety and melancholy—emotions that are often expressed by the local residents. Besides being an important source of subsistence (as home gardens still grow much-needed food), gardening is a way to exercise control in the destitute environment in which these women are living. A gardener may not be able to stop the overall neglect and destruction in the village, but she is wholly responsible for what is going on in her garden. The daily routines and activities of gardening contribute to making a ‘home’ (Bhatti, 2006, p. 321), a microlandscape, both in the non-human nature and social realms. Sowing, planting, weeding and other gardening techniques are steps to creating and maintaining the order these women strive for, both in their gardens and in the world they live in. Both Lidziya and Albina commonly express affective stances regarding their gardening activities: they describe a sense of satisfaction and pleasure in bringing order in a chaotic environment, and they take pleasure in the aesthetic their labour and care inscribe on their home space. The women often speak of inscribing order on their gardens in terms of making their gardens look ‘tidy’ and ‘well attended’. As hardworking people and the former main caregivers in their family, both women consider an unkept garden to be shameful. When I visited them when they were sick and could not perform their usual daily gardenwork, they expressed a sense of shame and asked me to excuse the state of their garden, which violated the socially established norm. Gardening involves not only spatial but also temporal order. It is a cyclical exercise that follows the temporality of seasonal flows. Gardening can also revitalize the past in the form of memories of family members and events that are associated with a particular plant or species. Moreover, communal harvesting—such as the annual potato-digging ‘holidays’ within Lidziya’s family or the tomato seedling exchanges initiated by

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Albina—involves a sort of socio-cultural order. In this way, the women partake in a shared existence with other members of their community— especially with their neighbours, friends and extended family. Gardening and Care The lives of these two women are marked by ability to endure hard work and multiple household chores and by their emphasis on caring for family members and being willing to put others’ needs before their own. Lidziya and Albina, like many of my interlocutors, depict a ‘good woman’ as one who cares for family members first and sacrifices her own needs. In their stories, the women portray themselves as active agents who exercise social control (within their family and community): they educate, restrain and control children and men; they provide all of the family’s moral and natural sources; they procure food, medicines and clothes in times of shortages; and they show miracles of ingenuity in arranging everyday life. All these tasks—along with many other exercises enabling the continuation of life—are seen by these women as manifestations of care. Recollecting their marriage stories on several occasions, Lidziya and Albina depicted their husbands as children who cannot take care of themselves in everyday life, or as ‘savages’, who should be ‘kept in hand’ so that they do not go into hard drinking. The ‘responsible woman/irresponsible man’ dichotomy, which was clearly visible in my research participants’ oral accounts, was actively supported by the official Soviet state discourses since the 1930s. Thus, the historian Sheila Fitzpatrick, when analyzing Stalinist propaganda, observed that women were constantly presented as noble and capable of great patience and selflessness in maintaining the family. Men were represented as selfish, irresponsible, tending to live an asocial way of life and prone to abandoning their wives (Fitzpatrick, 1999, p. 173). In alignments with these gender models, women have seen and enacted caregiving and control as both a cultural obligation and a sign of love and attachment. At the same time, the widescale reorganization of the economy, the outflow of the younger generation, and the ageing and social abandonment in rural areas that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union presented a challenge to the exercise of the female caregiver’s roles. Like many other older people across the world, my research participants are excluded from the labour economy and from many other fields of

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the social fabric. Older women desire to be recognized as socially vital beings. In order to achieve this, they must produce themselves as subjects who conform to the dominant form of femininity; however, these norms are not set in stone but instead fluctuate and are negotiated within the shifting social contexts and rhythms of their life course (Davies & Harre, 1990). Here, the most important intersection for my analysis is the one between gender norms and age. The ‘gendered age’ (Moore, 2001) of my research participants is associated with grandmotherhood—a time when women, having reached retirement age, are supposed to have more time for caring responsibilities. Older women are expected to align with the norm of ‘self-sacrifice and selfless caregivers’ even more than younger women (Utrata, 2011, p. 631). During the Soviet era, and to a significant extent today, grandmothers have played a vital role in childcare, supplementing the state’s childcare system considerably (Ashwin et al., 2013, p. 408). However, due to the outflow of younger generations to the cities, the women I worked with have been unable to live up to this ideal. Thus, they have had to build other affective bonds and find other ways to sustain and reproduce their ‘gendered age’. The women’s home gardens are an asset through which they can play their culturally approved roles and reaffirm their identity. Through their labour and the careful and efficient management that gardening requires, these women can enact local values and meanings of what a decent woman is supposed to be. Thus, the cultivation of plants and affective gardening are a practice through which women reiterate and negotiate socially established gender roles and values of care; this practice can be read as a display of status and as ‘a mirror of identity’ (Degnen, 2009, p. 155). At the same time, through gardening, the women harness discursive possibilities to reposition themselves within socially established gender norms of care. The study participants experience their home gardens as a source of self-expression and empowerment, as their stories show; gardening for them proves that ‘the creative mind is still alive and the body is able to complete hard tasks’ that contribute to others’ wellbeing (Bhatti, 2006, p. 323). For Lidziya (more so than for Albina), the need to carry on gardening is a form of resistance to ageing, as she proudly stressed her ability to maintain some form of independence, care and control, despite the limitations of her ageing body. For Lidziya, as for many other older women, working in the garden mirrors the principle of ‘never giving up’ on which her subjectivity is based.

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Gardening, Self-Care and Love The ethnography which I describe above also confirms the findings of studies on women’s caregiving globally, which have shown that, despite the costs of caring, women can gain ‘empowerment and self-realisation from it’ (Bubeck, 1995, p. 171; Gerstel, 2000). At the same time, gardening, especially ornamental plant cultivation, is articulated as an activity pursued by women as an act of ‘self-love’—something that contradicts or shifts their traditional positioning as a selfless self-sacrificing giver. My research participants have provided a great deal of care and love to their families throughout their lives, without necessarily receiving the same in return. Now, at a significant spatial distance from her children’s families and temporal distance from her marriage life, Albina often claims that she finally feels that her love is reciprocal in her relationships with plants. As much as these women’s unpaid labour of care for their human companions was often undervalued or unrecognized (Ashwin et al., 2013, p. 397), so their care and love for their plants are repeatedly depicted as being valued and requited by the plants. As Albina put it: Well, this care... it’s mutual. Because, well, I care for plants: about this one, because it blooms beautifully, about this one – I like it – because it’ll bloom beautifully. That’s why I’m taking care of them, watering them, etc. … I care. But, on the other hand, some plants feed me. Those plants that I feel good about feed me. I get returns from them. But! I still enjoy the fact that it gives me pleasure to look after them. Do you understand? I am lonely at the moment. I am a lonely woman who finds some kind of rebound in communication, well, with those same tomatoes.

Gardening as a form of self-care was seen by my informants as the key to maintaining their physical alertness, tone and activity. At the same time, the women felt that gardening had a soothing, almost therapeutic effect on them. When talking about their plants, fun, excitement and fantasy animated their voices. They expressed their attitude to gardening and their relationships with plants as a moral position. Both Lidziya and Albina value highly the aesthetic of their garden and their ‘communication’ with their plants over utility, saying that they cultivate plants for their love of the plants themselves and for the joy of their soul, rather than for the plants’ commercial value or nutritional and medicinal properties. As a self-contained activity, gardening is not required to be rational or productive. Gardening has worth on its own and, with the women’s retirement

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and the closing down of the collective farms, this worth has become more acute and viable. Lidziya told me many times: I love flowers. I love them to the moon and back. It’s not like some people grow flowers and say, ‘Oh, that’s just beautiful’. I am not like them. I love plants with all my heart. I can’t even cut them for a bouquet – it would be as if I cut off a human’s finger. I love them endlessly. If I planted them even on a stone, they would grow anyway.

There are plant species that love you, and there are those that do not, I was told. Some species are perceived as being more capricious than others. In order to help the plants flourish, one should ‘play with them’ (huliacca)—an expression my research participants often used when referring to their gardening activity, and one that is equally used to refer to playful and attentive engagement with children. Saying that ‘one should play with plants’, as I understand it, means that the plants command time, attention and affection similar to those that would normally be given to children. In turn, the plants love the women back through their beauty, scent and growth. In the words of my interlocutors, the plants reciprocate the women’s love: they give it back visibly and directly. Lidziya once told me: I water flowers, I water them. Last summer, it was such a drought that I would water them every day. Once I would water this side, the next day – the other. And, after I would water them, what a lovely scent they would bring! They were saying ‘Thank you’.

Conclusions In the chapter, I discussed gardening at the nexus of social belonging, responses to marginalization and reproduction of gender norms. The study suggests that elderly rural women’s love of plants is a response to the marginalization, loneliness and neglect they encounter. When research participants describe their affectionate relations with plants, they often do so in the context of their critical judgments of the dynamics of post-Soviet social and moral transformations, which have been marked by abandonment, a withering of intimate human connections and overarching structural neglect from the authorities.

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Some women have become significantly melancholic and nostalgic, while others have become so to a lesser degree; nevertheless, everyone I spoke with argued that their village and its residents are neglected by the authorities and needed by no one. They could not imagine a positive future for the place, even when explicitly asked. Gardening helps these women to resist the abandonment they experience, and their home gardens represent their struggle with the unsettling conditions of their lives. The plants that are assembled by these women in their carefully tended gardens present a sense of order, beauty, freshness and liveliness, thereby serving as a counterpart to the abandonment and neglect haunting the villages. The sense of order, care and love that stems from these women’s relationship with plants helps the women to sustain their moral integrity in an environment that seems unruly, neglected and against the desired order. At the same time, home gardens cannot be ever complete or brought under full control. Rather, they are an everyday problem and—as my interlocutors claim—an everyday love. Planting and growing are openended processes that require careful adjustments from the participants. They are a form of communication and negotiation more than production. In these processes, women also actively negotiate their positions and roles in society and resist the perceived neglect and decay in their environment. This study also shows how through their labour and careful and efficient management in gardening women enact local values and meanings of what a woman is expected to be. Thus, the cultivation of plants is a practice through which women enact socially established gender roles. Maintaining their home gardens enables women to satisfy their need to provide care, which should be understood in relation to the specific gender role they have had and its intersection with age. Moreover, a garden can be seen as a site where women reposition themselves to align with these norms and ideals. As a result, they can feel part of and active members in society despite their age and marginal geographical location. The research participants’ talk about their love for plants can be read not only as a sort of substitution for interpersonal affection but also as an idealized form of an intimate bond and as a critique of the structural transformations of interpersonal relations in post-Soviet modernity. Unlike their children, who left the village after becoming adults, the women’s husbands, who were—if not abusive—then not particularly loving or

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reliable, plants and gardening work seem to provide a possibility for reproduction of relations of mutuality with the women who care for them. In a recent discussion of the anthropological study of gardens, Natasha Myers proposed viewing humans as worlding projects, asking: ‘what worlds are our gardens designed to reproduce?’ (Myers, 2017, p. 298). My ethnography suggests that the cultivation of plants seems to offer a reproduction of ontological security and a form of intimacy—a wordless, reciprocal love that can be sustained and reproduced over time. Even though the women’s lives tell a bleak story of marginalization, deprivation and loss, through gardening, they can still provide care, receive love and experience their agency in the world. Acknowledgements I am thankful to Roman Urbanowicz, Don Kulick and Vladislava Vladimirova for their valuable comments on the earlier drafts.

Notes 1. During the Second World War, the region was occupied by the Nazis. The war devastated the area, with the Nazis burning down 107 villages. Three of these villages included their residents, who were burned alive (Shunevka, Azertsy and Zolotukhi). More than 20,000 people (one third of the population of the region) died (Pamiac’…, 2004, pp. 180–181). 2. People were allowed to own a minimal number of personal animals for the household production of food.

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Bhatti, M., & Church, A. (2001). Cultivating Natures: Homes and Gardens in Late Modernity. Sociology, 35, 365–383. Boym, S. (2001). The Future of Nostalgia. Basic Books. Bubeck, D. (1995). Care, Gender and Justice. Clarendon. Butler, J. (2004). Undoing Gender. Routledge. Davies, B., & Harre, R. (1990). Positioning: The Discursive Production of Selves. Journal for the Theory of Social Behavior, 20, 43–63. Degnen, C. (2009). On Vegetable Love: Gardening, Plants, and People in the North of England. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (N.S.), 15, 151–167. Demoskop Weekly. (2022, November). Perepisi naseleniia Rossiiskoi Imperii, SSSR, 15 novykh nezavisimykh gosudarstv [Population Censuses of the Russian Empire, USSR, 15 Newly Independent States]. http://www.demosc ope.ru/weekly/ssp/ussr70_reg1.php Douglas, M. (1966). Purity and Danger: An Analysis of Concepts of Pollution and Taboo. Routledge. Dupuis, A., & Thorns, D. (1998). Home, Home Ownership and the Search for Ontological Security. The Sociological Review, 46, 24–47. Fitzpatrick, S. (1999). Everyday Stalinism: Ordinary Life in Extraordinary Times: Soviet Russia in the 1930s. Oxford University Press. Gerstel, N. (2000). The Third Shift: Gender and Care Work Outside the Home. Qualitative Sociology, 23, 467–483. Glavnoe statisticheskoe upravlenie Vitebskoi oblasti [Main Statistical Office of the Vitebsk Region]. (2022). Chislennost’ naseleniia po gorodam i raionam [Population by Cities and Districts]. https://vitebsk.belstat.gov.by/ofitsi alnaya-statistika/demograficheskaya-i-sotsialnaya-statistika/naselenie-i-mig ratsiya/naselenie/godovye-dannye/chislennost-naseleniya-po-gorodam-i-ray onam/ Grigoriev, P., & Bobrova, N. (2020). Alcohol Control Policies and Mortality Trends in Belarus. Drug and Alcohol Review, 39, 805–817. https://doi.org/ 10.1111/dar.13032 Hervouet, R. (2021). The Moral Economy of the Kolkhoz Worker, or Why the Protest Movement in Belarus Does Not Seem to Concern the Collectivised Countryside. Slavic Review, 80(1), 61–68. Hockey, J., Penhale, B., & Sibley, D. (2001). Landscapes of Loss: Spaces of Memory, Times of Bereavement. Ageing and Society, 21, 739–757. Konstantinov, Y. (2020). The ‘Magic Tablecloth’: Personal Property and Sovkhoism in Soviet and Post-Soviet Russia. Region: Regional Studies of Russia, Eastern Europe, and Central Asia, 9(1), 7–24. Lane, D. (1986). Labour and Employment in the USSR. Wheatsheaf Books.

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Women’s Agency, New Movements and Activisms

‘They Beat Us, We Fly’: Indigenous Activism Among Women in the Russian North Vladislava Vladimirova

and Elena Liarskaia

Abstract This chapter describes how Indigenous Sami and Nenets women from the Russian North join in different kinds of civic activism in order to resist structures of state power. Such structures are the ground of both economic underprivilege and cultural marginalization. Soviet policy of forceful collectivization of Indigenous economy was justified with representations of Indigenous people of the North as occupying lower evolutionary stages of a linear historical development. In correspondence

‘Nas b’iut, my letaem…’ (in Russian) Originally this is the title and a main refrain of a song performed by Alla Pugacheva. In this paper, we use it after the quote by Valentina Sovkina, a Sami activist (Sovkina, Valentina 2020. Kakoi-to zvonok sverkhu i zapretili sobiratsia [A call from above and a ban to meet]. A post at the online forum Indigenous Russia, 3 August. https://Indigenous-rus sia.com/archives/5538). V. Vladimirova (B) Institute for Russian and Eurasian Studies/Department of Cultural Anthropology and Ethnology, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 A.-M. Sätre et al. (eds.), Post-Soviet Women, Sustainable Development Goals Series, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-38066-2_12

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to this image, the emancipation of Soviet women condemned and criminalized a number of widely spread social practices where women were presented as suppressed and victims, like polygamy, bride kidnapping, and bride wealth. In its effects on indigenous population, Soviet emancipation policies have similarities to Western strands of feminism, despite USSR’s rejection of the latter. Indigenous feminist studies provide critical perspectives that illuminate these similarities and their long-standing destructive outcomes for indigenous communities. Nenets women from Yamal Peninsula and Sami women from Murmansk Region have played a significant role in the movement for Indigenous rights at regional and national levels. While Sami people also engage in women activism, Nenets still lack women’s organizations. The chapter analyzes this development within the context of Soviet gender policies applying perspectives offered by Indigenous feminist studies and critical social theory.

Introduction This chapter describes how Indigenous Sami and Nenets women from the Russian North engage in civic activism in order to resist structures of state power. They view these structures as the foundation of both economic underprivilege and cultural marginalization. Soviet policies of forced collectivization of Indigenous communities were justified through representations of Indigenous people of the North as occupying lower evolutionary stages according to a linear hierarchy of cultural development. In accord with these ideas, the ideologues of emancipation of Soviet women condemned a number of widely spread Indigenous social practices such as polygamy, bride kidnapping, and bride wealth. Through these practices, Soviet authorities and ethnographers claimed women were oppressed and made victims of supposed pre-modern, even pre-patriarchal stages of social organization. Even though Soviet authorities were opposed to Western feminism (Gradskova, 2020b), the effects

E. Liarskaia European University at St. Petersburg, St. Petersburg, Russia

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of Soviet emancipation on Indigenous communities have many similarities with the impact of Western feminism on Indigenous people in other parts of the world (Grande, 2015b). Soviet emancipation and Indigenous politics were complex and shifting, but we lack space for extended discussion here. The most enduring results were the condemnation of many traditional family and kinship practices and the pastoralist economy that were the core of Indigenous communities and identity. The Soviet model of gender equality was instead based in equal rights to education, property, marriage, and custodianship over children, as well as obligatory employment for both sexes. A variety of social and psychological problems among Indigenous communities in Russia at the present have their causes in this aggressively enforced reformation of Indigenous ideas and practice (Rethmann, 2010). As this chapter shows, Indigenous feminist studies, despite its lack of popularity in Russian academia, can provide critical perspectives that illuminate the long-standing outcomes that Soviet history has on Indigenous communities. It is not our purpose here to judge or justify cultural gender practices, but point out how they were used by the authorities to create a marginalized Indigenous identity, that would equally criminalize men and women, if they would not obey the authorities and condemn their own culture. Nenets women from Yamal Peninsula and Sami women from Murmansk Region have played a significant role in the movement for Indigenous rights at regional and national levels. In contrast to Soviet stereotypes, women and girls have played active roles and out-numbered men in Indigenous political and civil organizations since the start of the revival movement in the early 1990s (Ssorin-Chaikov, 2002). This process has been analyzed within its historical context: women have had leading roles within the educational sector in Russia since Soviet times, and the state-initiated formation of an Indigenous intelligentsia reproduced this gender division (Konstantinov, 2015; Øverland & Berg-Nordlie, 2012). Sami as representatives of Sapmi, the Indigenous cultural area of all four Sami people from Russia, Norway, Sweden, and Finland, have also embarked on women’s rights activism. In their words, women’s rights activism is continuous with Soviet time, when women’s organizations evolved by state directive and were seen in harmony with dominant values of women’s equality and agency in Soviet culture and society. Despite Soviet and contemporary Russian condemnation of feminism, we see structural similarities between Western feminist activism and Soviet policies of gender equality, particularly in their impact on Indigenous

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communities. Therefore, this chapter borrows ideas from global Indigenous feminist scholarship that have not yet been applied in the analysis of Russian Indigenous communities. A central statement of Indigenous feminism is that the crisis in Indigenous families and communities, gender violence and atrocities are largely the result of settler colonialism and state oppression of Indigenous people (Behrendt, 1993; Flowers, 2015). In contrast to mainstream feminist assertions, pre-colonization Indigenous communities practiced different forms of egalitarianism, complementarity of gender relations, shared leadership, and in some cases even matrilineality, which were disrupted by colonization in ways that have yet not been fully studied or explained (Anderson, 2016; Barker, 2013). White feminists have not only been guilty of overlooking the histories and structures of colonialism and refusing to distinguish Indigenous women as suffering distinct forms of oppression (Arvin et al., 2013). They have also participated in and benefited from colonial structures of oppression of Indigenous women that have resulted in dispossession, displacement, and dismantling of kinship relations and family ties (Anderson, 2020; Moreton-Robinson, 2021). Feminist ideas and activists’ work have contributed to the global marginalization of Indigenous ideas, knowledge, and practices, and thus doomed to invisibility or silent resistance many Indigenous women (Pihama, 2005). Indigenous resistance takes different forms, but one form is a rejection of the feminist movement altogether. Contemporary mainstream feminisms, also characterized as whitestream, are dominated by white women; they describe white middle class experience and serve particular ethnopolitical and economic interests (Grande, 2015b). Many Indigenous people do not identify themselves with these interests and have different priorities. Feminist epistemologies often deploy values of equality based in Western cultural ideas and societal ideals that do not take into consideration racism, cultural differences, and Indigenous values and institutions. Similarly, Soviet ideas of women’s equality were grounded in an ideology of enculturation and modernization that attacked aspects of Indigenous economy and society that were deemed ‘primitive’ and opposed to progress (Slezkine, 1994). Decolonization is a primary liberation goal of Indigenous women, and feminist goals are not always harmonious with this (Grande, 2015a). Indigenous feminism strives to create epistemologies that engage Indigenous histories of oppression, dispossession, marginalization, but also resistance and empowerment. Such feminism takes into account relations

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with family and kin, the land and the spiritual world (Evans, 1994; Knobblock & Kuokkanen, 2015). As Evans writes, the challenge for many Indigenous women is ‘to assume control over the interpretation of our struggles and to begin to theorize our experiences in ways which make sense for us and which may come to make sense of other women’ (Evans, 1994). Despite Soviet and now Russia’s resistance to feminism, we believe that this insight is of great value also for Indigenous people in Russia and can provide tools for new understandings and evaluations of the impacts that Soviet policies have had on gender relations in Indigenous communities. While this chapter is grounded in empirical research, we provide analysis that is theoretically inspired by a renewed anthropological interest in the notion of resistance (Gledhill, 2020). Our study shows that while individual Sami women get involved in Indigenous feminist activism as a form of resistance to increasing restrictions over Indigenous rights and activism, Nenets people find spaces for resistance in other social and cultural forms, such as education, reindeer herding economy and life-style, and solidarity to different local collectivities. In our analysis, resistance is conceptualized as ‘an element of a mutually constituted dominant culture’ (op. cit., p. 7). We take inspiration from James Scott’s meticulous analysis of micropolitics and practices of everyday resistance that constitute a realm of murky and not unproblematic distinctions between submission and disagreement, collaboration and protest; contestable interpretations of subjects’ intentions and elusive subject positions that do not smoothly fit into an easy dichotomy of dominators and subalterns (Scott, 1985). We accept Ortner and Moore’s commentary on Scott, arguing that objectively ascribing stable and clearly defined ethnic and class identities to research subjects creates both epistemological and political problems (Moore, 1998; Ortner, 1995). These problems include the easy reproduction and creation of stereotypes and social hierarchies which are at the foundation of social inequality. We follow the post-structuralist epistemology that informs recent studies of resistance (Gledhill, 2020) and is marked by concepts and insights about the operation of power elaborated by Foucault and Butler. In Foucault’s famous formulation, ‘where there is power, there is resistance, and yet, or rather consequently, this resistance is never in a position of exteriority in relation to power’ (Foucault, 1979, p. 95). As Moore writes, ‘social actors maneuver amidst cross-cutting fields of force, and resistance emerges not from an originary site but rather

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through oppositional practices. Rather than conceiving of a space of resistance outside of power, domination, or hegemony, the challenge becomes to understand their mutual imbrication’ (Moore, 1998, p. 353). Judith Butler emphasizes the agency and transformative power which gives rise to resistance, but is also produced by the latter (Butler, 2020). This chapter is based in long-term repeated empirical research of the authors with Indigenous people in two areas of the Russian Arctic: Kola Peninsula and Yamal Peninsula. Elena Liarskaia has conducted participant observation among Nenets communities since 2000, and Vladislava Vladimirova has conducted repeated fieldwork visits to the Sami community in Lovozero in the period 2001–2016. The first draft of the chapter was written in 2020 and the empirical description of Sami activism does not include the most recent developments in relation to the Russian war on Ukraine. In addition, we analyze material published in the internet, like the webpages of Indigenous organizations, and news blogs. Archival sources and published ethnographic accounts help us introduce the historical context of Indigenous women’s’ roles, positions, and narratives. We apply a policy of confidentiality of information collected during interviews and do not disclose real names of Indigenous people we collaborated with, due to ethical and security reasons. An exception is made when names have already been disclosed in publication we are referring to. In the next section, we briefly introduce the contemporary political situation for Indigenous people in Russia. After that, we describe the impacts of Soviet emancipation of Indigenous women with specific examples and data from our two regions of research. We outline some of the most important realms for women’s agency and spaces of resistance. In the subsequent section, Sami and Nenets women’s participation in political activism is discussed. Finally, we bring in some main trends of Indigenous feminist thought and activism in order to discuss Russian Sami feminist agenda as an act of resistance. In conclusion, we offer some insights on the diversity and complexity of practices of resistance among Indigenous people in Russia.

Political and Epistemological Background In September 2014, a well-known Russian Sami activist posted on social media an alarming story: on her way to cross the Norwegian border and take a plane to New York to attend the World Conference on Indigenous People, she was actively prevented from continuing the trip. First, the car

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that she planned to use ended up with punctured tires. She managed to get a ride on another vehicle which was stopped on the way for lengthy document and luggage checks by road police. During the second check, a young man opened the door of the car and tried to pull her bag out. Despite these hindrances, she managed to cross the border but only long after her plane had departed. With help from Norwegian friends, she managed to acquire a new ticket and join the conference with a delay. Pavel Suliandziga, one of the founders of the Indigenous movement in Russia and an active member of the Russian Indigenous peoples’ association, was not so lucky. His passport was first taken at Sheremet’evo airport for a check, and after this, it was declared invalid: a page was missing (Klimova, 2014). These events illustrate a turning point in the Indigenous movement in Russia, which was gaining momentum in the 1990s and early 2000s. Several important laws regulating Indigenous peoples’ rights to their culture and resources were issued in the early 2000s. First, execution of these rights was being hindered, and second, after 2014, changes were introduced that limited severely their spheres of action and who could benefit (Donahoe, 2009; Kriazhkov, 2014). The influence of international organizations fighting for human rights which were strong supporters of Indigenous emancipation in Russia abruptly ceased due to the law about foreign agents (Law N121-FZ, 2012). These were just a few of the changes introduced in different spheres of life in Russia that aimed at consolidating an authoritarian state order. State-supported NGOs/NKOs and other organizations grew in number. Consolidation of Russian authoritarian power inside the country also spread hostile attitudes toward the EU among Russian population as an ideological and politically hostile ‘Other’ to Russian values, traditions, and interests. In addition to condemning feminism as part of increasing Western influence in Russia (Gradskova, 2020a), Indigenous rights and mobilization are also increasingly represented as part of Western political propaganda aiming to destabilize Russian society and discredit Russian policies of equality, social rights, and security (Arktika, 2022). Among Kola Sami, this turbulence exacerbated the struggle between different Sami organizations. Earlier organizations created and maintained with support from Nordic Sami, such as the Kola Sami Association, the Organization of the Sami of Murmansk Regions (OOSMO), and the Russian Sami Parliament, lost their exclusive dominant positions to organizations that were recently created and affiliated to the regional

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bureaucracy (mainly the Council of Representatives of Indigenous People of the North at the Government of Murmansk Region). On a federal level, the Ministry of Justice closed the all-Russian Association of Indigenous Peoples of the North (RAIPON) in 2012 for ‘gross violations of federal law’ (V Rossii zakryvaiut Associaciiu korennykh malochislennykh narodov Severa i Sibiri [The Association of Indigenous People of the Russian North and Siberia Has Been Closed], 2012). After six months, the Association was allowed to reopen, with a new chair and leadership elected, who according to Indigenous people allegations, efficiently ended Indigenous opposition to the government (Suliandziga & Sulyandziga, 2020). The erosion in organized consolidated Indigenous rights activism roughly coincides in time with what scholars have named a conservative turn in Russia. As Yulia Gradskova writes in this volume and in previous publications, a state ideological campaign has been initiated and moral conservatism has been increasing under the banner of ‘traditional values,’ addressing areas such as family, patriotism, and Orthodoxy (Gradskova, 2020a). Within this context, the activism of Indigenous women in Russia is of great interest. The selection of examples presented in the chapter comes from the research experience of the authors and points to the interesting similarities and differences between these groups. While both reindeer peoples, Sami and Nenets historically had different social organization and gender relations. In Soviet history, both groups were subjected to a unified policy of emancipation of Indigenous women of the North. Given their similar 20 century histories, it is interesting to analyze why in recent years Sami have been involved in women rights activism and Nenets have not. We briefly sketch twentieth century Indigenous history, but we also look into several other factors that contribute to Sami involvement with women rights, such as political solidarity and cooperation with the Nordic Sami political movement, geographical location, and finally, the development of diverse practices of resistance to centralized power and ideology among different Indigenous groups in Russia. Diverse academic disciplines have contributed to a growing international interest in Indigenous people in Russia in the last thirty years. Women and gender are one of the focal points of research, even though not a dominant interest (Povoroznyuk et al., 2010; Vladimirova & Habeck, 2018). Indigenous feminist studies, however, have not received popularity in Russia yet, and its absence cannot be explained solely by the

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small number of Indigenous scholars in and from Russia, or the proportion of women among them. As we show below, women have been well represented among the Indigenous intelligentsia in Russia, including in academia. The low interest in Indigenous feminist studies in Russia needs to be analyzed in historical and epistemological context. This paper aims at raising awareness about this void.

Soviet Emancipation of Indigenous Women Here, we provide some ethnographic evidence and analysis in confirmation of the efficiency of the Soviet emancipation project among Indigenous people. We claim that in spite of the diversity of Indigenous groups and cultures, and their resistance to Soviet policies, the latter were successful in creating new roles, spaces, and identities for women. In order to discuss these, we follow a comparative line. Many contemporary Nenets and Sami women compare their life with narratives about Indigenous women predecessors from before Sovietization. Such narratives have diverse sources, but one source is likely to be travelers’ and ethnographic accounts from nineteenth and the beginning of twentieth centuries. Their second comparison is with the position of other women in Russia. Gender roles from the past are now often described by both Nenets and Sami in terms of complementarity. Since the perestroika, some Soviet ethnographers started revisiting their earlier work on Indigenous women exploitation disclosing empirical findings that can confirm complementarity (Bol’shakova, 2005; Khomich, 1989). The family represented the main economic unit which insured the survival of individuals in the conditions of the Arctic before modernization and industrialization. Both Nenets and Sami economy relied on reindeer herding (though in different ways); thus, the preservation of reindeer can be seen as a dominant task of the family. As we have heard from many Sami and Nenets women, work within the household was strictly divided along gender lines. For example, reindeer were often seen as the domain of male labor, while dwelling, clothing, and food—as female (Khomich, 1950). For the survival of the household, it is obvious that these roles were of equally high importance. In the case of Nenets people, this complementarity is mirrored in the organization of religious life and consequently the presence of shamans both among men and women (Khomich, 1981). Early twentieth-century explorers and ethnographers emphasize this complementarity and argue

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that in comparison with Russian peasants, women in Nenets society occupy higher positions (Protocol, 1928). Even though Sami family has been defined as traditionally patriarchal, as Sami writer Nadezhda Bol’shakova explains, the position of women in it is elevated by their role as mothers, in which they have more power over children than men (2005). Some Nordic Sami scholars and activists using older accounts also emphasize the power which women seemed to have in society in the past (Eikjok, 2007). In accordance with an Indigenous feminist agenda of prioritizing self-knowledge and interpretations of history from Indigenous perspectives in order to elevate representations of Indigenous culture, Russian Sami activists build on such accounts to make a claim that Sami family was in practice matriarchal. At the present, we do not have indisputable ethnographic evidence and some scholars disagree on the ground of property relations. A husband had almost full rights over woman’s property. Even if a woman remains a widow, she could only control the family property until her sons became adult, but has no right to sell anything (Efimenko, 1877; Razumova, 2013). This debate can better be resolved, we believe, if more Indigenous persons and scholars are active in community research. Soviet modernization and emancipation were grounded in the ideological representation that Indigenous women had lower status in society and were thus vulnerable and in need of protection by the state. Ethnographic accounts were instrumental in these policies of patronship and epistemological inequality (Khomich, 1950; Slezkine, 1994; Vladimirova, 2018). In less formal settings, Indigenous representatives and ethnographers alike have described gender relations far more diverse, complex, and nuanced than in published Soviet literature (Khomich, 1989). For example, early Soviet ethnographers Alymov and Charnoluskii described Sami women as relatively equal to men, capable and skillful in doing cooking, sowing, and reindeer husbandry and fishing activities (Alymov, 1927; Charnoluskii, 1930). The level of women’s engagement in different household and economic activities was seen as seasonal and situational. We have no space here for a detailed analysis of the complex epistemological grounds of such representations and Soviet debates. A dominant Soviet ideological position, grounded in prevailing evolutionary thought, was to see Indigenous society as having reached a lower level of social development and in need for rapid modernization. One of the justifications of this idea is the high level of masculine domination and discrimination toward women, and the ethnographic description of both

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Sami and Nenets has been informed by such presuppositions. Nenets practiced polygamy which in Soviet debates was interpreted within the light of economic theory as a way to increase labor force in the household through women exploitation. The role of social institutions such as children’s equal rights, the role of first wife in recruiting second or further wives, or finally, the desire to have many children in order to secure the economic well-being of the whole family and care in old-age are ascribed little significance in such economic analysis (Khomich, 1950). Levirate, a common custom practiced also by Nenets, was criticized on the same grounds. Through levirate, the provision that a widow could marry the (younger) brother of her deceased husband, children and property were retained within the husband’s kin group. Early Soviet literature (Kostikov, 1930) paid some attention to the aspects of levirate that Nenets like other groups worldwide emphasized: it secured a social position, belonging, and material and social support for women experiencing a crisis in life— the loss of a husband (Vladimirova, 2018). Later Soviet scholars did not tackle such topics under the assumption that levirate belongs to a primitive form of social organization, and instead focused on social reformation and modernization. Even though in the North in contrast to Central Asia traditional family institutions were not criminalized, they were deemed primitive, unnatural, and immoral and fought through persuasion and informal repressions. Nenets people who did not voluntarily condemn their own culture, men and women alike, were punished by stigmatization and social denigration. The present authors have heard Indigenous people tell stories of such practices still existing in Soviet times, usually in the tundra and far from the eyes of Soviet administrators. Due to the Soviet epistemology stigmatizing them, these customs have not been the subject of contemporary anthropological studies. Soviet modernization took on transforming Indigenous family and gender institutions that it described as primitive, improper, and exploitative to women. Major efforts were made to sedentarize nomadic families and oblige wage labor for all adults. Selling one’s labor has not been common among Nenets and Sami pastoralists in the past. The ideological work that Soviet authorities did in order to justify and spread Indigenous women’s emancipation has received little research attention. Sedentarization and employment slowly created conditions for young, unmarried, divorced, or widowed women to make choices about living independently of a family or a bigger kin group. It is only in these conditions that a woman could and can constitute by herself (or with her children) an

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independent household unit. This opportunity is also spatially marked— only in the village can a woman exercise her full freedom of choice in terms of relations and life-style. Ethnographic research provides evidence that tundra life and nomadism as in the past determine family dependence and complementary roles for men and women alike. Nenets are one of the few Indigenous groups in the Russian North that continue to practice family nomadism alongside reindeer herding economy. Approximately 6000 Nenets are now nomads, which is about a thousand more than in early Soviet times. Soviet sedentarization policies and urbanization managed to diversify Nenets economy and life-style. Present-day Nenets women describe that they can make a choice between urban life and professions or reindeer herding and nomadic life in the tundra (Liarskaya, 2009). Almost half of Nenets population live in urban areas. Sami, on the other hand, did not preserve family nomadism, under the impact of collectivization and multiple rounds of displacement due to reorganization of economy and military development. Today, Sami reindeer herding survives in only two cooperatives that inherited the assets and slowly moved away from the organizational principles of Soviet centrally controlled farms. The majority of Sami (similar to the rest of the population in the region) are employed in the numerous state budget organizations and only complement their household budget and diet by fishing, hunting, and gathering activities in the forest and tundra. Sami women have predominantly moved to urban life styles and jobs. Urban facilities and infrastructure alongside modernization brought about universal education, increasing life-expectancy, higher birth, and lower children death rates. All these factors contributed to a changed position and life opportunities for many Indigenous women. Even those Nenets women that choose a tundra life point to an increased stability due to better life conditions, infrastructure, and family size, as tundra families could in the end of twentieth century grow 10–12 healthy children. Soviet history of emancipation and modernization has brought about huge changes to Indigenous women’s lives, including Sami and Nenets. As our ethnographic material also shows, in the sphere of knowledge, Soviet epistemology has instilled notions of social and scientific progress as major reference points to judge about human and cultural practices. Indigenous women have internalized dominant knowledge about their pre-Soviet social institutions as backwards, unnatural, unhealthy, and uncivilized (Vladimirova, 2006, 2018). As we discuss above, Indigenous feminist scholars in other parts of the world are striving to de-colonize

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by questioning and unlearning such externally constructed knowledge about themselves. Sami and Nenets in Russia are less outspoken about such social practices and the Soviet history of their repression. While some Indigenous activists show awareness of the need to reevaluate their history, many Indigenous respondents in our interviews have been reluctant to raise such topics and seem to be associating them with Soviet stigmatization. As local respondents disclose on some occasions, some Nenets individuals resisted Soviet power, especially when far from the eyes of administrators, and continued to follow customs such as bride wealth, levirate, and even polygamy. Others seem to have adapted to structural impositions, such as boarding schools and sedentarization, and centered their resistance around preserving other spheres of culture less targeted by the authorities, such as reindeer herding and close bonds within the nuclear family (Liarskaya, 2009). Many Indigenous women and scholars willingly point out that some of the most substantial changes in Indigenous women’s life can be described in terms of agency. One example is the evolution in the process of selection of marriage partners. In the beginning of twentieth century, the bride and the groom were never even consulted when parents and relatives arranged their marriage. In the present, the bride has agency in the selection of marriage and sexual partners and planning her future (Liarskaya, 2010b; Serpivo, 2013).

Women, Gender Equality, and Activism Soviet authorities forcefully transformed Indigenous subsistence economy into state production by dispossessing people and creating obligatory employment. In the long run, Indigenous groups also started projecting older gender roles and stereotypes when creating new gendered ideas about jobs. Some of these ideas resonated with Russian society expectations about gender roles and occupations (Attwood, 1990; Katz, 2001). Despite some rare exceptions, jobs such as reindeer herders, veterinarians, drivers, and builders have been typically male, while teachers, librarians, nurses, and accountants have been female. Even men and women with the same education working in the same organization would end up at different jobs—men as policemen and women as passport desk clerks. Besides motivating women to acquire higher education, such stereotypes directed Indigenous women into jobs and positions that are typically

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urban and provide better opportunities for networking with dominant social groups. In Sami context, such urban- and office-based jobs have been generating symbolic capital and higher social status to women. Even today, the Sami intelligentsia is composed predominantly of women who work as teachers, writers, museum workers, accountants, etc. In Øverland and Berg-Nordlie’s analysis, Sami ethno-political leadership since the 1990s constitutes one of the poles of a stratified Sami society in Russia. Such poles represent ‘a more urban, educated, and female pole,’ on the one hand, and ‘a rural, formally uneducated, alcohol troubled, male, landoriented folk,’ on the other (Øverland & Berg-Nordlie, 2012, p. 55). These poles, of course, represent generalized types and should not be identified with any particular persons. Nevertheless, as some of the first Western scholars who did fieldwork among Russian Sami in the beginning of the 1990s asserted, Indigenous intelligentsia, educated at the specially adapted for this purpose Herzen Pedagogical University in St. Petersburg, consisted predominantly of women married to Russians and from the cities, who played a leading role at the dawn of the linguistic, cultural, and ethno-political mobilization at the time of Perestroika (Kalstad, 2003). On the other pole, male reindeer herders constituted a marginalized, low status group, symbolizing serious social ills such as low education, celibacy, and alcoholism (Povoroznyuk et al., 2010; Vladimirova, 2006; Vladimirova & Habeck, 2018). Such a divide reflects social demarcations and values dominant in Soviet and Russian society. Nenets have not internalized in the same way as Sami the values of dominant Russian culture and say that they attribute similar value and social status to male and female jobs. Nenets not only have a strong tradition of preserving Indigenous language, but they continue to value male and female roles, jobs, and spaces as complementary and providing equal status (Golovnev & Osherenko, 1999). Nonetheless, complementarity and equality of opportunity result in an interesting division in women’s and men’s views of education. Nenets women today view education as a path leading to equality. Even those Nenets that live in the tundra encourage their daughters to get professional education as a backup, since they feel there are fewer job opportunities for women than for men (Liarskaya, 2013). Thus, one vector of women’s empowerment and resistance to marginalization among Nenets, like the Sami, is education. Indigenous scholars in Russia are almost exclusively women. Education is an important route to internalizing dominant society norms and

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knowledge, including about oneself. Nevertheless, by raising the status of Indigenous women and creating more life and empowerment opportunities, it simultaneously can strengthen their Indigenous identity and capacity to resist dominant power. Sami and Nenets activists provide good examples. While it is hard to provide accurate comparison along gender lines between Sami and Nenets ethnic political activism of the early 1990s, it is obvious in field research that women are well represented in civic and political organizations. The Association of Indigenous Minority People in Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Region, named ‘Yamal-Potomkam’ (Yamal to Our Descendants ), for example, was formed in 1989 to defend the rights and interests of Indigenous people to land and resources, and help their economic and cultural development in the region (YamalPotomkam, 2019). It also represents Nenets interest in the all-Russian Indigenous Association RAIPON. While Indigenous women are not a majority as they are among the Sami, they are well represented in the organization and its activities. The performance and agency of women in the public sphere are both a result of traditional division of labor in Nenets community and of Soviet emancipation. In the past, women had more power within the family, but their participation in public councils was not common, and some older sources even recount that men might leave a meeting if a woman appears (Evladov, 1992). This pattern has changed and now-a-days women are as active as men in the public sphere, even though divisions in other spheres can still exist. Despite invasive Soviet modernization, Liarskaya’s longterm field observations and interviews show that Nenets women continue observing some of their older cultural and religious norms, customs, and taboos, both in tundra and in urban settings. Such norms and taboos have simultaneously individual and collective dimensions: punishment for infraction, according to Nenets women, can affect the whole group—the family, the kin, and the community. Thus, norms are conceived of as a form of women responsibility to the group and its well-being, despite persistent Soviet conceptualization of such norms as forms of oppression, humiliation, and diminution of women’s dignity. But these norms are discussed in society and presented to outsiders (including anthropologists) as meaningful part of Nenets culture and important for self- and group identification, preservation, and pride. Second, there is a new spread of debate and concern in Yamal regarding young Nenets women avoiding marriages to reindeer herders that would

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lead to a tundra-based life. This concern has been common for many Indigenous peoples of the North in late twentieth and early twentyfirst centuries (Povoroznyuk et al., 2010). Yamal Nenets have been an exception, as many girls join their nomadic parents in the tundra after they have finished their education in urban boarding schools, and the majority of reindeer herders are married and live with their families in the tundra (Liarskaya, 2010a). In this context, anthropological analysis of such debates involves the notion of discursive fear. Why this joint Arctic problem—young women outmigration and reindeer herders’ celibacy become central topics in discursive fear—is a question for further research. Other ongoing social problems concerning women, like for example home violence and alcoholism, receive little attention in public debates, even though such phenomena are socially and culturally condemned. This reluctance to address violence against Indigenous women can perhaps be one of the results of Nenets everyday resistance to dominant stereotypes inherited after Soviet evolutionary epistemology of Indigenous primitive society. It is also a shared problem with many other Indigenous groups globally, as stressed by Indigenous feminist scholars. We can suggest different preliminary causal explanations for the specific forms of women activism and organizations among Nenets people. Instead of employing directly a feminist agenda, Nenets women rather try to address specific problems that they face employing their status and social capital generated through membership and representative positions in other forms of civil society and administrative organizations, such as ‘Yamal-Potomkam,’ municipal and village administrations, and social security department. We lack enough research to offer a detailed analysis here, but the contextual explanation we can suggest is based in resistance to Soviet epistemology and structures of power that emphasized male domination as part of primitive and underdeveloped Indigenous culture. In present Russian state ideology, feminism is stigmatized and presented in opposition to traditional culture and is therefore perhaps also seen by Nenets as counterproductive to their status and claim to Indigenous rights that in Russia are grounded in the notion of tradition (see Lukovitskaia, this volume). Analogous to Indigenous groups globally, Nenets might associate women’s organizations with whitestream feminism as a global colonial legacy (Grande, 2015b). These explanations need further empirical research.

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Indigenous Feminism and the Russian Sami If Soviet state-led and conspicuous mobilization and emancipation of women, including Indigenous ones, started early on, Indigenous feminism has a much later date. In the Nordic countries, for example, the Sami women’s liberation movement was initiated in the 1960s–1970s, with emerging Sami literature on women’s lives and experiences, both in history and at the present (Heith, 2016). The history of Sami Nisson Forum and Sáráhkka, its predecessor, an international organization for promotion of Sami women’s interests founded in 1988, resonates with the development of global Indigenous feminism. Struggle with men for political representation in Sami activism and governance in Norway served as the primary occasion for such women’s rights activism. The strong position and popularity of Sami women in Indigenous communities in Fennoscandia come from their active involvement in the political struggle for Sami rights (Thuen, 1995). This status is also shared by Sami women in Russia, who were also promoted to ethnic elite by Soviet authorities, as we show above. The Sami Women Forum in Murmansk Region is a Section of the Sami Women Forum, also known as SNF, Sami Nisson Forum. The latter was founded as a network of Sami women in the province of Finmark, in Norway, in 1993, ‘to provide opportunities for Sami women to be politically active within their municipality and region’ (SNF, webpage). The initial network included those women who were on the Karasjok list for the first Sami Parliament elections in 1989. In 1998, SNF was registered as an independent NGO with a board of directors. Since this date, it has expended its activities beyond regional and national state borders and unites Sami women from all four countries. The Russian section of the Sami Women Forum was established in 1993. It has 21 members at the present. At the beginning of my research with Russian Sami in early 2000s, its numerous activities were presented as yet another instance of Indigenous political activism and its underground women’s agenda was almost invisible. Later research cooperation with the leader of the organization in the period 2011–2015 shows that it attempts to revive a small part of the work of the Soviet women’s councils, such as helping troubled families and alcoholics and fighting family violence through education. With the exception of occasional newspaper announcements during the years about meetings of NSF that took place in Russia, it had little public visibility, at both local and regional levels.

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Only recently has the organization started uploading more information about its activities online, visually illustrated with plenty of photos (‘Sami Women Forum’). This is also the first time when Sami Women Forum openly shows that it shares the Indigenous feminist agenda, of SNF. Within its broader Indigenous feminist agenda, SNF was running projects aiming at increasing awareness about gender inequality faced by Sami women, both in public spaces and from majority groups, and within Indigenous communities and smaller social groups, like families. Important spheres of activity are Sami language and culture development through literature, art, and traditional handicrafts. It makes important contribution to ethno-political activism like all other Sami organizations— the raising of the Sami flag on 6 February—the international Sami day, organization and participation in international Indigenous events. In this sense, it is an important actor in international Sami mobilization and integration (‘Sami Women Forum’). A couple of months after the war in Ukraine started, Fennoscandic Sami organizations broke off all formal relations with Sami organizations in Russia. Since then, I have not been able to follow up if Sami Women’s Forum continues its activities locally.

Conclusions Russian Sami women activism is well established, but its women’s rights agenda, which is inspired by Nordic Sami feminism, transpired relatively recently. While such agenda is only represented by the numerous members of the Sami Women Forum, its public statements alongside governmental politics of increasing appropriation of resources and control over Indigenous freedom of expression, and conservative gender politics, constitutes impressive acts of resistance. The conceptualization of Sami women’s activism as resistance here is both analytical by virtue of our analysis of its effects and subjective, as described by the leader of Sami Women Forum. This women’s rights agenda remains under-theorized within local community and mostly circulates in its public translation into the powerful image of the historical Sami matriarchy. Other Indigenous groups also claim historical traditional matriarchy. While it is not always possible to trace back an ethnic group’s social histories, the claim to matriarchy can be interpreted as a response and act of resistance to marginalizing colonial images imposed to Indigenous groups by majority society that represent women as subordinated to men. As Indigenous

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feminist scholars persuasively argue, Indigenous ‘patriarchy’ and its negative impacts on family and society that had been translated into primitive social order by the colonizer is in many instances a symptom caused by colonization and white oppression (Anderson, 2020). As Indigenous theory and methodology are not widespread in academia and even among Indigenous scholars inside Russia, the ideas of Indigenous feminism are not popular or discussed and feminism is not perceived as a common arena for contestation of majority society ideas and values. Sami are thus an exception among Indigenous groups in Russia. The majority of Indigenous women including Nenets prioritize Indigenous rights activism as a way to address acute societal issues, such as how to negotiate within current power configurations access to resources such as fish, game, land, and governmental funding. In this situation, gender inequality, if problematized at all, is identified and defined as a consequence of poverty, alcoholism, and low education, in harmony with dominant society stereotypical visions of Indigenous social ills. In the Russian context, violence over or discrimination against Indigenous women is not studied in intersection with racial, social, and political inequality, as Indigenous feminism would suggest. Sami women’s activism remains largely a limited discursive expression of disobedience toward ideological prescriptions of politically correct values, behaviors, and rhetoric.

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Women’s Activism in Ukraine: Artistic Method in Early Civic Documentations of the Ukraine-Russia War Jessica Zychowicz

Abstract This chapter examines case studies in the field of cultural practice, with a particular focus on how activism by women and gender minorities has impacted concepts and legislation around civil and human rights in Ukraine. I employ frameworks from anthropology and visual theory, drawing upon my own participant observation in Donbas in 2019 in formerly occupied Lysychansk, near the front line of the conflict zone and subsequent trips and workshops with fellow researchers in Donbas. Legislation on Anti-Discrimination, particularly in the decade between the Maidan Revolution of Dignity in 2013–2014 and the large-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2023, played a key role in the initial E.U. Association Agreement paved the way for a National Human Rights Strategy and other key changes. Tracing artistic-activist collaborations in Ukraine in the early phase of the war (first decade) provides documentation of one part of a much wider effort to secure an equitable society through an “ethics of care” (Phillips, 2008; Butler, 2016). Notions

J. Zychowicz (B) Fulbright & Institute of International Education Kyiv Office, Kyiv, Ukraine e-mail: [email protected] URL: https://www.jes-zychowicz.com/ © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 A.-M. Sätre et al. (eds.), Post-Soviet Women, Sustainable Development Goals Series, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-38066-2_13

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of protecting democracy against Kremlin disinformation campaigns have played an equal or even more significant role in simultaneously unifying and pluralizing Ukraine in 2013–2023 than the impetus to grow closer to the E.U. This is because many recognized the same threats of disinformation and discrimination have existed in Europe, even if on a less acute scale than the lethal revanchism in Ukraine. Here, this chapter traces the links between activism, artistic methods as communication, information platforms, social representation, and legislation by narrowing in on three different initiatives: an international art exhibit about the war in East Ukraine; two cultural NGOs based in Donbas; and an annual summer school held in Donbas—all civilian (non-governmental, nonmilitary) contexts that partner with multiple funding sources. Women activists have made civic social and legislative gains in making visible and addressing the needs of displaced, the elderly, and other minorities whose lives were early on drastically changed due to proximity to the front and/ or occupied zones. This chapter will give future researchers a valuable reference point for understanding Donbas in further engagements with Ukraine.

Introduction This chapter examines artistic method in depictions of everyday life by women artists, curators, writers, and researchers working in Ukraine as a strategy for documenting and communicating locally and globally about civic life in the ongoing Ukraine-Russia war since 2014. Ukrainian women’s activism has gained wide visibility both domestically and abroad since the Maidan Revolution of Dignity in 2013–2014. During the first stage of the war, meaning occupied Crimea and war in Donbas (2014– 2020), there were key projects among artists and scholar-artist research partnerships that piloted a vocabulary and critical narratives dedicated to at once critiquing limits to freedom of speech internal to Ukraine, while also bringing the immediacy of civilian life in the active war zone in Luhansk and Donetsk and its level of danger to the West’s attention. Within these projects, there were many who aimed at cultivating critical perspectives on women’s lived experiences in the context of Ukraine’s dual challenges of restoring sovereignty while securing AntiDiscrimination policies (passed in 2018) and a National Human Rights Strategy (announced in 2020). The disinformation campaigns unleashed by the Kremlin very early on in the occupation of Luhansk, Donetsk,

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and Crimea posed challenges to these projects and the shared goals of women’s rights activists and human rights defenders. Disinformation campaigns targeting Ukraine shared features with those sponsored by Russia globally: right-wing extremism, anti-E.U., anti-gender, antiimmigrant. Yet Ukraine’s proximity to Russia made it even more susceptible to these campaigns. The overall situation was complicated even further within the broader challenge of the post-Soviet Ukraine state’s attempts to decentralize/decommunize away from the over-regulation of information. In this chapter, I present examples of how activists first partnered with artists to develop visual and other strategies for communicating with broad audiences about the war. These efforts have been successful at linking local experiences of the war by Ukrainians in Donbas to everyday life lived elsewhere, in order to increase empathy and to undercut Russia’s dehumanizing narratives of aggression. These strategies also aimed to nuance Ukraine’s own understanding of its citizenry. Pluralism takes on extra weight in wartime as it offers a way out of in facing the weaponization of mass-media on all sides. With their focus on human rights and freedom of expression, artists-activists early on were experimenting with alternatives to the traps set by Russia disinformation campaigns that have impacted not only Ukraine but the West as well. I analyze several initiatives by activists in Ukraine since 2014 and present three case studies. These recent artistic-activist collaborations are unique methodologically, but are also emergency/rapid research responses that started in the first phase of the war (2014–2021). These projects merit reflection in how the individuals within them have been arguing for an equitable society through an “ethics of care” (Butler, 2016; Phillips, 2008). By narrowing in on three different initiatives—an international art exhibit about the war in East Ukraine; two cultural NGOs based in Donbas; and an annual summer school held in Donbas—I show how these experiments, over time, combine community-based education approaches, artistic activities, and feminist/ LGBTQ+ social organizing in order to document and counter depictions of women and the displaced as vulnerable or helpless subjects, stigmatized in wider society. I analyze how these experiments are critical attempts to document a war that is unprecedented in form and ideology. By utilizing anthropological methods that I developed and enacted over the years 2014–2021 in the early war period, before February 24 (participant observation; interviews), I am able to construct a contemporary history that evidences women’s activism as a

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key component of civil society during and in the decade between two recent revolutions, the processes of which are ongoing and intertwined with the conditions of war. This research into human rights and culture in wartime is ongoing and continues to gain from invaluable collaboration between scholars of women’s activism and history in a postcommunist regional comparative perspective. Further documentation efforts by women and other gender minorities are underway in what is ongoing and only in early stages of massive efforts to provide evidence for the investigation of Russia’s war crimes. In depicting gendered conditions of war and human rights infringements, today, these early civilian efforts show the beginning legal and social contexts of past infractions in/near the lines of military conflict that have intensified with the full-scale escalation of war. International evidence collections and investigations led by the International Criminal Court at The Hague are now underway to further document war crimes that are now happening at the time of writing this chapter. The necessity of simultaneous description of past infractions and activism as a method presents both obstacles and opportunities. The reknown think tank ICTJ: International Center for Transitional Justice published a policy paper on the limits/difficulties of documentation of the war in Ukraine.1 In this paper, ICTJ offers a critical reflection on the Nobel Peace Prize given to Ukrainian civilian documentation of war crimes by the Ukraine NGO Center for Civil Society, pointing out a need for more training, more state support, and unreliability in sometimes exaggerated reports due to “fears of appearing disloyal to Ukraine.” The report also points to investigators needing more localized trainers. While it is not feasible to expect trainers to emerge from among traumatized populations, there can be lessons gained and leaders cultivated through studying women activists who early on started developing strategies for understanding the war.

Women and Anti-Discrimination Policy in Ukraine During Phase 1 of the War In phase one of the war (2014–2021), despite the ongoing occupation of Crimea and the Donbas, women’s and LGBTQ movements in Ukraine continued to grow steadily. For example, the March 8 Women’s March and Kyiv Pride March started with a dozen participants in 2010 and grew to over 2,000 participants annually. Several studies document

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these changes (Hankivsky & Salnykova, 2012; Kis, 2012; Martsenyuk, 2018; Plakhotnik & Mayerchyk, 2020; Zychowicz, 2021a). Gains for gender equality in Ukraine included the signing of a “Gender Equality” Law that prohibits gender discrimination, adopted in 2005, and a more general Anti-Discrimination Law that was adopted in 2012 and amended in 2014. Provisions for the Anti-Discrimination Law had been a point of negotiation in the extension of the E.U. Association Agreement with Ukraine, of which the E.U. had agreed to strike out of the requirements upon request. Yet even this lowered threshold in regard for civilian and human rights did not entice President Yanukovych, who responded by refusing to sign the entire E.U. Association Agreement— loyal to his backing by Putin. The Anti-Discrimination Law was again revisited in 2016, after the Maidan Revolution of Dignity, in the context of the UN OHCHR.2 The law was expanded and included schedules and goals for implementing a future National Human Rights Strategy. These changes led to some progress toward pluralizing Ukrainian society, but new challenges appeared, including in the form of disinformation campaigns, calls for restriction on abortion rights, and xenophobic backlash to the E.U.Association Agreement (signed post-Maidan Revolution in 2015); many of these campaigns were stemming from the Russian Federation, as well as online organizing by groups aligning Church and State often taking form in “anti-gender” and “anti-feminist campaigns” by far-right groups in Ukraine, the E.U., and globally.3 On April 14, 2021, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky enacted the aforementioned National Human Rights Strategy (Decree No. 119/ 2021). The law includes “prevention and countering discrimination” and “ensuring equal rights and opportunities for women and men,” along with military veterans and internally-displaced peoples (Sluga narodu, 2021).4 Amid the advances in Anti-Discrimination policy over the past decade, in wartime Ukraine, the nation saw both a rise of women’s activism coupled with a decline in social tolerance levels. Many positive steps were taken in policies toward gender equality under pressure from international human rights and diplomatic missions. This indicates that discourse on human rights and women/gender equality and diplomacy with an eye toward humanitarian aid are increasingly interlinked for Ukraine, especially after gaining E.U. Member Candidate status in 2022. Securing these policy gains in Anti-Discrimination will remain a challenge as the nation moves beyond war, and will demand complex negotiations between

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universal appeals to value systems, versus adaptability to local variations in the experience of human rights by different populations: women, queer, male, etc. The immediacy of this problem has been made more acute in recent years by 1.5 million displaced in the first phase of the war, now reaching nearly 14 million displaced.

Gender and Activism in Ukraine 2000s to Today Women’s activism in Ukraine throughout the 2000s grew substantially.5 And, as women’s activism gained in visibility through successful marches and other demonstrations, the historical discourse and ideology surrounding women’s emancipation from the Soviet era were recycled and weaponized by opponents to the women’s movement. Where opponents saw Ukraine’s popular shift toward E.U. association as a bigger threat, attempts were made by opponents to project anti-E.U., anti-liberalization messages onto the language of gender rights. A main strategy for attempting to undermine women’s activism by far-right groups in Ukraine involves resurrecting deeper fears around the Soviet dogma on women’s emancipation—and then using it to falsely scare the mainstream with claims that all women activists of the present are communists. Where Soviet-era historical discourse on “The Woman Question” once conflicted with “feminism” as a perceived importation from the West, this conflict continues to produce both broad skepticism of the term “feminism” and productive tensions upon which researchers from different generations, nations, and genders continue to converge and collide. It is important to study the features of disinformation stemming from the Kremlin to understand women’s activism in Ukraine—as it pertains to war—because activism cannot be understood apart from its opponents. Throughout the region, disinformation campaigns stemming from Russia in provoking extremism and social intolerance have impacted broader legal issues tied to the protection of free speech and democracy. Two main interlinked features set Ukraine apart from other nations’ relations with Russia: the fact of war in the Kremlin-backed separatist zones and the oligarchy’s monopoly over both state and private media holdings rooted in financial interests spanning Russia-Ukraine relations. The most effective response to this was citizen-led creation of more independent media and education on disinformation. Activist campaigns for gender diversity also expanded and benefitted from long-standing women’s organizations and their social organizing skills and networks.

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Arts and media production in Ukraine remain important resource for discussions concerned with a range of social issues from the #ЯneBoюcbCkazati campaign against domestic violence (a counterpart to the #MeToo movement), to wikis, blogs, and publishing portals. Human rights discourse in education, communications, and civic inclusion has combined approaches to contest women and the displaced as vulnerable subjects only, countering such social stigmas which tend to entrench in wider society even more during wartime. The role of the Internet and digital activism in women’s demonstrations since 2000 in Ukraine reflects similar trends globally where threats to women’s social autonomy can and should be considered as legitimate, but not de-facto definitive of an essential feminine condition during war, or how all women experience or respond to war. New experiments in education, communications, and civic inclusion that have been ongoing since 2014 combined artistic approaches and scholarly methods to contest depictions of women in the war, and displaced people as only vulnerable or helpless subjects, all-too-often stigmatized in mainstream society. Societies in conflict are often driven by mechanisms that serve the occupiers in their attempts to control or to “dehumanize” and exclude populations from access to resources (Butler, Frames of War). Instead, feminist and gender activists and their creative engagements in Ukraine have early on aimed to promote empathy. Feminist art initiatives in Ukraine since the outset of the war in 2014 include several organized by artist-activist Oksana Briukhovetska: Motherhood (2015); TEXTUS (2017); and I Am Ukrainka (2018), among others.6 Many Ukrainian artists self-identifying as feminists now have successful solo careers at home and abroad in Europe.7 The case studies described in this chapter represent a broader set of activities by groups and NGOS in which experiments in free speech and freedom of expression under the auspices of art continue to become artivism. In my analysis, artivism represents the critical processes of documentation, including synthesizing a contemporary record of events, or historiography of the present. Ongoing practices of scholar-artist collaborations and educational and publishing platforms that bridge local and global efforts are closing the gap between public engagement and silence or denial of the war. These engagements challenge Russia’s neocolonial attempt to erase Ukraine.

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Three Case Studies: Women’s Activism in Donbas The three case studies presented below each began in Donbas during Phase I of the war and all have grown to attract global audiences and participants online. Each of these case studies connects Ukraine’s history to global discourse that can undercut physical and theoretical erasure in the war, the fallout of disinformation/extremism, and increasingly acute economic scarcity. “Izolyatsia” and “Platforma TYU!”—Culture Platforms on the Frontline in Donbas as Educational Public Sphere When in November 2013 Kremlin-backed President Victor Yanukovych suspended negotiations with the European Union around signing the Association Agreement, peaceful protests emerged on Kyiv’s central square, or Maidan. The rigidity of the government and the brutality of the police led to the radicalization of the anti-governmental movement that formed the opposition. The annexation of the Crimea and subsequent Russian military occupation of the Donbas region followed in 2015– 2016. The outbreak of violence trapped thousands of Ukrainians in the conditions of an ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine. Eight years onward, the Crimea and Donbas remained occupied and the UN listed the official combat death toll at 13,000 deaths, with over 1.5 million civilians displaced from their homes. Museums and other cultural institutions in the occupied zones were not been spared. In response to this overall situation, the region saw much cultural revival, in large part due to increased investments from Europe and the U.S. into cultural infrastructure involved displaced peoples and international aid programs along the line of combat. The cultural center Izolyatsia, once located on a former industrial site in the city of Donetsk, which has been occupied since 2014, was turned into a prison by the occupying Russian forces (so-called separatists). Site-specific installations before the occupation took place often feature in the works created afterward in other places in Ukraine. References to Donbas abound in these and other works by contemporary artists who also installed exhibitions throughout Europe. In 2014, the platform moved to Kyiv and reinvented itself as a hub for research, creating an international residency program and grant funding for artists by partnering with Europe and U.S. foundations and embassies. A policy report

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about culture in Ukraine published in 2019 by the former Director of Ukrainian Institute London for Chatham House states: “Izolyatsia combines its curatorial activities with political advocacy in relation to the war in Donbas. The center is critical of what it sees as a simplistic narrative of reconciliation with the Russia-backed militants in Donbas... and it is on the cutting edge of an uneasy discussion about the fragile state of Ukrainian society, as it grapples with external aggression and the growing influence of right-wing groups” (Pesenti, 2020, p. 32). In 2020, after several successful years of working in exile from offices in Kyiv, the group announced it would relocate to Soledar, Donbas, in order to focus on the impact of culture in post-industrial revitalization. Despite the challenges discussed above, Izolyatsia became the first major catalyst, very early on in the war, for a network of smaller, but steadily growing interlinked initiatives dedicated to collecting, sharing, and documenting information about the region and its people. A focus on openness, tolerance, diversity, and virtual mediums among curators, NGOs, artists, and museums steadily attracted funding from partnerships with both small and large grantmaking organizations. Since 2018, Ukraine embarked on investing into its cultural diplomacy, in no small part as a counterweight to Russian aggression. In the three years before the full-scale attack in February 2022, multimillion state budgets were created to support an architecture of Ukrainian global cultural diplomacy in the formation of the Ukraine Cultural Fund (UCF) at the Ministry of Culture and the Ukrainian Institute at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Platforma TYU! (Platfopma Tю!) began in 2015 in Mariupol, an industrialized port city of 400,000 on the Sea of Azov, 15 kilometers from the military contact line with the DNR (Donetsk National Republic). The group’s self-proclaimed history posted to their website reads: It all started when Diana Berg and Konstantin Batozsky joined forces with like-minded people and opened the NGO ‘Azov Development,’ in order to introduce modern culture to a conservative and paternalistic city. Soon after, in 2016, our extraordinary space was born, our magical home— Platform TYU!—which has become the key place for freedom, queerness, and art in the East on the cultural map of Ukraine. (“About Us,” TYU Platform Official Website)

Initially, the platform was supported by the Azov Battalion, a Ukrainian volunteer militia from the region with far-right ideological leanings. Later,

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however, the platform sparked clashes with nationalists over its LGBTQ and feminist agendas.8 Despite these challenges, the organization managed to survive with the help of international supporters including Goethe Institut, British Council, House of Europe, USAid, U.S. NED (National Endowment for Democracy), and UNFPA. Ukrainian partners included the oldest and most established pro-LGBTQ NGO in the country, and several cultural organizations, including Izolyatsia. The platform’s mission statement reflects the external challenges that they transformed into social strategies: “we promote human rights and freedoms through culture and contemporary art, developing critical thinking in Ukrainian society. / Over the years the TYU Platform has become a space of experiments, freedom from stereotypes and prejudices. We gather around ourselves ready to look at reality differently, to ask important questions for ourselves.” This emphasis on resilience extends to the international feminist online residency that TYU started in July 2020 in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, entitled: “Woven Network / Women Network / Mepeҗivo.” The closure of the gap between Ukraine and the E.U. in this project is significant in its metaphorical usage of the language of weaving. Traditionally viewed as “women’s work,” weaving is here taken up in the technological domain of virtual media as a creative experiment in computer–human interaction. The isolation of once-marginalized queer or feminist activist populations in Mariupol, then under the pandemic (now under Russian occupation), appears in hindsight at the time of writing of this chapter to be a fleeting memory on the backdrop of massconsciousness. Overcoming isolation, once a theme that split not only individuals, but nations apart at the time of the Iron Curtain takes on new meaning post-occupation. The experience of individual isolation in the pandemic was a common thread uniting women artists from Mariupol with other women interlocutors across the European continent. It was a live action that spoke to the slogan on TYU’s website: “when you create art, you oppose war.” Now, the context has changed. As of November 2022, the TYU! Platform continues to exist, operating virtually and raising funds to support creative workers and artists from Russian-occupied Mariupol.

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Donbas Studies Summer School—Universal Depictions of Everyday Life to Foster Empathy June 24–July 2, 2019, Izolyatsia organized the first of an ongoing series of annual summer schools as part of their hosting of a large Donbas Studies Research Initiative. The Donbas Studies research platform aimed to create a hub of open, easily-accessible archival materials, lectures, and other resources about the region, including a public library held in Izolyatsia offices. The main partners for the 2019 school were CRCSEES at University of St Andrews and the Lviv Center for Urban History. The school took place at a set of sites in the cities of Severodonetsk and Lysychansk. The school also took place in 2020, in Lysychansk, in a mostly virtual format. The host partners for the 2020 school were Ukraine Ministry of Culture UCF: Ukraine Cultural Fund and Izolyatsia. My engagements with Izolyatsia as a researcher date to 2015, in the earliest days after the relocation of their cultural platform from Donbas to Kyiv. I had been introduced to the site due to their publishing of an edition of their Donbas Studies series dedicated to the impacts of the war on women. A few years later, in 2017–2018, I participated in the Donbas summer school. The inaugural Izolyatsia summer school was led in partnership with St. Andrew’s University in Scotland (historian Victoria Donovan and researcher Darya Tsymbalyuk) in partnership with Izolyatsia. The school aimed to engage “young researchers and artists with a particular focus on the cultural potential of the communities of monofunctional cities of the Donbas.” According to the official announcement for the school: “The main themes are the (mono)town, the revitalization of (post)industrial spaces, cultural and creative practices for building communities, cultural memory, cultural studies, the transformation of public spaces and sustainable urban ecosystems.” My engagement with the initiative and its organizers involved teaching research methods from anthropology and the humanities (cultural studies) in small workshops, with a focus on gender and development in post-Soviet contexts.9 The idea for the school, while not explicitly feminist, adopted feminist approaches by encouraging local, inclusive, creative methods to research at the intersection of education, cultural preservation, history, and human rights outreach. Questions in the inaugural 2019 school included: “What is a monotown; how does a city-forming enterprise affect the life of the community and its ideas of the past and future? Deindustrialization and conflict are the main challenges faced by the residents of the

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monofunctional cities in Donbas today. What is the role of cultural and artistic practices in defining and redefining cultural identity in this context?” Lectures, workshops, and excursions given by local professors and community leaders emphasized comparative frameworks for exploring the socioeconomic impacts and cultural processes of de-industrialization in today’s Ukraine. Highlights included visiting the sites of the first coal and iron ore mines in the Donbas region, a walking tour of the formerly occupied city of Lysychansk, and a guided tour of the Severodonetsk AZOT Chemical Factory. The theme of the 2019 school was “The Plant Gave Me Everything.” The title is a quote from the 2015 film, In the East, Directed by Piotr Armianovski: “The plant gave me everything: it gave me a flat, and a life, my kids are working, the lads, doing no worse than their father. So I have something to be proud of.” Presentations featured both local and guest scholars and local communities in the formerly occupied city of Lysychansk and in Severodonetsk. I was invited to participate both in the inaugural school in 2019 and also again in the second (virtual edition) in 2020. I was invited to give a workshop, which I entitled, “Frame Work: Ethnographic Method for Visual Research.” The theme for the second year of the school was “Landscape as Monument,” and participants were invited to reflect on environmental and human interaction in post-industrial contexts.10 Participants included international students, activists, and artists from Denmark, Germany, U.K., U.S., Poland, and Canada, among other countries. Local historians from Lysychansk and Severodonetsk were invited to lead excursions; for example, a daylong hike and immersion into the history of the mining industries in the nineteenth century and current ecological issues in the polluted watershed. Two years before the first school took place in 2019, I interviewed several members of the local Ukrainian creative collective De Ne De.11 This was a group of curators who had helped in recent years to restore museums in the region with assistance from USAID after the retreat of Russian forces in 2016. The Lysychansk Regional Museum is one such impacted site—now under full Russian occupation, cut-off completely from Ukraine after weeks of violent street battles that extended across the entire landscape that had moved to the center of the world’s attention. Yet only in a military sense. The humanization of inhabitants of Donbas is an antidote to Putinism and Russia’s war on these territories, which re-writes them as a blank

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slate. In 2019 during my visit to Lysychansk with our Donbas Studies Group, the Artist-musician Anton Lapov created an audio tour of six sites beginning from the central bus station in Severodonetsk. The audiotour culminated on the rooftop of the skeleton of a twelve-story-tall Soviet data center that was planned in the 1980s, but was never finished. “You see that neighborhood over there,” one artist said to me as he pointed to one section of the city near an abandoned factory. “They call that area ‘Komsomolka,’ because many dormitories are located there. But that area is also one of the poorest, and there is a big problem everywhere in this city with drug addiction. They get bored. They give up.” Many of the creative projects produced in and about Donbas in the years before the war premeditated today’s nationwide attacks on Ukraine, which are about more than territory but ideological subjugation of Ukraine to Putin’s “Russkie Mir”/ “Russian World” dogma. An important part of the critical work that art collectives do in Ukraine today—under shelling—is to create spaces where people can debate issues without being closed off from view in other public spaces, therefore more easily weaponized. They also integrate and network with international human rights groups, scholars, and experts; for example, those who were leading a series of workshops aimed at strengthening institutional support for the realization of a Severodonetsk Contemporary Arts Center. Global efforts to protect institutions from Russian invading forces would also increase local infrastructure for activist women’s projects that started before February 24, 2022.12 At the time of writing this article, Ministry of Education of Ukraine reports 1000 universities either destroyed or damaged; museums and archives are equally at risk of either being occupied or destroyed completely. Further to the above, the informational representations of gender justice, by artists and others, go hand in hand with the empowerment of displaced people. Many women art activists themselves are displaced people (IDPs) or refugees; these populations are at the center of their work, shown as integral members of society. For example, in the film entitled Displaced Garden (Fig. 1). The image of a garden has become a trope among artists from Donbas for regrowth, regeneration, sustainability, and social ecologies of interdependence that serve to counter stereotypes of vulnerability all-too-often applied to these groups in mainstream social assumptions. For example, the film Mustard in the Garden, by Piotr Armianovski; or visual drawings and paintings by Alevtina Kakhidze that often take a feminist approach to aging, intergenerational relations, and the

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story of her mother, who remained in the artist’s native Zhdanovka, under occupation, until her recent passing due in part to the state’s failure to deliver pensions in an equitable manner. Whether or not creative outreach to Donbas by local cultural initiatives can survive and succeed at integrating women’s empowerment into documentation of experiences, including atrocities, in Donbas, or dare to make feminist activism explicit as the TYU platform in Mariupol was able to do successfully, remains to be seen.13 After the violent occupation of the entire city of Mariupol, Russian forces destroyed many buildings and nearly the entire population of the city evacuated to other regions of Ukraine or abroad. The battle for the Azovstal Steel Plant involved hundreds of civilians trapped under the plant for weeks without stable sources of food or water. At the time of writing of this chapter, the city remains occupied. Investigations are underway at UNHCR and The Hague on the torture and interrogations of Ukrainian civilians and POWs, and the construction of “filtration camps” across the South and East Ukraine where individuals trying to flee are screened and processed for any potential ties to Ukraine. As of July 2022, the occupied territories’ Internet traffic has been rerouted to Russia further cutting off the region.

Fig. 1 Sketch for the animation film in development “Displaced Garden,” Dir. Kateryna Voznytsia, yutopia films, https://yutopiafilms.info/Displaced-Garden. Shared with permission of the filmmakers

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A Transnational Art Exhibit—Discursive Intervention into Memory Politics It is imperative that as the war continues scholars do not overlook the years before its escalation—the models for art-activism that were created in Donbas during its partial occupation 2014–2021 have resulted in a community of international researchers. One example can be found in the international art exhibition At the Front Line: Ukrainian Art 2013– 2019, curated by Svitlana Biedarieva and Ania Deikun. This project was exhibited in 2019 in Mexico City and in 2020 at OSEREDOK Ukrainian Cultural and Educational Centre in Winnipeg, Canada. Invited artists in the exhibition included speakers from Ukraine who utilize in practice both Ukrainian and Russian to defy Putin’s false claims on “protecting” Russian speakers from Ukraine; individuals who exhibit with members of the Polish opposition to the conservative PiS government; artists who express pro-LGBTQ and pro-feminist stances; and professionals who boycott funding or invitations from Russian state-backed museums, including the prestigious Garage Museum, of which its partnerships include some institutions based in the West. Both events unfolded over several weeks and included seminars, talks, guided tours, and a catalogue. An academic anthology was published (Biedarieva, 2021; Zychowicz, 2021a, b). This exhibit is representative of more that since taken place in Europe by voices who critically address the role of art in the face of war. Contingency surrounding this exhibit introduced redefinitions of “frozen conflict” and “defense strategy” that may have, from the outset, only appeared to apply to military conflict, but in the span of only a few months, inoculated a different global vocabulary hearkening back to the days of the Bubonic Plague. At the Front Line opened just before the lockdown began in Canada and ended up remaining in the museum throughout the summer, transmitted online in virtual tours and talks. The exhibit’s installation into OSEREDOK, a paragon for culture in the Ukrainian diaspora, was unprecedented in bringing, for the first time, a composite of contemporary art curated by women from post-Soviet Ukraine to the West. Some of the works experimented with folk motifs in new formats, for example, the woodcut print by Roman Minin featuring Soviet socialist-realist aesthetics of workers in the Donbas to comment on the experience of displacement. Among North American audiences, many can recall one’s parents’ or grandparents’ stories of displacement

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from Europe at the time of the Second World War, and even earlier, mass emigration from Europe in the late nineteenth century. The experience of immigration and displacement, of “being other,” applies in the context of 10 million Ukrainians displaced or emigrated due to the war as of mid-2022. But this feeling of displacement also could be said to extend to a much broader swath of experiments by artists and activists since the radical upheaval and economic fallout that was experienced in the1990s. This is especially true for those whose work concerns gender equality as much of the women’s movements in Ukraine have cited the 1990s as an origin point for feminism in the figure of the author Oksana Zabuzhko. There is also an effort to re-define the present by rejecting and revising the idea of “second wave” feminism; oftentimes, the formalities of naming waves are marked as part of an “academic feminism” associated with the 1990s. Rather, a new historicism is sought through engaging non-academic spaces of street marches, workshops, museums, and summer school fieldwork. The curators of this exhibit convey a political stance in their statement, entitled “Art as a Mirror of the War,” stating: “The role of art in the context of war is to be a mirror for society, with all its imperfections and the contradictions that can be found in the people surrounding us” (Exhibit Catalogue, 9). The curators’ claim that they are creating “a mirror” for “the context of war” is a key to how they underline universals within their work. As Walter Benjamin wrote in “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” that putting an end to war may be beyond the capacity of art, yet images can expand our ability to more fully account for its ramifications. “Post-Soviet” is no longer an East/West phenomenon closed off by an iron wall (not a desire to emigrate or permanently settle in the West or East as either/or), but a global condition of re-centering women’s and other minorities’ experiences in multiple experiences of war.14 The unilateral passage of the Decommunization Laws by Ukrainian Parliament (Supreme Rada) converged with timing of the Gay Propaganda Law that was introduced in Russia. International outcry against both sets of laws resulted in several petitions and letters. Over seventy scholars around the globe signed the Open Letter against the “So-Called ‘Anti-Communist Law’” in 2015 in warning against the suppression of academic freedom (Marples, 2015). The juxtaposition of past and present Soviet-era symbols into the exhibit is significant with regard to the controversial Decommunization Laws introduced in Ukraine in

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2015. For example, Yevgen Nikiforov’s photographs of Soviet-era monuments to the Red Army in “On the Republic’s Monuments.” The laws mandated the removal of Soviet-related place names, monuments, and the opening of archives in response to propaganda and disinformation campaigns stemming from Russia. These laws were criticized by many activists and scholars in the country and abroad who attacked their unilateral administration by the National Institute of Memory.15 Now, under martial law and as cultural artifacts come under attack from Russian forces, these laws will be revisited in future in terms of the protection, preservation, and open access to archives. Many activists living in Ukraine today, within or at the edge of territories occupied by Russian forces, have completely left behind the post-Soviet symbolic order, entering a new era of globalization with increasingly diverse and dangerous ways of navigating self-preservation and self-determination. Part of the challenge will involve preserving the marks of the censor, inclusive of Soviet-era materials, in opening versus regulating access to information.

Conclusion Securing women’s rights is not only important for the integration of protections for gender minorities into democratic societies, but for international relations and the stabilization of interstate conflict. The advancement of the rule of law at the intersection of human rights and gender in today’s Ukraine is increasingly essential for stabilizing the country, not only to protect the diversity of its citizenry, which is also multiethnic and multilingual, but also for ending the war, rebuilding Ukraine, and improving international relations across the region. Recent women’s activism in Ukraine since the outset of war in 2014 contributes an invaluable record and model for engaging local communities in transformation out of conflict. Analyzing examples from phase one of the war (before February 24, 2022), this chapter provides future researchers with critical case studies for understanding how struggles for civil rights during wartime have continued since 2015 through Ukrainian women’s ongoing efforts. Artistic method has been employed by activists for several years to undercut the weaponization of identities during wartime and to pluralize society. This is accomplished by promoting empathy by re-contextualizing how war and propaganda rely on frames which serve to “dehumanize” and exclude populations (Judith Butler, Frames of War). I draw upon

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my own participant observation, for example, in the Donbas Summer School that I attended in person in 2019 in formerly occupied Lysychansk, Ukraine, at the time the line of the conflict zone—now occupied. These case studies will give future researchers of the war context for understanding women’s central role in the anti-discrimination campaigns, laws, and anti-disinformation activism as early warning signs against the destruction unleashed by Putin’s authoritarianism, genocidal colonialism, and brutal crimes against humanity. The three case studies presented in this article represent the three major interventions by art/cultural platforms into the context of the war in Donbas since its origin in 2014. By studying localized attempts to document the war since 2014, created by activists, scholars, and artists who work with questions of gender, identity, and rights in Ukraine, we can come to view invaluable lessons about paths to future empowerment. Care for one’s community becomes a source of activism, and local–global networks of Ukraine cultural producers and preservationists—a resource. Materials from these initiatives have created a longer archive of documentation that can serve to make visible the invisible, or in other words, to reverse the dehumanization of minorities and falsification of Ukraine’s sovereignty through disinformation campaigns aimed at provoking conflict. Women’s struggles for social protections and equality have been sharpened by the convergence of the introduction of Ukraine’s National Human Rights Strategy with the Russia-Ukraine war. Beyond tracing gains in policy alone, critical reflection and engagement with women’s activist initiatives concerning Russia’s large-scale attacks on Ukraine can deepen global understandings not only of this region, but of human resilience. Future research on/within Ukraine will be irrevocably shaped by Russia’s war on Ukraine. Ethics do not demand easy solutions or forced solidarity, nor can there be generalized universals without repeating Soviet-style erasures of culpability; neither can there be any truth or reconciliation in false equivalence between the war on the women of Ukraine and how the women of Russia experience war from within the colonial discourse of “New Russia” propagated by Putin’s violent patriarchal imperialism. There will be much difficult work ahead for women in both countries in the documentation of war crimes to include sexual violence, and the outcomes will have global ramifications. A challenge for future researchers will be to gain access to new ways of knowing and

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communicating that do not evade lived experiences, and do not give into simplistic categorization into us/them; ally/enemy; or he/she. This is both an undeniable responsibility in the era of fake news and war, as much as it is pathbreaking for women not only from Ukraine, but in any context where human rights have come under threat.

Notes 1. Roccatello, Anna Myriam. ICTJ: International Center for Transitional Justice. “In Ukraine, Justice for Victims Is More Than Criminal Accountability.” July 1, 2022. https://www.ictj.org/latest-news/ukraine-justicevictims-more-criminal-accountability. 2. OHCHR. 12 August 2016. “Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination the Report of Ukraine.” https://www.ohchr.org/EN/ NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=20370&LangID=E. The Anti-Discrimination Law prohibits the disadvantaging of individuals for race, class, gender, or religious reasons. 3. Atlantic Council (2019) and Human Rights Watch Ukraine (2020), Amnesty International Ukraine (2019), and Zychowicz (2019). International human rights monitoring groups since 2010 measured gender-based intolerance, among other indicators, in steadily rising rates of hate crimes and domestic partner violence in Ukraine (Martsenyuk, 2012; UN Women, 2019). 4. The law arguably contributed to Ukraine advancing its E.U. application as among its stated aims were to uphold treaties within the then EU-Ukraine Association Agreement in order to “contribute to the implementation of Ukraine’s UN Sustainable Development Goals until 2030, and improve the position of Ukraine in international human rights rankings” (Ukrinform, 2021). 5. For more examples please see the following panel discussion and article by scholars of gender in Ukraine through the lenses of history, sociology, and anthropology: “Thirty Years of Women’s Activism in Ukraine.” Jessica Zychowicz (U-Alberta) Olesya Khromeychuk (Ukraine Institute London), Tamara Martsenyuk (Kyiv-Mohyla Academy) and Emily Channell-Justice (HURI). March 8, 2021. Online at Ukrainian Institute London and Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute: https://www.youtube.com/watch? v=MAuN8PL86-E. Accessed December 8, 2022. The article: Zychowicz, Jessica; Olesya Khromeychuk; Tamara Martsenyuk; and Emily ChannellJustice. “Ukraine (Finally) Treats Women’s Activism Seriously.” The Ukrainian Quarterly, Summer 2021 (2): 47–54. “For a broader and longer study of the phenomenon of women’s activism during this period please see “Zychowicz 2021a”

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6. In 2018 a large retrospective exhibit took place in Kyiv called A Space of One’s Own, in reference to Virginia Woolf. Spanning the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, the exhibit featured works by hundreds of women artists past and present. The public program included lectures by scholars and an anthology/catalogue of contemporary texts and images by and about Ukrainian women artists and authors, entitled, Why There Are Such Great Artists in Ukrainian Art [Qomy v ykpa|ncbkomy mictectvi p veliki xydomnici] (exhibition catalogue, ed. Kateryna Iakovlenko; co-curated by Tatiana Kochubinska and Tetiana Zhmurko). 7. Notable contemporary artists with global followings who self-identify as feminists in Ukraine include: Alina Kleytman, Valentyna Petrova, Maria Kulikovska, Oksana Kazmina, Anti Gonna, to name a few. 8. Volchek, D. Clezy. «Diany Bepg i dva vida ykpainckogo patpiotizma» [Diana Berg’s Tears and Two Views of Ukrainian Patriotism]. Radio Svoboda. August 25, 2018. https://www.svoboda.org/a/ 29450965.html. 9. For a recent overview of gender studies and feminism(s) from a transatlantic perspective, see: The Routledge Handbook of Gender in CentralEastern Europe and Eurasia (2021). 10. Several participants from the school convened again, over a year later, in a 3 day conference, “Slavic Studies Goes Public” including participants from Ukraine, Russia, the U.K. and Canada. Outcomes included multilingual podcasts and open-source academic articles (Donovan et al., 2021). 11. I have also interviewed Donbas Odyssey group, including Darya Tsymbalyuk, one of the main organizers of the first Donbas Studies school discussed above. 12. For example, “Theatre for Dialogue,” a community-based theatre organization that works with populations impacted by the war and regularly partners with UN Women. See Potapova, UN Women (2019, May). 13. Portions of this section have been reprinted from the Donbas Studies Project. See: Zychowicz: “To Walk the Line While (Re)Drawing It: Aesthetic-Political Transformation in Formerly Occupied East Ukraine.” 14. Cultural and literary historian Vitaly Chernetsky has made a similar observation in describing instances of “postcommunist postcolonialism” within a globalized Ukraine of the 2000s (Chernetsky, 2007). 15. See Nuzov report: “Transitional Justice in Ukraine: National Reconciliation or Reconsolidation of Post-Communist Trauma?” October 17, 2016. ICTJ. Also: Marina Pesenti, Cultural Revival and Social Transformation in Ukraine: The Role of Culture and the Arts in Supporting Post-Euromaidan Resilience. Chatham House Ukraine Forum, 2020.

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References Amnesty International. (2019). Annual Report for 2019: Eastern Europe and Central Asia. Amnesty.org. Retrieved December 28, 2022, from https:// www.amnesty.org/en/latest/campaigns/2020/04/air2019-eeca/ Armianovski, P. (2018). Mustard in the Garden [Gopqica v cadax]. Film. ArtDocFest. Retrieved December 28, 2022, from https://www.youtube. com/watch?v=X6UDrPpBkZs Atlantic Council. (2019). Annual Report for 2018–2019. AtlanticCouncil.org. Retrieved December 20, 2021, from https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/wpcontent/uploads/2019/09/Atlantic-Council-Annual-Report-2018%E2%80% 932019.pdf Biedarieva, S., & Deikun, A. (Eds.). (2019). At the Front Line: Ukrainian Art 2013–2019 Exhibition Catalogue. Vydavnytstvo Simnadtsyat. Biedarieva, S. Ed. (2021). Contemporary Ukrainian and Baltic Art: Political and Social Perspectives, 1991–2021. University Press and Ibidem Press. http://cup. columbia.edu/book/contemporary-ukrainian-and-balticart/9783838215266 Butler, J. (2016). Frames of War: When Is Life Grievable? Verso. Briukhovetska, O. (2022). Personal Website. Retrieved December 28, 2022, from https://www.briukhovetska.art/ Chernetsky, V. (2007). Mapping Postcommunist Cultures: Russia and Ukraine in the Context of Globalization. McGill-Queen’s University Press. Donbas Studies Summer School. (2019). Website. Retrieved December 28, 2022, from https://donbasstudies.org/en/ Donovan, V., Rann, J., Tsymbalyuk, D. (Eds.). (2021). Slavic Studies Goes Public: Who? What? Why? Where? When? Modern Languages Open, 1(4), 1–6. https://doi.org/10.3828/mlo.v0i0.349 Fábian, K., Johnson, J. E., & Lazda M. (Eds.). (2021). The Routledge Handbook of Gender in Central-Eastern Europe and Eurasia. Routledge Press. Hankivsky, O., & Salnykova, A. (Eds.). (2012). Gender, Politics, and Society in Ukraine. University of Toronto Press. Human Rights Watch. (2020). World Report for 2019 and 2020: Ukraine. Retrieved December 28, 2022, from https://www.hrw.org/world-report/ 2020/country-chapters/ukraine Iakovlenko, K. (Ed.). (2019). Why There Are Such Great Artists in Ukrainian Art [Qomy v ykpa|ncbkomy mictectvi p veliki xydoҗnic]. PinchukArtCentre. Izolyatsia Platform for Cultural Initiatives. Website. Retrieved December 28, 2022, from https://izolyatsia.org/en/ Khromeychuk, O., Martsenyuk, T., Channell-Justice, E., & Zychowicz, J. (2021, Summer). Ukraine (Finally) Treats Women’s Activism Seriously. The Ukrainian Quarterly, 2, 47–54.

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Kis, O. (2012). Ukrainian Women Reclaiming the Feminist Meaning of International Women’s Day: A Report About Recent Feminist Activism. Aspasia, 6(2), 219–232. Martsenyuk, T. (2018). Why Be Afraid of Feminism? [Qomy ne vapto boЯticЯ feminizmy?]. Komora vydavnytstvo. Martsenyuk, T. (2012). Ukrainian Societal Attitudes Towards the LGBT Communities. In O. Hankivsky & A. Salnyjkova (Eds.), Gender, Politics, and Society in Ukraine (pp. 385–410). University of Toronto Press. Marples, D. R. (2015, March). Open Letter from Scholars and Experts on Ukraine Regarding the So-Called “Anti-Communist Law”. Krytyka. Retrieved December 28, 2022 from https://krytyka.com/en/articles/open-letter-sch olars-and-experts-ukraine-re-so-called-anti-communist-law Nuzov, I. (2016, October 17). Transitional Justice in Ukraine: National Reconciliation or Reconsolidation of Post-Communist Trauma? International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ). Retrieved December 28, 2022, from https:// www.ictj.org/news/ukraine-reconciliation-communist-memory Pesenti, M. (2020, November). Cultural Revival and Social Transformation in Ukraine: The Role of Culture and the Arts in Supporting Post-Euromaidan Resilience. Chatham House Ukraine Forum. Retrieved December 28, 2022, from https://www.chathamhouse.org/2020/11/cultural-revival-andsocial-transformation-ukraine/01-introduction-0 Phillips, S. (2008). Women’s Social Activism in the New Ukraine: Development and the Politics of Differentiation. Indiana University Press. Plakhotnik, O., & Mayerchyk, M. (2020, December). Ukrainian Feminisms and the Issue of Coloniality. University of Alberta Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies Public Virtual Lecture Series. Retrieved December 28, 2022, from https://www.facebook.com/watch/live/?ref=watch_permalink& v=208991174046172 Potapova, O. (2019, May 29). In the Words of Oksana Potapova: “We Need Radical transformation”. UNWomen.org. Retrieved December 28, 2022, from https://www.unwomen.org/en/news/stories/2019/5/in-thewords-of-oksana-potapova Sluga narodu [Clyga napody]. (2021, April 20). President of Ukraine Approves the National Human Rights Strategy. National Broadcasting Service of Ukraine (Sluga narodu). Retrieved December 28, 2022 from https://sluganarodu.com/en/president-of-ukraine-approves-the-national-human-rights-str ategy/ TYU Platform [Platfopma Tю]. Website. Retrieved December 28, 2022 from https://tu.org.ua/.

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Ukrinform. (2021, April 20). President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky Signed Decree No. 119/2021 to Enact the National Human Rights Strategy. Ukrinform.net. Retrieved December 28, 2022, from https://www.ukrinform.net/ rubric-society/3214900-zelensky-enacts-national-human-rights-strategy.html UN Women. (2019). Annual Report for 2019. UNWomen.org. Retrieved December 28, 2022, from https://www.unwomen.org/en/digital-library/ annual-report Zychowicz, J. (2019, August 2). Ukraine Hosts Most Successful LGBTQ Event in the Nation’s History, But New Challenges Appear. Wilson Center/Kennan Institute: Ukraine Focus Blog. https://www.wilsoncenter.org/blog-post/ukr aine-hosts-most-successful-lgbtq-event-the-nations-history-new-challengesappear Zychowicz, J. (2021a). Superfluous Women: Feminism, Art, and Revolution in Twenty-First Century Ukraine. University of Toronto Press. Zychowicz, J. (2021b, January 29). A Dans Macabre in the Time of the Pandemic: A Review of the Exhibit at the Front Line: Ukrainian Art, 2013– 2019. IMAGINATIONS: Revue D’études interculturelles de L’Image / Journal of Cross-Cultural Image Studies. Retrieved December 28, 2022, from http:// imaginations.glendon.yorku.ca/?p=13873 Zychowicz, J. (Ed.). (2023). Freedom Taking Place: War, Women and Culture at the Intersection of Ukraine, Poland, and Belarus. Vernon Press.

Generations of Feminist Translations: Connecting Russophone Academic and Activist Feminist Translation Debates Across the 2000s and 2010s Dinara Yangeldina

Abstract The period of the 2010s in Russia is usually associated with the so-called conservative turn marked by the Russian state rhetoric of ‘traditional values’ and repressive measures related to the politics of gender and sexuality (Davydova, 2019; Temkina & Zdravomyslova, 2014). However, despite these developments, feminist activism blossomed during the same period. Less visible internationally but buzzing Russophone grassroots feminist scenes proliferated online on social media platforms. The chapter shows that reading the grassroots feminist 2010s debate against the academic one of the 2000s illuminates the changing socio-political circumstances in which Russophone feminists translate. It is perhaps no longer possible to frame the debate on the cultural transfer of feminism either through the lens of the inherent ‘foreignness’ or singularity of translated ‘Western’ feminism or to presume the coherence of Russophone feminism as a monolithic entity. The expansion and

D. Yangeldina (B) University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 A.-M. Sätre et al. (eds.), Post-Soviet Women, Sustainable Development Goals Series, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-38066-2_14

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proliferation of grassroots digital Russophone feminist discursivity in the 2010s and the ubiquity of feminist translation across political divides indicate that for younger generations of Russophone feminists, feminism is no longer seen as something inherently ‘Western’ or foreign. However, some forms of feminism, such as Russophone intersectionality, may be discursively constructed as more foreign than others within Russophone grassroots feminist scenes in the 2010s. The chapter explores the role that translation and translation strategies play in this process.

Introduction The period of the 2010s in Russia is usually associated with the so-called conservative turn marked by the Russian state rhetoric of ‘traditional values’ and repressive measures related to the politics of gender and sexuality (Davydova, 2019; Temkina & Zdravomyslova, 2014). Within Western commentaries on the state of feminism in post-Soviet contexts, including Russia, local feminist movements are characterized as frail or even nonexistent (Solovey, 2022, p. 12). The country’s only widely known manifestations of feminism remain high-profile cases of activist persecution, such as Pussy Riot affair (Wiedlack, 2016). However, despite the notorious ‘conservative turn’ that marked recent years in Russia, feminist activism blossomed during the very same period. Less visible internationally but buzzing Russophone grassroots digital feminist scenes proliferated online on social media platforms.1 This feminist digital buzz defies gloomy narratives about the paucity and alleged unpopularity of feminism in post-Soviet spaces. In many ways, grassroots digital feminist pages on social media were central to the subsequent demarginalization of feminism in broader oppositional Russian public discourse in the mid2010s. Only recently, scholarly works challenging the narrative of the alleged unpopularity of feminism in post-soviet Russia have started to emerge, dedicated to mapping heterogenous Russophone grassroots feminist activisms online and offline (Kire˘ı-Sitnikova, 2015; Kirey-Sitnikova, 2016; Perheentupa, 2022; Sen' kova, 2018; Solovey, 2020, 2021, 2022; Zha˘ıvoronok, 2018). This chapter aims to contribute to this growing scholarship. It neither seeks to deconstruct reactionary Russian state rhetoric of feminism as foreign and ‘Western’ nor aims to present a picture of Russophone feminisms through the exclusive trope of the heroic resistance to ‘conservative

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turn’ and patriarchal state rhetoric. As much as these elements are important for the broader context of the 2010s, they hardly do justice to the heterogeneity of grassroots Russophone feminist activisms on social media platforms fractured along multiple lines of contention and engaged in vivid Russophone feminist discursivity. The popularity of grassroots Russophone feminist media in the 2010s, in many ways, confirms the successful localization of feminism in post-soviet Russophone contexts, demonstrating that despite earlier worries expressed by gender scholars (Voronina, 2007), feminism does ‘grow’ even in the ‘hostile soil.’ My specific aim in this chapter is to forge links between two debates: the early 2000s Russophone academic feminist debate on the translation and translatability of ‘Western’ feminist frames into the post-soviet contexts and the discussions of the translatability of intersectional feminism occurring a decade later, within grassroots Russophone feminist scenes on social media platforms in the 2010s. My wish to connect these discussions stems from my doctoral research dedicated to the grassroots Russophone translations of intersectional feminism (Yangeldina, 2023), as well as my personal reflections around feminist activism.2 To provide an illustrative vignette: I belong to the post-Soviet generation of Russophone feminists who discovered feminism not through Russophone gender studies academia but via digital Russophone feminist spaces on social media platforms. What is striking is that the earlier discussions that preoccupied Russophone feminist academics in the early 2000s have never made it on the pages of grassroots Russophone digital feminist communities in the 2010s. I only discovered the 2000s Russophone academic debate on Western feminism’s translatability to post-Soviet contexts many years later during my PhD research through an overview by a feminist scholar from Finland, Marianne Liljeström, written in English and published by a Swedish university. Although this earlier 2000s debate used the Russian language and therefore did not require translation, seemingly more accessible, it has not traveled to the digital Russophone feminist spaces I frequented in the 2010s. Trying to understand why this was the case is one of the questions that stimulates my thinking in this chapter. What can be learned by juxtaposing these two debates, two decades of feminist translation, and two Russophone feminist scenes (gender studies academia and grassroots feminist conversations) against each other? By returning to the discussions of the 2000 and reading it against my research on the translations of intersectionality within grassroots online

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Russophone feminist scenes in the 2010s, I hope to provide some reflections regarding the changing role of the ‘Western’ feminist theory, the shifting ascriptions of foreignness to only some bodies of feminist knowledge, and the continuing importance of the praxis of Russophone feminist translation. I first give a brief introduction to the 2000s Russophone academic feminist debate. Afterward, I connect the debate to the 2010s grassroots feminist discussions concerned with the translatability of intersectionality. What kind of friction does Anglophone intersectional feminist idiom produce within heterogenous grassroots Russophone digital feminist scenes when it enters them through translation? And what do these details tell us about the role of ‘Western’ feminisms’ translatability debate? Finally, I make some conclusions speculating what bringing the two debates together contributes to rethinking the Russophone feminist translation praxis.

Translating ‘Western’ Feminisms into Post-Soviet Contexts in the Early 2000s Contemporary Russophone discussions about translatability and reception of ‘Western’ feminist discourses are by no means new: when gender and feminism came to post-Soviet countries, propelled by financial streams from Western donors and NGOs after the collapse of the USSR, many scholars from the region were similarly reflecting over translated Western feminist frames and their applicability to post-soviet contexts (Gapova, 2006; Zha˘ıvoronok, 2018; Zvereva, 2001). During perestroika times, the feminist movement and academic communities in post-Soviet countries, including Russia, relied heavily on the translation of ‘Western’ feminist concepts and texts, underpinned by the financial flows from the West (Zha˘ıvoronok, 2018, p. 40). Some argue that the arrival of gender studies (and its accompanying conceptual apparatus) to the region has filled in the gap left by the discredited Soviet Marxism and represented a form of cultural capital, allowing for the creation of demarcations between old academic elites and new public intellectuals, modeling themselves on Western civil society, facilitated by the financial support of Western donors (Gapova, 2006, 2009). The new highly coded language of feminist theory transformed into a marker of distinction in post-Soviet academia and the public sphere, creating demarcation between the initiated and the noninitiated (Zvereva, 2001). The fact that gender studies were coming to

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many post-Soviet countries through Western donors and NGOs, who were financing research centers, conferences, and publications, understandably raised accusations of political partisanship, selling out, and generated charges of addressing impenetrable texts to Western sponsors rather than to local readers (Savkina, 2007). At the same time, the Russophone theoretical feminist discourse of the early 2000s has been described as marked by ‘discursive omnivorousness’ and busy with ‘digesting, appropriating, taking in, imbibing, translating, assimilating social theories’ (Zdravomyslova & Temkina, 2000, p. 18). This discursive openness concerned the processes of cultural translation at large: appropriating and revising texts written from various feminist locations, where texts were entering the Russophone feminist academic scenes as ‘blocs,’ representing different feminist chronotopes, multiplying and contradicting each other, while starting ‘rooting in’ and pushing for new methodologies (Zdravomyslova & Temkina, 2000, p. 19). The vivid academic feminist debates around the problems of cultural (and often textual) translation and transfer of ‘Western’ feminist texts and concepts into Russophone gender studies contexts in the 2000s that unfolded in academic journals testifies to the production of Russophone feminist discursivity. Feminist researcher Daniil Zha˘ıvoronok uses the term translation anxiety to name one of the most persistent features of post-Soviet feminist reflexivity in the region (2018, p. 42). Translation anxiety relates to both problematization of translation per se and broader questions concerned with the usability of translated Western feminist concepts for the analysis of local context and reality. Mapping the adaptations and appropriations of incoming foreign feminist knowledge, Galina Zvereva, in her 2001 study of cultural transmission of Western feminist concepts, offers a threefold typology to analyze the reception of foreign feminist knowledge into Russophone public discourse3 : ‘foreign as alien,’ ‘foreign as cvoe’ (one’s own/ours/familiar), and ‘foreign as other/different’ (see also a summary in Liljeström, 2016, pp. 151–152; Zvereva, 2001). When foreign is perceived as alien, the motivation for this rejection of the foreign is argued to be a ‘traditionalist ideological set-up’ based on the concept of Russia’s ‘special spirituality vis-à-vis soulless Western culture.’ ‘Foreign as alien,’ as I read Zvereva, seems to function as a position attributed to general detractors of feminism and the broader Russian public, assumed to be marked by deep conservatism and hostility to gender. In contrast, ‘foreign as one’s own’ concerns uncritically appropriating ‘Western’ feminist concepts, leading

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to the creation of peculiar, uncritical hybrids. Zvereva appears to be wary of such hybridization for the superficiality, simplification, and flattening of the foreign they are said to produce, such as adopting new concepts while filling them up with new meanings. The third position, ‘foreign as other/different,’ concerned with preserving intellectual distance vis-à-vis the foreign, seems privileged within Zvereva’s typology. This approach is attentive to the context of production, translation, and language, where incorporating new concepts becomes a matter of rigorous intellectual reflection. Feminist translation is thus reconceptualized as a process of interaction that produces new things. Investigating the limits of cultural translation of foreign ideas constitutes an essential part of the reflexivity of post-Soviet feminist intellectuals (Zvereva, 2001). Zvereva’s framing of ‘foreign as alien’ echoes the ways two gender scholars, Irina Savkina and Olga Voronina, have described the ‘local context’ and ‘reality’ within the debate on the translatability of ‘Western’ feminist frames. Irina Savkina, for example, in tracing how feminism gets perceived as foreign and alien within Russia, lists the prevalent arguments of its detractors: it is imported, it is not Orthodox, it is neo-globalist, it ignores national traditions, it is about materiality, not spirituality, it is too abstract, torn away from reality (2007). Within such framing public resistance to gender is seen mainly as a sign of parochialism and national conservatism. In discussing the issue of cultural translatability of ‘Western’ feminist frames and reception of gender studies in post-Soviet academia, Olga Voronina wonders why some transliterated words coming from English to Russian are readily accepted, but gendep (gender) provokes unease. She suggests that this resistance to gender might indicate opposition to new values and worldviews coming with new vocabularies (2007, p. 176). Voronina’s and Savkina’s pieces seem to read resistance to gender studies and feminist concepts as a sign of backward parochialism and alleged national conservatism. Resistance to foreign feminist frames thus becomes coded as a manifestation of xenophobic chauvinism, a position external to feminism. Such framing displaces the ‘foreign as alien’ on the external other (conservative Russian public discourse and allegedly conservative masses) and precludes the possibility of examining resistances to specific feminist frames construed as more foreign than others within Russophone feminist discourse.

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Serguei Oushakine, who participated in the 2000s debate as one of the critics of terminological import, emphasized the epistemological consequences of transliterated terms and possibilities for conceptual nonequivalences, incommensurability and semantic gaps between incoming terminology and the context it attempts to describe (2000). In arguing how such terminological borrowings erase the revolutionary potential of the concept of gender within Anglophone feminist thought, Oushakine has famously called transliterated Russophone gender a ‘useful category of foreign analysis’ and the discipline itself as a version of ‘translaton studies.’ Critical of the proliferation of English to Russian transliterations of gender studies terms, he provocatively states that such ‘terminological mimicry’ is a ‘symptom of colonial consciousness, with a deeply rooted crisis of one’s own identity, with not believing in creative possibilities of one’s own language, with mistrust of one’s own history and reference points’ (Oushakine, 2000, p. 18). Liljeström, in turn, argues that both Oushakine and other scholars by underlining ‘the local perspective’ end up reproducing ‘the gap between some sort of taken-for-granted, unchangeable feminist theory as “general” and national distinctiveness as unique and “real”’ (Liljeström, 2016, p. 151). Liljeström describes the Russophone gender studies debate on the translatability of ‘Western’ feminist frames as predominantly articulated through the frameworks of difference and authenticity. Critical of how the emphasis on local specificity is continuously reproduced within Russophone feminist scholarship, she summarizes the Russophone academic debate on the translatability of ‘Western’ feminist frames in the 2000s as follows: ‘Among Russian feminist scholars, it has become commonplace to complain about the uncritical borrowing of the language and questions of Western feminism for the analysis of local cultural and social reality’ (Liljeström, 2016, pp. 150–151). Following Cerwonka, who criticized the stress on local specificity as a widespread Eastern European feminist response to ‘Western’ feminist hegemony’ (2008, p. 809), Liljeström maintains that emphasis on the local as a site of cultural and political resistance may not in itself be profoundly transformative (Liljeström, 2016, p. 135). She argues instead for the need to reexamine and problematize the local and the reproduction of the divides between local and global as well as the ‘reproduction of feminist localities, especially the Easy/West divide’ (Liljeström, 2016, p. 136). While I agree with Liljeström’s problematization of location and authenticity as a site of feminist resistance to ‘Western’ hegemony and her

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critique of attributing profound backwardness to Russophone contexts and uncritically romanticizing Western societies as beacons of progressiveness, I am less convinced by her reading of Russophone translational reflexivity as exclusively preoccupied with irritation with foreign concepts and therefore charged with the uncritical reproduction of ‘localities’ as distinct and ‘real.’ As Butler recently argued, ‘“gender” is a foreign term in every language other than English’ (Butler, 2019, p. 2). When the word gender enters many contexts, it remains foreign, ‘it burrows into another language as a foreign incursion’ leading to questions such as ‘what is the foreign doing here? Is it welcome? Has it been invited? Is gender the sign or instrument of an imperial takeover?’ (Butler, 2019, p. 6). To question English-language monolingualism, Butler maintains, it is critical to interrogate the limits of translatability of Anglophone feminist concepts and their conceptual non-equivalence. That, however, does not necessitate the return to protective national monolingualisms or reified localities. Instead, feminist translation can be seen as a precondition for feminist theory in the global frame, and ‘telling the story of how gender enters’ ‘gives us a new itinerary for gender studies’ (Butler, 2019, p. 19). Despite the allegedly hostile ‘Russian’ soil and the ‘conservative turn’, grassroots Russophone feminisms blossomed in the mid-2010s on social media platforms. Judging from the standpoint of the debate of the 2000s and especially from Zvereva’s ‘foreign as alien’ position, one may extend that only allegedly profoundly patriarchal and conservative Russian publics may reject the ‘foreign’ feminist frames as Western and irrelevant for the ‘local context’. However, my research on digital Russophone feminist scenes on social media platforms in the 2010s allows me to suggest that some forms of feminism may be framed as more foreign than others within Russophone feminist digital scenes. Based on several years of the digital ethnographic study of the grassroots translation-based Russophone feminist page FIO (Feminist Intersectionality against Oppression),4 in the next section, I first situate it in the broader context of grassroots Russophone feminist discursivity of the 2010s and describe the effects of its translation praxis.

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Translating Intersectionality on Grassroots Russophone Social Media Platforms in the 2010s This spirit of ‘discursive omnivorousness’ said to characterize Russophone academic feminist debates of the early 2000s (Zdravomyslova and Temkina) extends quite well to portray the grassroots Russophone online feminisms in the 2010s thriving in the times of ‘conservative turn.’ This grassroots Russophone intellectual feminist buzz on social media platforms attracted tens of thousands of readers to feminist pages of all stripes: liberal, intersectional, radical, anarchist, socialist, pages with less specified or differently imagined feminist orientations. In the mid-2010s, these digital feminist spaces became central arenas for carving out the Russianspeaking intersectional feminist idiom in translation. The impact of the internet and social media platforms have radically reshaped contemporary Russophone grassroots feminist activism compared to earlier academic scholarship, which was sustained by Western financial flows. In the context of the ‘conservative turn,’ new Russia’s restrictive laws limiting foreign funding and the operation of NGOs curtailed access to resources and financial support from the West. One may expect this to have influenced the dependency on ‘Western’ feminist frames. Indeed, some researchers argue that the self-sufficiency of grassroots Russophone feminisms and their independence from Western funds reduces the reliance on ‘Western feminist knowledge’ yet this knowledge still remains one of the vital reference points (Solovey, 2022, p. 184). According to other scholars, this shift in socio-political circumstances has not rehashed the general orientation of the Russophone feminist activisms writ large toward knowledge and practices produced in ‘the West’ (Zha˘ıvoronok, 2018, p. 41). The question of ‘Western hegemony’ and the place of ‘Western’ feminist knowledge remain a matter of debate within both Russophone feminist activist and academic conversations. To some scholars, one of the most visible manifestations of continuing epistemological dependency and ‘Western’ hegemony manifests on the level of language, reflected in the patterns of translation and borrowing of terminology from English into Russian within Russophone trans and trans-inclusive feminist activisms (Kirey-Sitnikova, 2020). Heavy borrowings of trans-related globalizing Western vocabularies are most prevalent in LGBT-style trans activisms, where the conceptual terminology is often borrowed without attempts to be translated (Kirey-Sitnikova, 2020, p. 784). Within grassroots trans-friendly feminist groups not affiliated

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with NGOs, Kirey-Sitnikova remarks that the names of the groups are often written in English, and it is translated texts describing Anglophone ‘Western’ contexts and their specificities that dominate the discussions and contents of the materials, thereby sustaining the patterns of dependency, ‘Western’ hegemony, and lack of reflexivity on the situatedness of the borrowed concepts. As my doctoral research on the grassroots Russophone translations of intersectionality indicates, the issue of transliterated feminist terminology, perceived by some users as borrowed and foreign, and translation choices that feminist translators make contribute to the discursive constructions of intersectionality’s alleged foreignness within grassroots Russophone feminist scenes. Drawing on Butler, in my research, I prioritize the concern with the practice of feminist translation, and the interrogation of the limits of translatability of Anglophone feminist concepts as central to the critical transnational feminist translation praxis. Tracking the disturbances produced by non-translated, transliterated, or literally translated, Anglophone feminist categories inform my approach to feminist translation. In what follows, I examine the role of grassroots Russophone feminist translations of intersectionality in the 2010s on the example of one translation-based grassroots Russophone intersectional feminist page FIO. The perceived influx of translated terminological vocabularies often provoked vivid discussions on the role of Russophone translators of intersectionality reminiscent of the academic feminist debates of the 2000s, affecting the way in which some Russophone feminists framed intersectionality as ‘foreign’ feminist knowledge. FIO defined itself as an intersectional, anti-racist, LGBTQ-friendly, and body-positive feminist public page run by a small collective of moderatorstranslators. As a grassroots feminist project, FIO was built explicitly around activist translation, readership, and discussions of intersectional feminist texts. FIO was the most prominent and influential intersectional feminist page among other grassroots Russophone intersectional communities, with tens of thousands of readers at the peak of its popularity. Many Russophone users first learned about intersectionality (and feminism) through FIO. Other users flocked to FIO being dissatisfied with more exclusionary articulations of Russophone feminisms online. FIO played a crucial role in bringing new intersectional discourses into the Russian-language feminist online spaces through the practice of activist translation. Introduced through FIO and facilitated by the rise of social media, Anglophone intersectional feminist concepts and frames crossed

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epistemic, linguistic, and cultural borders, propelling the emergence of new feminist idioms and feminist identifications within the heterogenous and fractured field of grassroots Russophone feminisms. As I mentioned above, FIO explicitly positioned itself as an intersectional feminist translation-based page. Other grassroots Russophone feminist communities of diverse feminist orientations have too translated texts from English to Russian, yet translation rarely featured as centrally to their self-positioning as it did for FIO. The question that drives my inquiry is why despite the ubiquity of translation as grassroots feminist Russophone praxis in the 2010s, only some forms of Russophone feminisms were discursively rendered as more foreign than others within these grassroots feminist scenes. If everyone translates (Englishlanguage feminist texts), why do only some grassroots feminist projects (such as Russophone translations of intersectionality) are positioned as more foreign than others? To offer my reflections on this matter, in what follows, I will characterize some of the key features of FIO’s translational praxis and its preferred translation strategies which offer some possibilities to reflect on the above question.

Translating Intersectionality to Fight Exclusion Within Russophone Feminist Scenes FIO’s translational intersectional feminist praxis is an example of activist translation dedicated to bringing about social change and challenging the existing norms. The relationship between translation and activism has been a focus of increasing scholarly attention in both translation studies (Gould & Tahmasebian, 2020; Tymoczko, 2010) and feminist translation studies (Castro & Ergun, 2017). Indeed, resistance has been one of the ubiquitous metaphors through which activist and especially feminist translation is understood (Tymoczko, 2010, p. 9). Resistance to dominant norms or societal power structures may motivate the translation strategies of activist translators. Feminist resistance to patriarchal power structures and conservative rhetoric of the nation-state is perhaps the most frequent trope through which accounts of feminist activism are narrated. What makes the case of FIO so intriguing is that its rationale for translating intersectionality into Russian was primarily motivated by resistance to the dominant norms within Russophone feminist scenes. From the very start of the project in 2013, FIO admins were quite explicit about their goals—creating a safe platform that would become

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an alternative to Russophone radical feminist discourse argued to be problematic and permeating Russian-speaking online feminist spaces. FIO strived to overcome perceived racist, homophobic, and transphobic tendencies within the broader Russophone online feminist discourse. The need to create such a space is articulated on the page’s guidelines:

As is clear from the illustration above, FIO positions intersectional feminism as a remedy against exclusionary tendencies within existing online Russian-language feminist pages. The faults this dominant feminist discourse is accused of are expressed through the usage of transliterated terms such as pacizm (racism), tpancfobiЯ (transphobia), kvipfobiЯ (queerphobia), etc. Due to the abundance of triggering terminology, Russophone radical feminist discourse is cast as pretentious and full of pseudoscientific jargon, making it hard to understand. Explicit disidentification from the Russophone radical feminists, known colloquially as radfem and firmly associated within Rusophone intersectional feminist communities with transphobia, has set the stage for the mutual antagonism between these two (among many others) online Russophone grassroots feminist orientations in the 2010s. Although trans issues were central to the confrontation between Russophone intersectional and Russophone radical feminists, it is important to note, as Solovey puts it, ‘this controversy has encompassed a wide variety of issues, including but not limited to sexuality, race, class, disability, age, and size. Whereas, intersectional feminists called for considering various axes of domination and oppression, radical feminists perceived these calls and the very idea of women’s privilege as divisive’ (Solovey, 2022, p. 87). Along with the new terms entering Russophone feminist scenes, new identifications emerged through FIO’s translational praxis: ‘intersectional feminist’ has quickly become an identification marker in grassroots

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Russian-speaking digital feminisms. This identity was often positioned against other feminist orientations, culminating in the prolonged conflict between Russophone radical feminists and intersectional feminists over the issue of transphobia in the movement. This confrontation is also known as intersek vs. radfem wars, where the moniker intepcek (intersek) would serve as a slur of sorts to mark the disapproval of intersectional feminist leanings.5 Russophone intersectional feminists rarely called themselves intersek. Instead, Russophone intersectionality is mostly referred to as intepcekcionalbnoctb, also known under a more localized albeit less popular name as teopiЯ pepeceqeniй (theory of crossings/ intersections). Initially starting with translations of feminist memes from Englishlanguage Tumblr blogs, FIO later incorporated longer textual forms. FIO translated mainly English-language feminist texts, mostly from intersectional feminist media, such as everydayfeminism.com, more rarely from German-language sources, articles from the Guardian, and transcripts based on YouTube videos. The moderators also translated excerpts from scholarly feminist texts authored by such US feminist scholars as bell hooks, Kimberlé W. Crenshaw, Peggy McIntosh, and others. FIO actively engaged with the community of its readers: each post had a comment thread where readers exchanged thoughts, posed questions about the content, and chatted with moderators. FIO textual output was composed of several genres: translations of foreign feminist texts, moderatorials, and comment thread discussions and chats. Moderatorial pages, explaining the community’s rules to newcomers, allow reconstructing the basic tenets of how FIO conceived intersectional feminist discourse it carved out through translations. Within moderatorials as a genre of its own, identifications are taken up, and demarcation lines are drawn, delimiting the rules of conduct and basic intellectual positions. Bringing intersectionality into Russophone feminist spaces involved developing a set of ground rules, marking the boundaries separating intersectional feminist positionality from other feminist orientations, and making intersectionality legible through word choices and discursive conventions. An excerpt below from the community guidelines may give the reader an idea about these rules and conventions.

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Some of the discursive innovations of the FIO idiom included lower underlinings to gender-bend the generic masculine of some Russian professions, the use of asterisks to mark trans allyship, and ‘silencing’ exclusionary slurs with asterisks. Another defining feature visible to a bilingual reader in the passages above is an abundance of transliterated terms entering Russophone intersectional feminist idiom through English to Russian activist translations. Often the preferred solution for rendering such feminist concepts would be transliterating them into Cyrillic. FIO’s translation politics, favoring transliterations of intersectional feminist terms into Russian, became a central site of contestation between readers and moderators. It is these contestations around translations which the next section examines in more detail.

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Tensions in the Russophone Intersectional Feminist Translation Several central tensions characterized FIO’s translational praxis. Firstly, FIO aimed to both translate intersectionality from English to Russian and create localized Russophone intersectional feminist idiom through translations. While the first goal made FIO’s task to make the Russophone feminist readers acquainted with mostly Anglophone US feminist conversations, the second was more ambitiously concerned building a self-standing Russophone intersectional feminism, requiring localization of the US idiom of ‘race.’ Secondly, another central tension is, on the one hand, hyper-visibility and power wielded by its FIO moderatorstranslators and, at the same time, persistent devaluation of translation haunting FIO and, by extension, Russophone intersectional feminism as a whole framed by many of its detractors as translated, foreign and therefore irrelevant discourse. From the start, FIO’s project of translating intersectional feminism into Russian was besieged by the stigma of translation, perceived as a secondary imitation and copying. Since intersectional feminism was coming into Russian through translations from English, discursive devaluation of translation was closely tied to imagining intersectional feminism as foreign, US-American and decisively not Russian. At times, devaluation of translation took the shape of the argument that intersectionality poorly fits the local context because it is a translated and, therefore, unfitted for the local context discourse. For others, the temporality of translation, the fact that translation always comes after the original, makes it a derivative, uncreative copy. Such devaluations of translation manifested themselves most actively within Russophone radfem discourse, casting Russophone intersectionality as foreign and ill-fit but were often expressed by a fraction of FIO readers and, more generally, by the diverse detractors of feminism. Despite persistent critiques, devaluing the practice and labor of translation, and, by extension, FIO’s project, it would be a mistake to position its translators-moderators as powerless figures. Although doing unremunerated, activist translation, FIO moderators wielded substantial power on multiple interrelated levels: selecting the texts for translation and translating them, setting the rules of conduct within the community, moderating the discourse, punishing the wrongdoers and expelling the trolls, re-educating the stray readers into using the correct terminology, and exercising authority more broadly by directly creating and

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shaping Russophone intersectional feminist idiom through translations. FIO moderators could be therefore seen as being exceptionally far from what translation scholar Lawrence Venuti has famously called ‘the invisibility of translator’ (2017). Regarding their influence and presence on FIO’s pages, it is reasonable to position FIO’s moderators as hyper-visible translators. Thirdly, Russophone translations of intersectionality, in some ways, reverse the relationships of canonicity and the quest for the return to the original formulations characterizing the US and transnational debates on intersectionality’s travels from the USA to Western Europe (Davis, 2020; Nash, 2016, 2019). Through these Russophone translations of intersectionality, ‘intersectional feminism’ becomes much less about the figure of one primary author or main coiner of intersectionality. The group of texts constituting this translated to Russian intersectionality is much broader: some authored by activists, others by feminist scholars; the array of themes it touches is wider, explicitly centering on themes such as racism, transphobia, and homophobia at the same time. The debates about the fidelity to the foundational texts of Crenshaw, which often take such a central stage in the Euro-Atlantic discussions on intersectionality (Davis, 2020), called by Nash ‘intersectional originalism’ (2016, p. 4), do not occupy any place at all in the reception of intersectionality in the Russophone feminist activist spaces. Instead, Russophone activist debates around intersectionality concern whether it is an applicable theory for the situated feminist activism and whether it can do the work it promises in post-soviet contexts. Interestingly, in the case of FIO’s self-positioning, ‘intersectional feminism’ operates as a discourse of authority as such. While intersectionality gains prestige through the authorizing signature of English and the power of the USA combined with the emancipatory counter-hegemonic promise of Black feminism, it is the local translatorsmoderators who become the figures of intersectional authority through mediating intersectional feminist discourse in the Russophone contexts. In that regard, the work of translation performed by FIO moderators in a certain way displaces the issues of authorship and coinage, transforming the translations into new originals. A snippet from the community guidelines showcases the way translations are conceptualized by FIO as original materials.

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In the excerpt, moderators introduce the English-language sources on which the subsequent translations are based. Afterward, translated materials become positioned as ‘the original content.’ The focus on the transformative aspects of translation allows reframing the translated texts as the new originals despite the constant charges of copying and parroting and a more general devaluation of translation haunting the FIO project. At the same time, the pursuit of originality entails a preoccupation with authorship and ownership, manifesting in the admonition cited in the ban policy earlier against ‘stealing the content without mentioning the authorship’ and the advice to always mention the names of translators when reposting the content. Translated intersectional texts thus become transfigured as new originals through Russophone feminist translation. FIO translators participate in intersectional feminist discursivity and shape it through translation, emerging as figures of Russophone intersectional authority within local activist scenes. Fourthly, as I hinted above, FIO conceptualized translations of intersectionality as a remedy against exclusions within the field of Russophone feminisms. Intersectionality thus was positioned not only as a ‘feminist future’ (Nash, 2016) but also as a source of repair for racist, homophobic, and transphobic Russophone radfem discourse. This use of intersectionality can be perhaps best described through Pereira’s term ‘modern and foreign’ (2017). If Zvereva’s earlier typology of the reception of the foreign was based on the degrees of incorporation (2001), Pereira’s concept allows bringing temporality and epistemic status of regions into the analysis of traveling feminist theory. Pereira’s work deals with the role of Women’s and Gender Studies scholarship in semi-peripheral contexts

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such as Portuguese academia. Framing their domestic contexts rhetorically as backward through the invocations of ‘foreign modern’ allows academics in semi-peripheral countries with European orientations to claim resources for their fields. She pointedly highlights how foreign is ‘not just a different space, but also another time’ where ‘in negotiations of epistemic status, geopolitics is also chronopolitics’ (2017, p. 150). Tracing the invocations of foreign modern by gender studies scholars in Portuguese academia, she demonstrates how the invocations of foreign knowledge also function as invocations of advanced temporality and progress. Because intersectionality is conceived as ‘foreign and modern’ by FIO moderators, its translations and discursive invocations allow performing of a particular kind of work. Russophone translations of intersectionality are conceptualized as a potential remedy for Russophone’s feminisms modernization and upgrade. Conceptualizing translation as modernization shapes translation strategies chosen by the FIO moderators. Not limited to, but predominantly foreignizing translation strategies, such as non-translation, transliterations, and calques marked FIO’s translational praxis. However, foreignizing translation solutions emerged to be a double-edged sword. In my doctoral thesis on which this chapter draws (Yangeldina, 2023), I show how FIO’s foreignizing translation choices when translating feminist concepts from English to Russian generate visceral unease, accusations of Russophone’s intersectionality’s insularity, and troubles with its wide intelligibility. Foreignizing translation strategies may render Russophone translators of intersectionality themselves foreign. They may be cast as cosmopolitan bilingual feminist elites distant from Russophone readers not fluent in English. Foreignizing translation solutions may generate distinct effects, such as positioning intersectionality as something poorly suited to analyzing post-Soviet contexts or, sometimes even more derogatorily, framing it as a ‘mindless copy’ from ‘the West.’ In turn, resistance to foreignization as unfolding in the comment threads is often read by FIO moderators not as a criticism of translation solutions and a reflection of broader concerns with translatability but rather as a manifestation of parochial conservatism, echoing ‘foreign as alien’ position in Zvereva’s typology. Resistance to foreignizing translation choices is rejected by FIO moderators through evoking chronotopic imaginaries from the past, such as Russian peasant backwardness and Slavophile concern with the

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purity of the Russian language projected in turn on Russophone radfem presumedly stuck in the past. Rethinking Russophone feminist translation praxis, therefore, does not only entail looking at translation as a generative process vis-à-vis pathologization of translation as secondary and imitative. It also entails conceiving translation as a partial, power-laden practice, which may generate not only anxiety and concerns with translatability but also new relations of power, hierarchies, and discursive effects emerging through choosing particular translation strategies over others when translating what is read as ‘Western’ feminist texts.

Conclusion In this chapter, my goal was to bring closer two Russophone debates on the translatability of ‘Western’ feminist frames to carve out both the lines of overlap and disjuncture between the two: the Russophone gender studies debate of the 2000s and the grassroots activist feminist debate on the translatability of intersectionality in the mid-2010s. Reading the grassroots 2010s debate against the academic one of the 2000s illuminates the changing socio-political circumstances in which the generations of Russophone feminists translate. It is perhaps no longer possible to frame the debate either through the lens of the inherent ‘foreignness’ or singularity of translated ‘Western’ feminisms or to presume the coherence of Russophone feminisms as a monolithic entity. The expansion and proliferation of grassroots digital Russophone feminist discursivity in the 2010s indicate that for the younger generations of Russophone feminists, feminism is no longer something ‘Western’ or foreign. Conceptualizing Russophone feminist translation praxis as generative rather than replicative allows for interrogating the relational emergence of national/regional/linguistic boundaries through the very act of translation and the production of anxiety about the translatability of borrowed concepts. In my overview of the Russophone feminist translations of intersectionality, I investigated some of the generative effects of feminist translation: foreignizing translation solutions may produce discursive effects of foreignness of intersectionality. Although feminist translation is a ubiquitous practice in Russophone grassroots feminisms, within these scenes, some feminist orientations may be rendered as more foreign than others.

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But Russophone feminist translational praxis is generative also in another sense that inspires the title for this chapter. It has been sustained through generations of Russophone feminist translations. Reconnecting these feminist academic and activist generations across time and space and retracing their translational generativeness is something vital for contemporary Russophone feminist activism in the times marked by rupture and division especially in the wake of 2022. Revalorizing Russophone feminist translational praxis as a vital labor that sustains Russophone feminist discursivity means cherishing and attending to these feminist generations.

Notes 1. I opt for Russophone instead of Russian to acknowledge that Russophonia transcends the borders of Russian Federation. 2. This book chapter is based on the chapters 2 and 3 of my PhD dissertation (Yangeldina, 2023). 3. It is important to highlight that Zvereva uses the Russian word qyҗoe which is utterly polysemic and can be translated as: not one’s own/ alien/foreign/someone else’s/wrong/unfamiliar/vicarious/strange/other people’s, depending on the context. It seems fair to use the translation of qyҗoe as foreign in the sense that it is applied to Western feminist concepts in the article. 4. I anonymized the page’s name because since 2018 community has changed its privacy settings from visible to all to visible to subscribers only. I also anonymized the names of users and moderators and don’t reveal the name of the social network to protect its anonymity in the context of increasing repressions against feminist activists and gender studies research within the country. 5. It bears resemblance to the Russian-language homophobic vernacular slur gomocek (gomosek) and inherits its affective force. Often Russophone radfem call intersectional feminists intersek to signal disapproval of intersectional feminist politics.

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Balancing Between Global Trends: What Is Happening with Women’s Empowerment in Azerbaijan? Humay Akhundzade

Abstract This chapter discusses the current state of women empowerment in Azerbaijan within the context of global changes, in an attempt to determine the position of Azerbaijan within the current trend of globalized feminism opposed by the international conservative turn. To achieve this aim, I consider how the gender agenda is being renewed in Azerbaijan through interactions between various actors, including the state, international organizations, and gender activists and feminists. The chapter shows that the position of Azerbaijan cannot be aligned with those of countries undergoing a conservative turn. Although the importance of family is mentioned in the nation’s laws and national acts, no laws have been adopted that decrease women’s rights or deprive women of what they have had or gained during the independence of the Azerbaijan Republic. Another reason involves the quality of the development of gender activism in Azerbaijan. It is clear that the gender agenda has become more dynamic, and its content has been rapidly expanding during the last five years. However, Azerbaijan’s gender activism does not seem

H. Akhundzade (B) Social Research Center, Baku, Azerbaijan e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 A.-M. Sätre et al. (eds.), Post-Soviet Women, Sustainable Development Goals Series, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-38066-2_15

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to have developed to a critical point sufficient to facilitate organized resistance from the conservative public.

Introduction This chapter discusses the current state of women empowerment in Azerbaijan within the context of global changes, in an attempt to determine the position of Azerbaijan within the current trend of globalized feminism opposed by the international conservative turn. To achieve this aim, I consider how the gender agenda is being renewed in Azerbaijan through interactions between various actors, including the state, international organizations, and gender activists and feminists. In the decades since the country gained independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, women’s lives in Azerbaijan have been shaped by several influences: substantial political-economic changes; the ratification of international conventions on gender equality, such as the UN’s Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) (Najafizadeh, 2018); and a “patriarchal renaissance”, which has accompanied the building of the nation-state (Gureyeva, 2006).1 Nowadays, the influence of the global gender equality discourse can also be observed in public discussions in Azerbaijan; it is reflected in discussions of gender issues (gender-based violence, sex-selective abortions, sexist rhetoric, etc.), which were not seen as reasons for public concern before. People who are sensitive to gender issues2 are becoming more visible in the public space; they actively engage in discussions on women’s lives from the feminist perspective and on the ideology of gender equality. A feminist discourse is being articulated not only in cyberspace, but also in traditional media such as television. However, such discourse takes place only on certain calendar dates (e.g. March 8 or 16 days of campaign against gender-based violence (Gender ∂saslı zorakılı˘ga qar¸sı 16 günlük f∂allıq kampaniyası) which usually held in November–December). Previous research on Azerbaijani women has reported a certain duality in gender-related norms and practices. A recent quantitative study, which aimed to understand women’s empowerment in Azerbaijan, revealed paradoxical relationships between the sources, settings and evidence of empowerment (Habibov et al., 2017).3 The American scholar Tohidi pointed out that a duality between manifest and latent, appearance and reality, and public and private pervades almost every aspect of life in Azerbaijan, including women’s emancipation and male-female relationships

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(Tohidi, 1996, 1998, p. 153). Heyat explained this dualism of public and private using the influence of Soviet ideology and its ethics of public interaction on the one hand, and the specific (gender) culture of the Middle East, on the other (Heyat, 2002, p. 39). Although I agree with the conclusions of these researchers in the abovementioned works, I consider that women’s lives in Azerbaijan are better described in the context of an ambiguous combination of emancipatory and patriarchal trends, rather than a “duality”. The inconsistency between gender order in the public and private spheres has recently become a reason for concern for people who have adopted a “gender lens”, i.e. are capable to see gender-based inequalities in society; their main focus is on gender issues in the private sphere, which appears to be the main domain in which clashes between the ideological trends of liberal and conservative views occur. Based on analysis of the recent gender agenda in Azerbaijan (including social and political developments and recent public discussions), I attempt to answer the following research question: where is Azerbaijan positioned in the dichotomy of contesting global ideologies such as gender equality, the liberalization of women lives, and different branches of feminism, and their opposition by the so-called conservative turn? The latter is being observed in very different places across the world, such as Poland, Hungary, Russia, Indonesia and Malaysia, among others. Where does Azerbaijan stand in this global context of opposite ideologies towards gender issues?4 I claim that the country does not tend to position itself at either of these poles; neither definitely liberalized nor conservative country. Rather, Azerbaijan maintains a balance between these two poles, while trying to respond to urgent gender problems that have recently become more visible. Although conservative attitudes and patriarchal ideals are present in society, they do not form a conservative movement or create a backlash. At the same time, a specific trend of the problematization of gender issues can be seen; that is, gender equality in the private sphere has become very topical and is a special focus of the different actors involved in activities to promote gender equality. First, to establish the research context, I analyze statistics and reveal recent trends in the public and private lives of women in Azerbaijan. Next, I consider the country’s legal system, with a focus on codes such as the Family Code, Labour Code, Law on Gender Equality and Law on the Prevention of Domestic Violence. In particular, I consider the newly adopted National Action Plan on Combatting Domestic Violence in 2020–2023, as some of its chapters shed light on the overall position of

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the authorities in regard to ways of eliminating domestic violence. I then analyze the goals of and main issues addressed by national projects, along with the material from eight interviews I conducted with women activists and feminists in 2018–2020, all of which took place in Baku, in public places that were comfortable for the informants. Although the names of the informants are not provided here, as per the ethical rules of research, approximately half publicly present themselves as feminists. I also chose to analyze the United Nations Population Fund (UNPFA)’s Facebook page5 on Azerbaijan during 16 days of a yearly initiative to combat gender-based violence. Furthermore, I used materials from participant observation of project presentation (held on Zoomplatform due to pandemic restrictions) to define the position of the state body6 (i.e. the State Committee for Family, Women and Children Affairs) towards domestic violence. Recent years have been characterized by globalized feminist movements and several international campaigns for women rights, but also by social processes that are usually referred to as a “conservative turn” in the world. A conservative response to the liberalization of gender norms has appeared in the form of anti-gender campaigns and movements and specific legislative restrictions, which have been studied in several works in the context of Europe and Russia (Korolczuk, 2014; Paternotte & Kuhar, 2018; Temkina & Zdravomyslova, 2014). While each of these countries has its own specific circumstances, all are experiencing a backlash in the form of conservative laws and constant organized “attacks on gender” in the interrelations between the state and religious organizations. Here, it should be noted that, according to the Constitution of the Azerbaijan Republic, the country is secular, and religion is separated from the state (the Constitution of the Azerbaijan Republic, Chapter 2, Article 7). Many scholars have pointed out the ambiguous consequences of the Soviet legacy for Azerbaijan in terms of gender equality and conservatism. On the one hand, there are certain obvious preferences and rights for women; on the other hand, patriarchal patterns and rules of everyday life (i.e. male dominance and several strict requirements for a female’s femininity) continue to exist (Heyat, 2002). When taking this ambiguity into account, it is necessary to consider whether conservative attitudes are forming a constant movement in Azerbaijan society or whether a backlash in terms of legislation is taking place. Thus, I use the term “a conservative turn” to refer to a complex phenomenon that includes the adoption of legal restrictions towards women, the presence of stable social movements

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by the conservative political party, and campaigns against gender equality that are affecting political decisions. This chapter consists of an introduction, four sections and a conclusion. The first section after the Introduction discusses statistics related to women’s lives and families in Azerbaijan, which reflect trends towards liberalization on the one hand and the maintenance of certain traditional patterns in everyday life on the other. The second section examines the legislative context, which illustrates the interrelation of the local legal system with the global shift towards gender equality. The third section discusses the state’s response to the problematization of gender-based violence and to different views on the economic empowerment of women as a means of protecting women from inequality and oppression. The last of the four sections considers how the patriarchal gender order of a typical Azerbaijani family is being questioned by activists and how the traditional gender order is being challenged by projects conducted by international organizations and the state. The focus of this chapter is the gender agenda in Azerbaijan, which is being shaped by the intersection of activities by various actors, and which is the result of contested liberal and conservative views. By the term “gender agenda”, I refer to a complex of the main topics on gender issues that have gained and retained topicality in recent years, rather than focusing on particular actors. In addition, I do not distinguish among the interviewed gender activists and feminists, as doing so is not crucial for the aim of this chapter.

Statistics Related to Women’s Lives and Families: The Conjunction of Liberal Trends and Traditional Values The importance of the family is a recurring topic of public debate in the Azerbaijan media, and women are considered to be the main guardians of the family. Although national research on the private life of citizens and families is not extensive, some trends can be determined based on the data provided by the State Statistics Committee. According to statistics—which I consider to reflect the transformation of private life—some indices show curious dynamics. For example, the population growth rate, which was 4.7 in the 1970s, has declined since then and was 1.8 in 2018 (according to demographic data on population from the State Statistical

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Committee of the Republic of Azerbaijan, accessed 17 March 2020). The most recent data on the number of children per family is from 2009; according to this data, 40.3% of families have two children and 30.1% have one (according to demographic data on population and the ratio of households according to number of members and children from the State Statistical Committee, accessed 17 March 2020). Nevertheless, during almost 30 years of independence, the country’s population has increased from 7 to 10 million (according to demographic data on population growth from the State Statistical Committee). Nowadays, men and women of reproductive age comprise the largest age group of the population (according to 2019 demographic data on the age-sex division from the State Statistical Committee). There are several reasons why population grow during the last decades despite of decrease of population growth rate. First, this decrease was not sharp and took a long time period (about 50 years). Ageing of population is low. The median age in Azerbaijan is 32, 6 years (in comparison, in Sweden it is 41, 1 years). So, the number of fertile population is still enough to provide some level of growth. Third, total death rate is low— 6.9 in 2022 (which is higher than previous years, because of Garabagh war and pandemia). Thus, lower speed of decrease of population growth rate, considerable amount of people of fertile age (low ageing rates) and low total death rate provided growth of general. The number of children in a family remains within the sphere of responsibility of the family itself, and there are no signs of special propaganda to promote large families. In addition, public discussions on the necessity of child allowances arise from time to time. It is important to note that a decrease in the birth rate does not mean the elimination of the child-centeredness of families. On the contrary, the ideology of intensive parenthood has appeared in Azerbaijan during the last few years. In a recent study in Azerbaijan, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) reported that women’s participation in decisionmaking processes in personal, public and political life was at a low level (UNDP, 2018, p. 9). Women in Azerbaijan are still being identified by their marital status and experience of motherhood. According to statistics, the median age for marriage is 24 years for women, and the median age at the first birth is 25.7 (according to 2019 demographic data on population, median age and median age of mothers from the State Statistical Committee). Singlehood and childlessness can be considered as equivalent to maladjustment in life, or even as deviancy, depending on the

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sociocultural group to which the woman belongs. Nevertheless, there are no organized conservative movements in Azerbaijan that are struggling to promote relevant values, norms or laws (like the parents’ movements in Central-Eastern Europe and Russia). Conservative values and norms regarding the family and women’s lives exist in society without specific policies, legislative projects or conservative social movements that aim to restrict the rights and opportunities of women. Along with the decrease in birth rate, other changes have occurred that can be interpreted as liberalizing the life strategies of men and women, as evidenced by the striking dynamics in the ratio of marriages to divorces. In 2008, there were approximately 10 times more marriages than divorces (79,964 to 7933); in 2018, there were only five times more marriages (62,484 to 14,857), while a year later, this ratio was 3.7 (63,869 to 17,148) (according to demographic data on population and the number of registered marriages and divorces from the State Statistical Committee, accessed on 17 March 2020). This increase in divorce rates is being discussed and problematized regularly by the media; going further, it is my belief that the reference in the Action Plan to the “maintenance of families in order to strengthen them”, which will be discussed in the next section, can be considered as the government’s response to the statistical data on divorces and to the moral panic in public discussions on this topic.

The Local Legal System: A Specific Shift Towards Gender Equality During the past 30 years of independence, Azerbaijan joined CEDAW (1995) and adopted several relevant laws, such as the Law on Gender Equality (2005) and the Law on the Prevention of Domestic Violence (2010). The Family Code gives equal property rights to both wife and husband (Family Code, 1999), while the Labour Code provides gender equity and maternity leave for women in workplaces (Family Code, 1999). Equal rights are designated in the Constitution of the Azerbaijan Republic (Constitution of the Azerbaijan Republic, 1995, Chapter 3, Clause 25). The aim of the Law on Gender Equality is the “provision of gender equality through elimination of all forms of discrimination based on gender, establishing equal opportunities for men and women in political, economic, social, cultural and other spheres of social life” (Law of Azerbaijan Republic on Gender Equality, 2006, Introduction). The National Action Plan Against Domestic Violence,7 which was recently

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adopted, is based on the abovementioned laws and international conventions, as is the Domestic Violence Prevention Act. Here, I will analyze the content of the Action Plan in more detail to attempt to define the position of the state in relation to the emerging gender issue of violence against women. The main goal of the National Action Plan is the “adaptation of measures to combat domestic violence to international standards, provision of timely and comprehensive family assistance in order to strengthen [the family], implementation and increase of the effectiveness of measures to combat domestic violence, provision for [these measures] in regulatory legal acts” (National Action Plan, Part 2, Section 2.1). The four-year Action Plan includes measures to improve regulatory legal acts, provide shelters for victims of domestic violence and means for the early identification of such victims, give special training (for lawyers, prosecutors, police officers, social service workers, healthcare workers and media workers) in order to promote a more relevant response to cases of domestic violence and create an effective protection system for victims. Two details of the Action Plan are worthy of special consideration here; subsequently, I will compare the contents of the Action Plan with the other research materials—particularly those obtained from the interviews. The “maintenance of families in order to strengthen them” is one of the goals emphasized in the Plan. This emphasis is clearly a conservative note within the text of the Plan. Gender topics are commonly discussed in relation to family issues in Azerbaijan. However, based on the legislative initiatives, programmes and projects that the state has carried out in cooperation with international organizations, it can be assumed that the position of the state is to maintain a balance between the need to solve urgent gender problems (e.g. domestic violence, sex-selective abortions, etc.) and the desire to consistently preserve the discourse on the importance of the institution of the family for Azerbaijani society. The second interesting detail is in the next part of the Action Plan and is formulated as “[show] respect [for the] personal freedom of victims and prioritize their opportunities for decision-making in all measures of intervention” (National Action Plan, Part 2, Section 2.4.6). This detail can be interpreted from different viewpoints. On the one hand, it can refer to maintaining the subjectivity of victims—that is, acknowledging the agency of the recipients of protection who are in the vulnerable position of being oppressed. On the other hand, this detail can be read in the context of ideas that are circulating in Azerbaijani society about “the deep

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family crisis in the West” (Family Woman Child, 2016, p. 9) and family services there that supposedly aim to separate children from parents, especially if they are migrants or from poor and lower educated families.8 Such practices are seen as destroying families and undermining family values. I consider that the part of the Action Plan mentioned above implies not only acceptance of the victim’s subjectivity and agency, but also resistance to family service practices that involve the separation of children from parents and support for divorces, similar to those that are supposed to occur in the West from the perspective of Azerbaijan. The emphasis in the Plan on the “maintenance of families in order to strengthen them” makes it possible to conclude that the state, as the actor determining gender politics, continues to consider itself as an important influencer of the institution of the family and as having a responsibility to undertake measures that support the family. Moreover, it is likely that the idea of family boundaries being inviolable and caution regarding the acceptable way to intervene in the private family sphere still exist.

Public Discussions on Combatting Gender Violence and Advancing the Economic Empowerment of Women Gender violence is a topical issue that has been under discussion in Azerbaijan in recent years. In fact, there has been an annual campaign dedicated to this topic since 2008.9 Last year, the “16 Days Activism Campaign for Combatting Gender-Based Violence” was held from 25 November to 10 December 2020. The first days of this campaign included the significant actions of adopting the National Action Plan on Combatting Domestic Violence for 2020–2023 and the setting up of a hotline for victims of gender-based violence (2020).10 These two achievements align with previous steps in gender politics and with the discussion of gender violence that has been occurring in the public space in the last few years. Another event that was held during the 16 days of the campaign (Gender ∂saslı zorakılı˘ga qar¸sı 16 günlük f∂allıq kampaniyası)11 was meeting on Zoom-platform presenting the project for creating shelters across almost the whole country.12 Representatives of executive powers from different regions of the country and the heads of international organizations were among the participants who engaged in the project and take part at this meeting.

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The Head of the State Committee for Family, Women and Children Affairs of the Republic of Azerbaijan, Bahar Muradova, has defined “domestic violence as a social disaster, mostly characteristic of patriarchal societies [emphasis added by the author]”. I consider this a noteworthy moment: patriarchy is being articulated as fertile ground for violence. Muradova also repeated the formulation “negligent majority” (s∂hl∂nkar çoxluq), saying: Our target is often the perpetrators of violence and their victims, but I think these events take place within society as a whole, in front of the eyes of all of us, and around us. A negligent attitude and preference for social norms [are given] as an excuse for this [i.e. domestic violence]—accepting this as part of the mentality or culture is a serious support for violence.

It was noticeable that the term “domestic violence” was used in both Muradova’s speech and the National Action Plan, which is a reference to the wording used by some European countries, such as Spain, where framing with the term “domestic” is more preferable than “gender” (Paternotte & Kuhar, 2018, p. 10). However, the campaign itself used the framing of “gender”, as its name included the phrase “gender-based violence”. According to the Head of the Committee, in order to successfully combat violence, “first of all it is necessary to strengthen women or girls, and enhance their ability to protect themselves [emphasis added by the author]”. The aim of enhancing is indirectly suggested by the project for the development of shelters; that is, in addition to providing psychological and legal assistance, the project plans to support the economic activity and professional training of women who find themselves in difficult life situations. Furthermore, the project builds on the state’s activities for supporting or emphasizing the importance of the economic activity of women. Along with taking measures to combat domestic violence, the Government of Azerbaijan considers women’s economic empowerment to be important. Measures and activities in this direction have intensified in recent years, including the formation of the top-down-formed organizations the Association of Women Entrepreneurs, the Public Union for the Support of Businesswomen, training for potential women entrepreneurs, the creation of business incubators for women,13 the organization of fair

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markets (yarmarka) and the recruiting of women from various regions to these events.14 Some of the gender activists I interviewed during 2018–2020 emphasized the necessity of further and greater efforts in this direction; one stated: No changes can happen until a woman has her own money. But social changes will occur along with economic changes.

The visions of state bodies and those of some gender activists and feminists intersect in the issue of supporting the economic activity of women. Involvement in paid work continues to be a legitimate part of women’s lives in Azerbaijan. According to statistical data, 48.2% of women participate in paid labour. The economic activity level among women is quite high (63.1%) and does not significantly differ from the same index among men (69.7%) (Gender data of the State Committee… Economic activity of population… 15 March 2020). This is despite the “patriarchal renaissance” that has been noted regarding a previous period of post-Soviet Azerbaijan (i.e. the 1990s and early 2000s; Gureyeva, 2006). Moreover, it seems that Azerbaijani society considers women’s economic activity not as something for the women themselves, but rather as income for the family. Thus, women’s involvement in paid work, in combination with the normativity of marriage and motherhood, indicates the prevalence of the “working mother’s contract” as a legitimate model for Azerbaijani women’s lives.This type of contract includes “women labour mobilized by the state and motherhood as civil duty” (Temkina, 2002, p. 8). In particular, we nowadays talk about the post-Soviet version of the “working mother’s contract”, which has also been described by Russian gender scholars. In this type of gender contract, engagement in paid labour is considered to be a personal choice for a woman, based on her moral and economic foundations. However, motherhood is still considered from an essentialist perspective (Zdravomyslova & Temkina, 2007, p. 207).

International Actors and Gender Issues in the Private Sphere Statistical data, the composition of the legal system and studies on gender issues in Azerbaijan reveal ambiguities in the gender order in Azerbaijan; such ambiguities can also be seen in the content of the gender agenda.

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Conservative values seem to be maintained, especially in the private sphere. The private life of women and issues related to the family were presented as problematic during the interviews I conducted with gendersensitive people and feminists. Many of the interviewees highly valued the opportunities that are already open to women in public life (as we see in statistical data about women’s involvement in education and paid work), but pointed to restrictions associated with the private family sphere. It should be noted that this situation was not problematized until recent years; however, the theme of all the interviews I conducted was the restrictive influence of family life on women. One of the informants, who was engaged in projects on gender equality issues but did not present herself as a feminist, stated: … the main goal of a woman’s life is family. You are a clever girl (umnitsa), you get an education, get married … it is difficult then to escape it. If you destroy it, you find yourself in instability.

Although “instability” is used in this passage in somewhat abstractive terms, which was characteristic for this interviewee, the passage also presents a typical description of a normative woman’s life in Azerbaijan: some level of education (especially for those from the middle class) and an almost obligatory marriage (in which the absence of motherhood is considered to be unimaginable). This view is relevant to the “working mother’s contract” mentioned earlier. It also means that the life strategies of women beyond this frame have no institutional support. We cannot fully comprehend the lives of women in Azerbaijan without understanding another feature of Azerbaijani families. One of the interviewees provided a good articulation of normative family relations. When asked about the main features of a family in Azerbaijan, she said: Emotional ties in the family are very strong. People do not fix boundaries between their family members and themselves.

Strong emotional ties and weak boundaries between family members may be a part of strong family solidarity, to some extent; however, they also lead to difficulties in gaining autonomy, especially on the part of the family members who are in subordinate, dependent positions in patriarchal hierarchies—that is, young people and women. The interviewees also provided an explicit problematization of society’s requirements for

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women within the patriarchy. A young woman who publicly presents herself as a feminist and is engaged in teaching gender studies in a university: The biggest obstacle is the patriarchal living principles of family life. The vision of the future is already predetermined: the girl is a potential mother.

The patriarchy—which was often mentioned by the interviewees in their descriptions of the Azerbaijani family—is now considered to be an obstacle to a more flexible view of women’s life strategies. Thus, the patriarchy in the private sphere is becoming a source of concern. Gender issues in the private sphere are a focus of attention for the international organizations that are consistently engaged in gender issues, along with the state and gender activists. UNPFA, UNDP and UN Women carry out activities on gender equality and strengthening the position of women, and conduct projects in cooperation with each other and with state bodies (e.g. the State Committee for Family, Women and Children Affairs, the Ministry of Labour and Social Protection, the Ministry of Transport, Communications and High Technologies, etc.). As UNPFA is one of the vibrant actors in the field of gender equality, I chose the UNPFA Facebook page as one of my sources and analyzed it during the 16 days of combatting gender-based violence in 2020. It was clear that gender equality in the private sphere was very topical and was under special focus. According to the webpage posts, one of the most recurring topics during the 16-day campaign was the gender division of domestic labour. Many of the social videos that periodically appeared on the organization’s webpage15 were devoted to this topic. Another recurring topic in the public discussions conducted through the webpage was the role of responsible parenthood in preventing violence against women and girls. Other topics of discussions and webinars included the impact of war and humanitarian disasters on women and girls, as the most vulnerable groups, and the gender dimension of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Another interesting initiative has emerged over the past year in the collaboration between international organizations and state bodies: the application of innovative practices to gender issues. For example, the 2021 Azerbaijani Hackathon for gender equality16 had as its slogan “together against gender stereotypes and gender-based violence”. During the hackathon, which was held after several weeks of training sessions

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(led by experts on gender equality and innovation), competing teams of participants were invited to develop projects to address gender issues. Again, gender issues in the private sphere were a main focus, including the following topics: violence against women; preventing a preference for sons and the depreciation of daughters; campaigning for responsible fatherhood; combatting gender stereotypes in career choices; and gender equality in household chores. Here, it should be noted that, aside from mentions by international organizations and the projects they conduct, issues related to the gender division of household chores and responsible fatherhood came up in a 2019 interview with an informant. The informant, who publicly presents herself as a feminist, said: Now, I am lobbying for paternity leave for men. I lobby for this in every possible way within my capabilities – at the university, outside, in social networks. As long as men do not go on parental leave, then we will not have any changes in family life.17

Along with the events mentioned above on the promotion of a more equal division of household chores, UNPFA is conducting research to determine the attitudes of people in Azerbaijan towards paternal leave. Thus, it is clear that gender issues in the private sphere related to the division of household chores and childcare among men and women are topical, and efforts are under way to find grounds for possible changes in this direction. It is difficult to forecast transformations in such spheres, and doing so is not the aim of this chapter. Although researches on the specific topic of gender equality in Azerbaijan are not as numerous as, for example, in Nordic countries, it has been revealed that the erosion of the traditional lifestyle appears to have affected men more than women18 and that “a more equal division of labour between men and women can be achieved only through the more intensive involvement of men in bringing up children based on the idea of happy childhood and value of children for families” (Akhundzade, 2015, p. 31). The topics of main concern for gender activists and feminists—and the issues that are being addressed in collaborative projects between state bodies and international organizations—reveal that gender issues in the private sphere are a main focus of recent discussions and are thus the most contested conjunction of liberal and conservative trends. Nevertheless, although conservatism has long

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been attributed to Azerbaijani society, no organizations or movements of conservative resistance are being formed.

Conclusion In this chapter, I attempted to define the current state of women empowerment in Azerbaijan by analyzing the country’s dynamic gender agenda; I also addressed the research question on the positioning of Azerbaijan among the modern global trend of the liberalization of gender relations and its opposition by the international conservative turn. An analysis of Azerbaijan’s legal system demonstrated that the country is continuing its shift towards maintaining gender equality, in the direction it has followed since the beginning of the nation’s independence. Joining international conventions and adapting them to local laws and codes on gender equality are characteristic features of the legal system of Azerbaijan. In recent years, the state’s gender politics have aimed to solve urgent questions in this sphere while avoiding an increase in the country’s dependency on external actors. Statistics related to women’s lives and families reveal certain trends of liberalization in private life (e.g. an increase in divorces). However, the most legitimate life pathway for a woman in Azerbaijan is still the role of a working mother, as women continue to be economically active. This role is framed as something that is both desirable and rational, as motherhood continues to be an indisputable goal in an Azerbaijan woman’s experience. This can be observed in statistics such as the median age for marriage and the median age for a mother’s first birth and can be considered as signs of women’s lives following a conservative path. The private sphere, with its patriarchal ideals, seems to be the central field for the contested ideologies of liberalization and conservatism. Gender-based violence is a topical issue, and its position as a central topic of public discussion and concern, the adoption of the National Action Plan on Combatting Domestic Violence and the newly launched hotline on gender-based violence can all be considered as a response to it. Current events and projects by international organizations and state bodies often discuss gender issues in the private sphere, including the gendered division of labour and the engagement of men in domestic chores and child rearing. Progression towards gender equality appears to be taking place; however, it seems to happen not by replacing old values, but by adding

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new ones. That is, the crucial importance of motherhood and the exclusive value of the family for women are not being challenged (except by feminists). Similarly, features that are traditionally attributed to men and women and that are connected to national identity are not being directly questioned. Instead, while retaining the “accustomed” femininity and masculinity, there is an attempt to add something “more” to them: namely, more opportunities for women in the public sphere and more responsibilities for men in the private, family sphere. Furthermore, combatting gender violence is becoming an unavoidable goal for all actors, as sensitivity to those cases continues to increase. The conservative rhetoric in Azerbaijan is not being formed by a social movement or through anti-gender campaigns of the type that arose in recent years in Europe, Russia or Eastern Asia. There may be several reasons for this fact. One reason is that the religious institutions in Azerbaijan lack the power to construct such an agenda or form a stable movement in the country.19 Rather, the state is the most powerful actor and secularity is an important part of politics. Thus, the position of Azerbaijan cannot be aligned with those of countries undergoing a conservative turn. Although the importance of family is mentioned in the nation’s laws and national acts, no laws have been adopted that decrease women’s rights or deprive women of what they have had or gained during the independence of the Azerbaijan Republic. Another reason involves the quality of the development of gender activism in Azerbaijan. It is clear that the gender agenda has become more dynamic, and its content has been rapidly expanding during the last five years. However, Azerbaijan’s gender activism does not seem to have developed to a critical point sufficient to facilitate organized resistance from the conservative public.

Notes 1. The term “patriarchal renaissance” refers to a strengthening of ideas about the biological determination of sexes and the unambiguous division of gender roles; that is, man as the breadwinner and woman as the housekeeper (Gureyeva, 2006, p. 189). 2. By “gender sensitivity”, I refer to particular and continual attention to gender inequalities in society. 3. Data from the answers of 1451 women to the Azerbaijan Demographic and Health Survey (AZDHS) showed that, among specific sources of empowerment (considered in three areas: women’s participation in household decision-making, attitudes towards wife beating, and women’s ability

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5. 6. 7.

8. 9.

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to refuse sexual intercourse), women’s education was the most salient predictor of evidence of women’s empowerment. However, the study also showed that, when a woman’s education level becomes equal to (or surpasses) that of her husband/partner, it may inhibit her empowerment to exert control in specific areas (Habibov et al., 2017, p. 132). In this text, I define “gender issues” as referring to all aspects and concerns related to women’s and men’s lives and situation in society, including the way they interrelate, their differences in terms of their access to and use of resources, their activities, and how they react to changes, interventions and policies (https://eige.europa.eu/thesaurus/terms/1184). https://www.facebook.com/unfpaazerbaijan. Zoom presentation was on establishing network of shelters for domestic violence victims. National Action Plan on Combatting Domestic Violence in the Republic of Azerbaijan for 2020–2023; https://president.az/articles/47973; accessed on 27 November 2020. Website article “Stolen generation and hidden aspects of modern Europe” (in Azerbaijani) (Source: http://newtimes.az/az/politics/1957). The campaign is usually held as a collaboration among state bodies (especially the State Committee for Families, Women and Children Affairs and international organizations). The topics differ each year; for example, topics have included gender violence in the family and sex-selective abortions. A campaign may include meetings, theatre performances, discussions on TV and banners in subway trains with the aim of drawing attention to gender issues. A hotline on gender-based violence has been launched in Azerbaijan http://scfwca.gov.az/post/2210/azerbaycanda-gender-esasli(Source: zorakiliqla-bagli-qaynar-xett-fealiyyete-baslayib; accessed on 4 December 2020). Source: https://report.az/sosial-mudafie/gender-esasli-zorakiliga-qarsi16-gunluk-fealliq-kampaniyasinin-acilis-konfransi-olub/. Date of entrance: 7 April 2021. This four-year project is supported by the State Committee for Families, Women and Children Affairs, UNDP and USAID. It includes the organization of Women Crisis Centers, which are shelters for domestic violence victims. According to the official presentation on the Zoom platform on 4 December, the plan is to provide victims of violence with juridical and psychological support, maintenance of professionals involved in support of victims. Educational meetings for communities are also planned. Business incubators are resource centres for people who are newly in business to support their business activity through multifaceted technical, organizational, administrative and other services (Source: https://smb. gov.az/az/nav/biznes-inkubatorlar).

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14. Development of Women’s Entrepreneurship/Small and Medium Business Development Agency of the Republic of Azerbaijan (Source: https://smb. gov.az/nav/qadn-sahibkarlnn-inkiaf). 15. A 26-second video series titled “Households Have No Gender” (Ev i¸sl∂rinin cinsiyy∂ti yoxdur) is based on the presumed surprise of the audience by the sudden discovery that the men and women depicted in the videos are not engaged in traditional gendered household chores, but are taking an “opposite” position. For example, a man holds a mop rather than a guitar; a man wipes his forehead not during work in the shop, but during childcare; and a woman does not look into a mirror, but rather drives it into the wall (Sources: https://www.youtube.com/watch? v=cEo91Jnvitk/, https://www.facebook.com/1669382263297995/vid eos/1244579739268350/, https://www.facebook.com/166938226329 7995/videos/205605747847986). 16. The first Gender Equality Hackathon in Azerbaijan was organized in 19–21 February 2021 within the framework of the “EU 4 Gender Equality: Together against gender stereotypes and gender-based violence” programme. State bodies (i.e. the Ministry of Transportation, Communication and High Technologies and the Public Union for the Development of Regions) and international organizations (i.e. the European Union, UNPFA and UN Women) were involved (Source: http://genderhack.az Date of entrance: 7 August 2021). 17. Current Labour Code implies only 14 days of paid paternal leaves after birth of a child (Clause 130b, Labour Code of Azerbaijan) (Source: http://www.e-qanun.az/code/7). 18. This study of young urban families, which was supported by the H. Boell Foundation and realized in Baku, has shown that the family is a central sphere of life for both women and men. Still, the women exhibited a greater commitment to the traditional way of life, while the men were also loyal to tradition, but tried to present their family relationships during the interviews as more egalitarian (Akhundzade, 2015, pp. 30–31). 19. The reason why I mention religious institutions is that they are a crucial pillar in many countries that are characterized by strong conservative, anti-gender movements, such as the Catholic Church in Europe (Paternotte & Kuhar, 2018) and the Orthodox Church in Russia (Temkina & Zdravomyslova, 2014).

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References Laws and Statistics Constitution of Azerbaijan Republic. Adopted in 12 November 1995. http:// ask.org.az/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Konstitusiya_ENG.pdf Demographic and Social Statistical Data of the State Statistical Committee of the Republic of Azerbaijan. Population. http://www.stat.gov.az/source/demoqr aphy/ Family Code of Azerbaijan Republic. Adopted in 1999. http://www.e-qanun. az/code/10 Gender Data of the State Statistical Committee of the Republic of Azerbaijan. Population. http://www.stat.gov.az/source/gender/ Labour Code of Azerbaijan Republic. Adopted 1 February 1999. https://www. ryl.az/files/em.pdf Law of Azerbaijan Republic on Gender Equality. Adopted in 10 October 2006. https://www.legislationline.org/download/id/6891/file/Azerbaijan_ Law_on_Gender_Equality_2006_ru.pdf Law of Azerbaijan Republic on Prevention of Domestic Violence. Adopted 22 June 2010. https://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---ed_protect/--protrav/---ilo_aids/documents/legaldocument/wcms_191121.pdf UN Women. (2015). Istanbul Convention.

Other Literature Akhundzade, H. (2015). Gender Arrangements in Contemporary Azerbaijani Urban Families. In From Private to Public—Transformation of Social Spaces in the South Caucasus (232 p., pp. 20–31). Tbilisi. Global Programme to Prevent Son Preference and the Undervaluing of Girls: Improving the Sex Ratio at Birth in Select Countries in Asia and the Caucasus. Azerbaijan Country Profile, Baku 2018. Gureyeva, Y. (2006). National Gender: Made in Azerbaijan. In Figuring Out the South Caucasus: Societies and Environment (pp. 187–204). Heinrich Böll Stiftung South Caucasus. Habibov, N., Barrett, B. J., & Chernyak, E. (2017, May). Understanding Women’s Empowerment and Its Determinants in Post-Communist Countries: Results of Azerbaijan National Survey. In Women’s Studies International Forum (Vol. 62, pp. 125–135). Pergamon. Heyat, F. (2002). Azeri Women in Transition: Women in Soviet and Post-Soviet Azerbaijan. Psychology Press.

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Korolczuk, E. (2014). The War on Gender from a Transnational Perspective— Lessons for Feminist Strategising. Anti-Gender Movements on the Rise? Strategizing for Gender Equality in Central and Eastern Europe, Boell-Foundation, 43-53. Najafizadeh, M. (2018). Women in Azerbaijan. Decades of Change and Challenges. In M. Najafizadeh & L. Lindsey (Eds.), Women of Asia: Globalization, Development, and Gender Equity (pp. 349–364). Routledge. National Action Plan on Combatting Domestic Violence in the Republic of Azerbaijan for 2020–2023. Source: https://president.az/articles/47973. Date of entrance: 27 November 2020. Paternotte, D., & Kuhar, R. (2018). Disentangling and Locating the “Global Right”: Anti-gender Campaigns in Europe. Politics and Governance, 6(3), 6–19. Temkina, A. A. (2002). Sovetskiie gendernye kontrakty i ikh transformatsiia v sovremennoi Rossii. Covetckie gendepnye kontpakty i ix tpancfopmaciЯ v covpemennoй Poccii. Sotsiologicheskie Issledovaniia, 11, 4–14. Temkina, A., & Zdravomyslova, E. (2014). Gender’s Crooked Path: Feminism Confronts Russian Patriarchy. Current Sociology, 62(2), 253–270. Tohidi, N. (1996, January). Soviet in Public, Azeri in Private: Gender, Islam, and Nationality in Soviet and Post-Soviet Azerbaijan. In Women’s Studies International Forum (Vol. 19, No. 1–2, pp. 111–123). Pergamon. Tohidi, N. (1998). Guardians of the Nation: Women, Islam, and the Soviet Legacy of Modernization in Azerbaijan. In Women in Muslim Societies: Diversity Within Unity (pp. 37–61). Lynne Reiner. Women in Private Sector in Azerbaijan: opportunities and challenges. Gender Assessment Report (prep. By Aysel Vazirova) UNDP, UNPFA, WARD, SADC, The State Committee for Family, Women and Children’s Issues, 2018. Zdravomyslova, E., & Temkina, A. (2007). Neotraditsionalism (y)—transtformatsiya grazhdanstva v sovremennoi Rossii. In E. Zdravomyslova & A. Temkina (Eds.), Rossiiskii gendernyi poriadok: sotsiologichecki podkhod (pp. 201–212). Izd. Evropeiskogo universiteta.

Periodical Publications Aile, Gadyn, Ushag (2016) N: 18. State Committee for Family, Women and Child Affairs of the Republic of Azerbaijan.

Women’s Agency During the Conservative Wave in Russian Social Policy Ann-Mari Sätre

Abstract An authoritarian rule in Russian legislation and policies has been noted since the early 2000s, including signs of a deterioration of women’s rights and a reshaping of social policy. The aim of this chapter is to analyse how women have responded to the conservative wave regarding changes in social policy, given the persisting moral and practical female responsibility for social welfare in Russia. In addition, this chapter highlights how the reshaping of social policy might contribute to a social marginalization of women. The chapter takes institutional economics as its theoretical framework and adds an orientation of agency as the changing factor. It describes how women work across sectors to enforce social policy objectives and underlines how—despite all the problems with the functioning of the system—there are local tendencies towards collaboration among women within and outside of government, who try to solve social problems. Women who are active in the social sphere take different approaches depending on whether they support ‘going back to traditional values’ or wish to work for another agenda. The chapter discusses a form

A.-M. Sätre (B) Institute for Russian and Eurasian Studies, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 A.-M. Sätre et al. (eds.), Post-Soviet Women, Sustainable Development Goals Series, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-38066-2_16

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of women’s agency that combines resistance to the existing authoritarian regime with acceptance of it.

Background A development towards authoritarian rule in legislation and policies has been noted in Russia since the early 2000s, including signs of a deterioration in women’s rights and a reshaping of social policy to promote traditional family values. Increasing pressure on civil society organizations has contributed to making it more difficult to work for women’s empowerment. The aim of this chapter is to analyse how women in Russia have responded to the changes in social policy, given the persistent moral and practical norms of female responsibility for social welfare. This chapter takes institutional economics as its theoretical framework and is oriented towards agency.1 Within this framework, formal institutions such as legislation and policies can be changed by political decisions, whereas informal institutions such as attitudes and behavioural patterns are rooted in society and are not so quickly changed. This chapter highlights the impacts of the survival of the Soviet norm that women are responsible for the organization of social welfare. One aspect of this norm is that women’s agency in post-Soviet time is often realized through non-governmental organizations (NGOs).2 Similarly to the Soviet period, women now are expected to show their agency not through open political participation but by being active in the social sphere. However, the current conservative wave in Russia has led to an NGO policy that has been framed to conform with ‘traditional values’—values that have become a tool for social control. This chapter also discusses how the conservative wave may affect Russian women in different ways, given its tendency to particularly impact women who are already vulnerable.3 In particular, the ambition here is to show how Russian women create networks across sectors to deal with such consequences, to increase the independence of vulnerable women and to raise women’s status in society. The most relevant part of the data used for this research comprises over 100 qualitative interviews conducted by the author in 2015–2022 in the Nizhny Novgorod region, the Novgorod region, St Petersburg, the Arkhangelsk region and the Karelian Republic.4 Due to ethical considerations, the interviewed persons’ names have been changed. The next three sections give an account of social policy and the impact of the conservative wave on social NGOs. The subsequent section focuses

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on how women work across networks to enforce social policy objectives, while drawing attention to how women try to mitigate the effects of the conservative wave through efforts to promote women’s rights.

Social Policies Aimed at Increasing Birth Rates It has been argued that Russia has experienced a conservative wave with respect to gender (see, e.g., Gradskova, 2017, 2019; Johnson, 2014; Johnson & Saarinen, 2011; Muravyeva, 2018; Temkina & Zdravomyslova, 2014), which is reflected in developments in social policy since the mid-2000s that promote family values (Turbine, 2015). Due to the conservative wave, for instance, demands for the improvement of women’s rights have been rejected as a threat to traditional values.5 A law decriminalizing violence in the family was adopted in 2017, restrictions on abortion rights have been adopted and women in the top leadership openly support politics promoting traditional values (Gradskova, 2019; Sätre, 2021). A further step in this direction is the presidential decree stating that Russians should adhere to the ideology of traditional values, which was adopted in November 2022.6 Moreover, gradual closings of women’s crisis centres or their integration into regional structures have been observed, along with mergers of women’s shelters to save money.7 Social policy in Russia appears to be devoted to promoting increased birth rates (Chandler, 2013; Cook, 2011). Policy changes have increased birth grants and family allowances, incorporating clear incentives for a second and third child. The Maternity Capital programme is probably the most important ingredient of the policy to address Russia’s demographic ‘problem’ (Johnson et al., 2021, p. 7). The literature emphasizes that this programme is rooted in a traditional understanding of the family and of women’s role in family and society (see Hornke, 2020; Temkina & Zdravomyslova, 2014). Chandler (2013) argues that the pronatalist reform of 2006 promoted a patriotic ideal of motherhood. Gradual improvements in the Maternity Capital programme have been motivated by hopes that the reform would stimulate the growth of Russia’s birth rate. The Maternity Capital programme was intended to end in late 2016; however, it was extended, first to 2018 and then to 2021. In his annual speech to the Federal Assembly in 2020, President Putin announced the extension of the Maternity Capital to the end of 2026 and stated that it would be extended for the birth of the first child and increased in size for the second child.8 In addition, extra payments

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will be made to young mothers (19–23 years old). The message is clear and has been spread through local TV, where, for example, the Governor of St. Petersburg has been shown distributing keys to minibuses to some families with many children.9 This increased focus on traditional values has led to social policy resources being reallocated to family days, celebrations of families, concerts, patriotic events and so on, while shelters and crisis centres have been merged or closed down.10 New family centres have been opened that focus on increasing births and decreasing abortions through the promotion of traditional values among the young, the higher status of families with children, and cross-generational living. These centres organize family festivals and distribute medals to ‘the family of the year’ and so forth.11 In the Novgorod region, the Ministry of Health has produced a guidebook for families in collaboration with the local church.12

Promoting Socially Oriented NGOs An increased governmental effort to engage people in socially oriented activities is shown by Federal Law No. 40-FZ ‘On socially oriented NGOs’ (adopted in 2010). Rather than increasing tax payments to finance social policy, the government is encouraging citizens to contribute to the fulfilment of social aims in various ways. Patriotic messages are also being used to promote this aim (Sätre, 2019, pp. 151–152). This federal law formalizes amendments that were previously made to social policies and defines a spectrum of activities that can be considered to be socially oriented. It also includes increased expectations of voluntary work in the social sphere—especially from women. Voluntary contributions to charity by businesses are encouraged on the basis of ethics and moral values, rather than through the use of monetary incentives. In addition, the law clarifies areas of social policy that involve governmental grants to financially support socially oriented NGOs (Tarasenko, 2018). NGOs have been subject to increased control from above, as manifested in new legislation in 2006 and again in 2012 and 2014. After the 2012:121-FZ law on ‘foreign agents’ was enforced, NGOs using foreign funding encountered increasing difficulties with authorities, causing them to become more dependent on domestic funding. To financially support the work of social NGOs, the Presidential Grants programme was first introduced in 2006 and then scaled up in 2013 (Fröhlich & Skokova,

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2020; Toepler et al., 2019). As a kind of compensation, the presidential administration increased its capacity to distribute presidential grants (Chebankova, 2013). However, the conservative wave is reflected in the NGO policy, which has been framed so as to conform with ‘traditional values’—values that have become a tool for social control. For example, a woman running an NGO that provided juridical advice to help pregnant women keep their jobs had to close the NGO due to pressure from the authorities.13 Several women’s organizations have also been labelled as ‘foreign agents’.14 A civic organization can strive to join the list of ‘social’ NGOs in order to receive state funding and avoid harassment from the authorities. If NGOs are not on the ‘right’ list (i.e., the list of socially oriented NGOs), NGO leaders can re-register or try to register a new NGO, which may decrease control or increase the chance of receiving funding (Sätre, 2021, p. 8).

Women Being Held Responsible for the Realization of Social Policy From the 1930s onwards, policies towards women became a function of broader patterns and priorities of economic and social change, which affected Russian society as a whole. Male and female parliamentary deputies had divergent occupational backgrounds, with female deputies being predominantly collective farmers, doctors and teachers (Lapidus, 1975, p. 99). These women focused on participating in the arenas of health, cultural affairs and public welfare. In the 1990s, joint actions with women’s organizations seem to have occurred at all levels of government within the arena of social security. Russia’s divided women’s movement has been well documented by Clements (1992), Lapidus (1975), and Nechemias (2000). The effects of Russia’s desire for strong leadership, implying a preference for fatherhood over social motherhood, are well reflected in the nation’s priorities of production over social security. While industry was completely integrated into the state’s planning system in the Soviet Union, social services were only partially integrated, leaving social issues partly outside of the planned target system (Lapidus, 1975). Observations from multiple scholars in the field support the finding that Soviet culture taught women to find solutions—which continue to be needed in contemporary Russia. As a result of the low priority given to female-dominated sectors such as health and social services in state

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policy, women have had to develop the ability to find practical solutions to everyday problems, and these entrepreneurial skills have continued to survive after the end of the Soviet system (Kulmala, 2013; Sätre, 2001, 2016). Women use these skills in their formal positions in the social policy hierarchy, as well as in informal positions, when they voluntarily take responsibility for social work. Interviews have revealed how social workers at schools and elsewhere, teachers, doctor’s assistants, deputies of local village councils, local politicians and others have tried to help people take part in state programmes and become registered for support in one way or another (Sätre, 2019, pp. 112–133). In fact, social workers make their own judgements about whom to support, while taking into account the inadequate resources they have at their disposal. To use the terminology coined by the American Economist Douglass North, this process involves the survival of informal institutions. The following section examines female networks. Russian women often create networks across sectors to take care of social problems, which they believe to be their responsibility, while simultaneously promoting patriotism and Russian family values. In contrast, some women set up NGOs and frame activities to promote family values and patriotism in order to obtain presidential grants, while promoting other agendas.

Female Networks---Working Across Hierarchies and Sectors Women do appear to have some power at the regional or local level in Russia. Moreover, women hold powerful positions in certain sectors that have been female dominated since the Soviet era. Social policy, culture and health are branches of government that have generally been led by female ministers, with women occupying most positions at all levels of the hierarchies. The vice governors and vice mayors responsible for social issues are often women. During my fieldwork, I have clearly seen that much is being done to prevent or overcome poverty, to help women in difficult life situations and to help women claim their social and economic rights. The same women can oversee both formal state networks (in which they have access to governmental resources and political hierarchical structures) and informal networks, through women’s councils.15 This is illustrated by the links that can be observed between women’s roles within a city.16 Olga provides an example of such links. She has been

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the leader of a women’s club, registered as an NGO in a regional capital since year 2000 and was the vice-governor in that region with responsibility for social policy before she retired 2 years earlier. In her interview, Olga describes the close connections between the roles she played in the city and how they operate. The women’s club contributes to activities supporting the women in the region, as do all the other women’s organizations in the region. The leaders of the women’s organizations form a network. Each organization has some kind of resource to contribute, although resources have unfortunately eroded over the years. Olga says: ‘There is a women’s council in our city; their leader carries with her women’s council practically the whole social sphere on her shoulders’.17 However, the women’s club does not get involved in politics, as grants cannot be used for political activities. The second time I met with the members of this club, 2 years later, they were planning their 20th anniversary celebration. One of the women, Ludmila, emphasized that they are far removed from politics. Intellectual symbiosis is a focus for their club (the core group consisted of the same eight women as 2 years earlier). It appears that the club is really a club for women leaders, as all eight members are leaders of women’s organizations or networks in the city (interview, December 2019). The women’s club seems to be trying to find a balance between supporting the president and official politics and promoting the empowerment of women in leading positions, while simultaneously helping women in difficult life situations. Lidia, who is the head of the Children’s Cultural Centre, is also the head of the ‘women’s parliament’, another NGO in this regional capital.18 She explains how the women’s parliament arranged a roundtable for businesspeople to promote corporate social responsibility. Most of the participants were women. ‘It is no longer possible to find a sponsor by putting your hand out, you need to get a grant’, Lidia says. This is new and requires a new strategy; Lidia and her colleagues must mobilize all efforts to unite all the women’s organizations. Because all the women’s organizations survive on grants, they must be able to write applications or collaborate around common resources. The organizations receive grants for various activities. However, they avoid addressing issues of gender equality and concrete questions such as wages, saying: ‘Questions of equality are left to professionals’. When asked about the change in

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direction of the women’s movement in the city since the women’s parliament was first started in 1995, the head of the women’s parliament said: ‘That was another time!’.19 The women’s parliament also supports cultural projects, such as a film project presenting children as heroes, which promotes human values in the upbringing of children by explaining why people should help others around them and by discussing the concept of conscience. Patriotic themes are also on the agenda of the women’s club; for example, the project ‘Our Valley’ praises the army.20 The head of the charity fund in the town is part of the network as well. She is proud of having been congratulated by the president of Russia because her project was appointed as the best in Russia in providing help to families. A charity fund leader explains their new engagement in patriotism: ‘It is necessary to strengthen the patriotic spirit among youth and children. Towards this aim, the charity fund provided support to patriotic clubs to organize activities together with the monastery’.21 Women make the most of their strategies and experiences in both their paid work and the work they do beyond their formal obligations (Sätre, 2014).22 This generally includes the women who are responsible for social affairs in local administrations and the social workers and specialists working at social service centres, traditional women’s councils and perhaps churches as well. Some of these women attest that there are no real gender problems in Russia. This was clearly emphasized by Larisa, a leading journalist at the regional level and a member of the women’s club, who commented: ‘gender equality already exists in Russia, just as it did during the Soviet time’.23 Relying on Socially Oriented NGOs Researchers have noted a continued reliance in Russian society on help from voluntary organizations, in one way or another (Kay, 2011; Salmenniemi, 2008). In addition, newer interviews with professionals from the state’s social services revealed that the authorities are dependent on NGOs in various ways.24 Some of the larger NGOs, which have roots from the Soviet period (e.g., ‘For the Deaf and Blind’ and ‘For the Disabled’), are accepted and supported by the state.25 At one of the larger NGOs in a city, the interviewees remarked that the new NGO law had introduced many problems for them in the beginning, that addressing these problems required an understanding of how the law actually worked, and that

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it was necessary to be very careful.26 The increased control the authorities are imposing from above suggests that it has become more difficult for bottom-up initiatives to provide social services, given that they are unlikely to receive support from the state.27 Irina and Evgenija are employed at an NGO devoted to preventing divorces. A wall in the office of the NGO is covered in diplomas. This NGO receives support from the state; it also receives support from a social fund, the regional budget and the Children’s Fund. The director of this NGO has remained the leader since she started the NGO 20 years ago. It continues to have an hierarchical organization, with the director making all the important decisions, which implies that the decisions are not democratically made. The NGO has received presidential grants for various projects in competition with others.28 However, according to Irina, it was easier to obtain grants for social purposes in previous years: This has become more difficult; now, it has to be youth and health on the agenda. It is a bit tricky, you have to come up with something new to get the grant, but you also have to promote family values. One has to be creative; sometimes they pay for specialists, sometimes not. That is also why you need to have voluntary staff.

This particular NGO has many student volunteers, both women and men—more than are needed. Irina cannot even count them. Contributing to society on a voluntary basis is part of a patriotic upbringing for students, she says. This widescale access to young volunteers facilitates the flexibility of the NGO. When it receives a grant with short notice for some project or programme, the NGO can just call in the needed students. In principle, customers should pay for the services they receive, but vulnerable families are often unable to pay for anything. According to Irina, this is why it is especially important to obtain presidential grants, which enable them to provide services for free. This NGO clearly promotes family values. Irina describes the typical situations they might face within their organization. Such situations usually involve alcohol problems—problems that are transferred from generation to generation: If it is only the man in the household who is drinking, this is considered ‘ordinary Russian life’, this is something that ordinary Russian women should be able to cope with. If not, we can provide psychological help to the woman.29

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According to Irina, this is the most reasonable solution in the case of Russian families. But Anna, who runs her own NGO targeting vulnerable women, does not support such an approach to deal with drinking problems. ‘Instead, the drinking has to be stopped, it is the dependence on alcohol that is the problem, this medical problem has to be dealt with’, she says.30 A female pastor31 is the head of an alliance consisting of a group of NGOs devoted to helping socially marginalized people. Being a pastor has helped her to run activities with the help of donations and voluntary work. Included in this alliance is an NGO for the children of drug addicts, as well as a religious rehabilitation centre for women in vulnerable situations. However, the activities mostly hinge on charity rather than empowerment.32 Empowering Vulnerable Women? Svetlana and Alena (interviewed in 2019), each of whom is the director of a separate unit in the ombudsman’s department in a city, agree that they have made a few important achievements.33 They believe that their work has contributed to improvements in legislation that will reduce the burden on women’s shoulders. Despite being slow, these developments are still moving towards a more humane way of handling life conditions. The women collaborate with the ‘Women’s Alliance’, which is a framework in which about 50 women’s organizations take part. Svetlana works alone in the area of women’s human rights and their enforcement. She tries to follow up on whether women’s rights are really being enforced or whether they are being violated. Svetlana does not consider this to be the most difficult part of her job; rather, she finds the struggle against the system to be the most difficult. According to Svetlana, systemic difficulties exist everywhere. She describes how she writes letters at the federal level, to the minister, to the governor—to everybody except Putin. There is some collaboration between ombudsmen; for instance, there is a coordinating council in Northwest Russia. The ombudsman’s department has a list of organizations to cooperate with; examples include women’s crisis centres, but there are more than just women’s organizations on the list. The list includes organizations of any kind that receive letters from citizens. According to Svetlana, some people actually think that women should be hit sometimes.34

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There are shelters in each part of the city where, for example, women who have left their home after being exposed to violence can get warm food and a place to stay overnight in a tent (war tents). The ministry for urgent situations takes care of this kind of help for the homeless. During the pandemic, however, the situation has been more difficult, because shelters for the homeless do not want to let people in without passing them through quarantine. ‘But how can a homeless person be in quarantine?’35 An NGO leader is upset over how local authorities tend to put the responsibility on the women being subjected to violence. According to her, authorities do not act against the violence but instead look for strategies to provide psychological help to women. For instance, the authorities may find that there is a need to increase the number of women’s crisis centres. They suggest that women need help from psychologists rather than protection from the police. Such a policy also means that there is no point in calling the police; they will not intervene in issues. But what is needed is for the violence to be stopped; for violence to be perceived as the crime it actually is.36

Since the year 2000, there has been a worrisome development, according to the ombudsman in a city. ‘In our society, the focus is on men in all aspects’, she says. She gives an account of discriminatory actions against women—homeless women, migrants, handicapped women, women with handicapped children, single mothers and female inmates. ‘The law should add some guarantees concerning human rights, as there should be equality in front of the law’, she says.37 One NGO leader (interviewed in 2019) describes how she has built her own personal networks of women working in the social sphere, which include state officials in powerful positions, social workers and others working in state-financed social centres and NGOs. Their collaboration is based on trust in people rather than trust in organizations. She receives clients from the women’s crisis centre, such as women who have been subjected to violence. She works with these women through her own small hotline project, for which she has received a small presidential grant. The NGO leader says that she knows exactly how to formulate her grant applications. ‘You have to write that you are promoting “family values”…’.38 However, as it has become more difficult to get presidential

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grants and foreign money, the NGO looks for private donors for support, while also cooperating with the church and the state.39 Another NGO has a contract with prison authorities to work with women in prison. Once a week, a doctor from the organization goes to the female prison to take blood tests from inmates, in order to ensure that they do not have tuberculosis. In past years, the NGO received financing from international organizations. Although it now receives a small amount of funding from the state, the NGO mostly relies on voluntary work. Most of the 10–15 people working for this NGO have other jobs. Amartya Sen (1984) raises two important points that connect agency to empowerment: (1) access to assets and (2) empowerment. According to the second point, when seeking to empower women, one should aim to give them agency. Giving agency to the recipients of support must be based on their own perceptions of what they need: The way to help socially vulnerable women is through empowerment: what they need is not four meals per day, but a job.40

Svetlana at the ombudsman’s department (interviewed in 2019) is open about the motive that drives her work: it is to increase the independence of women and improve their quality of life; it is to raise women’s status in society.41 All the interviewed NGO representatives seem to work for women’s empowerment in one way or another; however, they are careful in talking about empowerment, as it appears to be unclear to them whether or not doing so would be considered political. It seems to be better to be careful—to follow signals from the state and then be quiet about actual solutions.42 Natalia, an artist who runs an NGO for preventing drug addiction, goes to the prison once a week to give drawing lessons to female inmates. She mentions the problem of obtaining proper registration upon release and comments that, for example, many Roma women never obtain a passport. Without a passport, they have no rights. Natalia explains this to the women and informs them about the human rights they are entitled to: ‘What vulnerable women need to know is what rights they have as citizens or residents and how they can claim a right. They need to know how to proceed in demanding the rights they are actually entitled to’.43 The main mission of another NGO is to collect information about issues such as violence in the family, the problems of single mothers

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and discrimination against women in the labour market, and to provide education about these issues to women.44 A lawyer, Anna, describes her NGO as a legal resource centre. She gives advice to vulnerable women to enable them to claim their rights. Some of those who are turning to Anna’s hotline for assistance lost their job during the pandemic. Anna is also engaged in concrete law cases, such as preventing women from losing their homes when they are unable to pay rent. In addition, Anna is engaged in processes that promote changes in legislation to benefit vulnerable women.45 This ongoing work is being done together with state officials, as a response to the deterioration in women’s rights that has resulted from the official promotion of traditional values. Anna’s work exemplifies how collaboration between women working in the social sphere can open up opportunities for empowerment processes among women.46 It appears, however, that this practical work has become difficult. NGOs limit their activities in the form of seminars, exhibitions and information campaigns, which are considered political activities, while the increased focus on traditional values makes it difficult to work for women’s empowerment.47

Conclusions In a historical continuity from the Soviet Union, social policy is predominantly viewed as a female responsibility in Russia. This chapter described how women in Russia work across sectors to enforce social policy objectives. In the current political situation, women cannot really solve issues other than social problems, as political activism is dangerous; that is, being politically active endangers the continuity of their social work. This chapter emphasized how—despite the conservative wave and all the problems with the functioning of the system—local collaboration is taking place among women within and outside of state authorities, who are trying to solve social problems. In addition to the examples provided in this chapter, we have seen examples of such work after the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic and since the escalation of the war in Ukraine in February 2022. In everyday life, women in Russia working for social NGOs use their contacts with authorities and donors to apply for project funding in order to try to create resources. In the political domain, efforts to promote women’s rights and the empowerment of women have also been observed, although such work has become more difficult with the current repression and the increasing emphasis on traditional values.

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Since the end of the Soviet era, there has been a divided view of women’s role, which is reflected in contemporary Russia. Women who are active in the social sphere—both within the state and in the civic sector— have different approaches in terms of whether they support a return to traditional values or work for a different agenda. Forms of agency that combine both resistance to and acceptance of the conservative wave have been observed. As depicted in this chapter, such differing perspectives sometimes coexist. The presidential grants are constructed to support the state’s policies, so these grants are targeted towards projects that promote family values. Rather than stating their aims in terms of human rights, social rights or gender equality, NGOs must frame their activities in such a way as to appear to promote family values and patriotic aims. This chapter also highlighted how the conservative wave may affect women in different ways. First, a deterioration of women’s rights in Russia could reinforce a downward spiral for women who have crossed over the threshold to poverty. Second, the focus of social policy on promoting family values and increasing Russia’s birth rate may result in fewer resources being applied to support vulnerable women. The efforts of women working in social services or running NGOs to help vulnerable women have become more difficult, because the official priorities are to support traditional family values, promote increased birth rates and prevent abortions and divorces.

Notes 1. ‘Institutions’ include the restrictions that humans have created to regulate interaction in society (North, 1990). 2. The author is well aware of that there are various terms referring to related phenomena and finds that the term non-governmental organization (NGO) is convenient in the present context as the main focus here is on relation to governmental policy (see Bogdanova et al., 2018, p. 402). Although some NGOs mentioned in this text have ‘roots’ from the Soviet time, this term was not used at that time. 3. By ‘Vulnerable women’, we here understand women who are socially marginalized, for example former prisoners, former drug addicts and women subject to domestic violence. These are women who need help to collect the documents they need, a place in a shelter or other forms assistance to reintegrate into society. 4. Due to the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic and the Russian war in Ukraine, personal communication in 2020–2022 was conducted online.

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5. ‘National strategy of actions for women for 2017–2022’. http://eawfpr ess.ru/about/organizatsiyam/strategia2017.php. 6. 09.11.2022 № 809. http://publication.pravo.gov.ru/Document/View/ 0001202211090019. 7. Interview, head of family centre for social support in a small town, April 2016 (the case is described in more detail in Sätre, 2019, pp. 152– 153). Personal communication with the head of the gender centre, city, September 2021. Personal communication with NGO leader, city, October 2021. 8. Support for families was also left intact after the war started (online interview with lawyer, city, June 2022). 9. http://www.vybnews.ru/news/2020-08-27/po-porucheniyu-gubern atora-mnogodetnym-semyam-sankt-peterburga-vrucheny-klyuchi-ot-mik roavtobusov/. 10. Online interview with Russian lawyer, city, March 2022. 11. http://social.novreg.ru/activity/; https://forpost-sz.ru/a/2020-1222/vlasti-peterburga-reshili-borotsya-s-abortami-dlya-povysheniya-rozhda emosti. 12. http://social.novreg.ru/activity/. 13. Interview with a lawyer in a city, who described how the security service broke into her apartment and took her computer. She went to court and got it back. The same thing happened again; however, the third time it happened, she gave up and simply closed the NGO (interview, August 2019). 14. Online interview with lawyer, city, May 2022. 15. Women’s councils were launched as separate yet party-related bodies in the Soviet Union in 1961 (Saarinen et al., 2013). These top-down organizations were created on territorial and industrial principles. Several women’s councils transformed into feminist groups. Others transformed into independently registered organizations and are active in social welfare (Kulmala, 2013). 16. Interview with three women from a women’s club, city, November 2017. 17. Interview with three women from a women’s club, city, November 2017. 18. In 2018, there was only one ‘women’s parliament’ registered as an NGO in Russia; earlier, there were three, but two have closed (www. min.ru). The ‘women’s parliament’ is a kind of club where women study psychology, health, law, how to set up a small business or how to work a computer. 19. Interview, city, November 2017. The women’s parliament was an umbrella organization for women’s organizations in this particular region. In 2014– 2015, it became labelled as a foreign agent. Therefore, the director closed this NGO and created a new Women’s parliament. But this NGO did not have enough activity due to a lack of financing and was closed in 2022.

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20. 21. 22.

23. 24. 25. 26.

27.

28. 29. 30. 31.

32.

33.

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The leader is at the time of writing working in line with state policy and supports mobilization for the war and promotion of traditional values (personal communication). Interviews with the head of the women’s parliament, city, November 2017. Interview with the leader of a charity fund, small town, June 2017. The activities of the ‘women’s alliance’ in uniting some 50 women’s organizations in a city were mainly focused on cultural exchange between Russian cities (interview with a member, August 2019). The Eurasian forum that was organized in 2015, 2018 and 2021 to unite women’s organizations did not discuss gender equality either (interview with one of the participants, September 2019 and November 2021). Interview, city, December 2019. Interview with the leader of a women’s crisis centre, city, February 2019. Interview with a lawyer contracted by an NGO in the regional capital, December 2016. On using the term NGO, see endnote 2 above. Interview with an NGO leader in the regional capital, May 2016; however, even if you are classified as a ‘foreign agent’, it might be possible to get funding from the federal level, albeit not from the regional level. ‘Foreign agents’ are supposed to report on their activities every month and send the report to the prosecutor (interview with an NGO leader, city, 2019). In 2020, Anna, the leader of an NGO aimed at helping vulnerable women, told of increasing difficulties as some of the NGOs she works with have become classified as ‘foreign agents’. In addition, fear is spreading, as individuals can now be put on the ‘foreign agent’ list. But there is also another aspect to this, she says. ‘There are these groups, you don’t know exactly who they are, who report you’ (interview, November 2020). Interview with two employees of a social NGO, city, August 2019. Interview, social NGO, city, August 2019. Interview, NGO leader, city, August 2019. Although female priests are not allowed in the Russian orthodox church, there are female pastors in some protestant churches (personal communication spring 2023). At a meeting with the female pastor and eight female former drug addicts, three of whom were former prisoners, we heard stories from women who explained that they had no other place to go. A young woman was happy that she had been advised to come to this place where she could get one of the eight beds in a room and a pair of boots after she was released from prison (interview, February 2019). The ombudsman considers complaints of Russian and foreign citizens and stateless persons on Russia’s territory of against decisions or actions of state bodies and officials. This governmental institution was introduced for the first time in Russian practice by the 1993 Constitution.

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39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46.

47.

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Interview with two employees of the ombudsman in a city, February 2019. Interview with NGO leader, city, June 2020. Interview with NGO leader, city, June 2020. Interview with ombudsman, city, August 2019. Interview with NGO leader, city, February 2019. Eight women work for this NGO; they share a desk and a copy machine in the small office of the city’s women’s council. According to former interviewees, after February 24, 2022, it became even more difficult. Personal communication, autumn 2022. Interview with NGO leader, city, June 2020. Interview with the head of the unit of the ombudsman, city, February 2019. Interview with NGO leaders, city, December 2019. Interview with NGO leader, city, August 2019. Interview with NGO leader, city, December 2019. Interview with NGO leader, city, November 2020. According to personal communication after February 24, 2022, this work continues, although they also work with new groups of vulnerable women, including women evacuated from the war in Ukraine and the families of mobilized soldiers (autumn 2022). According to personal communication, after February 24, 2022, it became even more difficult (autumn 2022).

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Index

A Abortion, 10, 59, 60, 63, 144, 170, 171, 320, 326, 341, 342, 352 Ageing, 228, 229, 233, 237, 238, 324 Agency, 2, 3, 5, 12–14, 18–20, 166, 169, 174, 196, 204, 230, 242, 249, 252, 259, 261, 326, 327, 340, 350, 352 Anderson, Benedict, 164 Angy Kreyda, 214 Anna centre, 62 Anti-Discrimination campaign, 288 Law, 275 policy, 272, 274, 275 Anti-disinformation, 288 Anti-racism, 32 Armenia, 5, 7, 15, 16, 41, 74, 77, 78, 81–85, 88, 182–188, 190–193, 195, 196 Art activism, 283

Attitudes, 2, 6, 8–11, 14, 15, 66, 76, 79, 104, 108, 190, 195, 226, 253, 321, 322, 332, 340 gender based, 104, 106, 107 negative (towards women), 52, 99 Authoritarian State, 3, 13–15, 35, 253 Azerbaijan, 5, 21, 22, 186, 320–330, 332–334

B Baltic States, 7, 9, 17, 79, 136, 137, 141, 149, 151 Bebel, August, 148, 150 Behavior, 74, 76, 78, 79, 84, 87, 265 formal, 79 informal, 79 sexual, 88 Belarus, 5, 12, 13, 19, 41, 136, 140, 147, 151, 227, 228, 235 Berehynia, 206, 211, 213, 216, 218 Bias, 104, 191 gender, 104, 106, 107, 111, 127

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 A.-M. Sätre et al. (eds.), Post-Soviet Women, Sustainable Development Goals Series, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-38066-2

359

360

INDEX

son, 99, 100 Birth rate, 36, 96, 98, 107, 111, 112, 124, 175, 176, 324, 325, 341, 352 Briukhovetska, Oksana, 277

C Care, 8, 16, 18, 20, 34, 44, 74, 95, 99, 103, 125, 126, 168, 184, 190, 191, 196, 205, 210, 211, 213, 218, 229–231, 233, 236–239, 241, 242, 257, 273, 288 CEDAW, 38, 43, 320, 325 Central Asia, 5, 12, 13, 15, 16, 34, 95–97, 99, 100, 103–106, 109–111, 119, 121, 167, 257 Charity, 139, 213, 342, 346, 348 Childbirth rate, 35 Childcare, 35, 125, 126, 141, 160, 238, 332 Children, 2, 32, 35, 43, 45, 53, 56, 59–62, 65, 66, 74, 76, 82, 85–88, 103, 110, 125, 126, 139, 145, 149, 165, 172, 173, 190, 195, 204–206, 211, 214, 226, 227, 230–232, 234, 235, 237, 239–241, 249, 256–258, 324, 327, 332, 342, 346, 348, 349 grand, 20, 235 Civic documentation, 21 Civil society, 2, 7, 15, 58, 119, 127, 191, 193, 194, 262, 274, 298, 340 Cold War, 4, 31, 32, 34, 41, 43–45, 147 Colonial Borderlands, 34 Committee of Soviet Women, 29, 31 Complementarity, 250, 255, 260 Connell, Raewyn, 206, 207

Conservatism, 42, 58, 108, 119, 120, 160, 165, 171, 254, 299, 300, 312, 322, 332, 333 Orthodox, 16, 58, 59, 162 Conservative discourse, 22, 120, 127, 128, 130 elites, 142 groups, 57, 128, 161 Islam, 127, 130, 213 politics, 2 reforms, 10 rhetoric, 58, 127, 305, 334 turn, 254, 296, 297, 302, 303, 319–322, 333, 334 views, 144, 321, 323 wave, 340, 341, 343, 351, 352 Consortium of Women’s NGOs, 53 Crimea, 30, 41, 45, 167, 204, 272–274, 278 Crisis Centre, 52–54, 62, 64, 341, 342, 348, 349 Cultural practices, 98, 258 D Davis, Angela, 41, 148 Death, 97, 112, 173, 214–216, 258, 278, 324 Decolonization, 4, 5, 250 Decommunization Law, 286 Depopulation, 228 Deprivation, 96, 99, 242 Development, 2, 4, 8–10, 13, 17, 37, 39, 43, 52, 76, 78, 79, 82, 88, 94, 96, 97, 99, 107, 108, 117, 118, 125, 130, 136, 141, 183, 184, 191, 248, 256, 261, 264, 281, 319, 321, 328, 334, 341, 348, 349 Discrimination, 9, 12, 13, 16, 39, 42, 81, 94, 98–100, 103, 107, 111, 116, 122, 188, 191, 256, 265, 275, 325, 351

INDEX

Division of domestic labor, 261 Divorce, 325, 327, 333, 347, 352 Dokšycy district, 226–228 Domestic violence, 22, 39, 42, 45, 53–56, 60–66, 85, 111, 129, 144, 231, 277, 322, 326, 328 attitudes to, 66 prevention law, 52, 54 statistics, 52 Donbas, 21, 204, 272–274, 278, 279, 281–285, 288 Donetsk, 272, 278 Dualism, 74, 88, 321 Dugin, Aleksandr, 166, 170

E Economic participation and opportunity, 103–105, 185 Emancipation, 21, 34, 81, 120, 139, 147, 149, 169, 173, 248, 249, 252, 254–258, 261, 263, 276, 320 Empowerment gender empowerment, 103, 106 political empowerment, 103–105, 126, 185, 186, 188 women’s empowerment, 1, 2, 4, 5, 13, 18, 22, 94, 96, 111, 189, 191, 260, 284, 320, 340, 350, 351 Equality gender, 2–4, 6–12, 14–16, 44, 45, 52, 74, 76–80, 85, 88, 94–98, 104, 107, 108, 111, 116, 127, 145, 150, 188–190, 192, 193, 195, 196, 218, 249, 259, 275, 286, 320–323, 330–333, 345, 346, 352 sexual, 77, 88, 188 Equal opportunities, 6, 38, 39, 43, 325

361

Estonia, 6, 7, 12, 136, 138, 143–146, 151 E.U. Association Agreement, 275 Eurasianism, 162 Eurasian Women’s Forum, 15, 29, 31, 36, 38 European Union, 7, 9, 141, 278

F Facebook, 64, 140, 143, 207, 322, 331 Family values, 38–40, 43, 60, 62, 173, 176, 327, 341, 344, 347, 349, 352 collectivist, 183 conservative, 41 Russian Imperial Movement, 173 traditional, 9–12, 36, 40, 44, 63, 109, 340, 352 Female networks, 344 FEMEN, 14, 17, 136–148, 150, 151 Femininity, 18, 139, 203–207, 217, 218, 238, 322, 334 Feminism academic, 21, 286, 297, 299, 303, 304, 314 globalized, 320, 322 Indigenous, 249–252, 254–256, 258, 263–265 whitestream, 250, 262 Feminist activists, 21, 136, 147, 280, 303, 310, 314, 319, 320, 322, 323, 329, 332 actors, 21 agenda, 21, 195, 252, 256, 262, 264, 280 anti, 31 concepts, 150, 298–300, 302, 304, 308, 312 digital activism, 277

362

INDEX

discursivity, 297, 299, 302, 311, 313, 314 epistemologies, 250 Generations, 314 grassroots activism, 296–298, 303–306, 313 groups, 2, 10, 13, 117, 119, 128, 303 intersectional activism, 297, 298, 303–310, 313 knowledge production, 4 politics, 21, 31 scholarship, 250, 301 translation, 21, 297, 298, 302–305, 310, 313, 314 Feminist Anti-War resistance, 14 Fläshime, 143, 144, 146 Foreign agent, 14, 62, 343 law on, 60, 253, 342 G Gardening, 19, 20, 226, 227, 230, 231, 233, 235–242 Gederte, ¸ Marika, 138 Gender based-attitudes, 104, 106, 107 based-violence, 250, 320, 322, 323, 327, 328, 331, 333 combatting violence, 322, 327, 331, 332, 334 Development Index, 96 discrimination, 13, 16, 94, 99, 100, 116, 191, 275 empowerment, 103, 106 equality law, 6, 7 gap, 16, 95, 96, 110, 184–186, 228 Global Gap Index, 103 inequality, 16, 76, 94–98, 100, 103, 104, 107, 110, 111, 171, 191, 264, 265 Inequality Index, 96, 108

order, 8, 207, 217, 234, 321, 323, 329 roles, 16, 74, 76, 77, 79, 82, 83, 85, 87, 88, 98, 144, 182, 186, 195, 227, 238, 241, 255, 259 Gendered age, 238 Geopolitical strategies, 169 “Go Blonde” Festival, 139, 140 Grekhov, Oleksandr, 211

H Hall, Stuart, 164 heterosexual, 60, 208 Hierarchical organizations, 9, 347 structures, 344 Holism, 88 Home garden, 226, 227, 233, 234, 236, 238, 241 homosexual, 60, 63, 87 Horova, Liudmyla, 214 Household, 76, 95, 99, 109, 110, 123, 124, 185, 196, 215, 218, 231, 234, 235, 237, 255–258, 324, 332, 347 Human-plant relations, 226 Human rights discourse, 277 groups, 125, 283 outreach, 281 Human Rights Watch, 289 Hutsol, Anna, 148

I Indigenous activism, 251, 259 feminist theory, 262, 264 rights, 249, 251, 253, 254, 262, 265 International Association of Blondes, 139, 140

INDEX

Intersectionality, 21, 297, 298, 304, 305, 307, 309–313 Izborskii Club, 161, 163, 168, 172–176. See also Youth Eurasianism Movement Izolyatsia Cultural Platform, 278, 280

K Kachanovsky, Kostiantyn, 208 Kallas, Kaja, 145 Kazakhstan, 5–7, 12, 16, 17, 41, 42, 95, 97–104, 106–112, 116–131 Kinship, 16, 19, 74, 77, 88, 89, 120, 229, 249, 250 Kirss, Tiina, 147 Klimt, Gustav, 210 Konotop Witch, 214 Kyiv, 136, 150, 204, 210, 212, 213, 278, 279, 281 Kyrgyzstan, 5, 13, 16, 17, 41, 95, 97, 98, 100–104, 106–112, 116–131

L Lakhova, Ekaterina, 37, 42 Landscape, 130, 182, 226, 232, 282 Latvia, 136–140, 145, 149, 151, 234 Law formal, 98 informal, 98 Levada Centre, 58, 64 Levirate, 257, 259 LGBTQI LGBTQ+, 10, 273 Liberal trends (Azerbaijan), 323 Lithuania, 6, 7, 136, 138, 151 Locality, 40, 80, 100, 108, 117, 123, 124, 146, 150, 259, 263, 273, 276, 277, 281–284, 287, 296, 299–302, 309, 310, 323, 333, 342, 344, 346, 349, 351

363

Love, 20, 59, 60, 86, 165, 168, 191, 205, 210, 211, 213, 237, 239–242 Luhansk, 272

M Maidan Revolution of Dignity, 272, 275 March 8, 274, 320 Mariupol, 209, 211, 279, 280, 284 Marriage early, 99 homosexual, 63 institution, 59, 99, 129 obligatory, 330 same-sex, 86 Marxism, 148–151, 298 Maternity capital, 341 Matriarchal, 206, 256 Matvienko, Valentina, 41–43 Meduza, 57, 65 Melnichenko, Anastasia, 64 Meme, 142, 143, 204, 207, 210, 215, 217, 307 Metaphor, 169, 209, 305 Modern, 12, 59, 74, 76, 78, 82, 83, 85, 87, 88, 120, 124, 141, 150, 151, 228, 231, 233, 234, 311, 312, 333 Moscow Patriarchate, 57, 61, 62, 66 Motanka Doll, 214, 215 Mothers, 76, 183, 211–213, 230, 256, 324, 342 grand, 238 grandmother, 167 single, 125, 126, 349, 350 Mouvement de libération des femmes, 148 Mural, 204, 205, 207, 208, 213, 217

364

INDEX

N Narochnitskaya, Natalya, 168, 170, 171, 175 Nasiliu.net, 62 National Action plan, 326, 328 National identity, 124, 127, 160, 161, 163, 170–172, 175, 176, 334 discourses, 160, 161, 165 Nationalism, 2, 4, 127, 162, 166, 169 Nation-building, 161, 163, 164, 174, 175, 182 Naumova, Viktoriya, 209, 211 Nenets, 21, 248, 249, 251, 252, 254–262, 265 Neoliberal capitalism, 17, 117, 118, 122, 124, 125, 129 economy, 8 model, 124, 138 reforms, 17, 116–118, 121–124, 128, 131 world view, 139, 147 NGO(s) (Christian) Orthodox, 62 cultural, 21 policy, 340, 343 socially oriented, 342, 343, 346 state-supported, 253 Nomadism, 127, 258 O Olena Liberti, 210 Olga, Princess, 209 Ombudsman, 348–350 Children’s, 61, 63 P Pandemic, 44, 53, 118, 194, 280, 331, 349, 351 Parental Resistance, 62 Pastoralism, 249, 257

Patriarchal ideals, 333 messages, 342 Patriarch Kirill, 59, 61 Patriotic messages, 342 Pilvre, Barbara, 146 Plants, 20, 226, 227, 231, 233–235, 238–242 Platforma TYU!, 278, 279 Pokrova, 212 Polishchuk, Kateryna, 209 Political empowerment, 103–105, 126, 185, 186, 188 participation, 39, 78, 83, 191, 340 Polygamy, 129–131, 248, 257, 259 Post-Colonial(ism), 4, 108 Poverty, 20, 22, 42, 129, 139, 173, 265, 344, 352 Power distribution of, 98 lessness, 216 Presidential grants, 63, 343, 344, 347, 349, 350, 352 Private, 53, 55, 63, 74, 76, 77, 79, 86, 87, 95, 138, 139, 276, 320, 323, 327, 333, 334 sphere, 16, 76–78, 83, 85, 87, 88, 98, 139, 144, 331–333 Public, 11, 14, 15, 19, 33, 36, 38, 45, 54, 56, 57, 59, 61–63, 65, 66, 74, 76, 79, 87, 88, 98, 100, 125, 128, 136–138, 141, 143, 144, 146, 163, 186, 193, 195, 206, 217, 226, 262–264, 277, 281, 283, 296, 298–300, 304, 320–324, 327, 330, 331, 333, 334 sphere, 10, 13, 16, 55, 74, 76–78, 82, 85–88, 99, 139, 261, 298, 321, 334 Pussy Riot, 10, 14, 17, 147, 150, 296

INDEX

Putinism, 282 Putin, Vladimir, 10, 11, 37, 44, 56, 59, 167, 209, 275, 283, 285, 288, 341, 348 R Racism, 42, 44, 144, 250, 306, 310 Randpere, Valdo, 143–145 Representation, 8, 12, 18, 19, 82, 83, 161, 162, 164, 165, 168, 173, 174, 183, 186, 188–195, 203, 204, 212, 218, 256, 263, 283 Reproduction, 86, 171, 175, 206, 213, 218, 229, 240, 242, 301, 302 Resistance, 14, 19, 35, 82, 88, 169, 204, 205, 208–213, 217, 227, 238, 250–252, 254, 255, 259, 260, 262, 264, 296, 300, 301, 305, 312, 327, 333, 334, 352 Re-traditionalisation, 117, 118, 120, 124, 128–130 Riga, 139 Rights land, 99, 261 property, 99, 100, 325 Roots, Fideelia-Signe, 144, 145 Rural women, 126, 226, 227, 231, 240 Russia conservative actors, 52 conservative groups, 57 national identity, 124 Orthodox community, 57, 61 the private is political, 88 Russian Constitution, 60 Russian Imperial movement, 161 Russian National Unity, 161 Russian Orthodox church, 52, 58–60, 160, 173 Russian social policy, 22 Russophone, 21, 296–299, 301–314

365

S Sami, 21, 248, 249, 251, 252, 254–261, 263–265 Women Forum, 263, 264 Sedentarization, 257–259 Semiotics, 203, 207 Sen, Amartya, 12, 350 Sexual abuse, 107 demand, 123 equality, 77, 88, 188 gratification, 137, 146 harassment, 65, 100 liberation, 74, 77, 88 minorities, 74, 77, 78, 80, 84, 86–88 preferences, 77, 88 violence, 62, 64, 65, 288 sexuality, 214, 296, 306 sexualized strategies, 122–124, 128 Shock therapy, 116, 121, 122, 137 Social NGOs, 340, 342, 351 norms, 99, 100, 104, 106, 107, 111, 124, 230, 328 policy, 10, 22, 128, 130, 340–345, 351, 352 sphere, 10, 22, 99, 340, 342, 345, 349, 351, 352 Social Institutions, 2, 5, 12, 94, 98–100, 104, 257, 258 Socially oriented NGOs, 342, 343, 346 Social network, 64, 66, 226, 332 Soviet legacy, 147, 148, 322 State-mobilized, 40 State-social organization, 15, 37, 41 St. Javelin, 213 Subjective well-being, 94, 96, 109

366

INDEX

T Tajikistan, 16, 95, 97, 98, 100–104, 106–112, 120, 127, 185 Tallinn, 143, 146 Theme givers, 182, 183, 186, 189, 196 takers, 182, 183, 186, 189, 196 Traditional family values, 9–12, 36, 40, 44, 63, 109, 173, 340, 352 norms and customs, 107, 108 Traditional values, 10–12, 16, 22, 36, 44, 52, 59–63, 66, 87, 119, 206, 254, 296, 323, 340–343, 351, 352 Traditions, 4, 17, 21, 38, 81, 94, 95, 98, 108, 111, 117, 120, 127–130, 142, 171, 253, 300 Tralla, Mare, 146 Transition period, 17, 35, 117, 122, 127, 130 Translation, 21, 264, 297–300, 302–305, 307–313 strategies, 305, 312, 313 Transphobia, 306, 307, 310 U Ukraine, 3–7, 11, 12, 17, 18, 30, 36, 78, 95, 136–141, 147, 148, 150, 162, 163, 175, 203–213, 217, 218, 252, 264, 272–280, 282–289, 351 Ukraine-Russia War, 272 Ukrainian People’s Republic, 217 Uzbekistan, 16, 34, 97, 100–104, 106–111 V Values, 4, 5, 9–12, 16, 17, 22, 36, 38–41, 43, 44, 52, 58–63, 66, 76, 78–80, 84, 85, 87, 98, 104,

109, 110, 118–120, 124, 127, 128, 141, 149, 160, 162, 163, 168, 169, 171, 173, 176, 188, 190, 206, 233, 238, 241, 249, 250, 253, 254, 260, 265, 300, 325, 327, 330, 333, 340–344, 346, 347, 349, 351, 352 Family values, 340 Velvet Revolution, 78, 79, 82, 83, 182, 183, 195 Vkontakte, 64 W Western hegemony, 303 Womanhood and nation, 161, 162 Women(’s) activism, 5, 7, 11, 13, 20, 21, 36, 40, 141, 249, 262, 264, 265, 272, 273, 275, 276, 278, 287 agency, 2, 5, 14, 18–20, 174, 204, 230, 249, 252, 340 economic equality, 186 entrepreneurship, 99 experience, 99, 263, 272, 277, 333 formal work, 99 informal work, 117 issues, 9, 29, 31, 36, 41, 45, 141, 142, 146, 149, 184, 190, 195, 196 legislative behavior, 184, 196 legislative initiatives, 183, 184 lives, 2, 5, 14, 20, 99, 242, 258, 263, 320, 321, 323, 325, 329, 333 NGOs, 13, 30, 35, 45, 63 parliamentarians, 182–184, 189, 193, 196 political representation, 8, 189, 190 politician, 184, 189 rights, 2, 5, 7, 9–12, 14, 17, 31, 33, 34, 38, 40, 41, 44, 65, 81, 108, 117, 118, 120, 124, 126,

INDEX

130, 146–148, 150, 151, 182, 184, 188–191, 195, 249, 263, 264, 273, 287, 334, 340, 341, 348, 351, 352 Women’s International Democratic Federation, 30, 31 Women’s Union of Russia, 11, 29–31, 37 Working mother, 8–10, 183, 186, 234, 329, 330, 333 World Values Survey Report, 54

367

Y Yamal-Potomkam, 261, 262 Yanukovych, Victor, 136, 275, 278 Youth Eurasianism Movement, 40, 165

Z Zabuzhko, Oksana, 286 Zelensky, Volodymyr, 275