In Contemporary Russia
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A ‘WOMAN-SELF’ IN CONTEMPORARY RUSSIA Elena Shitova 15,597 words The thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree Master of Arts in Gender and Development. Gender Studies Program School of Philosophy, Anthropology and Social Inquiry Faculty of Arts The University of Melbourne October 2008 Declaration This is to certify that this thesis comprises only my original work. Due acknowledgement has been made in the text to all other materials used. Elena Shitova October 2008 Acknowledgements In Russia my sincere thanks to all women who participated in my research project and found time to share their life experiences with me. I would like to express my appreciation to all Russian women activists and colleagues, especially to Women’s Alliance and its founders Natalia and Sergey Sereda, where I have been working for eight years before continuing my studies. They have inspired me to keep being active in the sphere of prevention of violence against women in Russia and seeded the belief into the positive outcomes of our joint efforts. I would like to thank Dr. Maree Pardy for supporting me and supervising my work, for providing valuable comments and strengthening my confidence in creating my project. Also I would like to thank my dear friends: Lana for supporting me through all ups and downs, Deb for reading my initial draft and contributing essential advice and Greg for being there for me whenever it was needed. The last but not the least, I would like to express my deep respect and gratitude to the Institute of International Education/ Ford Foundation for giving me a chance to complete my degree in gender studies, for awarding me with its scholarship, and for contributing funding for travel expenses that enabled me to conduct the field research in Russia. Translation and Transliteration All material quoted from Russian sources and interviews are translated by the author. I acknowledge that there could be other types of transliterations and translations of the same materials. In the references I provided the translation of the titles of Russian books/articles to make Russian authors understandable for English-speaking audience. Some Russian terms and sayings I present in English transliteration and provide their translation in brackets. The purpose of this is to keep the richness of expressions and cultural meanings. Table of Contents INTRODUCTION.............................................................................................................................2 The Research..........................................................................................................................5 Interviewed Women and Their Brief Stories.........................................................................8 Chapter One: ‘WOMEN’S QUESTION’ THROUGHOUT THE LAST CENTURY OF THE RUSSIAN HISTORY....................................................................................................13 Uniform Socialist/Communist Gender Identity...................................................................18 Equality by the Soviet Rules................................................................................................21 Soviet Fantasies about Gender Order ..................................................................................25 Chapter Two: PERESTROIKA, GLASNOST AND OPPORTUNITIES WITH GENDER SPECIFICS. FROM SPACE FLIGHTS TO BEAUTY SHOWS .............................31 Opportunities Through Political and Public Prisms.............................................................33 Opportunities Through Employment, Career and Business Prisms.....................................37 Opportunities in Gender Roles in Contemporary Russian Society......................................42 Chapter Three: PERESTROIKA, GLASNOST AND FREEDOM IN GENDER SOUCE .....45 The Wind from the West, Globalisation, and Freedom.......................................................46 Freedom of Gendered Images in Mass Culture ...................................................................49 ‘Traditional’ Gender Images of Russian Women with a New Gloss...................................54 CONCLUSION ................................................................................................................................59 Appendix 1: Research Participants................................................................................................61 Appendix 2: INTERVIEW INFORMATION..............................................................................62 Appendix 3: About Russkoe Radio and Sexist/Discriminatory Jokes .........................................63 Appendix 4: A Brief Comment about Russian Culture of Jokes ................................................65 Bibliography .....................................................................................................................................66 INTRODUCTION “A woman is something that is strong and capable of great endurance; something that can hold the head high even through the pain and hardship... It is something weak and strong, light and heavy. There are so many contradictions in a woman...” (Larisa 2008) Perestroika1 inaugurated the ‘transitional period’ from the Soviet Union to the Russian Federation in 1985. The old communist regime existed no longer. For the majority of Russians it seemed that everything was turned upside down. They lost status, security, decent standards of living, and ideology that used to control and empower them at the same time (Bonnell 1996; Levinson 2000). The transition forced the entire population to fight for survival, and exerted especially harsh pressure on women (Hemment 2007; Gal and Kligman 2000; Lapidus 1993; Noonan and Nechemias 2001; Jyrkinen-Pakkasvirta 1996). The 1990s can be characterised as ‘psychic crisis’ for the Russian society, and is often referred to as the ‘neuroticization’ of the society (Hemment 2007; Klimenkova 1996). It was evidenced by a rapid growth of crime, corruption, alcohol and drug abuse, prostitution, moral panic and a common feeling of hopelessness (Buckley 1992; Mamonova 1994). The gap between rich and poor became extremely noticeable. This too created additional tensions in the society (Bonnell 1996; Hamment 2007; Sakwa 2004). Through the period of transformation “the culture of hate and the culture of love were strangely entangled in our society... everyone hated everyone else to some extent, and everyone loved everyone to some extent too” (Lissyutkina 1999: 181). This period also created new prospects for Russian people, including women. Perestroika allowed Glasnost [speaking out] that associated with democratisation, freedom, and new 1 Perestroika is the Russian term for the economic reforms started in 1985 by Mikhail Gorbachev, the first President of the Soviet Union. This term means ‘reconstruction’, ‘restructuring’ (Rempel 1996). 2 opportunities. In spite of the promises of perestroika to improve the lives of citizens, most people met those promises with scepticism. Yet hopes remained high that the Russian society was being transformed in ways that would acknowledge existence of women’s problems and would address the issues that worried women. Some analysts claim that at least speaking out about women’s issues stopped being a dangerous business, for which those who dared to speak out, could be exiled (Heldt 1992; Buckley 1992; Mamonova 1994). Reforms created significant changes in lives of women: in their political, economic, and social status. Although Gorbachev’s policy of perestroika was meant to employ everything ‘new’ [as an opposition to ‘old’ Soviet regime] – new ways of thinking, new strategies of decision making, new psychology, it failed to shift significantly from the ‘old’ perceptions on the status of women. Historically inherited mythology of women’s emancipation, created in the USSR, remained foundational for discriminatory policies and practices in contemporary Russia, with civic and social activities considered to be feminine, and politics remaining a masculine sphere (Buckley 1999; Hemment 2007; Johnson 2007; Posadskaya 1994; Salmenniemi 2005; Sperling 1996; Usha 2005). As one journalist put it, gendernaia obrechennost [‘gender doom’] continued to exist and was influenced by current politics, economics, ideology and mass media images (Levinson 2000). The collapse of the communist system has impacted the identities of people in Russia, particularly gender identities. Perestroika with its transformations and opened borders forced people to search for new identities (Bonnell 1996; Kuehnast and Nechemias 2004). Gender identities in Russia today are shaped by a number of factors: historical period, social relations, political regime, ideology, culture, and other (Kirilina and Tomskaya 2005; Klimenkova 1996; Kon 1995). This is especially the case for women as the term ‘Russian woman’, is problematic identity category, failing to capture various realities and specifics of 3 women’s lives (Johnson 2007). This argument is in line with post-structural feminists who argue that a ‘woman’ is a concept to be constructed, not taken as an already existing (Elson 2006; Rinehart 1992). In her famous book The Second Sex (1949), a French novelist Simone de Beauvoir created the grounds for such a thinking of post-structural feminists. She conducted the study on women through viewpoints of anthropology, biology, history, sociology, and psychoanalysis and made a statement: “One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman. ... It is civilization as a whole that