The 1990s saw an increase in female legislators; another notable increase occurred during the 2007 elections, when every major political party increased its number of female candidates. While there has been an increase in the share of women in politics in Russia, this has not led to increased gender equality in Russian society overall. One speaker relied on her vast practical experience in human rights advocacy to conclude that it is, unfortunately, an unsafe endeavor in some parts of Russia, particularly in Chechnya. She nevertheless urged activists not to abandon their efforts, especially where the Russian government is indifferent to local suffering. She offered examples to dismantle the stereotypes that women are always allies of other women and of human rights advocates and that men are always the perpetrators of violence. Rather, she explained, she had met with mothers who were ready to follow religious norms or social expectations at the expense of their daughters’ well-being, while fathers and brothers were ready to defy family and community pressure to protect their daughters and sisters.
- Russian women are also lured abroad with sham promises of jobs such as dancers, models, waitresses or domestic helpers and end up caught in forced prostitution situations.
- Despite crackdowns on NGOs under Putin’s “foreign agents” law, organizations are doing their best to get the word out about the situation in Russia.
- Vladimir Putin’s call-up of hundreds of thousands of military reservists may have added to the trend.
- Pekurova herself gave birth last year in Buenos Aires, and her “positive” experience further strengthened her desire to offer trips to the country.
- Unlike their male counterparts who had to flee quickly, Russian women have the luxury of time.
His family is exploring many options to shield him from the draft, including enrolling him in seminary school—they heard that people in religious careers are exempt from service. “It is so hard when someone you love leaves,” said Katya, a 26-year old woman from Moscow who asked that her name be changed for her safety. “I spend a lot more time now missing him, and I focus on work to distract myself and not think about it.” Katya said that her daily life doesn’t feel that different—though she did learn how to fix home appliances, which would typically have been her partner’s domain.
Furthermore, only 33% of respondents would welcome a female president. Sociological surveys show that sexual harassment and violence against women increased at all levels of society in the 1990s. In 1993 an estimated 14,000 women were murdered by their husbands or lovers, about twenty times the figure in the United States and several times the figure in Russia five years earlier. More than 300,000 other types of crimes, including spousal abuse, were committed against women in 1994; in 1996 the State Duma (the lower house of the Federal Assembly, Russia’s parliament) drafted a law against domestic violence.
Women in the Russian military today
Arguably the most important legal change that affected women’s lives was the Law of Single Inheritance instituted by Peter the Great in 1714. The law was supposed to help the tax revenue for Russia by banning the allowance of noble families to divide their land and wealth among multiple children. This law effectively ended the practice of excluding women from inheriting patrimonial estates.
Facts About Women’s Rights in Russia
The evolution of Russian feminism over the past thirty years and the transformation of feminism into nonfeminism and postfeminism are as interesting as the deeper historical roots of today’s agenda. In the Russian case, it is also vital to look beyond Moscow and St. Petersburg and engage the wide variety of regional experiences and perspectives on women’s issues from across the country. The Kennan Institute’s conference included participants from Ivanovo, Makhachkala, Nizhny Novgorod, Samara, Smolensk, Tomsk, and Tver, but wider geographic representation would enrich the conversation. Furthermore, as one participant noted, it might also be helpful to learn from the work of Holocaust studies and supplement the picture with the voices of direct participants and witnesses, such as clients of crisis centers or former inmates who became activists. There are multiple centers across Russia that offer assistance to victims of gender-based violence, and there are projects, like Nasiliu.net, that focus on educating the public and spreading the word to prevent violence.
In Russia, civil society may have “a woman’s face” and the authorities may have “a man’s face,” but protecting women is a job for everyone, and ensuring numerical gender equality does not immediately resolve the human rights violations. Because of time constraints, the conference discussions had to omit a variety of problems existing within feminism and activism, but did touch on the complicated relationship between the two. It is no secret that despite a recent resurgence of interest in feminism, the word itself has negative connotations in Russia, and female activists often shy away from that label, even if their practical work reflects feminist ideas. Still, as many of the conference participants emphasized, the key to success lies in solidarity, including solidarity across gender divides and ideological lines. One can argue that it is time for female activists to embrace feminism, for men to become true allies in pursuit of women’s rights, and for find more at https://russiansbride.com/ feminists to join the fight for wider social change. This article concerns the analysis of court practices for criminal cases relating to female victims of domestic violence who have been charged with murder or intentional infliction of grievous bodily injuries of their partners.
Adherence to the Chatham House Rule ensured a frank and uncensored conversation, and the Zoom chat and breakout rooms created an opportunity for less formal exchanges. There were 20 people there, all women with kids and not a single man! Lockdowns due to the COVID-19 pandemic trapped many women at home with their abusers. Russia initially denied a spike in domestic violence, despite national domestic violence organizations reporting their inability to keep up with a steep increase in calls from victims. Women were fined for breaking quarantine in order to escape their abusers until May 2020, when the government finally declared domestic violence an emergency in which breaking quarantine was acceptable. In March 2020, Putin signed a bill increasing the severity of punishments for breaking quarantine, which include fines up to US$640 . If their actions caused others health issues or even death, those who break quarantine would receive a minimum of 5-7 extra years in prison and fines worth up to US$4,800.
It will take months to fully understand the impact of the mobilization on Russia’s demographics—most of the available data is not disaggregated by gender. But while the number of draft-eligible men among the exodus of Russians is unknown, anecdata certainly suggests that the people leaving skew male. Which means that the Russian women who stayed behind have been learning to live without men. Last month, for the first time since World War II, Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered a partial mobilization of army reservists to bolster Russia’s forces in Ukraine. That meant 300,000 reservists—all men—will be going to the front lines. And, more than 700,000 people have since fled the country to avoid such a fate, according to Forbes Russia.
Cherepovitskaya, who gave birth last December, is one of the estimated hundreds of Russian women who travelled last year to the Argentinian capital to give birth. “It was crazy, there were at least eight pregnant Russian women waiting in front of me,” Cherepovitskaya, a jewellery designer previously based in Moscow, said in a phone interview. Standing in line at the maternity ward of the Sanatorio Finochietto hospital in bustling Buenos Aires, Polina Cherepovitskaya suddenly overheard the familiar sound of the Russian language. Russian women are known for dressing up and putting makeup on, even just to go to the department store. Indeed, if you dig deeper into what it takes to dress and present yourself as Russian women do, you’d be amazed at how much effort one has to put in to match the ‘traditional’ Russian level of chic appearance. But a Russian woman can come from different ethnicities and different parts of the country – from Central and Southern Russia…