I am a woman: What is wrong with the nomination of Sobchak as president
Julia Taratuta
I felt bad in July. During the children's direct line of Vladimir Putin, which was shown by the NTV channel, a gifted girl from the center of "Sirius" suddenly asked how the president relates to feminism. Putin did not blink, admitting that feminism was born a long time ago and it has useful properties: "A good direction for the protection of women's rights, just do not need to go crazy." The conversation was childish, and the rules are adults: the president always decides for himself what questions he would like to answer today, so the surprise interest in feminism was only for me, but certainly not for Putin.
On the eve of March 8, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev approved the National Women's Strategy until 2022, and the speaker of the Board of the Federation Valentina Matvienko, for example, loudly applauded the "female" appointments in the world began to recall women's rights. Finally, Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin dug out his own 14-year-old draft law on equality of men and women (it was then edited, then rejected) and began to insistently demand the adoption of the original. A conspiracologist with a femclone in me asserted that the topic would somehow emerge in the presidential campaign. It turned out that the Kremlin was simply looking for a woman.
Personnel decisions of the president and his administration are not devoid of wit. It seems that if Ksenia Sobchak were not, she really would have had to come up with. Putin wanted to revive his own elections, they even smelt of incense in his fantasies. And he invented a scenario in which the king of beasts, surrounded by young lions, predictably defeats them. It remains to declare a casting for a young lion (with the plural there were problems here). Who could have imagined that the lioness would win.
In the words of Sobchak that in these elections she decided to fight against all, she was catchy, but sly. To equalize the president and his old-time competitors - from Gennady Zyuganov to Vladimir Zhirinovsky, which is simply physically difficult to participate in this race, means one thing - not to fight against the president himself, although this is the only expectation of a democratic context. Passionate, but biographically loyal, Putin is already grateful for the fact that he was devoted to his father, about whom Sobchak Jr. makes a film in honor of the extremely timely anniversary. She is temperamental, but does not swim for buoys. Oppositional, but looks like an artistic satire on the opposition. A person who can break the rules and not break them at the same time. She is very recognizable, but unpopular enough: Sobchak never embarrassed her antirating, she joked about him and successfully monetized it. It is completely vital and more than young.
Finally, she is a woman. Such a competition in the representation of the Russian authorities is always frivolous: with a woman, what are the scores - we have a male record. You can show indulgent gallantry, and you can pat on the shoulder paternally. Putin calls his ex-boss's daughter Ksenia, hides his real daughters, why not allow her to appear on the stage as a grown-up godmother? About real competition - with oppositionist Alexei Navalny, who is not allowed to go to the polls, but physically arrested - political analysts have already noticed that liberal voters simply have to decide "for the boy or the girl."
It remains to announce the casting for a young lion. Who could have imagined that the lioness would win
“I am a woman,” confirms Sobchak and writes a whole paragraph in the Vedomosti newspaper about the women's agenda. It stands up for women's wages (it is 30% lower than men’s) and for equal access to professions, almost 500 are closed for women. Women deserve their voice to be heard for the first time in 14 years. All true: the last time, in 2004, Irina Hakamada participated in the presidential election. The problem is that not so much is known about women's rights and Sobchak and her political consultants.
The Sobchak program literally tells us about biology: women are more capable of contracting than men, because the latter are torn by bloodthirstiness and selfishness. What is not an excerpt from the scandalous note of a dismissed Google employee? With the female agenda, the candidate has a big confusion - to take at least the recent conflict of Aeroflot with the flight attendants, who were trying to drive out of the company by the criterion of age and weight. Sobchak here is aggressively protecting Aeroflot, and the head office of L'Officiel magazine should nervously wince from the phrase “fat stewardess” from the mouth of the chief editor of the Russian franchise. Political correctness (as opposed to self-irony) is not at all its forte. Sobchak is so actively fighting hypocrisy that he didn’t hesitate to reveal the homosexuality of his friend, a popular TV presenter, he wasn’t even a politician - so he accidentally got his arm.
And it's not even that all this is unrecoverable - any political consultant can find the alphabet of feminists for dummies for an “immature” candidate. Yes, and political appetite comes with eating: Mikhail Prokhorov began as a completely tame politician, and very soon he denounced the "Kremlin puppeteers." Just her interest in a “feminine” or broad liberal agenda is not at all readable as sincere. From the campaign, at the start, a steady taste of fake and pragmatism: Sobchak gets access to the federal television (all federal channels talk about it on the first day), the electoral budget and other bonuses of the main political campaign in the country. She admits that while filming an interview with Putin for a film about his father, in fact, asked him permission to participate in the elections (by the way, Putin allowed this participation a month and a half ago). Why is it necessary to believe the "feminine" item, consider it the call of the heart, and not the setting? Not bad, when someone promotes the struggle for rights by example. But was there any benefit from the fictitious decree of Andrei Malakhov or Vladimir Kekhman? The bottom line is a steady feeling that they are being bullied.
From the campaign, at the start, a steady taste of fake and pragmatism. Why is it necessary to believe the "feminine" item, consider it the call of the heart, and not the setting?
The Russian president has said many times that both gays and women work for him. True, from the former he prefers to hide in the soul, and the life of the latter entirely consists of "bad days." The women here really reached the high posts (three from Valentina Matvienko, Elvira Nabiullina and Tatyana Golikova are supposed to work as proof of career equality). The problem is that the system of Russian power in principle does not imply an independent position of the performer. Everything here - both men and women - act in obedient agreement with the will of the boss, as long as he sees in himself at least a great commander with a masculine torso.
The Russian authorities are wild: here they say about domestic violence that they do not need to wash dirty linen in public, naked people on the stage are scared of fire, homosexuality is persecuted both in court and on the street. In this sense, women in the Russian government have always played the role of "women" - and in the very popular sense of the word. Do you want laws to protect childhood? Here you have Elena Mizulina with a “mother” package, clearing the internet and teenage sexuality from filth. Should Americans be denied the right to adopt? At your service is Senator Valentina Petrenko, a woman with a kind, patriotic heart. There is a special vaudeville meaning that Natalya Poklonskaya, who is in love with the Tsar, organized the fight against Matilda, and Olga Vasilyeva, a traditionalist and children's chess lover, became the Minister of Education. And even about the Minister of Culture, when they replace him with a replacement, they like to say that it would be good to appoint a woman - so that it sounds the same state, but more gently.
Do we want women's quotas in the Russian government, where women wear women's suits and do work that is far from humanism? No, we are against female assistant robots.
Cover:Terekhov girl