Do you need feminism in Russia?
Text: Tatyana Nikonova, author of Sam Jones's Diary blog
Yesterday, Kati Romanovskaya’s text scattered across social networks, half of the Perzident Roissi media project on the status of women's rights in our country. The column titled "Objectification of Rights" says that in Russia "the situation with human rights is not good, except for women's rights", and "feminism is not so necessary here." As evidence, Katya Romanovskaya refers both to the rights with which the Soviet power has given women, and to the lack of gender discrimination in business and the naturalness of objectification on the part of both sexes.
Another idea of the column is the statement that sexual violence should not be interpreted as violence against a woman, but as violence against a person, and that insults against women are part of the culture of domestic rudeness, aimed at everyone, and not gender-based discrimination. At the moment, the column has collected 1380 likes and 356 sherov, including opinion leaders. At our request, blogger Tatyana Nikonova discusses whether feminists are engaged in contrived problems and whether women in Russia are in an equal opportunity situation with men.
The history of Russian feminism is not a topic for a single thoughtful study that has yet to be conveyed to a wide audience. And this is necessary because the situation with the rights of women is very special here, and the audience needs explanations. So much so that even actively using the achievements of Soviet feminists believe that feminism is not needed in Russia anymore. Because it’s not very human rights in the country, and a woman, a man’s friend, everything is fine.
These arguments are mainly based on the legislative base, with which the truth is still more or less well, unlike the real state of affairs. In Russia, theoretically (but for now) laws are being discussed, such as withdrawing abortions from the CHI system or prohibiting smoking to women under 40 years old - and no one flies out of the law-maker's chair after that, this is not accompanied by media hype and the inability to continue serious public activities. Moreover, it suddenly turns out that the vision of the current women's agenda largely coincides among representatives of both the orthodox and the most progressive layers, which clearly indicates the seriousness of the problem and the need for further public debate.
The ass will not disappear if it is not called, but it will stop producing four-ply toilet paper for it.
For example, representatives of the Moscow Patriarchate recently came out sharply against the term "family violence" with a demand not to display it in a separate category of crimes against the person. Not one representative of the liberal Moscow environment adheres to a similar opinion, calling the rapists a separate class of aggressive and poorly educated creatures that anyone can face. The fact that some of these imaginary Gopniks live among us and mock up almost exclusively on wives and girlfriends is not taken into account, and thus the topic of domestic violence becomes just a family topic. It discusses the comrades of the famous actor and the complaints of the girl traveler blogger, the dismemberment in the family of the restaurateur and rape by the contemporary artist, and not every second even reaches criminal cases, because only the family remains without defining the criteria for family violence, and .
Yes, violence is always violence, but the conditions for its occurrence are very different, and their understanding is the key to finding a solution to a problem. That is why hazing in the army is eliminated in one way, teen gangs are different, and aggression towards weaker and often dependent family members is third. Or they do not get rid of them at all, because if there are no terms for the phenomenon, then there is no description of it and the derivation of distinctive features. Strongly reminds a joke about Vovochka, who was surprised that there is an ass, but there is no word. So, the ass will not disappear anywhere, if you do not call her, but for her they will stop producing four-ply toilet paper with dogs, use the newspapers. It is clear why religious circles are behind the austerity and mortification of the flesh, but the secular public should regret at least their own ass.
A striking idea is also supported of women, who were granted the right and the opportunity to work and make a career even under the Soviet regime. It is easy to imagine how this idea is voiced by a woman, a member of the Federation Council and the meme of Valentin Petrenko, but it’s wild to see this in the column of Oleg Kashin. The logical mistake is that for more than 70 years in our country it was almost impossible not to work: work was not a right, but a universal duty. The law on parasitism was abolished only in 1991, and before that, any non-working person could fall under one of the articles, up to the 209th Criminal Code of the RSFSR.
However, if men could manage with professional activities, women continued to plow both at home and at work. For example, in 1980, women did about three times more housework than men. For mothers of minor children, the average was about 36 hours per week versus 13.5 for men with children — in fact, one more working week. Now there is a serious downward trend in time, but women still spend twice as many hours as men, while the legion of semi-welfare jobs, where you could drink tea from 9 to 18, was long over. But there was another front of work - endless polishing of the exterior, otherwise you are not a woman at all.
Women charged themselves with responsibility for everything: home, family budget and male behavior
That is, both the liberal public and statesmen who are preaching the movement back into the family are seriously calling the feminist achievement a double work week forcibly imposed on a gender basis. And, accordingly, the desire not to be killed to such an extent - the desire to give up rights and do not care about the achievements of the past. It turns out that you are either a workhorse, which does not need feminism, because everything is already there, or an anti-feminist who craves freebies in the form of employment is no more than a man. What does the woman herself think about this? She has not been asked for nearly a hundred years.
Why do women in Russia reconcile themselves to this position and how do we differ from Western sisters who win the right for their right? There is a common phrase that a woman in the West was released a washing machine and a contraceptive pill. So, the labor book and the Great Patriotic War enslaved the woman in Russia. In 1945, there were twice as many women aged 20–29 years (potential brides) in the country than men. Women are used to the need to fight for a rare bird - a man, and female labor means nothing. Women refused to appreciate women's experience and stopped hearing each other. Women have assumed responsibility for everything: the house, the family budget and male behavior — and this is still going on, although everything has changed around.
Even women themselves support mizoginia, and in the brave new world all responsibility for everything lies with us. Short skirt? A spherical prostitute in a vacuum that has no male clients, she is a bad girl herself. Stick to? Learn to understand people and avoid unpleasant, because they do not control themselves, although they somehow managed to get a driver's license and passport. Do you see only a sexual object? The right to recognition of the individual must be earned, if you are, of course, not a man. Do you want to achieve additional rights for yourself and other women? This is discrimination.
Although wait, feminism is not just fighting for a special relationship to women, but for equal rights for all - both men and women, and that is why we need him so. Like any movement in the fight for human rights, feminism requires equality, despite the infinite number of differences between people. These differences need to be known and noted to understand the needs of different groups of people, but they have no effect on rights. All children should receive a secondary education, a man should have equal rights with women in custody of common children, a woman should be able to earn as much as is offered to a specialist in her field without specifying gender. Of course, if you don’t want it, then we don’t need feminism, but in that case you shouldn’t even pretend that we are the country of victorious feminism.
Photo: coverimage via Etsy, 1, 2, 3 via Shutterstock