Tatyana Nikonov about why the 2018th should be the year of feminism
Text: Tatyana Nikonova Illustration: Dasha Chertanova
In March 2015, I wrote an explanation column, why Russia needs feminism - responded to the statement that it’s not very human rights in the country, but everything is fine with the rights of women. Rereading it now, in March 2018, I wondered: how has the situation changed over time?
Violence has become more noticeable
Three years ago, we seriously discussed why domestic violence should be separated from the general mass of crimes against a person and individual sanctions should be applied. The consensus in Russia was not reached - domestic violence in 2017, on the contrary, was decriminalized. Against this background, the more horrifying are the stories like the case of Margarita Gracheva, whom her husband chopped off her hands when the woman left him, and none of her preliminary appeals to the police helped her defend herself.
On the other hand, decriminalization is being discussed so vigorously that it becomes more and more difficult to hush up incidents of violence; even the "non-Russian" word "abuzer" came into use. Completely different forms of violence, such as police, are being publicized and, most importantly, are increasingly being condemned. Sometimes it seems that it is impossible to open the news in the morning, so as not to read something terrible, and the world goes to hell. In fact, of course, there was no more violence — they simply became less silent about it. We are still waiting for another shock, when we feel the real extent of the problem.
By the way, Ekaterina Romanovskaya, who earlier claimed that the rights of women in Russia are fully protected, began issuing a Nimb ring to alert about difficult situations. Since, in fact, the position of women in our country is such that each one is not disturbed by a panic button.
Problems began to be discussed publicly
The idea of the systemic nature of many phenomena and the strongest gender inequality, which is not leveled by legislation, began to sneak into the public agenda. For example, Deputy Prime Minister Olga Golodets confirmed that according to official data, women in Russia are paid one and a half times less than men, and this is a reinforced concrete argument against any squeaking "you have to work better, no one bothers you."
The 2016 flash mob # I’ve said I’ve started the discussion on the everyday violence that women face, allowed to start a conversation about sexism in universities and business relationships, helped raise the topic of child sexual abuse in schools and orphanages, and also became for many the point of no return When it is no longer possible to consider violence as an accident and a system failure. Violence is part of the system - the norm, which should cease to be so.
Most likely, the majority of people in Russia still do not agree with the idea of the existence of gender inequality, but this topic is being seriously discussed and is clearly not planning to leave the radar.
Access to abortion is complicated
At the beginning of 2015, Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia made a proposal to remove abortion from compulsory health insurance, and since then this idea has been annually discussed and actively discussed. Many, fortunately, do not support her - the head of the Federation Council, Valentina Matvienko, called her “extremist” altogether. However, in three years on sly, access to abortions has become complicated with the support of the ROC and local health authorities, and pro-impersonal attitudes are artificially imposed.
Women began to discourage abortion, there were awards and rewards for gynecologists, reducing the number of abortions not by informing about reliable methods of contraception, but by persuasion to give birth. In different regions of Russia, there were days when state clinics didn’t perform a pregnancy termination procedure at all, for example, ten days in a row in honor of Easter, and the staff didn’t see any problem in this, although if they refused to take people with broken limbs for at least a day, the reaction and medical professionals, and the public would be different.
Within a few years, anyone can face the fact that there is simply no clinic in the district where an abortion is performed.
All this is done with the full indulgence of the authorities. In the summer of 2017, the government even approved a passport of the priority project “Formation of a healthy lifestyle” until 2025 with one of the goals - to reduce the number of abortions by a third, and the document states “propaganda of non-abortions”. And on December 1, 2017, a decree came into force, introducing a separate license to terminate a pregnancy. Before that, she was part of a general gynecological license, and now medical institutions may be denied an abortion license, or not even request it themselves, leaving patients without access to the service guaranteed by them under the MHI.
The offensive on reproductive rights is hardly noticeable to anyone who has not happened to get pregnant unplanned over the years, but after a few years, anyone can face the fact that the district simply does not have a clinic where they have an abortion, or it will be denied that right religious holiday.
Feminism becomes mainstream
Despite the fact that the "feminist" even in million-plus cities is often used as a curse, and most will not be able to list the goals of feminism, or at least its main currents, feminism gradually ceases to be a semi-underground movement. Now this is one of the more or less clear political directions, the elements of the agenda of which are supported even by those who do not consider themselves to be feminist. Finally, the feminists themselves began to speak much more freely.
Presidential candidate Ksenia Sobchak suddenly called herself a feminist for everyone, although she had never been suspicious of anyone before, and in one of the election spots she explained why Russia is a sexist country. The official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova, supported the journalists who spoke about sexual harassment by deputy Leonid Slutsky. Former spokesman for the Federal Agency for Youth Affairs Rosmolodezh and the State Committee for Youth Affairs Christina Potupchik, frankly making fun of feminists, published a petition demanding a criminal case against Slutsky. Sex coach Elena Rydkina came to the new season of the show “Bachelor” with a speech against sexism, and they did not try to make her laugh. The FemFest festival was held in 2017 in the center of Moscow without serious excesses, despite all the noise caused by it, in libraries they organize reading groups studying the literature created by women, a man publishes a column in Cosmopolitan why men need feminism.
Restrictions on rights and reduced levels of women's security put our lives and security at even greater risk.
Does this mean that with feminism in Russia has become much better? Rather, we can recognize that society has become a little more tolerant to him. Now more people share the requirement of equal rights than three years ago, and more people get used to the idea that the existence of such requirements is normal. However, the actions of the authorities do not help us in this; on the contrary, restrictions on the rights and reduced level of protection of women put our lives and security under even greater threat.
The opportunity to buy a T-shirt with the inscription "The Future is Female" in the mall means only that they will not be ridiculed for it, but it will not protect us from violence, including the partner one. The fact that our voices have become audible means that we are only at the very beginning of the journey, since these are still only voices, and everything will be against us. Our voices are fragmented, feminist associations are rare and few, and if we really want long-lasting and serious changes, it's time to unite and develop strategies. The time of discussions, whether Russian feminism is needed, is over, the time has come for action - so why not start this year already?