The Russian Women's Movement

Abstract

Abstract Seminars for developing women's political activism in Russia provided the basis for field observations and surveys of participants and leaders in the emergent Russian women's movement. The seminars provided an elite sample of activists, including those who were long-term participants in the zhensovety those newly mobilized in Western-influenced, explicitly feminist groups, and the majority, who were engaged in women's NGOs with a variety of specific goals. Activists of all three types had both a “pragmatic” orientation to specific, local needs as well as a holistic, strategic analysis. Activists differed, however, in the extent to which they saw women in politics as more moral than men, as reliable advocates for women's interests, and as basing their politics on their roles as mothers. Activists also differed in their willingness to define themselves as feminists, although they criticized gender discrimination and valued consciousness-raising about gender issues. We conclude that the weakness of ...