The Systemic Masculinism of Power: the post-Soviet Affliction of History and Ideology

Abstract

This text is an attempt to outline one of the most deep-rooted systemic challenges of the post-Soviet experience of independence. The article analyzes closely related phenomena of post-Soviet systems of power and their narrative: masculinism and the non-attachment of women in political discourse and their subordinate significance in sociocultural understanding. The diagnosis presented here is an attempt to theorize the systemic masculinism of power through some practical cases that can be attributed to post-Soviet autocratic regimes. Systemic masculinism is presented in this article as a deeply discursive phenomenon that permeates every aspect of public space. The examples outlined in the article refer to Russia, Eastern European countries as well as to the countries of the Central Asian region. The purpose of this territorial scope of the problem described in the article is to show how closely related the experience of colonial dependence was within Russian and Soviet imperialism.