THE VIEW OF FEMINIST MAGAZINES OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE ON THE MARITAL PROBLEMS AND MORAL GENDER EQUALITY

Abstract

Feminism today is an alternative philosophical concept of socio-cultural development. The article highlights the marital problem and gender equality in the pages of feminist magazines of the early XX century in the Russian Empire. In modern society, there has been much discussion on the issues of gender equality, prohibition or legalization of abortion, legalization of prostitution, the relevance of legal marriage, child-rearing, etc., that is, socio-cultural aspects. All these issues were raised by the feminist press in the early XX century. The purpose of this article is to analyze the arguments of female correspondents of feminist magazines of the Russian Empire in accordance with the double standards, marriage and methods of achieving true gender equality. As a result of the study, we have identified that during the period moral and ethical issues were recognized as an important part of the “women’s issue”, which were considered by feminist women’s magazines through the prism of two officially recognized sexual institutions in the Russian Empire: marriage and prostitution. Women’s magazines sharply criticized the “double standards”, which set unequal demands on the morality of men and women. According to them, “double standards” was the principal cause underlying the existence of prostitution and humiliated position of a woman in the family, so feminists demanded the recognition of “single sexual morality” either in the direction of “sexual abstinence” or through “sexual freedom” for men and women.