The 1990s saw an increase in female legislators; another notable increase occurred during the 2007 elections, when every major political party increased its number of female candidates. While there has been an increase in the share of women in politics in Russia, this has not led to increased gender equality in Russian society overall. One speaker relied on her vast practical experience in human rights advocacy to conclude that it is, unfortunately, an unsafe endeavor in some parts of Russia, particularly in Chechnya. She nevertheless urged activists not to abandon their efforts, especially where the Russian government is indifferent to local suffering. She offered examples to dismantle the stereotypes that women are always allies of other women and of human rights advocates and that men are always the perpetrators of violence. Rather, she explained, she had met with mothers who were ready to follow religious norms or social expectations at the expense of their daughters’ well-being, while fathers and brothers were ready to defy family and community pressure to protect their daughters and sisters.
It also needs feminists as allies in pursuit of the social change agenda. In public talks aimed at dismantling stereotypes, feminist speakers often find that women themselves tend to shy away from using the word “feminism” and from conversations about discrimination. Domestic violence has moved to a prominent place on the public agenda, but now feminists tend to focus on this problem overlooking other social issues. Among other critiques, the discourse is noticeably heterocentric, even though the LGBTQ+ community faces similar issues related to abuse in relationships. In addition, the fight against the so-called “gay propaganda law” of 2013, which criminalizes “propagandizing nontraditional sexual relationships” to minors, thus effectively criminalizing the public promotion of LGBTQ+ rights in Russia, remains outside the feminist agenda. Some conference participants voiced the need for intersectionality, although another participant later objected, arguing that it dilutes the feminist agenda.
Furthermore, only 33% of respondents would welcome a female president. Sociological surveys show that sexual harassment and violence against women increased at all levels of society in http://cleans4u.com/2023/01/the-new-japanese-woman-modernity-media-and-women-in-interwar-japan-books-gateway-duke-university-press/ the 1990s. In 1993 an estimated 14,000 women were murdered by their husbands or lovers, about twenty times the figure in the United States and several times the figure in Russia five years earlier. More than 300,000 other types of crimes, including spousal abuse, were committed against women in 1994; in 1996 the State Duma (the lower house of the Federal Assembly, Russia's parliament) drafted a law against domestic violence.
In the 1990s, experts and activists succeeded in improving health care, training physicians, and educating the public, managing to decrease risky sexual behavior and improve medical care for women to achieve a 30 percent decline in abortions in favor of contraception. The situation changed when Russia experienced a conservative turn, the funding of NGOs ran out, and a number of legislative and administrative measures were adopted to restrict reproductive choices.
The evolution of Russian feminism over the past thirty years and the transformation of feminism into nonfeminism and postfeminism are as interesting as the deeper historical roots of today’s agenda. In the Russian case, it is also vital to look beyond Moscow and St. Petersburg and engage the wide variety of regional experiences and perspectives on women’s issues from across the country. The Kennan Institute’s conference included participants from Ivanovo, Makhachkala, Nizhny Novgorod, Samara, Smolensk, Tomsk, and Tver, but wider geographic representation would enrich the conversation. Furthermore, as one participant noted, it might also be helpful to learn from the work of Holocaust studies and supplement the picture with the voices of direct participants and witnesses, such as clients of crisis centers or former inmates who became activists. There are multiple centers across Russia that offer assistance to victims of gender-based violence, and there are projects, like Nasiliu.net, that focus on educating the public and spreading the word to prevent violence.
In Russia, civil society may have “a woman’s face” and the authorities may have “a man’s face,” but protecting women is a job for everyone, and ensuring numerical gender equality does not immediately resolve the human rights violations. Because of time constraints, the conference discussions had to omit a variety of problems existing within feminism and activism, but did touch on the complicated relationship between the two. It is no secret that despite a recent resurgence of interest in feminism, the word itself has negative connotations in Russia, and female activists often shy away from that label, even if their practical work reflects feminist ideas. Still, as many of the conference participants emphasized, the key to success lies in solidarity, including solidarity across gender divides and ideological lines. One can argue that it is time for female activists to embrace feminism, for men to become true allies in pursuit of women’s rights, and for feminists to join the fight for wider social change. This article concerns the analysis of court practices for criminal cases relating to female victims of domestic violence who have been charged with murder or intentional infliction of grievous bodily injuries of their partners.
Adherence to the Chatham House Rule ensured a frank and uncensored conversation, and the Zoom chat and breakout rooms created an opportunity for less formal exchanges. There were 20 people there, all women with kids and not a single man! Lockdowns due to the COVID-19 pandemic trapped many women at home with their abusers. Russia initially denied a spike in domestic violence, despite national domestic violence organizations reporting https://mbandjock.fr/2023-mexican-women-dating-guide-everything-you-need-to-know/ their inability to keep up with a steep increase in calls from victims. Women were fined for breaking quarantine in order to escape their abusers until May 2020, when the government finally declared domestic violence an emergency in which breaking quarantine was acceptable. In March 2020, Putin signed a bill increasing the severity of punishments for breaking quarantine, which include fines up to US$640 . If their actions caused others health issues or even death, those who break quarantine would receive a minimum of 5-7 extra years in prison and fines worth up to US$4,800.
Articles advising men on how to avoid mobilization proliferate in Russian media. “Legal and not so legal lifehacks” include not opening the door when someone knocks, staying off social media, undergoing a surgery, adopting a child as a single father, faking a physical or mental illness, and checking yourself into rehab for drug addiction.
For second offense and beyond, it is considered a criminal offense, prosecuted under the Criminal Code. The move was widely seen as part of a state-sponsored turn to traditional values under Putin and shift away from liberal notions of individual and human rights. To substantiate this recommendation, Human Rights Watch cites an independent study which concludes Russian women are three times as likely to encounter violence at at this source https://absolute-woman.com/european-women/russian-women/ the hands of a family member or loved one than a stranger. Furthermore, Human Rights Watch observed that only 3% of domestic violence cases in Russia go to trial, and notes that the 2017 decriminalization makes it even harder to prosecute abusers. In 1999, there were only four women named as part of the Nezavisimaya gazeta's monthly ranking of influential Russian politicians, the highest-ranking being Tatyana Dyachenko, Boris Yeltsin's daughter. There amount of women in Russian politics has increased; at the federal level, this is partially due to electoral victories by Women of Russia bloc in the Duma.
