Russian women and their organizations : gender, discrimination, and grassroots women's organizations, 1991-96

Based largely on qualitative research from August 1995 to February 1996 in Moscow, Saratov, Tver', and Tarusa, Kay (Central and Eastern European studies, U. of Glasgow) looks at how the organizations existed and functioned in Russian society during the first five years after the Soviet Union. She finds that by the time of her study, most women, as individuals and members of grassroots organizations, had developed strategies for survival that may not have been desirable or comfortable but had succeeded in securing existence for them, their families, and their organizations. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR Front Matter....Pages i-ix Introduction....Pages 1-7 Front Matter....Pages 9-9 Soviet and Post-Soviet Gender Climates....Pages 11-33 No Place for a Woman: Paid Employment, Political Representation and Public Life....Pages 34-64 Born to be Mothers? Motherhood as Every Woman’s ‘Natural Calling’....Pages 65-82 Equals or Opposites? Women’s Attitudes to Gender....Pages 83-106 Front Matter....Pages 107-107 Challenging Inequality: Legislative Approaches versus Women’s Activism....Pages 109-119 Grassroots Women’s Organizations: Agents of Change or a Means of Survival?....Pages 120-141 Public Faces of Grassroots Women’s Organizations: Recruitment Strategies, Public Actions and Use of the Media....Pages 142-162 Sisterhood or Suspicion? Relations between Russian Women’s Organizations....Pages 163-186 Pot of Gold or Poisoned Chalice? The Impact of Western ‘Support’....Pages 187-209 Conclusions: Grassroots Women’s Organizations and the Gender Climate....Pages 210-218 Back Matter....Pages 219-267 Grassroots Russian women's organizations faced multiple challenges in the early 1990s. Like their members, they were confronted with both potentially hostile attitudes and numerous practical difficulties. Post-Soviet ideologies of gender difference produced a gender climate which was particularly unsympathetic to female activism in support of other women. This book presents a detailed study of grassroots Russian women's organizations in 1991-96, against the background of a careful analysis of gender relations and attitudes to women's place in post-Soviet Russian society. The term 'gender' has no direct translation in the Russian language, and those limited circles of Russian academics and activists who have now begun to speak of gender simply use a russified version of the English word: gender, pronounce with a hard 'g'.