Yesterday's issue of the Moscow Times featured an interview with Olga Lipovskaya, founder of St. Petersburg's Center for Gender Issues and "one of Russia's most prominent feminists." Apparently, things have not been so easy for the feminists there. Ms. Lipovskaya began the interview by stating that: "The last 10 years have been a disappointment to me, or rather a lot of gradual disappointments." So, she plans to leave for India.
Here are some highlights of this interview:
Q:Why do you think Russia's feminists haven't achieved a stronger movement?
A: Russia's a very big country with a very strong patriarchal tradition. After the revolution, state policy and everything presupposed that women's equality had been achieved. But, in real life in the Soviet Union, there was no access to new ideas, feminist theories, no translations, no books -- nothing. A lot of important feminist literature wasn't translated into Russian until the 1990s.
Maybe 10 years is not enough for a movement's development. Maybe also there are too few of us, too few feminists and real feminist groups who are seriously aware and concerned about women's issues in the political sense.
Q:What about other women's organizations in Russia?
A: There are numerous organizations of women, but very few of them work for women. Most of them work for children, for families, against drugs or to defend their sons from the army. There are very few organizations that I could call "feminist."
Q:What are your main concerns about the status of women in Russia?
A: In my opinion, the No. 1 issue is the lack of political representation. Absolutely. Women are underrepresented at all political decision-making levels.
Even countries like Bulgaria and Poland have more women in power than Russia.
The other key issue is that so many people are living under the poverty line, and I'm sure the majority of them are women.
There is a huge number of women bringing up children on their own with very little support. There just aren't enough social provisions for them.
