Women’s NGOs in Russia: Struggling From the Margins
Author(s)
Sundstrom, Lisa McIntosh
Abstract
Ample scholarly work exists, both Russian and Western, that documents the unequal status and opportunities of women compared with those of men in Russia. On a multitude of fronts, including hiring practices, media portrayals, and treatment by law enforcement institutions in cases of domestic violence, women face blatant gender stereotypes and discrimination. Despite these grievances, although the number of women’s NGOs in existence in Russia has grown enormously over the past decade, several problems continue to plague the women’s movement, severely hampering its influence in both political circles and among the public at large. Below, I consider developments among Russian women’s NGOs over the past decade as they relate specifically to the democracy-promoting potential of civil society. I explain the major barriers that hinder the development of the women’s movement in terms of larger political, economic, and social-normative features of Russian life today. Many of the political and economic obstacles to success are problems that plague the contemporary NGO sector as a whole in Russia. The normative barriers to development, in contrast, are specific to women’s issues. Widespread antifeminist ideas present major obstacles that are likely to continue to confront Russian women’s NGOs even if the more general political and economic difficulties disappear in the foreseeable future.
