From: The Los
Angeles Times, February 11, 1993
Russian
Women Seem Less Liberated Now Than During Communism
by Elizabeth Shogren
MOSCOW - Lyudmila Zakharevich, 16, tops her class at an
elite
Moscow high school, but instead of planning a career, she
dreams of
becoming a full-time housewife.
Lena Guzeeva, 22, on the other hand, desperately wants a
professional position in one of the new private businesses
in her central
Russian city but worries that sexual exploitation has
become so accepted
that she will be jobless unless she agrees to submit to a
potential
employer’s advances.
And Natalya Zhdanova, 48, who was laid off from her job
as a top
engineer at a military-industrial plant and is working as
an after-school
day-care supervisor at the local school, is bitter that
the career she had
for 25 years under Soviet rule is now out of her reach
because it is part
of the men-only world of the new Russia.
By their own choice and because of mounting new social
pressures,
the women of Russia are less liberated, in the feminist
sense, than they
were when the Communist Party ruled their country. Many
are being forced
out of professional jobs, sexual harassment is considered
business as usual
and, increasingly, young women believe that freedom means
enjoying
traditional female roles that were largely denied them in
the old Soviet
Union.
During the Soviet era, most women here had no choice but
to wear
frumpy clothes, work full-time jobs and maintain a home
with little help
from the male members of the family, according to social
anthropologist
Irina Popova. “So, now it is considered liberation to be a
sex symbol, get
married early and stay home with the kids,” she said.
Russian society is going through a phase similar to that
in 1950s
America, when homemakers and wholesome movie stars were
idealized, Popova
added, but because of a rebellion against the
state-decreed sexual
puritanism of the Soviet era, the ideal Russian woman is
more sex kitten
than homecoming queen.
The images are pervasive: Penthouse-style photos in the
mainstream
Russian press; frequent full female nudity on both daytime
and prime-time
television; sexy female fashions never imagined by the
average Soviet
working woman, and beauty pageants where talent
competitions include erotic
dancing.
Under Communist rule, equality for women was legally
mandated, and
women as well as men were required by law to work.
Although this
emancipation-by-decree failed to create many female
factory directors or
top politicians, women made up more than half the
workforce and filled
mid-level managerial, engineering and support positions -
as well as
working as jackhammer operators.
This did not, however, change the public consciousness
of a woman’s
role at home, so women were still responsible for child
rearing and
housekeeping.
Lyudmila is one girl who has already decided that she
does not want
to repeat the double-duty life of her mother, who has
toiled full-time for
20 years in a candy factory while, like many other Russian
women, being
solely responsible for the household. “She gets no satisfaction from her work,” said Lyudmila,
a
mature-looking teen-ager with a round face and long,
sandy-blond hair. “I
don’t want to work after I am married. It takes too much
time from your
family. Most of my girlfriends feel the same way.“
Guzeeva, a senior economics student at the university in
the
provincial Russian city of Voronezh, decribes what it is
like to interview
for a job at a new private business: “Businessmen come right out and say they don’t take
girls for
professional positions. ... They say they do hire girls as
secretaries, and
then they look them up and down. If they don’t like the
way you look, they
say, ‘We don’t need a girl like you,’ and if they do, they
let you know
that your responsibilities may include those of a
prostitute.“
Women who have made it to high positions in private
business tell
of being given ultimatums by their bosses such as, “Sleep
with me or quit.”
There is no talk of sexual harassment suits - indeed,
there is no
law against that kind of behavior here - and formal
protests are rare.
An American businessman tells of sitting in the office
of a Russian
partner while the latter was interviewing a young woman
for a secretarial
position. The Russian businessman suggestively asked the
interviewee, “What
size couch do you prefer?” The woman giggled and replied, “Any size you
like.” “What surprised me most is that these girls are not even
insulted,”
said Tamaz Ellis, the American businessman who emigrated
from the Soviet
Union 20 years ago. “There is no self-respect.“
Both mature career women and young would-be
professionals complain
that Russia’s new capitalist business world is like an
exclusive men’s
club.
Navena Bagaeva, 24, who graduated from Moscow
University’
prestigious economics department, has seen her male
ex-classmates start
their own businesses and zoom up the ladder at private
firms and
international joint ventures. Although she was able to get
a decent job as
chief accountant at a joint venture, she fears that she
has reached what
her American sisters would call “the glass ceiling” - two
years after
graduation. “The men in my office do not treat me as an equal,” she
complained. “Despite my title, I’m the one who makes and serves coffee
when the
secretary is away.“
Although she is single and her salary is the primary
support for
herself and her two aging parents, her male colleagues
never let her forget
that they think she belongs at home. “The traditional idea that men should earn money and
women keep
house is still very strong here,” she said with a
disappointed shrug.
In the Soviet era, men rarely voiced such views, both
because the
law left women no choice about working, and because - in a
work situation
where practically no one was ever fired - men did not feel
their jobs
threatened by women.
Many feel that President Boris N. Yeltsin and his team
encourage
sexism by supporting, through both word and example, the
view that women
belong at home.
Former Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev publicly
encouraged
his wife, Raisa, to pursue professional goals and took
obvious pride in her
achievements. Yeltsin, in contrast, rarely mentions his
wife, Naina, who is
self-effacing and has been quoted as saying that she has
never had any
views of her own.
Women say one reason Soviet-era gains in equality have
been lost so
quickly is that, unlike America and Western Europe, no
grass-roots women’s
movement has developed here; since equality was mandated
from the Kremlin,
it was felt that there was no need for such a movement.
It is still rare to see women drive cars, and men
regularly open
doors for women and insist on paying for their meals.
And now, with the Soviet facade of equality between the
sexes
removed, men feel free to make sexist statements and
proudly treat women as
sex objects - and many women seem to like it.
When asked if having two cars was one of his financial
goals, a
19-year-old biology student responded that one car will be
enough because “no wife of mine is ever going to drive a car.” And when
asked whether any
of the brokers working for his firm are women, a
24-year-old executive said
indignantly, “I will never have a female broker working
for my firm.”
Meanwhile, Russians are exposed to more images of the
new woman,
including explicit advertisements for prostitutes in the
press,
baseball-card sized pictures of mostly naked models on
dashboards of taxis,
and popular fashion styles that include stiletto heels and
skin-tight
mini-skirts that barely reach the upper thigh. “But this will pass,” said Popova, the social
anthropologist. “In
about 10 years, a battle for real equality will start.”
