Russian Women: Problems and Solutions

Russia is a society where women are still struggling for equality. This struggle is occurring simultaneously with the rebuilding of their country. Formerly part of the Communist Soviet Union, they are learning how to be their own nation after the collapse of the USSR in 1989. This rebuilding and these vast changes in their government and everyday life create a special set of problems for women trying to empower themselves. Before the fall of Communism in Russia, women faced many unique problems. Stalin's purges, World War II, and an alarmingly high rate of alcoholism have given Russia an incredible amount of widows (Mother Jones Online, 1995). The Soviet rules taught men to be selfish, passive and irresponsible. It also gave women the right and necessity to work as equals; however, men took advantage of this and let women do all the work. With Communism, men had an easy time because nothing much was expected from them at work or at home.

Now, with the fall of Communism, women have many of the old problems and also several new problems to deal with. Basically, "The collapse of the Soviet Union has changed everything in Russia - except the relationship between the sexes" (Stanley, 1995). The vast majority of Russian women must work full time to survive, but along with that, they must also do the cooking, shopping and child care. Women on average earn only 40% as much as men and are 3 times as likely to be unemployed (Mother Jones Online, 1995). Since the fall of the Soviet Union, violent crimes against women have been up. Divorce is on the rise and marriage is less frequent in today's Russia, so single mothers are more common. Unlike most countries, single mothers in Russia are not just teenage girls; they span all ages and classes. The new free-market economy makes it even easier for men to evade paying child support, because with Communism, every man's income was known by the government. Now, it is easier for men to hide or lie about their income and evade paying for their responsibilities. The blame for the collapse of the family structure used to be on the large alcoholism problem, but now it is blamed on the new democracy and the economic and social turmoil. The other serious problem hindering women's advancement in Russia is the lack of education about health, family planning, or sexual concerns. Since 1920, abortion has not only been legal but has been the only legal form of birth control for Russian women. On average, Russian women undergo 6-8 abortions in their lifetimes, and even now, only about 15% ever use any other form of birth control.

Many international solutions have been made to try to help educate and empower women in the former USSR. There are several nongovernmental organizations working for this cause. For example, AESOP is a Moscow-based NGO working in areas of sexual health and education, women's health, and HIV/AIDS education. There is also a group called The Aksin'ia Association of Women Journalists which is working in the mass media in the city of Novocherkassk. They have an overtly feminist perspective and a wide range of activities and welcome offers of collaboration from other human rights and women's organizations. There is another group, Moscow Center for Gender Studies (MCGS), which is a non-governmental, non-profit research and cultural institution. Here women scholars with strong feminist orientation were brought together by their mission to promote gender research and to withstand gender discrimination in socio-cultural, economic and political realities of present-day Russia. On October 14-16,1995, in the city of Pushkin (near St. Petersburg) they, along with the St. Petersburg Center for Gender Issues and the Network of East-West Women (with the support of World Learning, Inc. and the MacArthur Foundation), held the conference "Russian Committee on the Rights of Women". The conference was a series of discussions on the questions of women's rights in the former Soviet Union in the course of the last four years and was a continuation of 20 preceding conferences of different women's organizations over the same period of time. The Petersburg Center for Gender Issues (PCGI) runs research and educational programs for women on gender issues in St. Petersburg. Women's Innovation Fund East-West, also known as ZhIF (Zhenskii Inovatsionnyi Fond Vostok-Zapad), is a Moscow-based organization offering a broad training and service program for women in the use of computers and online services. They work closely with women's organizations in Germany and the UK. They are working on a new project, called Women as Pathfinders on the Information Superhighway (WPIS) along with The Women's Foundation (Germany), proFem (Czech Republic), and Business Women's Club (Perm, Russia). The Network of East-West Women is a communication network joining women across national and regional boundaries to share resources, knowledge, and skills important for strengthening women's participation and enhancing women's contributions to society. It covers all countries of the Former Soviet Union and East-Central Europe. NEWW's primary goal is supporting the formation of independent women's movements. NEWW coordinates projects, ad hoc committees, training workshops, consultations, conferences, and informational exchanges in the following programmatic areas identified by its members: law & policy, employment, health & environment, communication & media, gender studies, violence against women, reproductive rights, the war in ex-Yugoslavia. These groups and these projects all exist in order to begin the process of teaching the women of the former USSR about themselves and about how they can get out and make a difference in the fight against gender inequality.

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