{"id":4734,"date":"2021-10-10T09:22:45","date_gmt":"2021-10-10T09:22:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mediateka.online\/learnrussian\/neglected-and-then-persecuted-the-modern-history-of-gender-studies-in-russia.html"},"modified":"2021-10-10T09:22:45","modified_gmt":"2021-10-10T09:22:51","slug":"neglected-and-then-persecuted-the-modern-history-of-gender-studies-in-russia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mediateka.online\/learnrussian\/neglected-and-then-persecuted-the-modern-history-of-gender-studies-in-russia.html","title":{"rendered":"Neglected and then persecuted The modern history of gender studies in Russia"},"content":{"rendered":"

In late September, the Russian authorities designated the Ivanovo Center for Gender Studies as a \u201cforeign agent.\u201d The labeling wasn\u2019t random but part of a coordinated state policy to undermine this relatively new research field. At Meduza\u2019s request, University College London School of Slavonic and East European Studies doctoral student and feminist activist Ella Rossman explains how gender studies emerged in the USSR and how scholars have fought for its survival in contemporary Russia.<\/p>\n

Gender studies materialized during the Soviet era as a response to unresolved questions about women\u2019s rights<\/strong><\/h3>\n

In many countries, gender studies began developing in the 1970s, but the Iron Curtain and the censorship of scholarly work delayed its emergence inside the Soviet Union until the latter half of the 1980s when Glasnost was in full swing.<\/p>\n

In 1989, economists Anastasia Posadskaya, Natalia Rimashevskaya, and Natalia Zakharova published a paper in the journal Kommunist, titled \u201cHow We Decide the Women\u2019s Question,\u201d that helped launch the USSR\u2019s nascent gender studies. The authors did not use the concept of \u201cgender\u201d and \u201cgender studies,\u201d instead suggesting the term \u201cfeminology,\u201d but the essence of their work was largely the same: They emphasized that interdisciplinary research could truly solve the \u201cwomen\u2019s question,\u201d meaning that this approach would enable the development of effective family policies and solutions to the problems affecting women. Citing various data, the authors showed that Soviet society in fact lagged far behind the gender equality proclaimed by the authorities.<\/p>\n

The following year, the Soviet Union got its first research lab with the word \u201cgender\u201d in its name. Originally founded inside the USSR Academy of Sciences\u2019 Institute of Social and Economic Problems of Population, the Gender Problems Lab still operates to this day. Posadskaya, Rimashevskaya, and Zakharova all worked here.<\/p>\n

Also in 1990, the first independent center for gender studies opened in the Soviet Union: the Moscow Center for Gender Studies (MTsGI, which has since closed down).\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Women