Twenty-First-Century Feminisms under Repression: Gender Regime Change and the Women’s Crisis Center Movement in Russia

This article charts the ideology and mobilization of the women’s crisis center movement—the most recognizable example of postcommunist feminist activism until 2011—over the first decade of the twenty-first century as Russia moved toward consolidation and authoritarianism. We draw on our experience in and observation of this movement, a 2008 photoethnography project, and a nationwide survey of crisis centers conducted in 2008–9. By the end of Vladimir Putin’s first presidency, we find that Russia’s semiauthoritarianism was infused with a new masculinism, leaving less room for self-identified feminisms and for feminisms that include critique of male roles. The crisis centers as a phenomenon were etaticized and domesticated: they no longer resembled an autonomous movement, and much of the feminism had been lost. Yet even staff at state agencies frame their work in the language of women’s rights, a shift from their earlier tendency to assert that women provoke the violence against them. Previous studies of feminism under authoritarianism suggest that feminism is often driven underground, both in terms of activities and the way activists can frame their claims. Our study suggests that in the growing number of semiauthoritarian states such as Russia, feminism may go inside the state, a tribute to the transnational women’s activism of the last three decades. However, such insider feminism often has much more moderate claims and comes at the expense of autonomous feminism.