Inna Perheentupa’s Feminist Politics in Neoconservative Russia makes a welcome addition to the ‘Gender and Sociology’ series, contributing to our ambition to make the series truly international and publish work that potentially decentres Western perspectives and knowledge claims. While this book focuses on Russia, it has much wider relevance given the rise of neoconservative governments and increasing authoritarianism globally, which are often associated with backlash against feminism (indeed the very idea of gender equality). It is essential that we understand the implications of these trends for gender relations and the potential for and limits on resisting them.

This is a book on politics, broadly conceived, but which displays a distinctly sociological sensibility in its approach. It takes account of both everyday and overtly political forms of resistance, the social conditions and lived experience that contribute to the making of feminist selves, the social relations through which feminist spaces are created, the interactions within and between feminist groups and differential access to material and epistemic resources. The analysis is set against the backdrop of the transformations that have taken place in Russia since the Soviet era, and especially the dashing of hopes for a more democratic political realm and more expansive civil society. The rise of neoconservative nationalism after the turn of the millennium featured a revival of supposedly ‘traditional’ Russian values and a strong alliance between the government and the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC). This ideology is antipathetic to gender equality and rights for sexual minorities, which were represented as ‘foreign’ ideas that distorted the ‘natural order’. This shift politicized gender and sexuality and stimulated the new forms of feminist activism that are thoroughly documented and analysed in the book.

Inna Perheentupa’s insights into the lives and politics of feminist activists are based on extensive ethnographic research that she conducted in St Petersburg and Moscow, involving 42 interviews as well as participation in and observation of feminist gatherings and events. Since much feminist activism takes place online, a space in which some freedom of expression is still possible, she also draws on internet and social media sources. Most of those interviewed were born in the 1980s and 1990s and came to feminist awareness and activism in the 2010s in response to the government’s neoconservative moves, but some were veterans who had been active in earlier decades, as well as in the new incarnation of feminism.

This new feminism is very much a grassroots movement. It has little by way of institutional foundations and is lacking in tangible resources; the foreign funding available to some feminist NGOs in the 1990s, which aimed to promote the development of democracy, is no longer available. Activists are also facing increasing repression, restrictions on public protest, censorship, and government control of mainstream media. Under these conditions they need to be nimble and creative, not only to promote their cause, but also to remain safe. Another limiting factor on Russian feminist activism that Inna Perheentupa identifies is its reactive character. Feminists have constantly had to respond to new legislation and policies that reinforce gender and sexual inequality. These include pronatalist and anti-abortion policies and the decriminalization of domestic violence. There have also been so called ‘homo propaganda’ laws, severely restricting public discussion of sexual diversity as well as limiting the right of LGBTQ individuals and potentially criminalizing them. A further law, which bans publicly ‘hurting religious feelings’ can readily be mobilized against both feminists and LGBTQ activists. Feminist activism, then, is constrained to be reactive, constantly opposing regressive legislation rather than making progress.

The feminism that has arisen in this context, however, is diverse, both in terms of political perspectives and tactics. Inna Perheentupa’s informants identified with a variety of feminisms, including queerfeminism, intersectional feminism, anarcho-feminism and radical feminism, or saw themselves simply as feminists. They made use of a range of political practices from the courageously confrontational to the more subtle, safer ‘smuggling’ of feminist ideas into the public domain through cultural events such as film screenings and art exhibitions. They also engaged in practices of self-care and drew on feminism as a therapeutic resource for self-understanding. There were often major disagreements between groups with differing political stances or tactics, exacerbated, perhaps, by the limited opportunities they had to meet publicly so that much debate and contestation happened online. Inequality in access to epistemic and other intangible resources could also give rise to divisions and hierarchies, sometimes reinforcing and sometimes cutting across political differences and disagreements about tactics. Epistemic resources vary from academic to experiential, creating an uneven and unequal distribution of feminist knowledge. Some based in academia or with media experience or connections are better placed to publicize feminist ideas and actions. Those lacking such resources need to become resourceful, relying on their wits and creativity to create an impact.

The forces opposing feminism in Russia have considerable coercive and discursive power. The strategies they use to discredit feminism are all too familiar – the appeal to ‘traditional’ family values, portraying feminists as ‘unnatural’ women and, importantly, damning feminism as a foreign import and a threat to the nation. It is the case that Russian feminists, to varying degrees, borrow from and/or appropriate imported ideas – though interpreted and modified in the light of local conditions. To make too much of this, however, would be to deny the local, experiential basis of feminist activism in Russia, its independence from ‘Western’ feminism and its inventiveness. One example of a campaign that was independent of (and anticipated) feminist campaigns elsewhere, was an internet flash mob protest against gendered violence under the hashtag ‘I am not afraid to tell’, which occurred before the similar #MeToo movement spread globally. While the former had begun in Ukraine, it spread quickly to and within Russia. Additionally, Inna Perheentupa provides us with numerous locally specific instances of inventiveness, such as ways of making small creative actions more significant though publicizing them online and sometimes capturing the attention of wider media audiences.

Inna Perheentupa makes it clear that she wishes to avoid a romanticized account of Russian feminism. In analysing its achievements, difficulties and the tensions within it, she is not telling a simple story of heroism against overwhelming opposition but is providing a nuanced and complex account of a many-faceted movement. Yet there is heroism, at the mundane level of the effortful, all-consuming nature of activists’ commitment to feminist praxis, as well as risks taken in more overtly confrontational styles of protest. Inna Perheentupa is honest in her respect for feminist activists working in such difficult circumstances and throughout the book she highlights their passion and creativity. In concluding she says: ‘feminists are talented in going underground and “talking in code”. They find channels to communicate and exchange ideas and knowledge, and “keep warm during freezing political times” by creating alternative spaces and shelter.’

There are lessons here for feminists everywhere, and especially for those, in the many parts of the world, facing growing authoritarianism.

Professor Sue Scott

Professor Stevi Jackson

February 2022