Suchergebnisse

Ann Snitow, Emerita Lecturer in Liberal Studies and Associate Professor of Literature at the New School for Social Research and Eugene Lang College, passionate feminist and scholar for almost five decades in New York City, fearless activist and mentor for three decades in Central and Eastern Europe, died on 10 August 2019.

Feruza Aripova – PhD Candidate in World History, Northeastern University; Center Associate, Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies, Harvard University; Visiting Scholar, Jordan Center for the Advanced Study of Russia, New York University, USA. Email: aripova.f@husky.neu.edu
Janet Elise Johnson – Professor of Political Science and Women's & Gender Studies, Brooklyn College, City University of New York; Visiting Scholar, Center for European and Mediterranean Studies at New York University, New York, USA. Email: Johnson@brooklyn.cuny.edu
This article examines the 2016 Ukrainian-Russian virtual flashmob that took on the issues of sexual assault, including childhood sexual abuse, sexual harassment, and rape. Begun by a Ukrainian activist on Facebook, the flashmob resulted in more than ten thousand original posts and led to a broader discussion on violence against women in Ukrainian and Russian. Many women (and some men) for the first time publicly disclosed excruciating details of physical and psychological coercion and the lasting trauma they suffered. The commonalities across the posts and the public visibility of the flashmob directly confronted the stigma attached to the topic of sexual violence. The media reactions to the flashmob ranged from empathy toward the victims and condemnation of the perpetrators to criticism of female promiscuity and victim blaming. The flashmob had concrete results: criminal cases were opened against teachers at one of Moscow's prominent public schools and a series of initiatives were directed against sexual violence in Ukraine. This article provides the first systematic documentation and analysis of these posts as well as their reception in mass media and the impact so far of the flashmob, situating this flashmob as the same kind of activism that was seen in the bigger 2017 #MeToo campaign. In these ways, we contribute to what little social scientists know about violence against women in the post-Soviet region and assess this new tactic of feminist activism. Unsurprisingly, such activism does not change societies in one fell swoop, but the Ukrainian-Russian flashmob shows how virtual activism can nudge towards progressive change.

Given the predominance of men among elites, it is remarkable how little scholarship there is on the challenges of qualitative empirical work on elite men, especially work that interrogates the intersection of gender and class. We have both sought to include elite men as subjects, noting that the gender of our subjects, their social power, and our own gender performance have played a central role in defining our efficacy as researchers. Darren has researched top French corporate boards (e.g., Rosenblum and Roithmayr 2015). Janet has researched male dominance in the politics of Iceland and Russia (e.g., Johnson 2016; Johnson, Einarsdóttir, and Pétursdóttir 2013). This essay elaborates the challenges in researching elite men and explores the tactics we developed in response to the dynamic gender performances in the interviews, bringing Darren's insights as a legal scholar looking at economic elites to questions about male overrepresentation in politics.

The article assesses civil society in Putin's Russia through the lens of the small social movement working against gender violence. Based on questionnaires distributed to movement organizations in 2008–2009, we find significant retrenchment among the NGO segment of the movement, adding evidence to the claim of Russia's turn toward authoritarianism. However, this innovative, midlevel analysis–not the typical society-wide surveys nor the small number participant observation–also shows that the women's crisis center movement has made some in-roads in transforming the state, revealing that some democratic opportunities remain at the local level.

The article assesses civil society in Putin's Russia through the lens of the small social movement working against gender violence. Based on questionnaires distributed to movement organizations in 2008-2009, we find significant retrenchment among the NGO segment of the movement, adding evidence to the claim of Russia's turn toward authoritarianism. However, this innovative, midlevel analysis -- not the typical society-wide surveys nor the small number participant observation -- also shows that the women's crisis center movement has made some in-roads in transforming the state, revealing that some democratic opportunities remain at the local level. [Copyright The Regents of the University of California; published by Elsevier Ltd.]

English
Between the end of socialism and the 2004 European Union enlargement, options for women in Central and Eastern Europe seeking to overcome domestic violence grew noticeably. Because these options include both social movement organisations and the state, we adopt what we call a 'domestic violence regime' approach, comparing 11 countries and exploring four – Poland, Russia, Slovakia and Armenia – in more depth. Considering the impact of foreign intervention in encouraging and complicating these reforms, the conclusion draws implications for European policy makers concerned with gender equality.

How has the collapse of communism across Europe and Eurasia changed gender? In addition to acknowledging the huge costs that fell heavily on women, Living Gender after Communism suggests that moving away from communism in Europe and Eurasia has provided an opportunity for gender to multiply, from varieties of neo-traditionalism to feminisms, from overt negotiation of femininity to denials of gender. This development,in turn, has enabled some women in the region to construct their own gendered identities f