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Just a few years ago, most Russian citizens did not recognize the notion of domestic violence or acknowledge that such a problem existed. Today, after years of local and international pressure to combat violence against women, things have changed dramatically. Gender Violence in Russia examines why and how this shift occurred -- and why there has been no similar reform on other gender violence issues such as rape, sexual assault, or human trafficking. Drawing on more than a decade of research, Janet Elise

"Just a few years ago, most Russian citizens did not recognize the notion of domestic violence or acknowledge that such a problem existed. Today, after years of local and international pressure to combat violence against women, things have changed dramatically. Gender Violence in Russia examines why and how this shift occurred - and why there has been no similar reform on other gender violence issues such as rape, sexual assault, or human trafficking. Drawing on more than a decade of research, Janet Elise Johnson analyzes media coverage and survey data to explain why some interventions succeed while others fail. She describes the local-global dynamics between a range of international actors, from feminist activists to national governments, and an equally diverse set of Russian organizations and institutions."--Jacket

AbstractThis article provides an analytical framework for understanding why and how many authoritarian regimes have recently adopted reforms that address gender equality. I illustrate and hone the framework by tracing three policy-making processes on domestic violence in Russia, an important and least-likely case for such reforms. While recent scholarship finds the importance of international leverage, strategic actions by women's groups, and regime interest in sidelining religious extremists, this study highlights other opportunities and agents and specifies authoritarian mechanisms such as intra-elite conflict, signaling between the autocrat and elites, and selective responsiveness. Drawing on the scholarship on authoritarian regime dynamics, policy making in Russia, and gender policy making, this study contributes to the literature on the relationship between gender and regime type by focusing on the micrologics of authoritarian policy making.

Why hasn't the marked increase in women in politics over the last half century led to the expected results of increased gender equality and more democracy? In order to propose a new answer to this question, which is central for both theoretical and empirical feminist political science, I look at the case of Putin's Russia as one of the authoritarian-leaning regimes that have promoted women into politics while simultaneously becoming more misogynist. Building on feminist institutionalism and the study of Russia's regime dynamics, both of which are extending the study of informal institutions, I claim that women are being fast-tracked into politics informally, not just formally such as by party or legislative quotas. Yet these women are then boxed in by informal rules and by parallel institutions and posts, with virtually no opportunities to advocate for women's interests. Putin's regime has promoted women to be "stand ins" during times of crisis or change, "loyalists" and "showgirls" when the regime needs to showcase elections and representation, and "cleaners" when the appearance of corruption threatens the regime. Even demonstrations of ultimate loyalty have not protected those women who once advocated for feminist policies. This exercise in concept building suggests a framework for thinking about the importance and operation of informal institutions, sustained by gendered and homophobic rules, as a bulwark of male dominance that undermines women's representation. There are also important policy implications, as advocates have been pushing for more women in politics to address a variety of ills that, my analysis suggests, will not be solved by numbers alone.

This article considers Pussy Riot as a feminist project, placing their actions and the regime's reactions in the context of three post-9/11 developments in gender and sexuality politics in Russia. First, I assert that Pussy Riot's stunts are a logical reaction to the Kremlin's masculinity-based nation-rebuilding scheme, which was a cover for crude homophobic misogyny. Second, Pussy Riot is part of the informal feminism emerging in Russia, a response to nongovernmental organization (NGO) feminism and the regime's repression of NGO feminism, albeit likely to be outflanked by regime-supported thuggery. Third, the members of Pussy Riot were so harshly prosecuted because they - swearing, covered up and disloyal - violated the political cleaner role that the Kremlin has given women in the last few years. Feminist social scientists have long looked for politics outside of formal institutions and processes. The Pussy Riot affair makes clear how much gender is central to the informal politics that gender-blind observers of Russia have come to see as crucial to understanding Russia's regime.

In 1999, on a trip to Russia to study gender violence, I was sitting
in on a special training at a Moscow police academy. In between
jokes about the impossibility of prostitutes getting raped, the
cops-in-training could not stop focusing on me, the one American and
one of three women in a rowdy room. For example, one man loudly
asked me whether all Americans had cars and followed up with a
comment that, of course we did, because this is where "you" (meaning
me) would have sex. The training on rape and sexual harassment that
I had come to observe had come to a halt because the new police were
so intent on making sexual jokes. These comments felt even more
threatening than they might otherwise because, a few days before, I
had been picked up by the Russian police, shoved into a police car
with several drunken officers, and driven around Moscow until I
offered a bribe.