Feminism, Russian-style

Fellow mariners of the stormy seas! A fair word of caution: this conspicuous absence of feminist behavior does not mean that the foreign woman sitting across the table, now thoughtfully stuffing her mouth with sushi, is in any way weak or submissive.

Photo by Julia Borodina, www.eliara.com

Russia, which was geographically isolated from many of the West’s most famous fits and starts (the Enlightenment, Capitalism and Industrialization, to name a few), devel oped more or less at its own leisurely pace until at least the beginning of the twentieth century. Thus, painful questions concerning the rightful place of western women in the early industrial system (exposed for its cruelty by progressive writers of the time, like Upton Sinclair, who wrote The Jungle in 1914) were being debated in the West while, half way around the world, Russian women were peacefully picking raspber- ries and milking goats in the idyllic countryside.

Ironically, despite all the hype about the United States being the ‘land of opportunity,’ American women did not receive the right to vote until 1920, a full half of a century after suffrage was granted to the liberated African slaves. It took the outbreak of World War II, when America was forced into a wartime economy, for females to be accepted into the workplace, and then only conditionally. Like every minority in America that was not born wealthy, white and male, the females were forced to scratch and claw for every square inch of their rights and freedoms. There is no concept or understanding of an Equal Rights Amendment in Russia.

In the United States, every action on the part of the klutzy man is liable to be misinterpreted, overanalyzed and even persecuted in a court of law. Even one of our otherwise great presidents, William Jefferson Clinton, was laid low by this ridiculous national pastime. In America, as one wit observed, “when a man talks dirty to woman, it’s sexual harassment. When a woman talks dirty to a man, it’s $2.95 per minute.” Even opening the door and letting her pass first may be the ticket to a ruined night. Eventually, some feminists began to realize that it’s no fun to spend your life walking on glass.

Photo by Julia Borodina, www.eliara.com

The famed American feminist Gloria Steinem summed up the plight of her fellow sisters in the sexless seventies when she wryly observed that women “are becoming the men we wanted to marry.”

Timothy Leary, who spent much of his time while not in the laboratory advocating the use of LSD, probably as a pain reliever against the tyranny of the opposite sex, hit the nail on the head when he uttered, “Women who seek to be equal with men lack ambi-tion.”

This is what sets Russia apart from the rest of the world: there is equilibrium between the sexes that is immediately recognizable. All of the unnecessary guesswork between the males and females has been cleared away, or never existed in the first place. For the most part, everybody understands their role. Yes, there is always the random wild card tossed into the deck, but in general everything is pretty straightfor- ward. This will come as a breath of fresh air for many western men who have, gener- ally speaking, lost all their bearings when it comes to dealing with members of the opposite sex.

As it is, Russian women, who deftly use every inch of their femininity - high heels and mini skirts included - to their general advantage, have no desire to ‘lower themselves’ in an effort to obtain equality with men. Moreover, you actually get the sense that Russian women truly cherish the fact that they were born females, and not the victim type that cries daily on Oprah Winfrey. And where else in the world can you see two women holding hands with each other as they stroll happily and confidently through the city center? Ironically, perhaps, a big part of the Russian woman’s sense of liberation and even happiness may be found in Russia’s past, both near and distant.