Interview with Olga Lipovskaya about feminism

Vlad Tupikin: Feminists are born or made?

Olga Lipovskaya: Made. Fairly well-known American feminist Gloria Steinem once said that women become feminists when they realize there is something to lose. That is, women tend to become feminist when they are adults, because young girls live under the pressure of heterosexist romantic stereotypes. I would call it a heterosexist culture, because since childhood they are pressed by all that romantic films and fairy-tales about princes, Cinderellas, and Sleeping Beauties. So there is a logic chain: “romance - love - happiness – marriage”. Of course, there is a category of young women who wants to study, make a career, and be successful. But the majority of them have this heterosexist stereotypical background of women’s happiness. They certainly want to get married. But marriage is not a panacea; it does not solve the problem of women’s personal liberty. Feminists are usually seen as losers, who did not marry. But do get married is the only women’s fate? They can create, think, and implement their ideas in all professional aspects.

VT: That is to say feminists are not going to marry at all?

OL: It depends on their sensible choice. But for feminist it is not the only and the first decision of women's fate. On the contrary, it is a free decision.

VT: In the West feminists have fought and are fighting now for equality in politics. Is it relevant for us?

OL: Where the politics is working properly, the participation of women is very important. If a year ago I said that we need the interest quota for women in government but now I'm not sure. Politics is now not desirable to participate. And still there are a lot of stereotypes. For example, it is believed that women are not in agreement - recently Khakamada came out and said that the problem is that women don’t vote for each other. It's a stereotype. Except the period when the girls compete with each other for boys, when the romantic period ends and real life begins, women have much more solidarity than men. My experience tells me so. Khakamada not a woman in the sense that she does not have women's agenda, she does not defend women's interests.

VT: What now stands on the women's agenda?

OL: The main problem for women in Russia is social safeguards. Women in all cultures and countries are responsible for the social sector and in our country especially. If we take the state budget, in Russia it is clearly male, because a huge amount of money goes to defense industry, big business. The areas under women’s responsibility are completely neglected. These are education, healthcare, and culture. At least in the mass the main culture consumers are women and children. And these areas are totally neglected.

VT: But are men completely powerless to solve these problems?

OL: When our lawmakers are beginning to discuss the falling birth rate, demographic problems in the country, they come to completely unexpected solutions, for example, as Zhirinovsky proposed, to establish polygyny, or to impose a tax on childlessness. That’s ridiculous! No one comes to mind that they just have to increase the mother’s maintenance. In Russia at least 30% of mothers are raising children alone - among them are divorced, single mothers, etc. Child benefits are ridiculous. My daughter gave birth and raises a child alone; she gets 600-700 rubles a month. This is barely enough for 2 weeks on diapers. Legislators do not think that the budget should be distributed differently. I think that 30-40% of women (even not feminists) in Parliament could affect the budget and distribute it in another way.

VT: Is it really so unbearable to live side by side with a man?

OL: One of the main problems of Russian women is that there are no real men no more. I would suggest living without them, but the majority cannot do it. So, we have a huge number of drinking men and a handful of handsome princes that is rich gangsters, who have been married many times. The field of favorable husbands is trampled. The majority of Russian men are alcoholics; they are helpless, dependent on women, and useless in the household. I do not mean the traditional division – he hammers the nails, she washes the dishes. It would be nice. But even those who hammer the nails are almost gone. That is why we get a strong gender imbalance – women can do everything, men – nothing. For some reason women hold them. Woman must realize that she shouldn’t hold him; she has to look at herself in the mirror or at her friends and see how independent and self-sufficient she is.