Book Discussion: Post-Soviet Women: New Challenges and Ways to Empowerment, by eds. Ann-Mari Sätre, Yulia Gradskova and Vladislava Vladimirova

Session Submission Type: Book Discussion Roundtable

Brief Description

Post-Soviet Women explores how women in different post-Soviet countries have reinterpreted and diverged from the Soviet gender roles and values. It synthesizes results from multiple empirical studies that attend to increasingly conservative features of political governance in the region, including the authoritarian regime in Russia. The authors then consider diverse enactments of ideologies, policies and practices of gender equality and women’s rights in crucial areas, such as legislative institutions, media, and social activism. The countries under review include Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, Armenia and others. Part 1 of the anthology, The Position of Women in Post-Soviet Societies, concentrates on women’s roles in societal processes and analyses how women’s political agendas, women’s rights and attitudes to gender equality have developed since the Soviet time. In Part 2, Negotiating Women’s Roles, authors engage with competing attempts to reform women’s roles in society within different fields, from legislative institutions, quotas ensuring equal gender representation, to media and public culture, and nationalist organizations’ imaginaries. Part 3, Women’s Agency, New Movements and Activisms explores how activists perceive, resist and respond to transformations in politics, ideology, and practices affecting women’s lives. The book shows that political and economic reforms and nationalist ideologies produce different values, ideas and policies regulating women’s roles and positions in societies despite the background of “shared” Soviet history. The chapters explore how different post-Soviet countries have reinterpreted the gender values and patterns that emerged under Soviet policies and reclaimed, built upon, or diverged from them.

Sub Unit

• Gender/LGBTQ Studies

Chair

• Michele Rivkin-Fish, UNC at Chapel Hill

Roundtable Speakers

• Yulia Gradskova, Södertörn U (Sweden)

• Mara Lazda, CUNY Bronx Community College

• Ann-Mari Sätre, Uppsala U (Sweden)

• Vladislava Kirilova Vladimirova, Uppsala U (Sweden)