Are feminists next on Vladimir Putin’s list?

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Last week, the State Duma, Russia’s lower house of Parliament, drafted a law labeling feminism as “extremist.” The lawmaker who drafted the proposed law blamed feminists for the “destruction of traditional values” and accused them of being “simply agents of the West.”

Alena Popova, a 40-year-old opposition politician and women’s rights activist, sees the anti-feminism legislation as part of a continued crackdown on freedoms for the Russian people and a natural move by the country’s authoritarian — and patriarchal —regime.

An outspoken feminist, Popova had been working with those same lawmakers for years on an anti-domestic violence bill. In 2021, she ran for State Duma on a proposal to impose criminal penalties for domestic violence abusers in a country where domestic violence is an epidemic and feminism has a bad reputation. She lost the race, and the Duma went the other direction: In 2017, Russian lawmakers partially decriminalized domestic violence, reducing the punishment to an administrative, not criminal, offense. Last year, in an effort to silence her, the Russian government labeled Popova a “foreign agent.” She was forced to leave the country and is now a public policy fellow at the Wilson Center in Washington.

This week I spoke with her about what this draft bill means for Russian women, how Russian society views feminism and what this tells us about how the country is changing under Russian President Vladimir Putin. The transcript has been translated from Russian and edited for length and clarity.

Russia has already silenced journalists and and expanded anti-LGBT laws. Why is the government now coming for women?

It is not the government, exactly, but the whole political system that is afraid of women. This is easily explained. The worst thing for the system would be if women of different age groups would begin to cooperate, and act as a big, united force. There are a large number of feminists in the 35-50 year old age group. Our generation, the generation that saw the collapse of the Soviet Union and saw women creating their own capital with their own labor during perestroika — the system has always been afraid that this target group, which identifies itself as feminists, and are able to self-organize in social networks, will suddenly begin to somehow influence the opinion of women 55 plus or older.

You helped draft the first anti-domestic violence law in Russia in 2019, which was debated but never put to a vote. What surprised you about this new, anti-feminist bill?

Everything about it is in line with the same ideology as during the campaign against the law on domestic violence, exactly the same. They had three points back then: feminists are ruining a unique Russian way of life, all feminists are sponsored from the West and all feminists hate men. So nothing surprises me about this.

Do you think this law was introduced on Putin’s orders? Will it pass?

I don’t think this will become law because the State Duma does not want even more consolidation [of a women’s vote]. It is clear that the more something is prohibited, the more consolidation there is. I am sure that this idea was born somewhere within the presidential administration. They all communicate among each other. In Russia, nothing happens from the bottom up, it always happens strictly from the top down.

If it becomes law, what does this bill mean for women who are open about being feminists? Does this message make it easier to label women as “foreign agents”?

So many feminists are already labeled as foreign agents, so many feminist organizations are designated foreign agents. Even now you are talking to a foreign agent! Therefore, the state has no obstacles in this sense. But if this concept of extremism is expanded, then it becomes possible to more quickly initiate criminal prosecutions. We still have a Constitution, and the Constitution, even the amended one, says that men and women are equal. I understand that in Russia anything can happen, but the way the legislation itself is structured, this bill cannot pass.

The USSR was the first country to legalize abortion in 1920, maternity leave was established along with government subsidized child care, marital rape was made illegal. But today feminism holds a negative connotation in Russia. Why is that?

The 65-plus age group generally thinks positively about fighting for women’s rights because they remember how during the Soviet Union, women were an equal unit of labor. My grandmother was a bright Soviet feminist, a Soviet engineer. The term itself didn’t scare her or her peers at all. The word feminism has a negative connotation now among women 35-plus who are married or divorced, who are very tired of a bunch of responsibilities that are assigned to them, and clearly do not want to also fight for women’s independence on top of everything else. Very often they want to say they need someone to share their responsibilities, not have more.

What does this move say about Putin’s leadership and how Russia is changing more than 20 years after he became president?

In all dictatorships, the rights of women are infringed, because the dictatorship is built on a patriarchal person, a man, because in a patriarchal perception he transmits the power. That’s been the case for more than 23 years - almost half of my adult life and the only model they know for someone born in the early 2000s. Our population has a larger percentage of women than men, but in the entire legislative branch only 14 to 16 percent are women. The system has lowered women in status and it has not taken women seriously. The system is very afraid of women in the form of any active women’s association. And maybe this is one of the reasons why it is regularly emphasized that feminism is evil.

Do you expect to return to Russia?

I do not have a second citizenship, I’m not going to apply for political asylum anywhere. I have a red passport. I say that I am Russian. I am against the idea of collective guilt, but I believe that it is necessary to take personal responsibility. I want this land to belong to our society, and not to some obscurantist who wants to shoot nuclear warheads at neighboring countries. I really don’t want to give it up.

POLITICO Special Report

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“In a 42-page decision, a three-judge panel of the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals agreed to temporarily block the central aspect of a Texas-based federal judge’s ruling that suspended the FDA’s 2000 approval of the drug, mifepristone. But by a 2-1 vote, the panel permitted other aspects of that ruling to take effect that would block a seven-year effort by the FDA to widen access to the drug.”

“This Korean American Republican is trying to educate her party — in the U.S. and abroad,” by By Olivia Beavers and Nicholas Wu for POLITICO: “‘I consider myself really a bridge builder between our two countries,’ said [Rep. Young] Kim, 60, in an interview last week after the delegation toured the demilitarized zone between South Korea and its heavily armed neighbor to the north.

“Her bridge-building remains aspirational in many respects. With a Democrat in the White House, Kim is not an influential voice in shaping U.S. foreign and national security policy. But she has sought out opportunities to serve as a link between America’s Conservative Party and the right-wing government in Seoul.”

Number of the Week

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“New Biden rule seeks to protect women crossing state lines for abortions,” by Jarrett Renshaw and Ahmed Aboulenein for Reuters: “The proposal by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is aimed at protecting women living in states where abortion is illegal who travel out of state to have the procedure done — something thousands of women are already doing, research shows. The rule would also protect healthcare providers, insurers, or other entities which perform or pay for abortions.”

“North Dakota Bars Trans Girls and Women From Female Sports Teams,” by David W. Chen for the New York Times.

“Women are earning more money. But they’re still picking up a heavier load at home,” by Andrea Hsu for NPR: “Even as their contributions to family incomes have grown in recent years, women in opposite-sex marriages are still doing more housework and caregiving than men, a report from the Pew Research Center has found.

“Moreover, in 2023, a majority of people believe society still values men’s contributions at work more than their contributions at home, according to the report, which was based on three different national surveys.”

“How Janelle Jones’s Story About Black Women and the Economy Caught On,” by Lydia DePillis for the New York Times.

“Iran installs cameras to identify women breaking dress code,” by Zahid Mahmood and Fariba Sahraei for CNN.

“A California bill would create an alert system for missing Black women and youth,” by Jonathan Franklin for NPR.

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Transitions

Heather Wadyka is now a professional staff member on the House Education and Workforce Committee. She previously was a policy adviser for Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck. … Sara Beth Watson is now of counsel in Wiley Rein’s environment and product regulation group. She most recently was of counsel at Steptoe & Johnson LLP.

Sofia Rose Gross is now director of comms at Anduril Industries. She most recently was head of policy partnerships and social impact at Snapchat, and is currently a public affairs officer in the U.S. Navy Reserve.

Rebecca Pilar Buckwalter-Poza is now senior Aron justice counsel at the Alliance for Justice. She’s a lawyer, writer and activist who was the first named plaintiff in the lawsuit over Trump blocking people on Twitter. … Anna Stowe is now COO at Kaplan Hecker & Fink LLP. She most recently was executive director at the Federal Bar Council. (h/t Playbook)