Why was it necessary to isolate women’s rights as a special category of human rights? Originally, on the one hand, all of the legal standards and norms were formed as universal; yet, on the other hand, as selective and directed exclusively towards wealthy white men. These norms ignored and left out low-income people, representatives of other races, women and children, as inferior citizens. The history of development of justice can be viewed as a history of gradual inclusion of these originally excluded social groups under the law. Women had to spend almost three centuries to be able to attain the status of citizens with full rights; for this they had to fight social prejudice and limitations and use a wide variety of means and methods, including methods of collective actions within women’s movements. This struggle was one of the most important factors for democratization of social systems and transition from the traditional society to the modern, lawful society.

What is the connection between the issues of women’s rights and gender equality and the theme of modernization and democratization of society?

In short, when describing various models of social interactions between women and men, researchers isolate two principally different types of gender relationships. One of them is characteristic of the so-called traditional society, while another – of the contemporary, or modernist, society.

In the traditional society, the main feature of these relationships is the hierarchy of the genders: the man acts as the subject of the authoritative relationship, while the woman as the object of his power. Such relationships are defined as “subject – object” relationships and imply inequality of the status of their participants. They rest on the male power and violence. At the same time, the authority of the male power and the right of power, typical of the traditional way of life, turns into the foundation for all authoritarian regimes known to the humankind – powers of clan leaders, “people’s fathers”, monarchs and dictators. And while gender inequality remains, there potentially remains a possibility of, or predisposition to extension of the length of the authoritarian power in the social systems.

Such authoritarian power does not use only the mechanisms of physical pressure and brute violence to rely upon. It also resorts to methods of ideological indoctrination of human minds, with the help of language, cultural models, establishment of strict norms for acceptable social behavior, methods of socialization and upbringing. Thus it rests on very strong foundations. Yet, nonetheless, under the influence of gigantic social cataclysms, including the bourgeois revolutions – revolutions of law and justice, industrial and cultural revolutions that have been taking place in the last three hundred years, - this strong system of gender relationships turns out to be controversial. To replace it, gradually a new gender system begins to form, based on the principle of equality of the genders.

The transition to the new systems, in fact, implies reconsideration of the whole entirety of power relationships. Any ruler – be it a monarch, boss, master or husband – is “uncrowned”: he ceases to be and, equally important, ceases to feel himself the master of the subordinates who, under the traditional way of life, belong to him with their bodies and souls.

This all-powerful master must turn into a mere implementer of a number of certain functions under the radically different system of labor division which implies managing specific processes rather than possession of another person. His interaction with subordinates turns into coordinated distribution of duties between various, but equal individuals. These two changes – change in the nature of power and its distribution, in other words, redistribution of authority between various branches of power, between the state and civil society, between men and women, are, in fact, the essence of the democratic reorganization of society and its modernization. Today, gender equality is viewed as an indispensable condition for successful functioning of democracy.

Within these democratic changes, women won themselves three groups of rights: political, socio-economic and reproductive rights, all of which could allow them to depend upon having the social status compared to that of men in all basic parameters.

As a result of this struggle, economic position of women strengthened, and they began their impetuous breakthrough in the sphere of politics.

The most developed world democracies, such as Canada, Iceland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Finland, in the last thirty years have observed completion of the so-called “quiet women’s revolution”. In these countries, women took up almost half of the posts in all power structures. Most importantly, they changed the content of state policies. Their main priorities now are issues related to everyday human life – such as healthcare, education, retirement benefits etc. It is these areas that absorb most of the state budget funds.

Having studied this experience, the UN came to the conclusion that only parity-based participation of men and women in the state power structures can guarantee balanced political, social and economic decision-making, thus ensuring sustainable development of any country.

What is happening in the modern Russia from this point of view?

Russia’s moving in the direction of building a modern democracy implied, in principle, that women, just like men, must be granted the whole set of human rights not only legally, but in practice as well. In particular, women’s organizations were advocates for this idea. Thanks to their efforts, the text of the Russian Constitution adopted in 1993 included the gender equality norm. It is stated in Article 19 (part 3) which, remarkably, is part of the general section on “Human Rights”. The norm is expressed as follows: “Men and women shall have equal rights and freedoms and equal opportunities for their realization”.

Russia’s participation in a whole range of international agreements initiated by the United Nations, International Labor Organization etc., has committed the Russian state to paying special attention to the issue of providing for gender equality.

Have these legal acts been able to solve the issue of gender inequality in Russia? No, not yet. When describing the system of gender relationship in the country that have been formed over these years, sociologists often use the term “gender asymmetry”, or inequality of social positions of women and men. How is this asymmetry expressed specifically?

Almost all negative social phenomena of the everyday life in Russia over the last decades – such as unemployment, poverty and illnesses – have a female face. Women’s unemployment level is most remarkable in this sense. From the beginning of the reforms until today, with various fluctuations, women have comprised two-thirds of the officially registered unemployed. As a rule, employers prefer to dismiss women, but to hire men. That is why it takes unemployed women to look for a new job longer. Gender discrimination also manifests itself in the fact that professional and career status of women is lower than that of men, virtually in all spheres of economic and social life. Despite the fact that women are much more educated than men – there are 64% of employed women and only 47% of employed men who have higher and secondary education – women primarily are engaged at jobs that do not require high qualification level. The number of women among managers of companies and organizations is very insignificant: overall, it does not exceed 6 to 9% in various spheres of economy. Thus, there is a glaring gap in the level of wages of men and women, and the consequent gap in the level of retirement benefits. Thus, there is feminization of poverty taking place in our country. In accordance with official statistics, in Russia, an average salary of women is two thirds of that of men. In a whole range of spheres the gap is even wider and reaches 40 – 50%. Salaries of budget-funded jobs remain unjustifiably low, especially those of social sphere employees – working in areas of healthcare, education, and social welfare. Among them, women also prevail. It is significant that women prevail among those engaged in small businesses, but there are almost no women among large business people, not to mention the so-called “oligarchs”.

The inequality of opportunities for women and men is especially evident in the area of governing the state and in politics. Among the current state government of Russia there are no women. There are no women among heads of the republics, mayors of the largest cities, or governors. The only exception is Valentina Matvienko, the governor of Saint-Petersburg.

Among the deputies of the lower house of the Parliament, the State Duma, there are 9.8% of women. Among the deputies of the legislative assemblies of the subjects of the Russian Federation there are 9% of women. At the same time, women made up over 40% of the deputies working in the bodies of local governments.

There are no women among leaders of the largest political parties that have their factions in the parliament and have substantial influence over the country’s policies. Moreover, in their activities, in particular, when preparing deputy ballots for federal and regional parliamentary elections, the political parties systematically break the constitutional principle of equal opportunities of women and men, and create insurmountable barriers for women on their way to the legislative and executive authorities. Let me give you one concrete example. In the electoral campaign of 2003, in the federal ballots of the leading parties, such as United Russia, the Communist Party, the Liberal Democratic Party, Rodina (Motherland), Yabloko (Apple) and the Union of Right Forces, there were only about 10% of female candidates. Specifically, United Russia had 8%, the Communist Party – 11%, the Liberal Democratic Party – 8%, Rodina (Motherland) – 8%, the Union of Right Forces – 11%, and Yabloko (Apple) – 15%.

Among those for whom these parties were competing in the single member constituencies, there were also about 10% of women. In other words, all of the political unions participating in the parliamentary elections provided unequal opportunities for women and men in terms of access to the world of politics. That is why the Russian legislative authorities clearly have a male profile. Overall, Russia holds the 80th place in the world in terms of the number of women represented in the parliament.

What is the outcome of this? The gender imbalance in the power structures tells negatively on the everyday life of Russian women. It may be maintained that the whole set of economic laws adopted by the Russian parliament (tax, customs, credit and monetary legislation) objectively contributes to preservation and aggravation of the gender inequality, because it is aimed at creation of more favorable conditions for the “male” sectors of the economy, rather than for the “female” ones. The state budget’s funding for the defense structures, with prevailing male employment, grows regularly, while the level of funding for the social sphere, with prevailing female employment, either stays the same or shrinks.

On the other hand, marginalization of women in politics brings about inertia and conservatism in the political behavior of female constituencies. And this is natural. Since for the majority of women politics remain an area that is absolutely alien to them and very far from their life strategies, it is not surprising that their behavior should turn out to be dictated by lower political engagement and higher disposition towards conformity in political behavior, compared to men. In other words, women tend to look up to the value system of “others”; to elect based on affective rather than rational motives, and to vote for status rather than a concrete personality. At the same time, firstly, women outnumber men in the overall population; secondly, they are characterized by higher levels of electoral activity compared to men. It means that they have a much more significant influence on the outcome of elections than men do. Let me however once again emphasize that this is the influence of the marginalized constituency that is far from politics and hence prone to persuasion from charismatic leaders and populists of all kinds and all ensuing consequences.

That is why gender inequality in the area of politics is one of the most significant barriers blocking the way of democratic transformation in Russia. However, the very existence of such a barrier has not yet been identified as an issue either by the scientific or political communities. The gender asymmetry in the area of politics, when brought to attention, is explained in a good old way: it is allegedly in line with the traditional popular perceptions about male and female roles distribution. Popular perceptions about the role of women, however, have long changed. Based on numerous popular opinion surveys, almost two-thirds of respondents are aware of inequality of opportunities for men and women in politics. Over 50% of respondents believe that women and men should be equally represented in the power structures. It means that our compatriots are potentially prepared to approve a democratic gender order in Russia.

Nonetheless, neither political parties nor representatives of state authorities have been considering these opinions, and currently they are acting in a totally opposite way. It is significant that within the administrative reform and state office reduction processes in the spring of 2004, the Committee on Position of Women, as well as the Department for Affairs of Children, Women and Family, working under the now dissolved Ministry of Labor and Social Development, should have been liquidated. Those were the only state structures in some way responsible for the state of affairs in the area of rights equality.

The current political elites, especially their organized part – the political parties and unions, as well as their leaders, - are not inclined to change the existing rules of the game either. This is proved, for example, by unanimous voting of both the party in power and the opposition’s representatives against amendments to the law “On Elections of the State Duma of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation” which provided for observance of the gender equality norm when putting together ballots of candidates for deputies.

What are the implications? One of them is aggravation of social problems. Unsolved issues in the area of women’s rights stand behind the most acute of these problems, such as the demographic crisis, homeless and neglected children, and even the high level of early male death rates. Faced with systematic violation of their rights, women who have not yet learned to protect them in the court or through social activity, i.e. with legal means, resort to the methods available to them: they refuse to have and bring up children. And if this situation is not changed, the state will be unable to solve the issues of orphanhood or declining demography. Nor will it be able to solve the issues of modernization and democratization of the country. Indeed, modernization is not so much economic, as it is a humanistic problem. Reforms should help our citizens – both men and women – to have an opportunity to gain experience of civil responsibility. Until now, this has not yet happened.

Gender asymmetry still determines both the structure of priorities for the Russian state and the character of state decision-making process. From this point of view, Russia remains a traditionalistic country, where the right of power – male power – still far outweighs the right of the law.