Childbearing and Work-Family Balance among Contemporary Russian Women

There are contrasting views on how gender equality affects fertility in contemporary European societies. This article discusses the Russian situation by asking how tensions in the contemporary gender system relate to reproductive decision-making and identity. How do gendered practices and identities influence womens intentions to have children?In depth interview data gathered during the last decade is used to analyze how the two main gender contracts of the professional women and the working mother relate to family planning, child birth, pregnancies, and mothering. Results indicate that while Russian women experience increasing pressure of the double burden and few signs of increasing gender equality in domestic life, the stable identity of Russian mothering contributes to the birth of at least one child. Childbearing does not depend directly on gender roles and division of labor in households. The decision to have a child and care for small children continues to be womens responsibility even as fertility patterns have modernized and gender equality in couple relations is slightly increasing. However, the type of gender contract influences the process of negotiation concerning reproductive matters and the timing of childbirth

Who Helps the Degraded Housewife?

This article analyses the new demographic programme that was announced by the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, in 2006. The main goal of this programme is to encourage fertility, especially the birth of a second child. New benefits should elevate the status of wome taking maternity leave, who might otherwise suffer from discrimination in the family. The housewife is considered to be dependent and `degraded'. We argue that this demographic politics recalls continuity with soviet gender politics centred on the support of wage-earning working mothers. The programme provokes different critiques. Liberal critics argue that the programme is a populist one and it may have undesired economic and social consequences. Conservative critics want to encourage more traditional `woman' and `family' roles in society. Feminist critics argue that this politcs would reinforce both the inferior position of women on the labour market and gender imbalances on the symbolic level

Что такое «маскулинность»? Понятийные отмычки критических исследований мужчин и маскулинностей

Данная статья рассказывает о ключевых категориях, которые определяют поле критических исследований мужчин и маскулинности (Critical Men’s Studies), широко применяются в гендерных исследованиях в целом и даже проникают в публичный дискурс. Мы рассматриваем центральный концепт данной области знания — «гегемонная маскулинность» — и его использование для анализа иерархии «субординированных» и «маргинализированных» маскулинностей. Мы также анализируем такие дискурсивные конструкты-дериваты «гегемонной маскулинности», как «кризис маскулинности» и метафора «разгневанных белых мужчин». В итоге данные понятийные отмычки позволяют нам осмыслить интерсекциональный поворот в современных гендерных исследованиях, суть которого так трудно бывает объяснить широкой общественности

Multiple Vulnerabilities in Medical Settings: Invisible Suffering of Doctors

While there is a substantive amount of literature on vulnerability of different kinds of patients in different settings, medical professionals are usually considered as the ones who possess power and gain a privileged position. In this paper, we aim to demonstrate that in a certain context physicians—a social group which is usually referred to as “powerful”—consider themselves vulnerable, and this positioning may influence patients in turn. This perspective highlights the complexity of interactions within medical organizations and contributes to the studies of sensitive topics and vulnerable groups. We conceptualize vulnerability of doctors and discuss what can be problematic in powerful doctors’ position. We describe some features of the post-Soviet context of Russian healthcare system and maternity care, both of which can be conceptualized as a hybrid of legacy of Soviet paternalism and new neoliberal reforms, managerialism and marketization. Empirical research is based on the ethnographic evidence from the study of a Russian perinatal center. In this article, we explore specific “existential” and “moral” vulnerabilities of medical professionals who routinely have to cope with multiple challenges, such as complicated clinical tasks, rigid control of different state bodies and emotional responses of suffering patients. We argue that there is a bond between the vulnerability of doctors and that of patients, whose position becomes more problematic as professionals become more vulnerable. At the end, we discuss methodological and theoretical implications of our research

Forum The humanities and social sciences and Covid-19:pros and cons

For the past two years, research groups and universities have been exposed to the novel and unpredictable conditions of life during the viral pandemic, and to the constantly shifting restrictions on normal academic activities that have accompanied it. In particular, personal contacts—between teachers and students and between colleagues—have to a large extent been difficult or impossible. For some, the social restrictions have been a disaster, while others have found them to be an insignificant nuisance, or even welcome. Participants of the “forum” discuss how the pandemic has affected their own (work) situation and the situation at their home institution, whether the enforced (self-)isolation has created any new types of working practices or social relations that are desirable to persist in the future, and whether the humanities and social sciences have evolved any new research questions and topics that directly derive from the pandemic, the social restrictions associated with it, and efforts to fight its effects