08 12 2000
Irina Aktuganova:
re: (Translation from Russian)
Long before I started working together with women's and, in this respect,
also with feminist organizations, I had the suspicion that the situation of
women in the Russian society is not as obvious as it seems for classical
feminism. Of course constructions exist (stereotypes, hierarchies and
similar), but above all these constructions are in our head and maybe even
in our own subconsciousness. It seems it was apostle Paul who said
"Everything is pure for the pure." (chistoe ?) In our case we might
interpret this sentence as the possibility to flee from the influence of
constructions by not carrying them in ourselves. Children don't know until a
specific age, what gender stereotypes and gender discrimination are.
Together they are playing daughters and mothers or war, and while playing
they adopt their functions by heart (po dushi) and not by order.
At
the same time a girl receiving mass education of all aspects - from
cultural to everyday -, a girl being educated by Russian literature, being
raised by grandmothers and mothers, is a product for which a whole life
would not be enough to squeeze the hurt slave out of oneself. When, after
having done all the necessary body movements to free herself from social
and inner family slavery, a Russian feminist finally will be alone with
herself, she will find herself again at the same point as at the beginning
of the way. But the purity of the situation (not of the object on which
one can repress everything pathological) will become a new pedagogical
condition for her. Being alone with her chimeras, she anew begins her
lonely struggle with herself. But that is a spiritual practice, which one
will not get for free. Actually, to sum up this chain of thoughts in a
simple equation, a truely consequent feminism in Russia would be the
spiritual female way. And, as any way our spirit is following, it is a way
for the chosen.In this sense, anyway more being concerned with humanities
than with the political and the social, there is not much sense to waste
time on the fight for rights, even more so as they all - the rights - are
settled in our Constitution for a long time. It would be of more sense to
stick closer to the essence of the problem - somewhere in the field of
cyber-feminism (although in Russia this word is incredibly idiotic).
Every woman (being a feminist or not) is above all unfree by herself.
(This actually also is refering to men.) And the older you get, the more
evident this will become for you. In our legislative power only 7% are
women.
Guilty of this are not the men, but women themselves, who
constitute a huge percentage of able electors - but they don't elect women.
Amongst the representatives of Petersburg's women's organisations, who
in 1999 were coming to our club to learn cyberfeminism, there was not one
who wholly understood the importance of such abilities, like working in the
internet, knowing how to turn on a computer, and the knowledge of editors.
By the slightest difficulty their eyes would blur, and they were asking
whether they could come back with their husbands or sons the next day, as
they in their female dullness anyway would never understand how to use a
computer. But those who understood the usefulness of the new technologies,
at once figured out that with the help of the internet one can submit a
marriage advertisment and maybe marry a wealthy husband, or even better a
husband from abroad, who would take care of all her problems from then on.
Or one can emigrate to Canada and live on social welfare. Hell, what a
feminism with such a psychology. Here we will have to work for another 200
years to change from a parasite in essence to at least a human being. I
would assume that nobody is discriminating women because of their
qualities, at least not in Russia. In Russia women traditionally are being
ascribed the most breathtaking qualities as courage, manlyness,
noblemindedness, self-sacrifying, wisdom, determination, avangardism etc.
And in extreme situations - and it is always extreme here - they
demonstrate these qualities if necessary. But they somehow suffer from
this. They don't want to. It is hard for them. It suppresses them.
They try to evade it at the first occasion. Responsibility is hard;
above all, responsibility. Let HIM be responsible. I can do everything,
but HE shall be responsible.
And the question of responsibility is a
religious one. Here we are approaching cyberfeminism (idiotic word),
because cyberfeminism is asking philosophical and existential questions.
And it is not cyber-, because cyberspace is inavoidable breaking into our
lives, but because we bore this space a long time, before it became a fact
and an attribute of our existence. It is cyber-, because already in the
80s some of us, who were tending to self-reflection, were feeling
themselves as "multytask cyborgs" (i.O. english). As multitasking and
self-teaching bio-robots, who were perceiving life very discreetly, and who
at every point of their existence were absolutely rationally realizing a
new "identity" (i.O. english). Actually, there are many reasons to put
the word cyber in front of feminism and not just to connect it with the
present moment.
At the moment cyberspace is just a medium. Although an influential one. And there is a lot of various information about women. In my opinion, this is not very interesting, although sometimes it is useful. In principle all these women's resources are not feminist at all, but social. And regarding all this, they don't have at all any relation to the subject of our conversation.
With great respect,
Irina Aktuganova.
next message
previous message
back to discussion list
home