17 12 2000
Larissa Lissjutkina:
feminizm, ogurzy i dissidenty
Hello to everybody from Frechen!
The closer the end, the bigger the amount of questions that one has to
think about,
come to understand, answer to, make more precise, object to.
Probably after the 20th of Dec. we all will be missing something, will
become bored.
At the beginning, I was afraid that Andrea and Jana might end up with empty
hands relying on
five Russian women, scattered in the space from Hongkong to Frechen.
That evening, when we were sitting at Andrea's, I even carefully asked why
they were complicating their
life so much with this discussion.
Only to think about what they were taking upon themselves:
to come to an understanding with everybody, to coordinate everything, to
translate everything into two
languages, to decode cyrillic, to send everything, to answer...
The diplome is a serious thing, is it worth risking so much, when one
could write it so nicely as all normal people,
with literature, particularly since there is no lack of it.
But now I see that it is much more interesting like this.
Jana and Andrea will have new, "fresh", unique material, and they gave us
our aquaintance, contacts, and an intellectual "adventure".
For that I thank them very much.
At this point one could - with a delay - move on to the topic of
independence and responsibility, which was so sharply and emotionally
introduced
in the letter by Irina Aktuganova, but I would like to begin with an even
earlier letter by Jana,
where she has described her environment:
"i don't have a tv-set or a car, my
toilet is outdoors, and i heat with coals. ...
is this some strange leftover niche in eastern berlin? ...
don't we always
- and especially in the cyberspace - talk from niche to niche?"
Dear Jana, of course we are always and by definition talking "from
niche to niche".
Contacts and communication always are taking place in the frame of
concrete groups, circles, discourses.
And even the virtual space - with all its anonymity and (unadressiertheit
"bezadresatnost'") -
is not without limits at all.
Limits are set by the availability or lack of a computer, a modem, by the
knowledge of foreign languages,
techniques and technologies, by the infrastructure of the space.
When I looked up some tables on TELEPHONIZATION comparing different
countries of the world in some directory by the UN,
I could have exclaimed together with Irina Aktuganova: "What the hell,
what feminism?"
What cyberfeminism?
Regarding the quantity of telephone numbers per person of the population,
Russia
is rating very nearly after Pakistan.
Participation in the internet is a priviledge.
So, yes, it is a niche, but that is normal.
This cyberspace niche reminds me very much of another one, from the past
not too long ago.
In the generation of my contemporaries a niche emerged from/with those,
who went to the underground,
who spent their lives in boiler-rooms, in elevators or in porter chambers,
reading Nietzsche, Foucault, Castaneda or Conquest.
These people also made up a virtual space for themselves, only that they
didn't reach it by modem but - in general - by the help of a bottle of
vodka.
This was a niche for the chosen ones, this was the spiritual way, this was
the elite, and within of this elite was its own hierarchy.
Cyberfeminism, as Irina Aktuganova is describing it, is similar to the
underground of the dissidents.
Only, the vector of this new cyber-niche is not pointing downwards (to the
underground) but upwards - to the satellite antennas, the
retransmitters, and other celestial instruments.
Top and bottom have changed their positions, in full harmony with the laws
of the carnival culture.
If we would go on with this analogy, cyberfeminism would have to win, but
their founding-mothers would share the sad fate of the Soviet dissidents,
who have become the most useless and forgotten people in the post-soviet
space after the victory of their "hopeless affair".
Is the Russian niche of cyberfeminism similar to the Western one?
I don't know.
Probably even in the West this niche is not as large compared to the
women's movement and feminism as a whole, and therefore this is elitist.
Western cyberfeminists have their own discourse, their own strategies,
their own language.
(A question to Irina Aristarkhova: Where could I read the "Manifest for
Cyborg", which you were so interestingly refering to in your letter? Is it
in the internet?)
In all letters descriptions and definitions of Russian space and its
comparison (or counterposing) with Western space have accumulated.
And although Irina Aristarkhova is standing up against the temptation to
enter the slippery ground of comparing "classical feminism" and "our
special Russian soul", it seems to me that we haven't avoided it, and
being this the case, even I am slipping on this "bad" ground, fully
sharing the conviction of Ira that it is not "remarkable" at all.
But this is nevertheless part of our topic.
When Jana describes her space (niche) of living, she is stressing
those things that are contradictory to the standard modernized Western
living image and is rather inscribing herself into the not so highly
modernized context of Eastern European, including Russian, live.
Dear Jana, in my opinion these elements which you were mentioning - no
car, toilet outdoors, coal oven - are very bright but not systemic.
In other words, they are not relevant, they do not define anything in the
system, neither in Germany nor in Russia.
It seems to me that relevant is something else, e.g. that what Valentina
is saying about herself at the end of her letter.
Valya herself (52), her mother (77), her daughter (30), and her grandchild
(11) are living together - 4 generations.
This is absolutely normal in Russia.
Grown-up children cannot live on their own, because there is no space for
living, and elder people cannot live alone, because there are no social services.
And, in my opinion, here is the borderline between a modernized and
traditional type of society, mentality, responsibility, initiative etc.
The socialisation of new generations is taking place in the family that is
blocking any innovations.
Who of Jana's and Andrea's contemporaries (in Russia) has the same experience of
independent live, of searching one's own way, of experiments?
And can Jana and Andrea imagine that until today they would live with mom
and dad, with grandma and grandpa, with brothers and sisters?
After all reforms in Russian society the same social agents have been
produced, whose type has already been composed in Stalins Soviet Union.
With rage and despair V. Sorokin and V. Pelevion are writing about this in
their novels.
And Ira Aktuganova, who, in the words of the other Ira (Aristarkhova), is
not only writing but also fighting for that more women would have access
to the internet, thinks that we need some more 200 years of work for
transforming the psychology.
Women facing first problems are getting blurred eyes and they are asking
whether they could come back with their husbands or sons the next day, as
they in their female dullness
anyway never would understand how to use a computer.
But five years ago, when I was trying to undergo technical inspection for
my Zhiguli-car, the male world at the technical checkpoint was definitely
ignoring me.
They sidestepped me, when it was my turn, as if I would be an empty space.
To all my notices there just was one short answer:
"There's nothing to do for you here, let your husband or son come, who
know all about."
So I was forced to give up - I had to get some half-drunken pal at the
metro station, to get through the technical inspection.
When in society such a "Taliban" cultural code is working, there is no
chance for women to act differently than the way Irina Aktuganova is
describing.
But I would not say that they are parasites in principle.
They are ready to work, not to rest their hands, but in the frames of
traditional gender division.
If the cult of food, the feeding of the family, the preparation of three
meals, conservation, pickling, shopping, supplying etc. wouldn't stand in
the center of the Russian life of women, women could move mountains in
their spare time.
But the cultural code is such that the center of home is the lunch table, and around
it all female "Polovecki" dances (circle dances; baba) are taking place.
There are no economical necessities in this.
It is only tradition.
In Russia, in the contrary to the West, it is not accepted to eat on the
way, in the metro, on the streets.
This is regarded as "uncultural", probably right.
But it is women who are the ones paying for the famous Russian feast,
so beloved and cherished by foreign guests.
Ten years ago, when I wrote that Western feminism is too
politicized, I had in mind that such a cultural code would be hard to
change by legislative acts.
Another mechanism must begin operating, which will change the settings of
society and women themselves.
Will a modernization of the mass consciousness of women in Russia take
place thanks to the internet - probably rather not.
Although the computer is a remarkable thing and possesses
a huge potential of modernization and emancipation.
Well, now I have also drawn a sad picture.
Even sadder than Irina Aktuganova's, since I cannot imagine a "spiritual
female way for the chosen".
The only thing I can imagine so far is the everlasting russian situation
where a little group of people is reading intelligent books, talking
intelligent talks, suffering for the fate of the country, sitting in jail,
drinking vodka and calling themselves the "consciousness of the nation".
And everybody is agreeing with that.
In the 60's-80's these were the male dissidents, and women were peripheric -
faithful friends, "women-decabrists", ready to type the manuscripts for their
heroes, to follow them to Siberia, to give away their lives for them.
We could try to "genderly" turn this situation upside down and give the
main role to the chosen women (e.g. in the settings of cyberfeminism).
Now let them accomplish their spiritual deed.
If after all this, all the other women will finally stop twisting the top off jars with
pickle then I vote for it.
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