Posted on March 8, 2012 - by Venik
This year let’s celebrate … women taking on the government | Natalia Antonova
International Women’s Day: From TV celebrities to journalists, many Russian women have taken up brave political causes
What have Russian women achieved this year? A few stories immediately jump to mind. Olga Romanova, for instance, the journalist wife of businessman Alexei Kozlov, has started an entire movement dedicated to prisoners’ rights.
Kozlov was jailed in 2008, and although his conviction was overturned, the Moscow city court system is busy trying to imprison him again, for fear of losing face – nobody wants to admit that there are Moscow judges who take bribes in exchange for convicting people who become “inconvenient” for their business partners. Romanova continues fighting on – only on behalf of her husband, but on behalf of thousands of victims of Russia’s Kafka-esque court system.
Also, TV personality and child of privilege Ksenia Sobchak publicly took a stand against the government this year, too. Sobchak’s case is interesting, because Vladimir Putin is a friend of her family. Some have criticised Sobchak as a vile traitor, others as a little girl who’s playing at being a revolutionary – but through her interviews a bold, contradictory, and deeply intelligent woman shines through.
Sobchak’s new political talk show, Gosdep (referencing the Russian shorthand for the US Department of State, which has been accused by loyalists of trying to stage a revolution in Russia), was recently canned by MTV – but may be reborn on the popular Snob.ru portal, which is owned by billionaire former presidential candidate Mikhail Prokhorov.
is someone you may not have heard of: an economist and author who has gone public about living with multiple sclerosis. Her new book, a short memoir about her illness, was published in Znamya magazine last year to wide acclaim. Reading it, I was immediately struck by the fact that Yasina’s husband abandoned her shortly after she was diagnosed at the age of 35 – and struck by how she struggled to rediscover her femininity as the illness “killed the woman inside [her]“.
Yasina recently wrote in Forbes Russia: “There is a simple choice to be made: either you lie there, turned towards the wall, and lament, or you try to live out the days you are fated to live out, and do so with dignity.” Perhaps this is good advice for all of us – people with disabilities and the able-bodied alike.
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