ABSTRACT
Women's activism in Russia has undergone dramatic transformation since the collapse of the Soviet regime in 1991. Russia's twentieth-century history would seem at first glance to be conducive to strong feminist activism and gender equality in society. Soviet women were extremely well educated relative to Soviet men, and women's presence in higher education increased steadily throughout the Soviet period. Women's economic inequality in Russia occurs in multiple arenas: hiring discrimination, occupational segregation, and a significant gender wage gap. Women in post-Communist Russia have generally lost representation in political institutions compared to the Soviet period, when quotas for women existed at various legislative levels. Activists' linkages with Western donor organizations as explored in the discussion of violence against women reveal some general patterns in transnational funding for Russian women's activism. Transnational linkages— through both funding and networking— have also been widely criticized for their tendency to strengthen the elitist nature of the Russian feminist movement.
