nlloyd
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Russian women historically have a very different reputation to Western women, so sexism was never in fact such a big issue in Russia because Russian women have always been looked at as work horses and the men were mostly useless/drunk.
Another way to gauge sexism is to look at women who hold public office. What is the ratio of women to men in the Russian parliament? Is this statistic from Wikipedia, admittedly uncited, correct of the 1990s and is it still the case in 2016: "Prior to the 1995 elections, women held about 10 percent of the seats in parliament: fifty-seven of 450 seats in the State Duma and nine of 178 seats in the upper house of parliament, the Federation Council"?
Just because Russian women have a reputation as "work horses" does not preclude sexism. After all, there are many patriarchal cultures worldwide where the work has fallen to women while positions of influence have been dominated by men. This is true of traditional African culture, for example, where women did most of the agricultural work, but had little say in formal governance structures. Sexism comes in many forms. Even the glorification of women ("a Russian woman can stop a galloping horse and enter a burning hut") can be, and often is, sexist. It is similar to the romanticization and valorization of the "east" that Edwards Said described as "orientalism." Glorifying any group in unqualified terms is sexist/racist and often facilitates their oppression in other arenas.
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