russia Through the Eyes of Feminists: Repression, Militarization, and Control Over Women

The Feminist Anti-War Resistance (FAR), one of the most prominent opposition movements in the rf, produces annual reports on women’s rights amid repression and militarization. Researchers and activists within the movement report a catastrophic regression of russian society into the past. Over the years of russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, women’s reproductive rights and basic freedoms have become a veritable “second front” for the kremlin regime, where the authorities are attempting to revive the worst practices of the stalinist era.

According to FAR participants, russian authorities have established total control over women’s bodies, attempting to compensate for military losses and cultivate a new, disenfranchised workforce. The country has effectively imposed a ban on publicly identifying as “childfree” – women face huge fines for any conversation about not wanting children or even for candid posts on social media about difficult childbirth or postpartum depression. Moreover, the ministry of healthcare of the rf has introduced mandatory surveys even for teenagers: if a girl indicates that she does not currently want children, she is sent for “corrective” counseling with a psychologist. In the regions, payments are being introduced for pregnant schoolgirls to force them to give birth, despite the fact that 74% of russia’s society itself opposes teenage motherhood.

The situation regarding abortion in russia is becoming increasingly threatening and criminalized with each passing year. There have already been documented cases of women being prosecuted for terminating their pregnancies. The kremlin is attempting to completely erase any information about safe abortion from the internet, replacing it with propaganda from religious and psychological services that pressure women. The authorities openly imply to women that their sole “great purpose” is to drop everything and give birth to 5–10 children.

In parallel, the war has triggered an unprecedented surge in violence within russia itself. The number of reports of domestic violence has increased by more than half, a trend fueled by the decriminalization of these crimes, which the church is actively lobbying for in russia. Additionally, the number of victims of aggressive “veterans” returning from the front lines is rapidly increasing.

The increasing militarization of education is also drawing criticism. Representatives of the FAS report an increase in propaganda in schools, a decrease in attention to human rights in curricula, and an expansion of the role of military-patriotic education. In their view, russian authorities are shaping a generation that is becoming accustomed to war as the norm, while alternative views are gradually being pushed out of the public sphere.

According to FAS activists, modern russia has become reminiscent of the late ussr, with a climate of total fear of denunciation, where any success or stance taken by a woman provokes envy and complaints to law enforcement agencies. russian women are forced to live in two worlds – hiding their true thoughts and conforming to the absurd demands of the dictatorship just to survive in a state that strips them of their right to their own bodies and futures.