Men in Contemporary Russia

The Fallen Heroes of Post-Soviet Change?

Rebecca Kay

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN:
  9780754644859
• eBook ISBN:
  9781351918220
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Gender Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

Rebecca Kay assesses how men in post-Soviet Russia are represented through media and popular discourses. Using case studies she explores the challenges which have arisen for men since 1991 and the ways in which their responses are shaped by and viewed through the prism of widely accepted attitudes towards gender. The lives and concerns of men in provincial Russia are examined through ethnographic fieldwork, combining extensive participant observation with in-depth interviews. The book reveals how individual men strive to maintain a sense of equilibrium between the activities in which they are engaged and the ways in which they are perceived, both by others and by themselves. The findings of the research have produced significant areas of contrast and comparison with the author's earlier work on women. This is drawn out throughout the book, placing the study of Russian men in a broader gendered context. The issues raised by the men mirror concerns discussed in men's studies literature and popular discourse beyond Russia. The book is therefore of interest to a wider international audience as well as contributing to ongoing interdisciplinary debates, in Russian Studies, Anthropology, Sociology and Human Geography, addressing the need for new approaches to understanding post-Socialist change.

Chapter 1

Heroes or villains?: ‘Being a man’ in contemporary Russia

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, essentialist understandings of gender and rigid divisions of male and female roles, characteristics and skills have been widely discussed and frequently overtly promoted in the Russian media and in the rhetoric and behaviour of a range of public figures (Sperling 1999: 73–80; Kay 2000: 26–33). Trends which began in the late 1970s were given free reign by the demise of communist ideology and the removal of a need to pay even lip service to notions of gender equality in the early 1990s. Many of the debates which began to gain authority in the late Soviet period have been rekindled with a new gusto in post-Soviet Russia, and appear, outwardly at least, to favour men, as examined in more detail below. Yet media discourses which support rather stereotypical views of male and female capabilities and characteristics do not necessarily imply that representations of what it means to ‘be a man’ in post-Soviet Russia are universally positive. Indeed, men have been strongly criticized in much media debate and where positive images of men are presented, these may, nonetheless, be constraining rather than liberating. This chapter will look in more detail at the ways in which men have been represented in popular media discourses and at how these media images were reflected and responded to in men’s experiences of and comments on life in post-Soviet Russia. This research has focused particularly on those representations which are likely to reach men in provincial areas of Russia. Many of the new glossy magazines and fashionable ‘men’s press’ publications now available in the capital cities are not on sale in Russia’s smaller towns or provincial cities. The media sources discussed here, therefore, are primarily those aimed specifically at a provincial audience, such as the monthly magazine Sel’skaia nov’, or local newspapers and publications collected in Barnaul and Kaluga Region during fieldwork for this study.

During the final decades of Soviet rule, gender differences came increasingly to be viewed as biologically determined. Psychologists, educational specialists and sociologists began to insist that men’s ‘natural’ position and ‘historical role’ was that of ‘the strong sex’ and to express concern that male superiority had been undermined by women’s emancipation (Khripkova and Kolesov 1979: 35; Kharchev 1979: 209, 222). Over time such opinions came increasingly to be reflected in Soviet media and public discourses and appeared to find considerable resonance in public opinion and widespread social attitudes to gender (Bagrazyan 1984; Zhukovitsky 1984). The ‘emasculation’ of men, their loss of responsibility and power within the family, it was claimed, led directly to high levels of male alcoholism, poor physical and psychological health, apathy and indifference to their wives and children (Proshina 1987; Tarkhova 1986). As a result some authors called for a reduction in men’s participation in domestic chores whilst others blamed women and their ‘mistaken understandings’ of emancipation for the ‘emasculation’ of their husbands and sons (Bagrazyan 1984; ‘“Sil’nyi muzh”, …’ 1977). Yet implicit in such discussions was also a characterization of Soviet Russian men as weak, incapable, prone to drunkenness and irresponsibility, and unable to reverse this situation of their own accord. Zdravomyslova and Temkina describe the development of Soviet discourses surrounding concerns about Soviet men’s health and mortality in the Brezhnev period. They explain that the strategies and solutions put forward ignored men’s agency almost entirely, focusing instead either on state intervention or female responsibility:

The second group of recommendations for improving men’s rate of survival … was meant to take place within the family and personal relationships, without the direct involvement of the state. The key responsible agents of this strategy were women, who were called upon to act in unison with the state, in order to combat men’s degeneration. These discourses asserted that it was women’s social duty to save men and to guard against their bad habits. Since alcoholism, poor diet and a lack of physical exercise were regarded as bad habits, the “instructors” addressed their advice to “loving partners” and “good housewives”.

(Zdravomyslova and Temkina 2003: 438)

In the post-Soviet 1990s, warnings about the potential problems of women’s emancipation were much amplified and it was no longer ‘mistaken understandings’ which were deemed at fault, but the very concepts of emancipation and equality. A stream of press articles, television shows and radio broadcasts pressed home the message that Soviet ‘over-emancipation’ had been a ‘cruel experiment’ and a ‘perversion’ which had blighted the lives of Russian women, as well as damaging men and undermining proper relations between the sexes (Bogomolov 1992). The Soviet system and the authoritarian state, both now ready targets for long suppressed criticism, were blamed for ‘poisoning men’, leaving them devoid of energy or initiative, authority or responsibility and as such incapable of playing an active or positive role in the new Russia (Krylova 1994). A cure frequently prescribed for this unmanly weakness and ineffectuality was for men to reclaim their roles as breadwinner and head of the family via a vigorous engagement with new economic opportunities in the public sphere; a move which would be supported by women’s retreat to the private sphere of home and family (Kuznetsova 2002). ‘Nature’ was repeatedly called upon as the supreme authority in determining the correct division of male and female roles and responsibilities, and men and women were increasingly described as ‘opposites’, ‘representatives of the strong sex’ and ‘of the weak sex’ respectively. Men’s superior physical and mental strength, their traditional roles as protector and provider were held up in contrast to women’s innate propensity for tenderness, care and nurturing and their ‘natural destiny’ as mothers and keepers of the family hearth (Martiniuk 1994). Such monodimensional characterizations of both men and women were called upon as justification for a ‘natural’ division of labour which seemed designed to push Russian women back to the home or into a highly sexualized and exploitative informal economy, whilst men were left to dominate new forms of economic and political power (Posadskaya 1994: 4; Buckley 1997b: 5).

With the Russian state relinquishing its control over economic life as well as its paternalistic provision for citizens’ welfare, it seemed that the way was being cleared for men to reclaim those roles which the Soviet system was alleged to have usurped:

If in the past the state provided children with a substitute father in terms of providing for their material needs (free health care, preventative medicine, education – the cost of all this was way beyond the modest means of the father), then now, when the state has decided to relinquish this mission, it is the parents who will have to pay for everything. And as a rule this means the father first and foremost.

(Almazov and Iushkevichko 1993)

The implication here that the primary role of a father is to provide for his children in material terms, leaving the more emotional and domestic sides of family life to his wife, was repeated in various guises in media discourses of the early 1990s. Moreover, the assumption was frequently made, despite widespread evidence to the contrary, that in Russia’s new economic environment there would be ample opportunity for the vast majority of men to expand their previously modest means and therefore to fulfil the role of sole breadwinner adequately. Yet as optimistic projections of a rose-tinted future for ultra-feminine home-makers and super-masculine breadwinners proved to be extremely far from the realities experienced by many Russian families, a number of far more negative appraisals of men’s ‘nature’ and abilities also began to emerge in the post-Soviet media and public opinion.

The beast within: Male nature as dangerous, unrestrained and prone to excess

Paradoxically, the essentialist discourses which divide spheres of activity, character attributes, intuitive and intellectual skills into opposites of ‘male’ and ‘female’, whilst on the one hand demanding strength of character, decisiveness and high rates of productive activity from men, on the other hand often present an extremely negative picture of men’s essential ‘nature’. Indeed, it is men’s inherent weakness, their lack of self-discipline and selfish taste for excess which are frequently described as both preventing men from fulfilling their proper roles and forcing women into spheres of activity for which they are not suited:

The problem is not that women like to slave away from morning until night instead of giving birth to children. The problem is that it is hard for a woman to survive without a career. Blokes [muzhiki]¹ are weak; there is not much point in relying on them. They don’t know how to earn money themselves and anyway they can’t wait to run off with someone else. So our women have to be able to survive on their own.

(Kuznetsova 2002)

Men’s moral weakness, unreliability and irresponsibility are key themes which permeate many media discussions of the state of Russian men and are seen as the root cause of various other negative ‘male’ traits such as a propensity for heavy drinking, aggression, infidelity or impotence (Saushkina 2002).

Nonetheless, there is a fine line between behaviour and characteristics for which men are censured and those which are expected as a ‘natural’, or even a ‘necessary’, part of ‘true’ manhood and masculinity. In articles discussing sex, for example, extremely high rates of virility and demonstrations of sexual prowess are frequently described as the markers of a ‘real man’. Indeed some articles clearly suggest that anything less than an extraordinarily high sex drive in a man may indicate a problem demanding treatment, either physical or psychological (‘Kto luchshii liubovnik?’ 2000; Fedoskin 2002). On the other hand, assumptions that all men are prone to constant and uncontrollable sexual urges lead readily to the conclusion that husbands and lovers are likely to stray at any given opportunity. Articles bemoaning male infidelity frequently offer advice to women on this basis (‘Kak vybrat’ vernogo …’ 2002; Kosheleva 2002).

Figure 1.1 Smoking and drinking are frequently marketed as ‘manly’ pursuits. Here ‘Muzhik’ (bloke) cigarettes are advertised with the slogan: ‘It’s just a man thing.’

A similar juxtaposition is noticeable in discussions of men’s heavy drinking, aggressive behaviour and even violence. The link between alcohol and violent crime is noted in numerous articles (Chernova 2002; Nikitina 2002), in particular the literally explosive mix of men drinking whilst in possession of firearms (Shesternina 2001). Other articles comment on alcohol as a frequent accompaniment to domestic violence (Georgiev 2001; Tret’iakova 2001), as playing a role in infidelity and marital breakdown (Lukaneva 2002) and as a cause of male poor health, industrial and road accidents, and premature death (Kalinin 2002a; Kuzin 2003). Yet, in spite of this apparently acute awareness of the negative consequences of excessive alcohol consumption, Russian culture remains permeated with the notion of an automatic and almost inalienable link between men and strong spirits. At social occasions where both men and women are present it is a man’s role to open bottles, serve alcohol and make the majority of the numerous toasts which accompany drinking. Observations during fieldwork showed that even recovering alcoholics, men who are known to be struggling to control a drink problem, or who wish to refrain from drinking because they are driving are nevertheless often expected to fulfil these roles, whether or not they take a drink themselves.

Figure 1.2 Young men drink in a public square at 11 o’clock on a weekday morning

However, simply serving others and not drinking oneself may also be problematic. A pleasure in heavy drinking and an ability to consume large quantities of strong spirits continue to be described as defining features of masculinity, and of Russian masculinity in particular, and men may come under considerable social pressure to drink, even against their own better judgement, both from other men and from women. Indeed, some of the men involved in this study described having developed specific strategies for avoiding alcohol consumption whilst still retaining a sense of male pride intact. One respondent explained that he had found the best way to resist an invitation to drink with people he had not met previously was to pretend to be a recovering alcoholic. If he claimed to have taken one of the many cures currently advertised in Russia which produce either an aversion to alcohol or a strong risk of harmful side effects when mixed with spirits, then even the most determined revellers would usually give up. ‘It’s like a national illness,’ he said. ‘You have to say that you have taken a cure. It’s the best excuse because then they will understand that you’ve drunk your fill in your time.’ Yet within the circle of family or close acquaintances, such pretence is clearly not an option and the expectation that all men, whatever their history and current situation regarding alcohol consumption, will fulfil certain cultural roles relating to the serving and consumption of alcohol is extremely persistent.

The ubiquity of such assumptions is clear in various references to men and alcohol found in the Russian press. In spite of the dire warnings about and physical evidence of the dangers of combining drink and firearms, an article on hunting contains the following exchange between the journalist and a young huntsman she is interviewing. He has explained that drinking during a hunt is foolish and leads to, sometimes fatal, accidents: ‘Basically vodka and hunting don’t mix.’ The journalist responds with amazement: ‘How can this be, in all male company? And hunting too?’ In other words when men get together, and particularly if it is to participate in particularly ‘manly’ pursuits, alcohol consumption is de rigueur (Aleksandrova 2002). An article entitled ‘A “drunk” test for real men’, perhaps ironically placed under a column heading ‘Don’t drink!’, in fact conveys quite the opposite message. Readers are invited to choose one of three answers to a list of questions relating to drinking and discover whether they are abstemious, someone who drinks in reasonable quantities, or an alcoholic. The final descriptions make clear that a ‘real man’ is neither alcoholic nor teetotal but someone who likes a drink and can hold his alcohol. The alcoholic is dismissed as pathetic and unable to hold a sensible conversation, keep a job, or remain in control of his life in any way. The nondrinker is described as shy, unsure of himself and unable to have a drink with a woman. He is advised to ‘learn to relax, and with the help of vodka too’. Meanwhile the drinking man, whose answers included ‘I have a drink, before I get into a fight’, ‘I get a woman drunk so that I can sleep with her’, and ‘If I see someone lying in the street blind drunk I would say, “Get up Vas’ia we haven’t finished drinking yet”’, is described in glowing terms:

You have a generous spirit and a strong stomach. You like having friends and you quickly become a part of any social group. You aren’t averse to having a good time and know how to get on with women. You’ve got a great sense of humour. Vodka puts you in a good mood. We could say that you are a happy and lucky person and that you will certainly show this test to your friends.

(‘“P’ianyi” test …’ 2002)

Such representations of ‘real’ manhood feed into the notion that men are dominated by hedonistic desires and that responsibility, reliability and morality are not necessarily their natural preserves. By contrast women are frequently referred to as the ‘better half of humanity’ and it is claimed that their innate nurturing instincts and a heightened sense of morality prompt them to take responsibility for the well-being of others even to the detriment of themselves:

A real woman is reliable and kind. She possesses qualities which are only characteristic of a real woman: beauty of the soul, patience, generosity, she knows how to make others happy and how to be happy herself, she knows how to be sympathetic to others.

(Volkova and Muzychenko 1993)

Such assumptions may well be rejected by some women as presumptuous and as the basis for hypocritical double standards. A woman interviewed in 1996 as part of a previous research project² explained the different attitudes towards male and female behaviour with deeply felt sarcasm:

Women are seen as creatures who have a duty to take a certain moral stance. Always! It is quite simply their duty to bear this in mind. A man of course is also expected to in general. But he is like a naughty child. He can, well, a man is just a little child. Whilst a woman, well she has to take sacred account of motherhood. She has to bear children!

If women are defined by their actual or potential role as parents in these gender discourses, men are defined as adult-children and portrayed as naturally selfish, unrefined and unthinking, and in need of women’s guidance and support.

In some ways these discourses appear to reverse interpretations of biologically determined gender difference which in the past were used, not only in Russia, to place women legally as well as socially on a par with children. This was justified on the basis of women’s irrationality, intuitiveness and vulnerability in order to limit them to private sphere activities and dependence on men, denying them adult rights and power. Men, meanwhile, were viewed as adults, with a monopoly on reason and logic and therefore an innate right to dominate the public sphere and with it political and economic power (Corrin 1999: 21). Whilst no such restriction of men’s public rights is suggested by contemporary Russian discourses, there are certainly implications for the ways in which men are viewed both in public and in private, which may play themselves out particularly poignantly within personal relationships and in the family. These issues are discussed in more detail in Chapters 5 and 6.

Wasters and scoundrels: Representations of men as ‘failures’

Generalized references to male strength and female weakness have become commonplace in mainstream discourses of gender in the post-Soviet Russian media. Yet, more detailed discussions of the ways in which men and women have responded to post-Soviet socio-economic change frequently turn such definitions on their head. Indeed, ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Dedication
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of Figures
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction: Studying men in Russia: Historical perspectives and international contexts
• 1 Heroes or villains?: ‘Being a man’ in contemporary Russia
• Part I: Men in the Public Sphere
• Part II: Men in the Private Sphere
• Conclusions: New perspectives on men in contemporary Russia
• Appendix: Respondents’ socio-demographic data
• Bibliography
• Index