Janet Elise Johnson

Twenty-First-Century Feminisms under Repression: Gender Regime Change and the Women’s Crisis Center Movement in Russia

This article charts the ideology and mobilization of the women’s crisis center movement—the most recognizable example of postcommunist feminist activism until 2011—over the first decade of the twenty-first century as Russia moved toward consolidation and authoritarianism. We draw on our experience in and observation of this movement, a 2008 photoethnography project, and a nationwide survey of crisis centers conducted in 2008–9. By the end of Vladimir Putin’s first presidency, we find that Russia’s semiauthoritarianism was infused with a new masculinism, leaving less room for self-identified feminisms and for feminisms that include critique of male roles. The crisis centers as a phenomenon were etaticized and domesticated: they no longer resembled an autonomous movement, and much of the feminism had been lost. Yet even staff at state agencies frame their work in the language of women’s rights, a shift from their earlier tendency to assert that women provoke the violence against them. Previous studies of feminism under authoritarianism suggest that feminism is often driven underground, both in terms of activities and the way activists can frame their claims. Our study suggests that in the growing number of semiauthoritarian states such as Russia, feminism may go inside the state, a tribute to the transnational women’s activism of the last three decades. However, such insider feminism often has much more moderate claims and comes at the expense of autonomous feminism.

Pussy Riot as a feminist project: Russia's gendered informal politics

This article considers Pussy Riot as a feminist project, placing their actions and the regimes reactions in the context of three post-9/11 developments in gender and sexuality politics in Russia. First, I assert that Pussy Riots stunts are a logical reaction to the Kremlins masculinity-based nation-rebuilding scheme, which was a cover for crude homophobic misogyny. Second, Pussy Riot is part of the informal feminism emerging in Russia, a response to nongovernmental organization (NGO) feminism and the regimes repression of NGO feminism, albeit likely to be outflanked by regime-supported thuggery. Third, the members of Pussy Riot were so harshly prosecuted because they – swearing, covered up and disloyal – violated the political cleaner role that the Kremlin has given women in the last few years. Feminist social scientists have long looked for politics outside of formal institutions and processes. The Pussy Riot affair makes clear how much gender is central to the informal politics that gender-blind observers of Russia have come to see as crucial to understanding Russias regime.

Fast-Tracked or Boxed In? Informal Politics, Gender, and Women’s Representation in Putin’s Russia

Why hasn’t the marked increase in women in politics over the last half century led to the expected results of increased gender equality and more democracy? In order to propose a new answer to this question, which is central for both theoretical and empirical feminist political science, I look at the case of Putin’s Russia as one of the authoritarian-leaning regimes that have promoted women into politics while simultaneously becoming more misogynist. Building on feminist institutionalism and the study of Russia’s regime dynamics, both of which are extending the study of informal institutions, I claim that women are being fast-tracked into politics informally, not just formally such as by party or legislative quotas. Yet these women are then boxed in by informal rules and by parallel institutions and posts, with virtually no opportunities to advocate for women’s interests. Putin’s regime has promoted women to be “stand ins” during times of crisis or change, “loyalists” and “showgirls” when the regime needs to showcase elections and representation, and “cleaners” when the appearance of corruption threatens the regime. Even demonstrations of ultimate loyalty have not protected those women who once advocated for feminist policies. This exercise in concept building suggests a framework for thinking about the importance and operation of informal institutions, sustained by gendered and homophobic rules, as a bulwark of male dominance that undermines women’s representation. There are also important policy implications, as advocates have been pushing for more women in politics to address a variety of ills that, my analysis suggests, will not be solved by numbers alone.

Women’s Representation: How Bait-and-Switch Male Dominance Promotes, but Then Boxes In Women in Politics

This chapter explains how the influx of women into politics around the world is part of the twenty-first-century bait and switch. Women in Iceland and Russia have been fast-tracked, both formally and informally, but these women are recruited based on what Raewyn Connell has called emphasized femininity. They are then boxed in by informal rules related to their gender and into formal policymaking bodies at the same time that policymaking has been informalized. As a result, while both countries now have more women in parliament than ever before, power is more male dominated.

Gender Equality: How Bait-and-Switch Male Dominance Undermines Gender Equality Policymaking

This chapter examines how bait-and-switch male dominance undermines gender equality policymaking through the examination of the most prominent issue in both countries, domestic violence. Johnson argues that informal politics confounds each of the policy stages used within feminist policy studies, illustrated through the comparison of Russia and Iceland. The chapter shows how issue framing is often accomplished through style-switching (the modulation of language for different audiences and contexts) and “speaking in code” (encrypting the problem within language about other problems), and getting policy adopted and implemented requires informal rule changes. Evaluating policy is muddled by the politics of statistics, in which both sides manipulate their data, and feminists, boxed in as they are, can be more successful using “secret handshakes” with elites than formal channels.

Conclusion: A Feminist Theory of Corruption

The final chapter summarizes the book’s argument about twenty-first-century bait-and-switch male dominance. This includes why and how this new form of male dominance came about and the effect that it has on women (and other feminists) in politics, feminist mobilization, and gender equality policymaking. Johnson draws out the implications for political science, showing how taking informal politics seriously extends the study of feminist political economy, women’s representation, feminist and women’s movements, and policymaking. The final section considers some practical suggestions for promoting equality.

Feminist Mobilization: How Bait-and-Switch Male Dominance Undermines Feminism and How Feminists Fight Back

Johnson uses the book’s blueprint of the interplay between formal and informal politics to show how professionalized NGOs and deradicalized “gender talk” represent the bait and switch of feminist mobilization in the neoliberal era. Comparing feminist mobilization in Russia and Iceland, this chapter shows how activists at first took the bait, leading to similar limitations as on women in politics. However, feminists have become increasingly aware of how they too have been boxed in, with Russia’s Pussy Riot and similar activism in Iceland constituting a new stage of guerilla feminism which directly takes on the twenty-first-century form of male dominance.

Introduction: Informal Politics and the Gender Equality Paradox

Johnson synthesizes the current state of feminist political science as pointing to a worldwide gender equality paradox, a bait and switch in which gender equality is promised but not realized. Drawing together feminist institutionalism and the study of post-Soviet regime dynamics, the chapter argues that, just as women have broken into formal politics, power has been informalized. In other words, power has shifted to informal institutions, enforced through unwritten rules by male-dominated informal elite networks. This chapter lays out a blueprint for collecting data on and analyzing such gendered informal politics and then applies it to a most different systems comparison of Russia and Iceland from the 1990s through 2016.

Liberalization: How Economic Reforms Consolidated a Bait-and-Switch Male Dominance

Examining the processes of economic liberalization in Russia and Iceland, Johnson explains how the bait-and-switch male dominance came about. In both countries, liberalization in the 1990s created a wheeling-and-dealing economy in which male-dominated elites rewarded those inside their networks with spoils of money and power. This chapter shows how hegemonic masculinity (the masculine ideal for elites) and homosociality (same-sex bonds between men) were essential to the process, even as the formal institutions offered opportunities for women elites. The 2008–2010 global economic crisis, which at first seemed like a critical juncture testing this neoliberal male dominance, especially in Iceland, has consolidated the bait and switch.