 Mixed signals: what Putin says about gender equalityJanet Elise Johnson, Alexandra Novitskaya, Valerie Sperling and Lisa McIntosh Sundstrom Post-Soviet Affairs, 2021, vol. 37, issue 6, 507-525 Abstract: The prevailing wisdom among scholars of gender in Russia is that Vladimir Putin – as Russia’s “strongman” president – has become an agent of traditionalism. Some political scientists, often without a gendered lens, have argued that Putin is not so powerful, compelled to deploy various tactics and ideologies to balance competing interests among elites and retain support from the general public. We systematically analyze Putin’s statements about gender in two decades of his annual speeches (1999–2020) to better understand how Putin rules. Coding Putin’s remarks on a spectrum from promoting to opposing gender equality, we find that there has been no shift toward an explicit traditionalism, but rather, an expansion of the gender-stereotypical/Soviet views that have dominated Putin’s pronouncements all along. We argue that Putin’s diverse remarks across the spectrum of gender (in)equality constitute an important part of his efforts to balance diverse elite interests and enlist mass support. Date: 2021 Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:rpsaxx:v:37:y:2021:i:6:p:507-525 Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from DOI: 10.1080/1060586X.2021.1971927 Access Statistics for this article Post-Soviet Affairs is currently edited by Timothy Frye More articles in Post-Soviet Affairs from Taylor & Francis Journals |
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