Learning, Performance, Fatigue and Regret: Tales of Motherhood on Russian Social Media in the 2010s–2020s

Olga Isupova

Europe-Asia Studies, 2024, vol. 76, issue 2, 247-264

Abstract: The essay examines changes in the conceptualisation and practice of motherhood in Russia from the 1990s up to the 2020s. From the 1990s, a mother’s obligations towards a child rose sharply in comparison to the Soviet era. Motherhood has become individualised and isolating, while expectations of maternal work have intensified. In the relatively affluent 2000s, a Western model of ‘intensive mothering’ became popular among women who could afford not to work, but this dropped out of favour in the more straitened 2010s, as women were forced to return to work. However, by this point, right-wing ideologists were promoting ‘traditional values’, according to which women’s role was primarily caring for others. This research demonstrates, drawing on a special interest motherhood group, #Shchastyematerinstva, on the Russian social media website VKontakte, that motherhood is now, for many Russian women, a heavy and unwelcome burden.

Date: 2024
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/09668136.2023.2267808 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:ceasxx:v:76:y:2024:i:2:p:247-264

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/ceas20

DOI: 10.1080/09668136.2023.2267808

Access Statistics for this article

Europe-Asia Studies is currently edited by Terry Cox

More articles in Europe-Asia Studies from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().