Gender Violence in Russia: The Politics of Feminist Intervention

3. The Women’s Crisis Center Movement: Funding and De-funding Feminism

CHAP T ER T HR EE The Women’s Crisis Center Movement: Funding and De-funding Feminism E ven as the new Russia was inhospitable to global feminism, liberalization and then the collapse of the Soviet regime opened Russia to a variety of global interventions designed to foster women’s mobilization, the first objective of global feminism. Some feminist foreigners and foreign women’s advocacy groups came at the invitation of local groups hoping to join already existing global campaigns; other activists invited themselves, but found locals who shared their interests. Transnational feminists in alliance with development agencies and large charitable foundations also secured for women’s mobilization some of the West’s optimistic infusion of financial assistance into the region. By 2002, some funding was even also coming from foreign and justice ministries, such as from the U.S. State Department Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons. Do these various interventions—transnational feminist networking, alliance with donors, and state preemption—foster feminist mobilization against gender violence? Do different types of intervention have different consequences? The analysis of these various interventions into women’s mobilization in the new Russia shows that, although transnational feminist networking can help establish and shape feminist mobilization, greater financial assistance is required to expand beyond a few organizations into a small social movement. What began as only a handful of organizations in prominent Russian cities in the early 1990s became , with monetary support, a small women’s crisis center movement, in 2004 The Women’s Crisis Center Movement 43 consisting of two hundred organizations engaged in a combination of service provision and advocacy. Yet, more invasive intervention—from antitrafficking initiatives undertaken by strong states—undermined feminist mobilization. The new millennium brought de-funding of many of the older and more feminist organizations , a relative windfall for the least feminist, and increased ill feeling between them. In terms of the global feminist goal of fostering mobilization, intervention is more effective when there is an alliance between feminists and donors rather than when the state preempts activists by accepting (some of) their ideas, but excludes them from the process. Foreign intervention justified by global feminist ideas works better when global feminists are actually involved in the process of assisting women’s mobilization. Global feminist involvement is much more likely to keep the focus on feminist mobilization and more likely to encourage global-local partnerships. At the same time, even at its best, global feminist intervention does not counter the forces pushing NGO-based mobilization rather than grassroots oppositional movements. the new feminist interventionism In Russia and beyond, the consensus on global feminism legitimated three new types of interventions to foster the mobilization of activists into groups and social movements working against gender violence: transnational feminist networking, the funding of women’s rights advocacy through feminist alliances with donors, and states’ preemption of global feminism in initiatives against trafficking. Transnational Feminist Networking The consensus among many feminists on the composite concept of violence against women signaled new opportunities, perhaps even an obligation, for feminists from the Global North and West to attend to women and women’s organizing in other places. They believed that “all women face gender violence,” albeit different forms, and the solidarity created by the new consensus, especially following on the heels of some bitter North-South disagreements, led many activists to believe that they ought to help out. Armed with the new norms of inclusivity (Weldon 2006), Northern transnational feminists imagined that they could now get involved without being patronizing. Instead of coming in as experts analyzing the local gender problems, they could help foster local women’s organizing, to promote the development of local gender expertise. These transnational feminists’ interests were also flamed by the fall of the Berlin Wall (Funk 2007). Eastern European women, while different from Western women, were less unfamiliar than women in many other places. Some Western feminists had genealogical ties to the region. Others whose feminism was grounded in Marxist critiques wanted to understand firsthand, without ideological blinders, what had been the actual experiences and daily life of women in 44 gender violence in russia state socialism. Many, including me, wanted to have a direct look at the world historical transformations underway, particularly from the position of women in that society (Funk 1993). The elimination of the once substantial obstacles to travel to the...