THE LANGUAGE OF HOSTILITY

"Non-Stop Sexism? "

an interview by Alina Ilina with Olga Lipovskaya, the director of the St. Petersburg Center for Gender Issues

"A woman is friend to man -- but in third place, after dogs and horses," or so said Vladimir Volfovich Zhirinovsky, deputy to the State Duma. This idea is as old as the world itself -- you can hear the same kind of thing in the sayings and proverbs of the world's peoples, in the speeches of many Russian politicians and television talk-show hosts; you can read them in newspaper headlines and articles, and see them in ads on television and on the walls of subway stations.

Sexism is a word analogous to racism, used when discrimination is based not on a racial principle, but rather on the basis of belonging to a particular sex - namely, to the female sex. Like pornography, sexism can be harsh, mild, or traditional. One can recognize it, define it, or not even notice it - when telling jokes about wives and mothers-in-law, for instance.

The event "Non-Stop Sexism?" which was initiated by the St. Petersburg Center for Gender Issues (PCGI) and the Association of Women Journalists, took place in order to help people better understand this phenomenon, and to get a better sense of its depth and breadth.

The exhibition took place at the "Borei" gallery, bringing together advertising posters and videos, small and large exhibits, and postcards with quotations addressed to the exhibit's visitors. For the event, a clever maze was built, with two entrances - for women and men. And much more. That is how the first attempt to gather in one place and illustrate sexism in Russian culture looked.

The event was successful. It was relatively widely covered (although not always adequately) in the mass media. Many of the women's organizations across Russia's regions, upon hearing of the St. Petersburg event, began to consider whether they might repeat the experience at home, using their own materials. Below, we present for your perusal a few of the exhibits, and an interview with the ideologist behind the event, the director of the St. Petersburg Center for Gender Issues, Olga Lipovskaya.

--Olga, how did the idea for this event come about? --We, that is, my co-workers and I at our organization (PCGI), had long been discussing our dissatisfaction with the way women are portrayed in the press and in advertising. You know, the headlines in the newspapers on March 8th [International Women's Day - trans.], things like, "Russia is fortunate: we have oil, forests, and women." Or, like the journal "Ogonek" did, they put the theme of the issue on the cover as "Women and the law," but then they publish particularly tendentious portraits of Ekaterina Lakhova [a prominent woman leader -- trans Then, at the start of 2002, one activist came over from the "League of Women Voters" -- a St. Petersburg organization -- who proposed that we do some kind of exhibition. At that point we understood that it wasn't only we who were concerned about these issues, and we decided to do the project. For two months, we discussed how best to do it, and where to get the resources, but the main thing was that we were all so excited about the idea. So, that's how it came off, totally successfully, despite the short time period and minimal resources . It's always like that, when there's a really worthy idea.

--What did you want to show to the public and to journalists? How would you formulate the main point of the event?

--We wanted to show the public that people don't notice the degree to which women are degraded, not just by ads, or in the press or on TV, say, but also in our culture - in jokes, in fairy tales, in proverbs - at the primordial level. That, as with city-dwellers in a polluted city, we sometimes don't notice all the pollution we're breathing in. It's the same for any woman or man who doesn't see how unreal, how degrading, the images of women are that the mass media propagates. To journalists, we wanted to say (somewhat provocatively) that they are only pretending to some kind of status as the "fourth estate," and to have some objectivity in transmitting information -- they are just as much hostages to primitive everyday consciousness, and just as dependent on the "first estate" -- they don't have any sort of independent beliefs or positions.

Therefore, the main point of this event - of this one, because we are hoping to continue further with this, influencing people's minds drop by drop, as it were - is to show that the constant repetition and proliferation of this primitive, outdated, non-politically-correct view of women as an object, as a second-class creature, doesn't bring any honor to the journalists or the representatives of our culture, or to the thinking public. Believe me, it's already an anachronism; within the next ten to twenty years, it's not going to work any more. We are giving people a chance to think a little independently, to imagine that an era is approaching where liberal values of equality and autonomy of the individual will rise to the top. And one doesn't want to be behind the trend.

--Describe the basic components of the exhibit - why did they attract you in particular?

--The main part of the event was the exhibition, which included not only advertising posters, and photographs from "Playboy," but also television ads, some particularly primitive sexist television shows, a recording of quotes from the press, against a multimedia display of various naked young women, and several exhibits of objects from everyday life. For instance, the central figure was a pen stand in the shape of a nearly naked young woman on all fours. The stand was up on a high podium, scattered with rose petals. It's hard for me to imagine the consumer that would put that kind of kitch on their own table. However, if they're selling them in stores, then there must be some men who would buy it (women wouldn't exactly covet such 'beauty').

However, the event included a provocative moment. We chose several candidates for the position of "Russia's Number One Sexist." The candidates were largely from television, but Mr. Mitrofanov - a deputy to the State Duma from the LDPR [Zhirinovsky's party - trans.] also made it onto the list. During the opening of the exhibit, the names of the candidates (and what they did to earn nomination) were read by two young men with naked torsos, dressed like Playboy bunnies - with white rabbit ears and tails. A random visitor chose one of the four envelopes, completely anonymously. Dmitri Nagiev was the winner, for the program, "Window," where he, in a most vulgar manner, holds forth with sentiments like, "A (male) dog can't mount a bitch who's not interested." [This is a metaphorical way to justify rape, basically saying that a woman who accuses a man of rape was "asking for it" and was not an unwilling partner. - Trans.] (This brings up the whole separate topic of the cultural level of our television hosts.) The winner, by the way, got a prize, which was presented and prepared by the same young men - a blow-up doll from a sex shop, named Samantha, accessible to our hero from all angles. We thought that for a sexist, this would be an ideal girlfriend - she's silent, she doesn't ask for food, and she's always ready to satisfy the primitive needs of her master. Mr. Nagiev will receive it as a present in the near future, along with a diploma and a congratulatory note in the mail.

All these exhibits played a provocative role - to concentrate in one place all these sexist products, in order to make people look around themselves and think about what surrounds them, to think about how women are represented, and maybe, for the very thoughtful among them, to wonder why this goes on.

--Did the public understand the concept?

--You know, what made me happiest of all was that for two days in the gallery, there were no fewer than 500 visitors, and there were no fewer than 20 journalists at the opening. It's a special gallery; it's relatively small; usually there are aesthetic exhibits and events, and these numbers -- for that gallery - were totally respectable. The poster played a large attention-getting role, with its relatively striking design; it's possible that people responded to the word "sex" within the word "sexism" -- but that was also part of the provocative nature of the event. But, judging from the reactions people wrote in the exhibit guest book, where no less than 20 people, including men, signed up as feminists, and that more than a few people made themselves think about and respond to the mysterious questions about sexism that we posed to them, and won t-shirts with the exhibit logo on them, we can consider that the event achieved its goals. I was particularly happy that there were young women there, for whom nothing needed explanation. Just as an example, take this statement made by one 19-year old student (this isn't a direct quote, but you get the idea), who said, "If men liked bald, shapeless, unfeminine women, then many women would try to look like that." That's the problem.

--Is there any hope that people will learn something from this? Will journalists reject sexist clichés?

--In general, we weren't trying to educate anyone. As I said, journalists are conditioned by their everyday consciousness, their dependence on that consciousness, and on all the powers that they serve. We wanted to draw the public's attention -- and journalists' attention, as part of the public -- to the problem of women's and men's inequality in the realm of culture, the mass media, and consciousness. That is, to make people "sit on a thorn" -- to put them in an unusual, unexpected place. To shock them in some way.

I believe that with time, even journalists and politicians will stop spouting this senseless crap about women, once they've thought about this issue. In general, I think that all civic organizations are working to try and compel the public, including journalists and politicians (the most thoughtful class) to think about issues - whether it's ecology, social welfare, education, human rights, or discrimination against women.

--Are you satisfied with the results of the event? What's next?

--As I already said, the event was fully successful, especially for me, tired as I am, after ten years of struggling and getting only small results. The event raised quite a bit of noise in the mass media (the "Komsomolskaya Pravda" newspaper wrote some typical vulgarity, but the "St. Petersburg News" wrote a normal text). People came and asked questions, argued, objected, and agreed. That is, they noticed. And that's what we did on very small resources -- with the aid of the Association of Women Journalists, and in a very short time -- we really only had ten days to prepare.

As for the future, I'm sure that we need to continue this work, maybe developing the concept and changing the format, that is, make it an event that happens more than once, that travels; something that's loud and interesting. Given the enthusiasm of those who worked to make the project happen, including the volunteers, this event is destined for success. It's a vast field for experimentation and imagination. I think that people are simply tired of the uniform messages they get from the media and from politicians. But we showed them something original.

--Why is sexism dangerous to us?

--Sexism is the debasement of women in our culture, in advertising, and in our consciousness. This means that we -- practically all of us -- agree, consciously or unconsciously, with the idea that women are not as good as men. This is analogous to racism, only here, the woman takes the place of the Negro [sic].

Sexism is dangerous to us (including to men) because as soon as we agree that someone is not as good as us, we risk being "not as good" as someone else, who thinks themselves "better" - for example, being Jewish, Palestinian, from the Caucasus, Russian, an invalid, a red-head, short-legged, or bald. I hope the concept is clear.

--What punishment would you propose for sexists?

--Why punish them, in particular? Instead, we propose to award them -- only the ones who truly stand out -- a blow up doll, with the corresponding holes. They don't need anything else.

--What would the ideal relationship between feminists and the media look like in the future? Do you have any examples?

--Life has shown me that there is no such thing as an ideal relationship. Even among people who truly love each other. So, I can only hope that female journalists would be more sensitive, more often honest, and less dependent on whatever they may be dependent on. But that's a dream, because the journalistic profession, being extremely interesting, risky, and avant-guard, is still largely dictated by the market. And you know what kind of "market" we have.

However, there are no rules without exceptions, no daily lives without dreams. For instance, the fact that the Association of Women Journalists came to us for help at the most critical moment and helped us put on the event -- this is an example of unusual behavior and thinking, in a typically more conservative (from my perspective) milieu. This means that there is always hope. This means that there are and will always be people with atypical thinking, who are concerned not only with their own pockets and stomachs. However, there are not very many such people. Homo sapiens, as they say.