EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION

by Nadezhda Azhgikhina

In Russia the first holiday of the spring is March 8. Many of my countrymen and women have long since forgotten that it began many years ago as the day of international solidarity among women workers, and was celebrated by street parades and demonstrations demanding equal pay for equal work, humane working conditions, and political rights. The very word "workers" gradually disappeared from greetings cards and the celebratory texts and speeches of our men leaders. We all got used to having yet another day off, a holiday different from others in its significant place on the calendar and in the invariable "mimosa-snowdrops-carnations" and the compliments of our colleagues at work, and the diligent cleaning and cooking by the lucky men at home before the arrival of guests to celebrate Women's Day. The discussions begun at the start of Perestroika -- do we really need this day? -- have faded and the holiday remains. We congratulate all our readers, women and men, on this day of working women's solidarity, and we wish them good things, inspiration and determination in carrying out their intentions. And remember that solidarity, now as many decades ago, is our hope and our pledge of success. Solidarity is the word that most precisely characterizes a lot of what has happened in the past two months. In mid-January l998 there took place the second international conference of "Women for a Life without War and Violence" (We wrote about their first conference in issue #l3 of our magazine.). More than 300 women and men, representatives of government and of NGOs from some 50 Russian regions and a dozen countries near and far, gathered to discuss one of today's most acute problems: building a post-conflict world. In this issue of the magazine we report on the conference. It named as "woman of the year" a Chechen nurse, Khadizhat Gataeva, who is raising 47 orphans from the city of Grozny, and the conference named "man of the year" a colonel in the medical service, Vladimir Shcherbakov, who is helping the "soldiers mothers" to identify the dead. The "woman and man of the year," chosen by the national movement "Women of Russia," then presented the nominations for "Life is Fate," "Life is Success" and "Region of Equal Opportunities." The winners were all celebrated in the hall of the Russian Chamber of Commerce and Industry. The Alliance of Russian and American Women named Irene Lesnevsky, director of the television channel REN-TV, as its "woman of the year." Similar recognitions have undoubtedly been given or will be in other regions and organizations, and we congratulate all winners of awards and the participants in these discussions. At last society has become aware that it consists not only of taxpayers and army conscripts, of the authorities and the masses, but of individual men and women. We also congratulate the winners of the electoral marathon, Marina Belozerova and Anna Solovieva, who became deputies to the legislative assembly of Sakha (Yakutia) -- they are activists of the women's movement and our friends. When our American editor Colette and I discussed what should be the major theme of this issue, we selected one that more than any other reflects the real situation of women and men in society -- gender research and gender studies in the USA (where both already have a 30 year history) and in Russia (where just the first steps, noticeable ones, are being taken). Discussion of this will continue in the magazine. Our second Russian-American theme is women's sports. This issue inaugurates a new section, "The Journal within a Journal" which will report on women in the regions of Russia and in neighboring countries. We start with Karelia and our guest editors for this segment are Natalia Krasavtseva and Larisa Boichenko. Finally, we take note of a recent event -- the publication in Russian of Simone de Beauvoir's Second Sex, which is a real gift for March 8th and for Svetlana Aivazova, the editor of this long-awaited edition, and for all of us. Congratulations.