by Galina Shchekina, member of the Union of Russian Writers and of the regional Women’s League, founder of the Arba feminist club for women, and correspondent with the magazine Meson Official data on gender statistics are very sparse. There is, for instance, a publication called Men and Women, which was first published in Vologda in 2000 with assistance from the Statistics Sweden, the Swedish Central Bureau of Statistics.

by Nina Kurasova, President of Rostov regional NGO "Athena Information Resource Center", Rostov-on-the Don The "Athena Information Resource Center " began in 1996 as a group of Rostov women (journalists, lawyers, psychologists), and in 1998, it became a legal entity.

Dear readers -- women and men, dear regular contributors, and harsh critics, and those of you who have stood by us all these years, and those just now getting to know us! It is our pleasure to present for your judgement this much-awaited issue. We did not expect it would be so long in coming, and we thank all of you who wrote and telephoned and sent new information to the editors, in spite of the unavoidable delay.

by Natalya Startseva and Nina Kurasova It was in the heat of battle over local elections in Rostov region that we spoke with a representative of one of the parties actively promoting its candidates. We spoke about a particular woman candidate, a successful entrepreneur, running for the post of head of government in the famous northern agricultural district that was home to the writer Mikhail Sholokhov [a Nobel Laureate].

This issue of the magazine is about something that each of us confronts over and over again – censorship. By now we well understand that censorship differs. Ten years ago, when ideological state censorship was abolished, it seemed to be a new era of freedom for expressing opinions and views. But rather quickly we understood that the power of money shapes another kind of dependence, including the self-censorship of authors and editors.

by Tatyana Fedyaeva, deputy to the representative assembly of the Tarussky district in Kaluga region, and deputy chair of the Association of Women- Journalists. I live in a small, provincial town. The number of people living in such towns in Russia supersedes that of the collective population of Russia's mega-cities. My town is located in a region of central Russia that is very typical on all indicators. Here, there are no ore deposits, no oil rigs. No diamonds.

The speaker of the Georgian parliament, Nino Anzorevna Burdzhanadze, was born on July 16, 1964. In 1986 she graduated from Tbilisi University in jurisprudence. In 1990 she completed graduate work in the department of international law at Moscow University and became a “Kandidat of Juridical Science.” She has been a member of the Georgian parliament since 1995.

by Jemma Asratyan, President of the Association of University Women, director of the the Yerevan Center for Gender Studies Back in the days of the first Armenian Republic of 1918-1920, and under the Soviets, women were accorded political rights equal to those enjoyed by Men. The quota system of the time, which took the form of party vouchers, ensured a place for women in elected bodies and somewhat reduced the gender asymmetry in society, but it was really just window-dressing.

Hello there, It's not often that I pick up a feminist magazine and I liked your last issue on politics. Reading about new approaches by women, I thought about my contemporaries for whom it is so hard to break through into the upper reaches of power. I look intently into the face of a neighbor from my entryway. He's thin, his face is gray, his jacket is worn. But see how many friends he has and they're all cackling with joy. And this other one?

Of the two traditionally hopeless questions of Russian daily life - "Who's to blame?" and "What to do?" - the second tends to be seen as just rhetoric. But something must indeed be done! Otherwise all our wonderful discourse and brilliant analytical texts will remain nothing more than inspired convulsions of hot air, and the first breeze to come by will carry our voices into oblivion.

by Venera Musina, editor and publisher of the family newspaper "Borovinok ," Chair of the Regional Association of Women Journalists, Naberezhnye Chelny, Republic of Tatarstan No one was left untouched by the crisis of the nineties. Each Russian city struggled through the crisis in its own way but it was an especially difficult time for large industrial cities centered around one specific industrial enterprise, such as our native Naberezhny Chelny.

by Marfua Tokhtakhodzhaeva, director of the Women's Resource Center, Tashkent In relation to gender, contemporary society in both the East and the West is in transition from traditional forms of patriarchy based on subordinating and controlling women, to fraternal gender relations oriented to partnership between men and women. The official foundation of these new relations is juridical recognition of women's right to citizenship with equal rights.

Excerpts from a Report by the Secretariat of the Russian Union of Journalists Nowadays, most of the journalists in Russia are women. Their working conditions and pay scales, documented instances of sex and age discrimination, and a lack of interest on the part of media heads and other employers in the situation and needs of women are key concerns of the Russian Union of Journalists.

Elizabeth Bozhkov is well known, probably in all the women’s organizations of Russia. But few know that she was one of those elected as a deputy to a city council in the first real elections in her town in 1990. In recent years she has been heading the Information Center of the Independent Women’s Forum, and participating in programs to build partnerships between women’s organization and local associations.

An Interview with Galina Klimantova, by Vera Ivanova Galina Ivanovna Klimantova was a deputy in the State Duma from 1993 to 1995 (at which time she chaired the parliamentary Committee on Women, the Family, and Youth) and was actively involved in drawing up the Family Code of the Russian Federation, which regulates the way we live now. She has also sponsored laws to prevent domestic violence and to protect the reproductive rights of Russian citizens.