(gender studies) is a relatively young interdisciplinary program aimed at studying gender identity. If in Russian universities this discipline can be found as a profile or as an elective subject in the faculties of sociology, psychology or political science, then in North American or European higher education institutions it has increasingly begun to be found as a separate master’s or PhD program. Why is this direction so attractive and what exactly can be explored here?
What is gender studies?
Today, most scientists believe that the concept of “gender” is different from the concept of “sex”. This was first discussed by the American psychoanalyst Robert Stoller, who argued that the study of gender is a subject area of biology and physiology, and the analysis of gender should be considered as subject area research in psychology, sociology and other humanitarian areas. Since gender roles are not determined by genes, i.e. are not innate, by the 70-80s of the last century, simultaneously with the growth of the “second wave” of feminism in Western European countries, there was a need to study this socio-cultural phenomenon separately and in more detail. Many people consider gender studies to be a feminist project, however, this is not entirely true. In general, they include not only women’s, but also men’s studies (women’s/men’s studies), as well as studies related to sex and gender. Yes, here it is proposed to study the history and development of the feminist movement, but also to learn everything about masculinity and femininity, equality and equality, and even analyze female images in Hitchcock’s films. Specialists in the field of gender studies are actively debating the exploitation of female sexuality in advertising, the imposition gender roles society, gender discrimination, and also raise other equally pressing issues.
Recently on the UNICEF website a rather interesting article Courtney Young's "10 things women's studies taught me," in which a woman who earned two degrees in women's studies shares ten important insights she learned from the program. For example, she claims that training in this area helped her understand the importance of her own opinion and the ability to defend it. “Women's Studies has exposed me to many ways to achieve equality in modern society", writes Courtney.
About stereotypes
There is a strong disproportion in gender studies programs or courses: an overwhelming number of girls study in them and a very small number of boys (or none at all). In 2012, out of 85 students enrolled in the master's program in gender studies, there were only 8 men. In the independent American student newspaper The GW Hatchet also reports that very few guys decide to take women's studies courses. Usually there are 1-2 daredevils in the class. However, as TheGuardian writes, guys are not chosen for training this program not for lack of interest in her. Some students believe that almost all males taking gender studies courses are members of the LGBT community, while others experience a certain fear of feminism. There are also students who consider gender studies frivolous, saying that we need to fight for women's rights, but it is not necessary to go deep into this topic.
Unfortunately, as we see, this scientific field is not without stereotypes. But it is worth noting that many courses are taught by men, and any new male specialist in this field is especially valuable. Male students do not experience pressure from girls during their studies and are not perceived as typical representatives of the patriarchal world.
Job prospects
The opportunities for gender studies degree holders are virtually endless. As a rule, these specialists are familiar with information about modern social problems, have developed critical thinking and have a broad view of the world. According to statistics, about half of all European students who complete their master's program in gender studies find work within 6 months. Approximately 20% decide to continue their studies to obtain a degree. Other students begin volunteering, take part-time jobs, or find other activities to pursue.
Recent graduates are actively engaged in research activities because... The need to study gender issues is growing significantly. Often, recent master's or graduate students build a career in non-governmental organizations, political parties and foundations. Graduates provide assistance to victims of domestic or sexual violence, fight for the rights of minorities and teach various humanities. Of course, this is not the entire list of possibilities.
Where to study gender studies?
In general, today you can find a lot of master's and PhD programs in gender studies at universities in the USA, Canada and the UK. Here they are represented in almost every major university. In these countries, gender studies have been carried out for a long time and quite successfully. For example:
(Netherlands, Utrecht)
Education at Utrecht University in the field of gender studies is a combination theoretical knowledge and practice (internship takes 25% educational process). Interesting courses such as “feminist approaches to art”, “postcolonial transformations in society” or “power in the era” are taught here. digital technologies" There is an opportunity to receive a scholarship.
(Norway, Oslo)
The University of Oslo is one of the leading universities in Scandinavia and throughout Europe. The structure of the program consists of theoretical courses on feminism, equality and independent work on your project. The two-year gender studies program at this university involves studying for a semester at a partner university. International students can choose elective course Norwegian language.
(Ireland, Dublin)
University College Dublin is the largest higher education institution in Ireland. The master's program involves the study of society from the perspective of gender theory, and also introduces methods for achieving social and economic justice in the world. Within this program, you can choose courses on masculinity and the history of the feminist movement.
Gender studies have become an integral part of most social sciences and humanities. In addition to the relevant faculties at universities, research centers are opening to develop gender issues. While in Russia this discipline is still in its infancy, in the West it is already rapidly developing and attracts a large number of applicants every year, despite the stereotypes that haunt it.
Following the development of women's studies from around the mid-80s. Another direction appeared - gender studies. It is devoted to the study of almost all issues of interaction between men and women, both at the level of society and in the family and personal life. As an interdisciplinary educational program, gender studies have become widespread in Western universities and colleges since the 1980s. (Kletsina, 2004).
The emergence of gender studies was facilitated by certain features of women's studies that preceded them. First, women's studies was tightly linked to feminism and became not only an autonomous field of knowledge, but also a kind of ideologically and intellectually closed sphere. Secondly, researchers realized that it was impossible to ignore men as subjects of social relations: the opposition of the sexes generated its own inconveniences, and women's studies could be accused of neglecting the experience of men. The question arose as to whether it is possible to study women's problems by separating them from men's, or whether the problem of sex ratio needs to be studied (Lauretis, 1998; Hof, 1999). Against this background, gender studies have become a qualitatively new stage in the development of educational and scientific programs in previous areas.
As already mentioned, in 1958, psychoanalyst Robert Stoller from the University of California (Los Angeles, USA) introduced the term “gender” (social manifestations of gender, or “social sex”) into science. In 1963, he spoke at a congress of psychoanalysts in Stockholm, making a presentation on the concept of sociosexual (or, as he called it, gender) self-awareness. His concept was based on the separation of “biological” and “cultural”: the study of sex, Stoller argued, is the subject of biology and physiology, and gender can become the subject of study by psychologists and sociologists or cultural-historical analysis. R. Stoller’s proposal to separate the biological and cultural components in the study of issues related to gender gave impetus to the formation of a special direction in modern humanitarian knowledge - gender studies.
The novelty of gender studies lay not so much in the statement of male dominance and the call to study women's experience, but in the analysis of how gender is constructed and reproduced in all social structures and how this affects personal development men and women (Voronina, 2000). The key question gender studies is the distinction between the concepts of “sex” and “gender”. The work of feminist theorists Gail Rubin, Rhoda Unger, Adrianna Rich and others was devoted to this issue. Gender refers to the universal biological properties of women and men. Only some role features can be attributed to the field of biology (for example, only women can bear children). One of the most authoritative sociologists of our time, Englishman Anthony Giddens, explains that “gender” is not the physical differences between a man and a woman, but the socially formed characteristics of masculinity and femininity. Gender, in his opinion, means, first of all, social expectations regarding behavior that corresponds to ideas about a man and a woman (Giddens, 1999).
Introduction of the term "gender" in scientific circulation allowed researchers to achieve several goals:
Avoid the term “sex” (biological sex) when interpreting problems of gender-role division of labor;
Transfer the analysis of relations between the sexes from the biological level to the social level;
Refuse the postulate about the “natural purpose of the sexes”;
Show that the concept of “gender” belongs to the same meaning-forming categories as “class” and “race”.
The subject of gender studies is gender relations, differences and similarities between the sexes.
This is an analysis of the similarities and differences in the perception of reality and in social behavior men and women. The reason for these features was no longer seen in male and female physiology, but in the specifics of upbringing, education, and in the ideas widespread in every culture about how men and women should behave (Zdravomyslova, Temkina, 2000).
The first stage of gender studies was women's studies, which was already mentioned above.
The second stage in the development of gender studies is the recognition of “women’s studies” and the emergence of “men’s” studies (andrology) in the 1980s. Quite quickly - despite all the desires for unity - disagreements emerged among feminologists.
Some researchers saw women's studies as a feminist movement; others considered them a scientific direction, free from ideology and politics. This reflected the emerging divergence between feminist practitioners and theoretical researchers in those years. The first reproached their scientific colleagues for their distance from the specific problems of today; their opponents, striving for objectivity without excessive politicization, opposed the further isolation of “women’s studies” from traditional science. It became clear to many that simply “adding” women’s names and mechanically including data on women in research is not enough to change ideas about the role of women in general and demonstrate the differences in the social experience of representatives of different sexes.
Women's studies grew and the number of its adherents multiplied. Increasingly declaring their independence and dissimilarity from other sciences with their teaching principles, supporters of women's studies actively promoted new approaches to teaching, emphasizing criticism of all forms of domination and calling on male colleagues for cooperation and tolerance.
Under the direct influence of women's studies, “Men's Studies”, or social andrology, arose in those years. In seeking recognition, they went through the same stages of rejection and ridicule from colleagues as women's research. Men's studies was, to a certain extent, a reaction to the strengthening of the feminist movement and to the desire of adherents of women's studies to study the relationships of the sexes in a multifaceted way (but from the perspective of women's experience). The reasons for the emergence of social andrology can also include a rethinking of the male gender role, an understanding of its limitations and the desire to destroy gender-role stereotypes - these topics have become the subject of widespread discussion in the wake of the sexual revolution and against the backdrop of the success of sex change operations.
Emerging a decade later than the “second wave” of feminism – that is, in the 80s. XX century - the men's “liberation” movement (in the USA it is represented by the “National Organization of Changing Men”, “National Organization of Men Against Sexism”) also began to fight to overcome stereotypes, to choose a lifestyle, to expand the range of emotional manifestations for men. Just as feminists and women's studies scholars have sought to unravel the “femininity riddle,” social andrologists have set out to unravel the “masculinity riddle.” Men's studies studied the main stages in the formation of the concepts of masculinity, possible crises and deviations, features of the formation of the institution of gender, in in this case– male, to find ways to overcome rigid gender roles (in particular, through the so-called “new performance of parental functions”, when parents actively participate in upbringing).
Soon enough, men's studies in history and sociology moved beyond academic boundaries as organizations that fought against gender prejudice and privilege, such as feminists and gay, bisexual, transgender, or lesbian rights activists, became interested in it.
Over the course of the decade, the ideas of men's liberation spread in Australia and England, partly in Europe, but there - unlike the USA - the men's movement did not become a political force, although andrology took its place among scientific disciplines. In particular, “men’s history”, a discipline that studies the past of men (similar to “women’s history”), has become widespread in Europe. The history of men began to develop in the early 80s, almost simultaneously with the sociology of masculinity; this discipline was looking for an answer to the question of how and why domestic and foreign policy, military affairs, and diplomacy were and remain male spheres of action.
Both women's and men's studies achieved much at this stage: (1) first of all, women's studies were able to present feminism as a politics based on the principle of freedom of choice; they forced society to recognize the feminist idea of a woman’s personal development as the basis for her emancipation and liberation of society from stereotypes; (2) through women's studies, men's studies emerged, and the adherents of the latter saw the commonality of their goals with the goals of feminism; (3) together with specialists in the field of social andrology, social feminologists and anthropologists of the 80s shifted their focus social research from the study of large communities and groups to the study of individual people (i.e. participated in the so-called “anthropological turn” of modern social sciences); (4) meeting each other halfway from different poles, feminologists and andrologists were able to draw attention to the gender perspective of biographical and autobiographical methods and demonstrated the dissimilarity between male and female individual and collective memory, features of recording and understanding what is seen and noticed; (5) their research increased the significance qualitative methods in sociology, “oral history” in the sciences of the past and ethnology, due to which the range of issues studied included topics such as, for example, sexual autobiography, disability, “atypicality”; (6) feminologists and andrologists presented the study of the gender aspect of the body and physicality as a special problem of the social sciences; (7) by analyzing power relations, they demonstrated the mechanism of transforming a woman or man from a “hero” of society and history into their “victim.”
Reflecting on the interaction of the concepts of masculinity and femininity, andrologists and feminologists almost simultaneously came to the conclusion about the need to coordinate their actions. By the end of the 80s, there was a tendency in science to call all studies related to gender issues gender - no matter what their content and no matter what theoretical platform they were based on. The scientific community accepted the concept of “gender studies” more readily than “women’s studies.” Some men who in the past were hesitant to call themselves specialists in the field of women's studies, much less feminists, also agreed to call themselves genderologists. Thus, for a significant number of researchers, the term “gender” turned out to be a convenient “terminological umbrella” that demonstrated their political neutrality and academic respectability.
The third stage in the development of gender studies was the stage of unification and divisions; it occurred in the late 1980s and early 1990s. From the analysis of patriarchy and its policies of suppression and discrimination (women, sexual minorities), genderologists of the 80s moved on to the analysis of gender systems - that is, they began to identify and analyze the gender dimension of various aspects of society and culture. The new concept of "gender" was no longer exclusively associated with women's experience. Gender began to be understood as a system of relations, which is the basis for the stratification of society based on gender. The content of gender studies has expanded to include issues of masculinity and sexuality.
However, already in the late 1980s, many of the works created on the basis of a gender approach to the analysis of social phenomena became the object of criticism due to their inattention to racial differences (since the researchers addressed mainly the problems of white, educated European and American middle class women). This criticism was associated with the strengthening of the position of “colored feminism”. On the other hand, gender studies were criticized for heterosexism (presenting heterosexual relationships as “normal” with insufficient attention to the social experience of gays and lesbians, which began to be perceived not as a deviation, but as a “different, but also normal” experience). The ensuing discussions coincided with a new stage in the development of social sciences - a stage of disillusionment with the structuralist and modernist concepts that dominated until the early 90s.
Instead of searching and analyzing the social origins of gender asymmetry and discrimination (which were previously conceptualized on the basis of the concepts of structural functionalism and social constructivism), genderologists set out to create a meta-theory that reveals the relationship between science, power and gender. To do this, they needed to reconsider many of the usual ideas and “truths” proven by science, in particular, to doubt the very possibility of creating an “absolutely objective” scientific research, free from biases and subjective interest. Discussing these issues, genderologists of the 80s did not come to unanimous opinion about whether it is possible to continue in its direction without sharing feminist ideology. At this stage, committed feminists sharply criticized the so-called “false theory of gender” (covering conventional research on sexual dimorphism and the concept of biological determinism with sex role theory), in addition, they criticized scientists working in the field of gender studies who did not share feminist views . Discussions and disputes led, firstly, to increased polarization of the positions of radical and liberal feminists. Secondly, differences between supporters of “equality feminism” (the similarities between male and female types of subjectivity) and “difference feminism” (or, as genderologists themselves more often write, “differences” between male and female types of subjectivity and identity) divided American science and science European, especially French. Among American genderologists there were more supporters of equality feminism (although in the USA you can also find representatives of other movements of feminism), and among European ones there were more supporters of difference feminism.
The fourth stage - gender studies in the era of globalization - occurs at the end of the 90s. and is currently ongoing. Today gender studies have already become a recognized field humanitarian knowledge not only in the USA and Western Europe, but also in the countries of Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe, Russia, post-Soviet space. This is due to the growing attention to women's issues, which are international in nature. Educational programs have acquired a global orientation, in particular some of them are focused on third world countries. They are devoted to politics, problems of discrimination against women and sexual minorities in the labor market, problems of militarism, refugees, reproductive rights, and family.
Modern gender studies are based on the principle of open recognition of the personal engagement of a scientist, a participant in the movement for gender equality. As the main and most influential part of the gender community of the early 21st century believes, classifying a scientist as a gender scientist automatically implies his agreement with the feminist perspective. Among the tasks set by adherents of the gender approach to the analysis of social phenomena, one can highlight: (1) overcoming androcentrism, a categorical refusal to “mix” male and female narratives when reconstructing the life of individual ethnic groups; (2) increased attention to gender differences, separate descriptions of the life practices of men and women; (3) a study of all types of social practices of women's communities, where women are considered as “key informants”; (4) analysis of female and male experience from the point of view of its subjects themselves, their life perspective, a look at respondents “from below” and “from within”, and not “from above”, not from the position of an expert; (5) conceptualizing women's and men's behavior as reflecting different social and historical contexts; (6) the ability to listen to one’s own emotional reactions, compare one’s life experience with the experience of the informant (the problem of trusting one’s emotions, rather than eliminating them); (7) recording those aspects that do not always fall into the attention of a traditional researcher (the role of a daughter in the family, everyday practices feminine hygiene and treatment of gynecological diseases, social experience of transsexuals, bisexuals, lesbians and gays, mechanisms of society’s rejection of unmasculine men, etc.); (8) orientation towards an optimistic perspective, refusal of victimization (from the attempt to present the object of study - for example, unmasculine men or masculine women - as powerless victims); (9) training “subjects” in methods of analyzing their own lives, formulating goals and life tasks related to the elimination of inequality; (10) the non-authoritarian nature of the conclusions, in other words, a departure from the standards of traditional research that seeks to convince of something, while maintaining a critical attitude towards biological determinism and essentialism.
Thus, women's and gender studies in Western psychology were mainly formed in line with three main directions. These are: 1) a gender-role approach based on liberal feminism; 2) women's studies as a reflection of radical feminist views; 3) gender studies themselves as a scientific direction, formed under the influence of the movement of feminists of color, social constructivist and poststructuralist approaches (Zdravomyslova, Temkina, 1999). Within the latter direction, the paradigm of the social construction of gender dominates (see section 1.7).
The first information about the development of gender studies came to Russia in the late 1980s. Gradually, gender studies are being established in Russian science(Zdravomyslova, Temkina, 1999, 2002a; Khotkina, 2000). Currently, in the field of gender studies, there is a tendency to autonomate gender issues within the framework of individual sciences. Remaining an interdisciplinary field of knowledge, gender studies began to develop as specialized branches, such as gender history, gender sociology, gender psychology, etc.
In 1958, psychoanalyst Robert Stoller, working at the University of California (Los Angeles, USA), introduced the term “gender” (social manifestations of gender or “social sex”) into science. In 1963, he spoke at a congress of psychoanalysts in Stockholm, making a presentation on the concept of sociosexual (or, as he called it, gender) self-awareness. His concept was based on the separation of “biological” and “cultural”: the study of gender (English - sex), considered R. Stoler, is the subject area of biology and physiology, and gender analysis (English - gender) – can be considered as a subject area of research by psychologists and sociologists, analysis of cultural and historical phenomena. R. Stoller’s proposal to separate the biological and cultural components in the study of issues related to gender gave impetus to the formation of a special direction in modern humanitarian knowledge - gender studies.
Thanks to their emergence and development, gender in social theory is considered as an instrument of social determination and stratification (on a par with class, ethnicity, religion, culture), and current social problems - power, violence, self-awareness, freedom - appear as problems associated with belonging to a certain semi. Thanks to gender studies, the problems of human essence, meaning and purpose received a gender dimension, being presented as related to the socio-sexual (gender) roles of each individual and the hierarchy and discrimination based on gender existing in any society.
Women's Studies
Women's Studies(women's studies) - the initial stage of gender studies (70s). A noticeable increase in interest in the “women's topic” in modern humanities dates back to the end of the 60s. The socio-political context of the emergence of women's studies was created by liberalist ideas (emancipation , equality, autonomy, progress), reflected in (1) the youth movements of the late 1960s and the New Left revolution, (2) the sexual revolution, from which women benefited more than men, and (3) the associated sexual revolution, the “second wave" of feminism.
Theoretical analysis of gender relations was demanded by the changed (compared to the 19th century and the “first wave” of the movement) goals of feminists: from the fight for equality of rights, which was already enshrined in the laws of many countries, they moved on to the fight for equal opportunities for women, from “feminism of equality” to “feminism of difference”, the demand to recognize the “specialness” of women's social experience. The main goal"sixties" 20th century. was the creation of a free, autonomous female personality.
Disputes about whether such a goal is achievable have drawn geneticists, psychologists, anthropologists, ethnologists, philosophers, historians, sociologists, and philologists into research on the “women's topic.” Along with the emergence of the Women's Liberation Movement in France in 1970, the first feminist magazines were founded there. A similar process began in the USA, where Signs magazines achieved large circulations in a short time, “Feminist Studies”, “Women's Studies Quarterly”. The rise of neofeminism appeared on the intellectual sphere: scientists in Europe and the USA began to choose women as the object of their research - in the family, in industry, in the systems of law and education, in science, politics, literature and art. The first special course on the history of the "women's movement" was given in Seattle in 1965. In the late 60s, special courses "on women" were also given in Washington, Portland, Richmond, Sacramento. In 1969, researcher from Cornell University Sheila Tobias proposed a general name for these special courses - Female Studies. In 1970, a team of social science teachers (psychologists, sociologists, historians) led by her taught an interdisciplinary course “Female Personality” at this university, for which more than 400 people signed up and passed the exam. At the same time, in the same 1970, the University of San Diego established its own “women’s” student education program; the same S. Tobias organized a special publication “Female Studies” there, which undertook the publication of course programs, lists of references and was aimed at the exchange experiences between teachers who are passionate about women's issues. Also in 1970, Florence Howe and Paul Lowther founded the Feminist Press publishing house in Baltimore, which played a significant role in promoting scientific knowledge about gender relations.
By the late 1960s and early 1970s, “women’s studies” had emerged within many traditional academic disciplines at dozens of universities in the United States and Europe. Historians returned the unfairly forgotten names of those who contributed to the development of culture, literary scholars examined the originality of the figurative and speech style women writers, teachers raised the question of the peculiarities of raising boys and girls, psychologists turned to previously known, but somewhat forgotten classical works on female psychology, sociologists tried to show the dissimilarity social roles men and women and the resulting demographic consequences. The term “gender” in their works correlated only with female experience and was used when it came to the social, cultural, psychological aspects of “feminine” in comparison with “male”, when describing norms, stereotypes, social roles typical for women.
The studies that were called "gender" and published in the 70s were "women's studies" and were conducted by women scientists who took a feminist position. The same studies in the 70s could also be called:
“Female Studies,” which seemed too biologized to feminist scholars;
“feminist studies”, which was rejected by many due to its ideological nature (since not everyone who wanted to join the new direction considered themselves feminists);
“the study of women” (“Women’s Studies”), which was considered not too politically correct, since it emphasized the “objectivity” of a woman or women as a subject of study;
“Women Studies” - this is how studies of any issue written on a “women’s topic” were defined, and (!) most often by women themselves.
In 1975, declared by the UN as the “World Year of Women,” American researcher Nynne Koch coined the term “feminology,” which became widespread in Russia. It has come to be understood as an interdisciplinary branch of scientific knowledge that studies a set of problems related to the socio-economic and political position of women in society, the evolution of her social status and functional roles.
The main differences between “women's studies” or “feminology” as a scientific direction from all previous studies concerning social and gender roles, ethnography, psychology and sociology of gender were: (1) orientation towards criticism of sciences that had not previously “seen” women; (2) a focus on criticizing society and therefore being associated with the women's movement; (3) development at the intersection of scientific disciplines in the form of interdisciplinary research practice.
Speaking about the main achievements of gender studies at their first, feminological stage, it must be emphasized that they: (1) introduced the factor of gender difference into traditional social, including social stratification analysis; (2) returned female names to social knowledge - history, philosophy, literary criticism, psychology; (3) forced to admit that social knowledge, previously considered “complete” and “universal” for everyone without distinction of gender, is not such, since traditional theories of knowledge downplayed the importance of the main areas of knowledge in women’s experience and women’s lives and were too rationalistic; (4) they substantiated the historicity of two complementary social spheres – the public “male” and the private “female” and the equal importance of the private sphere for the functioning of society; (5) destroyed many manifestations of male myth-making (about the equal significance for both sexes of major social upheavals - for example, the French bourgeois revolution of 1789 ( see also THE GREAT FRENCH REVOLUTION), about the inability of women to create a work of genius - it turned out that the canons of genius were also created by men, etc.) and forced to discuss the assumption that historical time, lived by the female half of humanity, does not flow in the same rhythms as the “male”; (6) created the prerequisites for the transition from the analysis of large structures and social communities to anthropologically oriented social sciences interested in the lives of individual people; (7) raised the question of different scientific styles – objectivist, “masculine” and emotionally rich, “feminine” – of writing research; (8) introduced a gender dimension into socio-economic history, supplemented by such topics as “feminization of poverty”, “femininity of unemployment”, “political economy of domestic work”, “history of female domestic work”, forcing the recognition of the category “gender” as one of the structure-forming economic principles; (9) revealed a special understanding of the topic “ women's work“as unpaid women’s labor (bearing children, raising them, keeping the house clean, cooking, washing, ironing, caring for the sick and infirm), which has always been, in all eras, almost invisible or deliberately not noticed. (10) Having analyzed the past and present of the so-called. “female professions” (educators, teachers, governesses, cooks, laundresses, ironers, spinners, weavers, nurses, social workers), women’s researchers have shown that these professions have developed and are reproduced as a continuation of the gender roles assigned to women by social and cultural norms. (11) As a result, “women's studies” involved a lot of women in the feminist movement, including women scientists. They came to a new field of knowledge with established everyday and scientific experience, which allowed them to transform the “personal” first into “professional” and then into “political”. (The slogan of R. Unger “The personal is political!” is the slogan of “second wave” feminism).
At this (early, feminological) stage, gender studies were a scientific movement without a center or leader, without a common, unified style and goals. The adherents who developed them knew one thing: they did not want to be like representatives of “male” science, full of competition, striving for leadership and building hierarchies. To avoid all this and achieve greater unity, feminologists proposed jointly subscribing to scientific journals, conducted their classes in rooms where they could place chairs in the shape of a circle, practiced keeping diaries of reflections (declaring each experience interesting to everyone), when communicating they used only first names (leaving the male community to be called by last name; later, in the name of equality, they also called on first names write with lowercase letters). Feminologists of the 70s were keen on creating small creative groups and teams, small joint projects, and were perhaps the first to practice interactivity in teaching - a constant exchange of opinions between professors and students during lectures, intellectually and emotionally involving both parties in the learning process. The rejection of the principles of leadership, hierarchies and disciplinarity was unprecedented in the world history of science, so none of its directions and educational strategies changed the system of academic education and training (especially in the United States) as much as women's and gender studies did.
Despite the obvious successes - both in the content and in the methods of obtaining new knowledge - traditional science was skeptical about the emergence of “women's studies”. Non-recognition and ridicule of “women’s experts” (feminologists) predetermined the emergence of a spirit of caste in university and academic associations that studied women’s issues. Feminologists of the 70s found themselves pushed out of their disciplines to the margins " big science”, into a kind of ghetto, forming a Euro-American subculture or “sisterhood” of researchers who knew and supported each other at conferences and in correspondence, but were little noticed by their professional colleagues.
The second stage of development of gender studies
The second stage of development of gender studies: recognition of “women’s studies”, emergence of “men’s” (andrology) - 1980s. Researchers and teachers at American universities, where knowledge about women had been intensively introduced into traditionally taught disciplines since the 70s, were the first to advocate for the inclusion of “women’s studies” in the higher education system. There, the phenomena of discrimination against women in the public sphere, including in science, as well as in the private sphere, were widely discussed, prejudices against them (gender prejudices) existing in society and, in particular, in government and educational structures, reflected in literature, etc. .P. Particularly heated debate was caused by the interdisciplinary nature of “women’s studies,” which called into question their independent status - after all, they claimed to be an independent discipline, and not just a “section” within the framework of already existing disciplines. The answer to the question of what kind of specialists should be produced by the departments of “women’s studies” was also not entirely clear.
The interdisciplinarity of the field, as well as the versatility of the research object (“women”), which exploded the boundaries between branches of knowledge, were the main obstacle to the creation of Women’s studies departments in European universities. They remained more conservative and constrained by traditions than the American ones, and in them “women’s research" could only temporarily unite like-minded women within the framework of a "project" or "laboratory", without claiming equal status with faculties.
Quite quickly - despite all the desires for unity - differences emerged among the feminologists themselves. Some researchers saw “women studies” as part of the women’s movement; others considered them a non-ideologized and non-politicized scientific direction. These disagreements were the root of the emerging divergence in those years between feminist practitioners and research theorists, whom the former reproached for being remote from the specific problems of today and being closed “in a tower of Ivory" Their opponents, proponents (as they claimed) of greater objectivity and less politicization, opposed the further separation of “women's studies” from traditional science. It became clear to many of them that simply “adding” women’s names, mechanically including data on women in research, is not enough to change ideas about the role of women in general, or to convince people of the different social experiences of different sexes.
Women's Studies expanded and its adherents multiplied. Increasingly declaring their independence and difference from other sciences and the principles of their teaching, “women's studies” actively promoted their new approaches to teaching, emphasizing criticism of all forms of domination and calling on their male colleagues to cooperate and tolerate.
Under the direct influence of “women’s studies,” “men’s studies” or social andrology arose in those years. While seeking scientific recognition, they went through the same stages of rejection and ridicule as women’s studies. Andrology or “men’s studies” was , to a certain extent, a response to the strengthening of the feminist movement and the desire of adherents of “women’s studies” to study the relationships of the sexes in a multifaceted way (but from the standpoint of women’s experience!) Among the reasons for the emergence of social andrology, one can also name a rethinking of the male gender role, its limitations, and the desire to destroy gender roles stereotypes are topics that emerged in public discussions in the wake of the unfolding of the sexual revolution and the success of sex reassignment operations.
Emerging a decade later than the “second wave” of feminism – that is, in the 70s of the 20th century. - the men's “liberation” movement (in the USA it is represented by the “National Organization of Changing Men”, “National Organization of Men Against Sexism”) began to fight for a wide choice of lifestyles, for a wider (than stereotyped) range of emotional manifestations for men . Just as feminists and women’s studies researchers tried to unravel the “mystique of femininity,” social andrologists set out to unravel the “mystery of masculinity.” “Men’s studies” tried to identify the main stages in the formation of the concepts of masculinity, possible crises and deviations, features of the methods, mechanisms, channels of formation of the institution of gender, in this case, the male gender, and offer possible options for overcoming the rigidity of the male gender role (in particular, through the so-called “ new parenthood”, in which both parents actively participate in upbringing).
Quite quickly, “men’s studies” in history and sociology found themselves in demand not only for academic knowledge, but also for the above-mentioned organizations, which showed themselves to be the same fighters against gender prejudice and privilege as feminists, defenders of the rights of gays, bisexuals, transsexuals, and lesbians.
Over the course of the decade, the ideas of “men's liberation” gained ground in Australia and England, and partly in Europe, but there – unlike in the United States – the men's movement did not become a political force. Nevertheless, andrology has established itself there as a direction of scientific research. Particularly in Europe, the “history of men” has gained particular weight as a discipline that studies the past of men (by analogy and as a reaction to the “history of women”). “The history of men” began to develop in the early 1980s, almost simultaneously with the sociology of masculinity, focusing on how and why domestic and foreign policy, military affairs, and diplomacy were in the past and remain in the present male spheres of action.
"Women's researchers" and "men's researchers" achieved much at this stage in the development of gender studies.
(1) First of all, “women’s researchers” were able to rehabilitate feminism as a policy based on the principle of freedom of choice; they forced society to recognize the feminist idea of a woman’s personal development as the basis for her emancipation and the emancipation of society from stereotypes. (2) Through Women's Studies, Men's Studies emerged, and its adherents saw a commonality of their goals with feminists. (3) Together with specialists in the field of social andrology, social feminologists and andrologists of the 80s actively participated in the reorientation social knowledge from the study of large social communities and groups to the study of individual people (i.e. participated in the so-called “anthropological turn” of modern social knowledge); (4) Meeting each other halfway from different “poles,” feminologists and andrologists were able to give a gender perspective to biographical and autobiographical methods, drawing attention to the dissimilarity between male and female individual and collective memory, the peculiarities of recording and understanding what was seen and noticed. (3) Their research contributed to the growing importance of qualitative methods in sociology, “oral history” in the sciences of the past and ethnology, due to which such topics as, for example, sexual autobiography, disability, and “atypicality” were introduced into the range of issues being studied. (4) Feminologists and andrologists posed the study of the body and corporeality as a special scientific problem social sciences in its gender aspect. (5) Through the analysis of power relations, the relations of male dominance and the subordination of women, the mechanism and ways of transforming individuals (women and men) from “heroes” of society and history into their “victims” were shown.
Reflecting on the interaction of the concepts of “masculinity” and “femininity,” andrologists and feminologists almost simultaneously came to the conclusion about the need to coordinate their research and areas of work. By the end of the 80s, there was a tendency in science to call all studies related to gender issues gender - no matter what their content and no matter what theoretical platform they were written from. The concept of “gender studies” turned out to be more conformal and acceptable to the scientific community than the term “women’s studies”. Some men who in the past did not find the courage to call themselves specialists in the field of “women’s studies,” much less feminists, also agreed to call themselves genderologists. For a significant number of researchers, the term “gender” turned out to be a convenient cover (“terminological umbrella”) expressing “political neutrality and academic respectability” (J. Scott).
The third stage of development of gender studies.
The third stage of development of gender studies: unification and divisions (late 1980s - late 90s). From the analysis of patriarchy and its inherent policies of suppression and discrimination (women, sexual minorities), genderologists of the 80s found it possible to move on to the analysis of gender systems - that is, to identify and analyze different aspects of sociality and culture in their gender dimension. The new concept of "gender" no longer associated it exclusively with women's experience. Gender has come to be understood as a system of relations, which is the basis for the stratification of society based on gender.
At this point, gender studies—combining “men's studies” and “women's studies”—became an accepted part of the curriculum in hundreds of institutions of higher education (600 colleges in 34 states) and independent departments in 30 American universities. In the United States, more than 130 postgraduate education programs have been launched in the area of “women's and gender studies” - they prepare masters, and doctoral studies have emerged for obtaining the title of PhD (corresponding to the Russian title of “candidate of sciences”).
However, the prospects for unifying trends in gender studies did not please all of their adherents. In particular, already in the late 1980s, many of the works written on the basis of a gender approach to the analysis of social phenomena were criticized for their insensitivity to racial differences (since the researchers addressed mainly the problems of white, educated, middle-class European and American women). This trend was associated with the strengthening of the positions of “colored feminism.” On the other hand, somewhat unexpectedly, gender studies has been criticized for its descent into heterosexism (emphasizing heterosexual relationships as “normal” and paying little attention to the social experiences of gays and lesbians, which are no longer seen as “deviant” but rather as “different, too.” normal").
The ensuing debate coincided with a new stage in the development of world social knowledge - a stage of disillusionment with the structuralist and modernist concepts that dominated until the early 90s.
Instead of trying to find and analyze the social origins of gender asymmetry and discrimination (which were previously conceptualized on the basis of the concepts of structural functionalism and social constructivism), genderologists set out to create a meta-theory that reveals the relationship between Science, Power and Gender. To do this, they had to be convinced to reconsider many of the usual ideas and scientifically proven “truths”, in particular, to doubt the very possibility of creating an “absolutely objective” scientific research, free from biases and subjective interest. Discussing these issues, genderologists of the 80s did not come to a consensus on whether they could consider themselves to have joined this direction of scientific knowledge without sharing feminist ideas and feminist ideology. At the same time, convinced feminists spoke out at this stage with sharp criticism of the so-called “false theory of gender” (covering up conventional studies of sexual dimorphism and adherence to biological determinism with its theory of sex roles), and with it - many scientists who joined gender studies, who did not share and who do not share feminist views. Discussions and disputes led, firstly, to greater polarization of the positions of radical and liberal feminists. Secondly, the differences between supporters of “feminism of equality” (the similarity of male and female types of subjectivity) and “feminism of differences” (or, as genderologists themselves more often write, “ distinctions"between male and female types of subjectivity and identity) divided American science and European science, especially French, on opposite sides. Among American genderologists there are more supporters of equality feminism (although in the USA you can find representatives of all trends in feminism), and among European ones there are more supporters of difference feminism.
Fourth stage.
Stage four: gender studies in the era of globalization (late 90s – present). Recently, gender studies have become a recognized direction in the development of humanities not only in the USA and Western Europe, but also in the countries of Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe, Russia, and the post-Soviet space. This is due to growing attention to women's problems of an international nature. Regular international summer and winter “schools”, “institutes”, conferences, congresses, held with the support of women's organizations, attract hundreds of listeners. Educational programs have acquired a global orientation, especially those aimed at third world countries. They focus on political issues, problems of discrimination against women and sexual minorities in the labor market, problems of militarism, refugees, reproductive rights, and family.
Despite the fact that there is no single ideological position that would unite the majority of genderologists (just as there is no single ideological basis for world feminism, its directions are ambiguous and different), all higher value acquire “International Gender Research Networks,” email listservs that bring together researchers around the world studying a particular topic or inspired by the same project. One of the most famous such networks in Eastern Europe is supported by the George Soros Foundation and is associated with the Gender and Culture Program of the Central European University in Budapest. The largest and most powerful of the networks is organized at the Gender Institute London school Economics in 1996. Among its tasks, it lists the following: to support gender research projects; develop theories of ethics, fairness of democracy, taking into account the gender factor; expand prospects social policy, including in her circle of attention those who have been unfairly ignored by protection (including not only women, but also sexual minorities). Among the projects of the London-based International Gender Research Network is “Gender and social philosophy", "Collective Identities and Gender", "Equal Opportunities and Lifelong Education". The main principle of activity is the trinity of ethics, theory and practice.
The principles of modern gender research are based on open recognition of the scientist’s personal engagement and involvement in the movement for gender equality. The main and most influential part of the gender community of the early 21st century. believes that classifying a particular scientist as a genderologist means his clearly expressed agreement with the feminist perspective. Among the tasks set by those who use a gender approach to the analysis of social phenomena, one can highlight: (1) overcoming androcentrism, a categorical refusal to “mix” male and female narratives when reconstructing the life of individual ethnic groups; (2) informal attention to gender differences, separate presentation of the life practices of men and women, (3) separate documentation of men's and women's lives and practices when analyzing the lifestyle of any ethnic group; (4) a special study of all types of social practices of women's communities and positioning women as “key informants”; (5) special attention to the analysis of female/male experience from the point of view of its bearers/bearers themselves, their life perspective, a look at respondents “from below” and “from within” (insiding), and not “from above”, from the position of a sophisticated bearer of the highest truths ; (6) conceptualizing female/male behavior as influenced by different social and historical contexts; (7) the ability to listen to one’s own emotional reactions, to compare one’s life experience with the experience of the informant (the problem of “trusting” one’s emotions, and not eliminating them); (8) fixation of aspects that are not always raised (or not raised at all) by traditional researchers (the role of the daughter in the family, the practices of women’s everyday life in hygiene and the treatment of women’s diseases, the social experience of trans- and bisexuals, lesbians and gays, the mechanisms of society’s rejection of unmasculine men and so on.). (9) focusing on an optimistic perspective and overcoming practices of victimization (attempts to present the objects of one’s study – for example, unmasculine men or masculine women – as powerless victims); (10) training “objects under study” in methods of analyzing their own lives, formulating goals and life tasks related to the elimination of inferiority; (11) the non-authoritarian nature of the conclusions and, in this sense, a departure from the standards of traditional research, in which it is important to convince - while maintaining the critical focus of the work against biological determinism and the idea that there is something given by Nature, and therefore unchangeable (that is, against essentialism).
Gender studies of the late 20th – early 21st centuries. were noticed by official authorities (at least in the USA). Under their direct influence, such areas of activity of local, federal and central authorities such as gender examination of legislation, activism of political figures, etc.
Natalia Pushkareva
Literature:
Pushkareva N.L. Why is it needed, this« gender"? // Social history 1998/1999. M., 1999. pp. 155–177
Yarskaya-Smirnova E.R. Women's and Gender Studies Abroad// Denisova A.A. (ed.) Dictionary of gender terms. M., 2002. P.100–103
Materials on the Internet: Women Studies in Europe // http://women-www.uia.ac.be/women/noise/index/html
Women's Program: http://www.soros.org/wp
GENDER STUDIES (eng. gender studies) is a direction of interdisciplinary research, the object of analysis of which is gender as a socio-cultural phenomenon. The concept of “gender” is used to denote differences between men and women that are not reducible to biological and anatomical differences, the existence of which is recorded in the concept of “sex” (sex). In gender studies, on the basis of modern trends in philosophy and sociology, strategies are developed for theoretical and empirical analysis (gender analysis) of existing cultural ideas about masculinity and femininity, life strategies and the positions of men and women in society, as well as the ideologies and policies that promote or hinder the achievement of gender equality. Accordingly, gender problems are problems caused by differences in social roles and social statuses men and women, defining how they interpersonal interaction, and relationships in the main institutions of society (family, education, employment, science, religion, politics, etc.). Since research on gender issues is undertaken in various fields of academic science (anthropology, sociology, psychology, linguistics, literary criticism, art history, etc.), gender studies use methods and approaches existing in these disciplines. As a special field of social science and humanities, gender studies have existed relatively recently (since the 1980s), so their conceptual apparatus has not yet been established, and conceptual approaches are under development, receiving new incentives in the research of gender problems that are found in modern society. societies.
Gender studies are based on the premise that all social phenomena and processes have a gender dimension. The distinction between sex and gender was first made by anthropologists and psychologists. In the mid-20th century, M. Mead showed that in the cultures she described, there are different models of relations between men and women. M. Mead considered male and female roles in the family and society as “social inventions” that are part of those most important values, the presence of which distinguishes human society from the animal world. Anthropologist G. Rubin was one of the first to draw attention to the existence of the sex-gender system and argued the importance of distinguishing between biological and social sex to explain how society and culture arise. The term gender itself was introduced by psychologist R. Stoller in 1968. Later, under the influence of discussions that unfolded within various areas of philosophy and sociology, the formation of conceptual apparatus and gender research methodology.
The formation of gender studies is associated with such traditions and perspectives of social and humanitarian knowledge as Marxism, psychoanalysis, structuralism, and phenomenology. However, modern feminism and the women's movement of the late 1960s played a key role in the emergence and spread of gender studies. In the feminist discourse of the second half of the 20th century (S. de Beauvoir, B. Friedan, K. Gilligan, K. Millett, J. Butler, N. Chodorov, Y. Kristeva, etc.), the fact of the difference between male and female, fundamental to culture, began to be considered as a starting point to justify the fact that in the process of socialization rules are created that perpetuate gender inequality, and various systems of inequality based on gender are constructed in society. These systems are fixed in social institutions and social practices.
Gender studies cannot be identified with feminist or women's studies, the institutionalization of which took place in American universities in the late 1960s under the direct influence of the feminist movement, or “second wave feminism,” which shifted its emphasis from “ women's issue" on gender analysis of social relations. As a result, the discussion centered on criticism of patriarchy as the basis of culture, structurally perpetuating male dominance. The main task Feminist research (feminist philosophy) began to study the situation of women from the point of view of women themselves and to substantiate a political agenda, the purpose of which is to fight against discrimination against women. Feminist research focuses on criticism of society and criticism of science. Theorists of this direction proceeded from the presence of specific female experience, which is not captured in the concepts and concepts of social science and humanities existing today. The latter was criticized by them for ignoring women. According to them, the neglect of women and women's experiences in scientific consideration is due to the fact that it is focused on the public sphere from which women have generally been excluded.
Unlike feminist (women's) studies, gender studies address a much wider range of problems arising in both women's and men's experiences in different age, sociocultural, racial groups. The methodology of gender studies is formed mainly on the basis of rethinking such sociological concepts as gender role theory and social constructivism.
The theory of sex roles (sex-role approach), which received theoretical justification in the works of T. Parsons, is based on the idea of the “naturalness” and functionality of the separation of male and female female roles in the family, logically following from classical provisions structural functionalism about a stable family as the most important element a normally functioning society. T. Parsons proceeded from the fact that, although the role of housewife remains the main social role of a woman, only the balance of the “different but equal” roles of wife and husband ensures harmony, integrity and stability of a family based on the division of household labor. This division of labor corresponds, according to T. Parsons, to the “expressive-emotional” orientation of women and the “instrumental-rational” orientation of men. Thus, beyond the scope of T. Parsons’ approach, the problem of inequality in the distribution of power resources in the family, which is directly related to the delimitation of gender roles, remains. At the same time, the basic principles of sex role theory are used in gender studies to analyze the inequalities caused by the prescribed traditional roles of men and women. Thus, it is recognized that “sex role theory contains principles of policy reform” aimed at changing role expectations, according to which a woman is defined as “helper and subordinate”, and her character as “passive or expressive” (R. Connell). This substantiates the possibility of changing gender relations in the private and public spheres. In gender studies, the static and normative nature of the model that underlies the theory of sex roles is criticized, and the center of analysis becomes gender-based inequality in the distribution of power resources. Such a transformation of one of the basic sociological concepts is due to the fact that in gender studies the philosophical and sociological tradition of critical analysis of society is developing and the experience of understanding, explaining and solving problems, the severity of which is only just beginning to be realized in modern times, is conceptualized. world. Gender analysis reveals the nature of relations between men and women as relations of social asymmetry, thereby gender studies raise questions of the distribution of power resources, the legitimacy of the normative social order, and substantiate “gender-sensitive” policies, the goal of which is to achieve gender equality.
In contrast to structural-functional analysis, within the framework of the constructivist approach, based on the works of A. Schutz, P. Berger, T. Luckman, I. Hoffmann, G. Garfinkel, gender acts not so much as a set of roles, characteristics or properties of individuals, but as a system of social relations constructed in the course of everyday interactions at the micro level of the social system. This undermines the very basis of ideas about the “natural” division of gender roles, based on the absolutization of gender differences. In modern approaches, gender is defined as “a concept that is changeable, fragmented, controversial, and each time constructed anew” (N. Chodorov). The fundamental point of modern theories focus on the active nature of the process of doing gender, or the creation and recreation of differences and gender boundaries between women and men, and among women and among men. “The plurality of femininity and masculinity is a fundamental fact of gender relations and the way gender structures manifest themselves in life” (R. Connell).
The conceptual apparatus of gender studies is under development and is being created at the intersection of structural-functionalist and constructivist approaches. The concept of gender (sex-gender) system describes specific forms socially organized sexuality, as well as mechanisms and methods of their reproduction in different societies. The dominant relations between the sexes in society, based on the gender division of labor, i.e. The concept of gender contract captures the relationship between paid and unpaid (housework) work. Researchers identify gender contracts of a housewife, a working mother, a professionally oriented woman, as well as a contract of equal status. The totality of gender contracts forms the gender order. This term, as well as the closely related concept of gender structure, are used to describe and analyze how gender relations are structured in various societies. To explore how gender relations are embedded in various spheres of society and social institutions, the term gender regimes is used; To analyze the totality of strategies of men and women in society, the concept of gender composition is introduced.
The period of social transformations unfolding in Russia and other post-communist countries since the early 1990s has revealed a large number of gender problems, among which are the gender aspects of poverty and social inequality, male excess mortality in working age, and the prevalence of gender-based violence. The exceptional complexity and drama of these problems form a “challenge” for gender studies and put on the agenda the issue of conceptualizing the experience of gender relations in “transitional” societies and the methodology of gender analysis of post-communist societies. Gender research conducted in this field is most characterized by “wandering” between facts and hypotheses, rather than focusing on ready-made models and conceptual approaches developed on the basis of material from other, primarily Western, societies.
In Russia, gender studies as a field of social and humanitarian knowledge have been formed since the early 1990s. At this time, the first gender centers appeared and the process of institutionalization of a new direction in academic science. The most fruitful experience in the development of gender studies in Russia is associated with the inclusion of gender courses in university education programs, as well as with educational activities: the emergence of specialized magazines and Internet sites, articles in the capital and regional press, as well as with the beginning of public discussions on the problems raised in gender studies.
Modern Western philosophy. encyclopedic Dictionary/ Under. ed. O. Heffe, V.S. Malakhova, V.P. Filatov, with the participation of T.A. Dmitrieva. M., 2009, p. 12-14.
Literature:
Gender relations in modern times Russia. Samara, 2003; Zdravomyslova O. M. Family and society: gender dimension of Russian transformation. M., 2003; Paci P. Gender problems in countries with economies in transition. M., 2003; Temkina O. M., Rotkirch A. Soviet gender contracts and their transformation into modern ones. Russia // Socis. 2002, No. and; Butler J. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. N.Y., 1999; De Beauvoir S. The Second Sex. N.Y., 1989; Connell R.W. Gender and Power. Society, the Person and Sexual Politics. Cambridge, 1987; Chodorow N. The Power of Feeling: Personal Meaning in Psychoanalysis, Gender, and Culture. New Haven, 1999; Gilligan C. In a Different Voice. Phsychological Theory and Women's Development. Cambridge (MA), 1982; Foucault M. History of Sexuality: An Introduction. L., 1990; Scott J. Gender: A Useful Category of Historical Analysis // Gender and the Politics of History. N. Y. , 1988; Rubin G. The Traffic in Women: Notes on the "Political Economy" of Sex // Reiter R. (Ed.) Toward an Anthropology of Women. N. Y., 1975; Potuchek J. L. Who supports the Family. Stanford, 1997; Lorber J., Farrell S. A. (Eds.) The Social Construction of Gender (Sage Publication, 1991).
SPECIAL PROJECT WITH THE HEINRICH BÖLL FOUNDATION
“Would you like to go, honey?
to the theater":
8 stories about gender
discrimination in science
Text: Elena Kiseleva
Photos: Oleg Borodin
“Imagine what it’s like for her husband to live with a doctor of sciences”
Sofia Gavrilova
geographer, cartographer, 29 years old
Graduated from the Faculty of Geography of Moscow State University (specialist and postgraduate studies). Currently a doctoral student at Oxford University. Work experience - laboratory of snow avalanches and mudflows, Higher School of Urbanism (lecturer)
During my work in Russia, I came across various gender clichés (for example, “Imagine what it’s like for her husband to live with a doctor of sciences” - an academic adaptation of the more familiar “You’ve just never had a normal guy”), and with facts: the majority the heads of the department are men, the dean's office is men. My faculty and area of expertise is field, which involves very high requirements to health and physical fitness. At one time, during the placement, I did not get into the department of my dreams - I passed on points, but all other things being equal, they gave preference to a man, openly telling me about this and saying: “And thank God, you will be healthier this way, you won’t freeze anything off.” On the one hand, this is completely unacceptable, it greatly influenced my entire future career and life - I was very offended, and I acutely felt the injustice. On the other hand, a number of physical activities and climatic features can negatively affect women’s health, and a boy can physically lift more kilograms uphill. But I still had the fear and always wary expectation that I might not be accepted somewhere because I was a woman.
Other cases are everyday sexism: when you are mistaken for a hostess at conferences, and you are a speaker; the eternal “baby”; even with degrees and publications, the accounting “run and take the papers for signature” sticks. In the UK, try making one of these comments. This can not only ruin your career, but also lead to litigation. Although if you ask English academics themselves, I guarantee that they will also say that there is discrimination and it is much more difficult for women to get high positions.
By the way, during expeditions and projects in hard-to-reach places there is much less such discrimination. You will not be forced to cook porridge every day just because you are a woman, but no one is obliged to help you carry your backpack, although they will give you a little less social load when distributing it. I am eternally grateful to my colleagues who trusted me with difficult tasks, woke me up in the morning with the offer to “quickly run to the top to measure a couple of indicators” and did not put the fact that I was a woman at the forefront. Although there were exceptions. Just this summer, the head of my expedition did not wake me up for one of the trips, which included a boat trip, arguing that “a woman on a ship is a bad omen.” Of course, I don't have anything to do with him anymore.
A few months above the Arctic Circle perfectly equalizes everyone. It seems to me that long expeditions shaped me in many ways. I’m used to relying only on myself, I always take as much things as I can carry, and I don’t expect discounts or help (including physical help) because I’m a woman. If I need to drill a hole, I take a drill and instructions, rather than looking for a man with a drill.
It seems to me that in Russia, discrimination in science and education begins in the family and preschool education. Gender stereotypes from there they migrate to the academy - like an ivory castle for the smartest. Who are our girls usually? Girls are usually beautiful. In pink dresses, sparkles - expectant mothers, princesses, four years old with pierced ears and lipstick, with Barbies and dinnerware sets. It is very difficult to outweigh this - there must also be rollers (like that ill-fated Nike roller, only in scientific field), and scholarships, and assistance programs, and, of course, fascinating and accessible popular science literature. It is necessary to raise the image of science - to pay not normal, but big money to scientific personnel, so that science is a desirable field, and not the lot of eccentrics and losers, as is now the case in the minds of a large number of people, to explain and popularize the mechanisms and schemes adopted in the academy (me even in closest circle relatives are asked: “Well, when will you finish studying, an eternal student, and will you find a normal job?”), provide conditions, increase the mobility of scientific personnel, give more research freedom. Of course, it’s fun to be a freak, but in your 15th year, to be honest, you get tired.
“In Russia there is too much social pressure on women”
Victoria Korzhova
neuroscientist and scientific career consultant for undergraduate and graduate students, 28 years old
She completed her master's degree at St. Petersburg State University, is studying graduate school at the Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich and is working on her research project at the German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases. As a consultant on scientific careers, he conducts online training programs and provides personal consultations for Russian-speaking undergraduate and graduate students.
I have research experience in Russia, Switzerland, USA, Israel and Germany. Russia is the most patriarchal among these countries. We still believe that by the age of 25, a woman should already get married and give birth to a child, or preferably two. This is neither good nor bad, but the family clearly limits a woman’s career opportunities - she becomes geographically tied to her husband’s work, her children’s kindergarten and school, and cannot spend extra hours at work, since her family requires attention. That's why Russian women and girls are much less likely to pursue international careers than men. And internationality is the norm and a mandatory requirement of modern science.
In Europe and the USA, 22–30 years is the time when women and men actively study, develop their professional skills, gain work experience abroad, undergo internships, and launch their own projects (this is a risk that is also poorly compatible with family). As a result, by the age of 30–35, they become experienced professionals with a fairly wide choice of career opportunities. Women in Russia by this age, as a rule, have children, but without the career capital that will allow them to succeed in the international scientific community. I want to make a reservation that I see many advantages in starting a family and having children at 20–25 years old. And I know examples where women managed to combine this with building a successful scientific career. But it seems to me important that the decision about what to give priority to - family or career - at any given moment is up to the woman. In Russia, there is too much social pressure on women. There is no such thing in Germany. For example, if in Russia it is considered normal to ask about her marital status and children when first meeting a woman, then in Germany this question is not asked in the first conversation, especially if the woman is under 30. In general, in Germany they respect people’s private lives much more and usually do not they ask questions about it until the person himself begins to talk.
I personally have not had to deal with my gender in any way interfering with my goals or affecting professional interactions. But it should be noted that I am not a timid person and know how to defend my point of view. I'm not easily embarrassed. I grew up in the provinces and, although I could not enter Moscow State University immediately after school, I was not content with the poor level of biology teaching in my hometown, but entered St. Petersburg State University a year later. During my six years at the university, I went to three foreign internships and several international conferences, although no one pushed me anywhere and I had no connections. It was just interesting, I wanted to learn new things and become a professional. I entered three good research centers for graduate school and ended up choosing the best university in Germany. The main thing is that I was not afraid to try and did not give up any ideas when it didn’t work out the first time. For example, during foreign internships, my home university did not support me at all, creating more and more bureaucratic obstacles. As a result, it got ridiculous: in order to go on a three-month internship in the USA, I took an academic course, and then left it early before the session. It turned out that it was impossible to formalize my absence from the university during the semester in any other way.
“You should go, dear, to the theater. Why do you need this science?
Vitalina Kirgizova
geneticist-immunologist, 22 years old
She graduated from the Faculty of Biology of Moscow State University, received education in bioinformatics, immunology, economics and management of biotechnology at the University of Cambridge, Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciência, Bioinformatics Institute, Faculty of Bioengineering and Bioinformatics of Moscow State University. Employee of the Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry of the Russian Academy of Sciences, popularizes science, writes a blog vitalinabiology.com and supervises educational program on biotechnology Biotech Weekend in Digital October
I remember when I, a prize-winner of the All-Russian Olympiad, took my documents to the Faculty of Biology of Moscow State University, one of the elderly employees admissions committee, having pasted the photograph to my personal file, sighed: “You should go, dear, to the theater. Why do you need this science? Nevertheless, approximately twice as many girls as boys enroll in the biology department of Moscow State University. Plus, thanks to their perseverance and diligence, more girls survive to graduation. Sometimes there is not a single young person among 10 students in departments. Therefore, girls in the field department on expeditions are forced to chop wood, make fires, and carry boats on their shoulders... Boys, especially intelligent ones, are very much valued at the biology department.
Perhaps gender discrimination is associated with the biological and psychophysiological predestination of women. Men, by nature, take risks more easily and engage in adventurous projects. Women are often less willing to put everything on the line. But behind many Nobel laureates - project managers who form the goal of the project - were women researchers who carefully carried out a huge layer of delicate experimental work that required colossal concentration. Having successfully studied for the first year and survived a two-month biological internship, I was invited to apply for my first official job. Among the first questions from the professor, a member of the European Academy of Sciences, was this: how soon do I plan to get married and have children? I assessed the question quite adequately - by conducting household and raising children is traditionally done by women. Laboratory managers take into account that they may be investing unique knowledge, resources and their own efforts in an employee who will leave science forever at the time of starting a family.
In general, every time at interviews and interviews I had to prove that yes, I am interested in fundamental research and do not plan to give up my scientific career. When I entered my first department, the head during the interview asked whether I really planned to continue doing science and not achieve success in the modeling industry. In any case, I put up with everything and try not to focus on discrimination. For example, I follow the L'Oréal-UNESCO Prize for Women in Science. It is prestigious, and a small number of laureates receive it every year. Last year, one of my teachers at Moscow State University won it. Of course, one interdisciplinary prize is nothing in the context the entire spectrum of sciences. In Russia there is a lack of awards and grants for women researchers, and I can’t name a single one. Apparently, there are so many material gaps in the financing of Russian research that there is no time for foreign trends in supporting women in science.
“In America, the guys took turns driving me home, since I lived quite far from campus.”
Anastasia Naumova
chemist, 22 years old
Graduated from the Higher Chemical Committee of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Russian Chemical Technical University. Works at Skoltech and laboratory computer design MIPT materials
It seems to me that the concept of discrimination against women in science and education appeared not because of discrimination as such (it no longer exists fifty years ago), but because women, due to the evolutionary characteristics of their psyche, are less likely to devote their lives to scientific activities than men. In science, you can never be 100% sure of the success of the result, that is, you have to take risks, which is evolutionarily more typical for men than for women. Thus, due to the smaller number of women scientists, this false idea of discrimination against women in science arose.
During my scientific career, I managed to work in several scientific groups V different countries world (Russia, America, China, Switzerland). In my opinion, if gender discrimination exists, it is not directed against women. In my experience, girls in science are always in the minority, so they are treated with special care (I didn’t feel this explicitly only in America - there is equality there). In all the laboratories in which I worked, for a long time I was the first and only lady in the team, so the men tried to help me like gentlemen. Although in America, the guys in the car took turns driving me home, since I lived quite far from campus.
In the States, the situation is somewhat different from Russia in that they strive for complete equality in everything, from the amount of workload per woman/man to the number of employees of both sexes. Since women even there are not very willing to go into science, they have to work a lot and hard, but advancement in career ladder it happens much easier than for men, since there is more competition in their ranks. In my opinion, this American system is incorrect: in science, it is not gender that should determine professional worth, but the list of significant publications. A similar situation is observed, for example, for all ethnic minorities. That is, when choosing between two candidates for a professorship, they are more likely to choose a woman or a person with Indian roots than anyone else.
In Russia, China, Switzerland and many other countries, the situation is different: a person’s success in science is determined by his competence, regardless of nationality and gender, which, in my opinion, is more correct. It happened, of course, even during my studies at the university that professors of the old school treated girls in a special way, initially believing that in principle they could not be smart. But this point of view is becoming increasingly rare.
“In the scientific world, sometimes what is lacking is gender differences, not total equality”
Victoria Savelyeva
chemist, 25 years old
Graduated from the Master's program at the Russian Chemical Technical University. D. I. Mendeleev. PhD student at the French National Center for Scientific Research (Centre national de la recherche scientifique, CNRS) in Strasbourg (Alsace, France)
As strange as it may sound, the scientific world sometimes lacks gender differences rather than total equality. For example, it is impossible to require the same work experience by age 35 for men and women. How can you work two or three positions in different countries around the world and at the same time give birth and raise a child, when you constantly move and are only home at night? What kind of husband can follow you around the world, also constantly changing jobs?
Last year I was a participant International conference in Bordeaux (France), one of the sections of which was dedicated to women working at cyclic accelerators (synchrotrons). I was very impressed by the speech of one associate professor, a mother of two children, who shared her not the most pleasant experience. Time at the synchrotron is extremely valuable, so her team was very lucky when the project received its coveted opportunity. At the time of the next experiment at the accelerator, this girl assistant professor was pregnant. And do you know what the doctor working at the synchrotron told her? “Are you aware that this is a risk (you are exposed to radiation)? Decide for yourself..." Decide for yourself?! I'm sure this is not the first case of pregnant workers. And where is the help, the protection? Why not suggest transferring measurements, swapping with someone? Fearing that there would be no other opportunity, the girl went to the measurements and, thank God, then gave birth to a healthy child. After some time - the second one. And now she is given new time to work at the synchrotron - wonderful! But who should leave two children? The youngest still needs to be breastfed (maternity leave in France is very short). And she goes on research, taking two kids in her arms. For a minute, these are far from resort conditions, but round-the-clock work, sleeping three to four hours in total (when necessary), stressful conditions, noise from thousands of pumps. Maybe this is not exactly a story about discrimination, but about the desire of a woman, a mother of two children, to do what she loves, no matter what.
A good friend of mine met her future husband during her graduate studies in Belgium - they are both Iranian. The candidacy has been secured, the husband’s contract in Belgium has been completed, what next? He goes to Iran, but she doesn’t, she simply won’t be able to work in science there, no one will let her in, and she finds a postdoc in Turkey. And how many families are there where a woman wants to realize herself, but does not want to ruin the family? Unfortunately, you often have to be content with little.
If we talk about the attitude towards the family, towards raising children, it seems to me that the policy of France is much more loyal than in Russia. It allows a woman (and a man too) to combine both roles - a full-fledged employee and a mother/father. For example, in junior classes On Wednesdays, children do not study, and working mothers can easily spend these days with their children until they grow up. This is stated in their contract. Or, for example, school break- sacred time to spend with children. Who in Russia can afford to take vacations for all school holidays, at the same time as their colleagues? Almost everything in France. An alternative is a la kindergartens at companies or scientific institutes.
It seems to me that first of all it is necessary to communicate and discuss these topics globally. We have no idea about the norms and situations in other countries. And discuss not only with your narrow circle of women, but also involve more and more men in the discussion.
“Currently there are 16 men under my leadership”
Sofia Gromova
chemist
Faculty of Chemistry, Moscow State University. Lomonosov, candidate of chemical sciences. Technical Director of the Industrial Department at 3M Russia
The problem of sexism in science is not imaginary. If you look at the history of the Nobel Prize, out of 870 laureates, only 48 are women, while less than half of them received the prize in the field of natural and exact sciences, while the bulk received the prize in literature and the peace prize. In a scientific team in which a man and a woman work, the latter is often perceived as support staff. The same thing happens when we talk about laboratory workers: as a rule, the first image that comes to mind is a girl laboratory assistant. It is believed that even when delivering a lecture course, the same speech by a male and female lecturer is perceived differently by students.
As you know, any rule has exceptions. And I am a pleasant exception, since I have never had to deal with gender bias in my work at the university and in the company. The university has always valued first of all scientific merits: intellectual property, new and interesting developments, the ability to communicate with students and correctly convey information. Now there are 16 men under my leadership; I have never carried out gender separation myself and have not observed it at 3M. The R&D and technical support department values professionalism, innovation, creativity and emotional intelligence. And these concepts have no gender.
I know many female professors who make significant contributions to science. Just like women who are successful in business. It is known that women's leadership style is often more flexible than men's. There are now programs to support women scientists with families, which provide grants to women so that they can combine a career in science and supporting their family. These include, for example, the Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard Foundation.
Once I had to come to a conference with a child. My daughter was one and a half years old at the time, I was breastfeeding her, but I really wanted to go to the reports at that conference. The event took place in the Moscow region - I wandered back and forth for a couple of days, and on the third I came with my daughter. Half of the conference participants were touched, but the other looked in bewilderment. It happened that people came up with the words: “You don’t know how to organize your time! I came here to show off - I have to stay with the children on maternity leave! You won’t be able to make it everywhere anyway.” Fortunately, these were only a few.
By the way, I defended my dissertation when my daughter was only three months old, and my eldest child entered first grade. It was hard, but that’s how it turned out. And no one felt sorry for me then. My opponent and I sat and talked for hours, then I said that I was feeding and left. For me to just get away with something just because I’m a young mother - that didn’t happen. I don't think there's anything particularly bad about this. The main thing is not that women in science should be pitied. The main thing is to be respected. Now the Federal Agency scientific organizations refuses kindergartens at the Russian Academy of Sciences - this is a problem. This creates insurmountable difficulties for graduate students and young scientists without housing in Moscow in order to find a home for their children.
Theorems and theories need to be proven, not that women can do it too. From practice, a man can work in a laboratory from morning to evening, and everyone accepts this. But if a married lady with children does this, they already perceive it ambiguously and begin to look for problems in her life. Women in science need moral support, and not condemnation in the style of “Get out of maternity leave soon, otherwise you won’t be able to think anymore.” And also a simple understanding that a concentrated mother who planned an experiment is in no way inferior to a leisurely husband of science who can sit for a long time and force himself to do something all day long.
“Women get stuck in administrative positions and in teaching and learning departments”
The first time I realized the fact of quite blatant discrimination was when the moment came to choose a graduate school. Graduate school is often used as a means of getting out of the military by young people who may have no academic aspirations at all. I know of a department that, despite its scientifically brilliant composition, accepted only young men for graduate studies. Knowing about this feature, my female colleagues immediately left for other cities and countries to continue their careers, without even submitting documents here.
Secondly, women researchers and graduate students are often assigned administrative and secretarial functions by default. I only know one so far Research Center, in which the work of the administrator is performed by a man. I regularly encountered requests to organize coffee breaks, meet guests at a conference - in a word, to show concern. This is how women get stuck in administrative positions and in teaching and learning departments.
Compared to business or the career of an official, doing science in Russia is not so prestigious. It is no secret that the less elite a profession is, the greater the proportion of women in it, who traditionally occupy lower-paid and lower-status positions in the labor market. Therefore, the number of female teachers in higher education in Russia is quite impressive. At first glance this may look like there is no problem, but if you adjust for the level wages and the status of administrative positions, then we will again see an imbalance.
The Russian academy suffers from so many ills that discrimination is perhaps not the worst of them. They discriminate not only based on gender, but also on the presence or absence of connections, “nonresident” status, belonging to another academic school, and a number of other parameters. But if someday it comes down to institutional mechanisms for solving the problem, methods like CV blind review seem to me to be quite effective, when the personnel commission does not see the gender (as well as ethnicity) of the applicant. Or regular monitoring by independent university ethics commissions using anonymous corporate surveys and a prescribed procedure for resolving conflicts and ambiguous situations. In the universities where I have studied, interned, or simply hung out, I have found that, regardless of the political or ideological views of the leadership, there is always a Diversity Committee or its equivalent that ensures that relative balance is maintained students and university staff: race, gender or any other. During my studies in Italy, the question of the lack of female teachers at the faculty repeatedly came up. For example, on the eve of defending her dissertation, my colleague insisted that at least half of her dissertation committee (analogous to a dissertation council in Russia) be women.
Another difficulty that women in science face both in Russia and abroad is the lack of role models for successful female scientists. As one American professor once said, “for students, you are either a mommy or a bitch.” Both graduate students and female graduate students, during professional socialization, have to focus on male role models in their academic career. As you know, there are slightly more women in the so-called humanities, which, as we know, some of our colleagues do not even consider to be science. However, there is less money there.