First, let me introduce myself. My name is Roxana Kiseleva. I’m an activist with the Feminist Anti-War Resistance movement, a journalist, a radical leftist bimbo and one of the authors of the statement issued by the feminist members of the Peaceful Russia party condemning a sexist joke made by our party chairman, Ilya Yashin and his associate, Roman Levitin.

For years, I made a conscious decision to avoid working with men. I can’t think of a single activist or political organization where women haven’t experienced harassment by male colleagues, whether verbal or physical. Every time we women found the courage to speak publicly about what we had been through, we would try to have a conversation about boundaries, abuses of power and the vulnerable position women occupy in a country where the police can’t always be counted on to help you.

But every time, there were men who would climb onto their soapboxes and loudly proclaim that “None of this matters. What matters is that Putin has seized power in Russia.” 

And round and round we would go.

If Russia's Opposition Wants Change, They Must Change Themselves

I make my living outside of campaigning. Activism has always been something I did on the side, a form of unpaid work I chose to do, without any ambitions of turning it into more. That meant I could choose who I worked with.

I would have been more than happy to stay in my feminist bubble. I’m already running on empty and I’m not willing to fight yet another battle just to get my colleagues to take women’s issues seriously in politics. But Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine made me rethink my rules.

Gender equality doesn’t exist. There isn’t a single country where women enjoy the same rights and opportunities as men. Politics is no exception: power remains firmly in the hands of men, often older and deeply conservative. We women have to elbow our way in and raise our voices just to be noticed, let alone make room for........

© The Moscow Times