Vol 24, No 1 (2022): Women and Feminism in Global Politics

Feminist foreign policy (FFP) is a relatively new approach in the theory of international relations. Disclosing the heuristic potential of the concept is especially relevant due to the new political challenges of international conflicts that have different consequences for men and women. For the first time in Russian political science, this article analyzes the conceptual history of the FFP and the factors that influenced the implementation of this concept at the global level. The research is based on the publications and works of women, historical documents of international women’s forums, scientific works on feminism theory and the international relations theory, policy papers of political parties, speeches of political leaders, government documents on the conduct of the FFP, UN resolutions. In addition to general scientific methods, the authors use the comparative-historical and systemic methods. The article presents the intellectual origins of the FFP, the role of the women’s suffrage and pacifist movements in the development of the concept, the importance of women/gender/feminist academic research for the conceptualization of the FFP, as well as the contribution of politicians from leading world powers to the development of the concept. The authors analyze in detail the “Hillary Doctrine” and the UN feminist resolutions as forerunners of the official introduction of the term FFP into the theory and practice of international relations. The article assesses the potential of the FFP as an international strategy for gender equality and sustainable development. The authors conclude that a feminist political perspective works hand in hand with the vision of sustainable development policies and represents an increasingly relevant concept and practice that can be a strategic step towards the culture of peace.

In most academic discourses, United Nations (UN) programs and initiatives to promote digitalization and women’s rights are studied as distinct fields. Less attention has been paid to UN efforts to promote gender equality and protect women’s rights by promoting digitalization. The article addresses some of the gaps in the contemporary research of the role of modern international intergovernmental organizations in women’s rights protection amidst modern technological development. The study reveals the influence of digitalization on ameliorating the position of women in modern societies and formulates the assessment of the gender gap in using the ICT technologies, as well as analyzes how UN specialized divisions act to ensure digital gender equality. The author concludes that the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) approved by the UN in 2015 do not pay enough attention to the importance of digitalization for ensuring the rights of women.

As an ideology, anarchism has many currents formed through its symbiosis with various socio-political philosophies, including feminism. In the modern world, due to the growing support for feminism in Western countries, the study of anarcha-feminism as one of the most active anarchist movements seems to be useful for understanding the socio-political situation in Europe and the United States. The article examines the position of women in the anarchism ideology upon the development of the anarcha-feminist movement from the 19th century to the present day. Based on the works of the classics of anarcha-feminism (E. Goldman, W. De Claire) and modern research (D. Koval, M. Rachmaninova), the author conducted a comparative retrospective analysis of the relationship between anarchism and feminism within a single socio-political trend. The study revealed that despite the ideological similarity of anarchism and feminism in matters of equality and attitude to power, in classical anarchism women were assigned a rather insignificant, and even deprived, role. The fusion of feminism and anarchism, which came as a response to the unfair position of women in society, led to a change in the status of women in the understanding of anarchists, and also gave impetus to the development of modern anarcha-feminism (La Rivolta!, Eskalera Karakola, Wemoon’s Army, Radical cheerleading) including more and more men in the movement.

Digital vigilantism can be defined as the coordinated actions of civic groups in virtual space (not excluding the possibility of going offline) in response to imaginary or real actions of third parties or as the expression of outrage at a real-world event recorded and uploaded online. Digital vigilantism serves as an informalised institution of online civil society, regulating behaviour and punishing citizens for actions or intentions that are inappropriate from the vigilantes’ point of view. In modern Russia, movements that were formed as a result of the interactions between NGOs, individual activists and the authorities, that are now acting as auxiliary institutions, become quite popular. This phenomenon suggests the spread of guided vigilantism. The authors argue that the governmental structures recognize the impossibility of solving some conflict situations within formal institutions and therefore legitimize their regulation through network interactions. This article focuses on the gender aspects of digital vigilantism in Russia. In order to analyze gender characteristics of Russian vigilante communities, the authors collected the data on the subscribers of six online communities using the VKontakte API (application programming interface): “StopHam”, “Lev Protiv”, “Khrushi Protiv”, “Sorok Sorokov”, “Anti-Dealer” and “Sober Yard”. A dataset of 818 927 records was generated, which included basic socio-demographic information about the users (ID, user-specified name, gender, age, city). Analyzing the posts and comments uploaded over the last two years and the database of subscribers of typical vigilante communities in the VKontakte social network (2900 subscriptions), the authors were able to come closer to understanding users’ motivations, define the social portrait of a “typical digital vigilante” and identify gender characteristics of the movement. Research outcomes confirm the problematic persistence of gender asymmetry and the inheritance of enduring cultural stereotypes regarding the correlation between “the female” and “the male”, even concerning such a new form of civic activism in Russia as digital vigilantism.

Since the early 2000s, the expansion of women’s representation at all levels of government in South Africa and several Southern African states has become one of the main features of the formation of political leadership. There are both legal and institutional preconditions for this, such as the creation of quota systems for women’s representation in elective positions. The author notes the breakdown in the stereotype that women can be engaged exclusively in the social sphere (education, health care, problems of youth and children). African women successfully occupy the posts of ministers for foreign affairs, defense, security and finance. They make a significant contribution to the development of foreign and domestic policy, as well as to the solution of socio-economic problems. Based on the analysis made through functional, comparative and psycho-biographical methodological approaches, the author describes the main reasons for the insufficient level of political participation of women in some countries: the ongoing conflict between the principle of gender equality and the traditional order; the system of informal relations in politics; the low level of political literacy and the financial and economic status of women; as well as violence. Another important factor is the insufficient level of intra-party democracy. The author concludes that the representation of women in politics is only one (though very important) part of resolving the gender equality issue. The author argues that the further expansion of gender equality in Southern African politics will be facilitated by creating equal conditions for men and women to stand for election, implying real democratic principles within political parties, as well as developing a political culture that excludes the creation of preconditions for discrimination by gender.