As Yelena Serova prepared to make history last September by becoming the first Russian woman to visit the International Space Station, her pre-liftoff press conference was dominated by questions about how her 11-year-old daughter would cope in her absence, and how she would style her hair in zero gravity. “Can I ask a question, too?” said Serova, who studied engineering at the acclaimed Moscow Aviation Institution. “Aren’t you interested in the hairstyles of my colleagues?”

From officials arguing that middle-aged men should be able to marry teenagers because women are often “shrivelled” by the age of 27, to the recent launch of Tittygram, aka “Uber for boobs”, it seems that not a day goes by without a story in the Moscow media about sexism.

And yet women in the capital are far from second-class citizens. Joining Serova as a pioneer is Elvira Nabiullina, head of the Central Bank of Russia and the first woman to hold such a post in a G8 country. Eighteen of the 45 deputies in the Moscow city duma are women, including the new head of the economic policy and finance committee, a portfolio traditionally given to a man (40% might not be perfect but it’s better than the state duma at 14%).



Elvira Nabiullina, governor of Russia’s central bank. Photograph: Bloomberg via Getty Images

There is a wealth of new services by and for Muscovite women, from new incubators for female entrepreneurs to startups such as Sokol Mama, which connects mothers with nannies. In the arts, in business, in film, in technology and many other areas besides, there’s a rich vein of female talent responsible for some of the city’s most exciting projects. Indeed it can sometimes seem, for much of Moscow’s young, educated, liberal set, that many of Russia’s normal rules and cultural attitudes – including sex discrimination – don’t apply.

Things are far from clear-cut, however. Although 40% of the Moscow city duma are female, only 10 out of 65 positions in the Moscow city government are held by women – and even then they often change their attitude upon election. “Female politicians always enter parliament as feminists and as representatives of women’s rights, but – because they need to pursue their political career – they become outrageous saviours of traditional values,” says Ekaterina Dementieva, editor-in-chief of Afisha, a popular online culture and entertainment portal. The result is a pro-family, pro-life stance that has become politically taboo to challenge. “It stigmatises the reality, in which there are so many women alone and women left with kids.” (Male mortality rates in Russia are high, especially among working-age males, and in 2012 Russia had the highest divorce rate in the world.)



The government has really been ramping up the propaganda of traditional gender roles, especially on giving birth Maria Dudko

The protection of traditional values and push towards greater social conservatism is one of the cornerstones of Vladimir Putin’s presidency. It allows him to not only unite Russians with a coherent ideology but to also reposition Russia as a global power in opposition to the liberal and morally lax west. As well as the widely publicised law banning “gay propaganda”, there is a new attack on abortion: in 2013, Russia banned abortion advertising, and parliamentary debate is now focused on removing abortion from health insurance coverage. “The government has been really ramping up the propaganda in terms of traditional gender roles, especially on giving birth,” says Maria Dudko, co-organiser of a gender studies summer school in Moscow. “They’re campaigning for women to have not just one but two or three babies. This is a stupid solution to the demographic problem.”

Discussion in the Moscow media and on social networks has started at last to put women’s issues such as abortion and domestic violence – and, more controversially, feminism – into the spotlight. “Feminism as a word will still be associated with Pussy Riot jumping around in a church, which means that the pro-government media can say that it’s something evil,” says Dudko. “The positive effect is that the small liberal part of Moscow society has been more willing to discuss what feminism is about.”

Hence the success of Wonderzine, a women’s magazine that pitches itself as an intelligent alternative to the glossies. Since launching in 2013 with a core audience in Moscow, it has covered topics from feminism to body image and “female misogyny”, the impulse to distance oneself from women in order to succeed in a man’s world. “Every heroine we talk to, whether a cosmonaut or a trainer in a women’s football team in Moscow, is very eager to speak about the discrimination she has met on her way,” says Olga Strakhovskaya. Yet by her own admission, Strakhovskaya and her circle are insulated from traditional, patriarchal Russia. “We’re a whole new generation. When I look at my friends I see people who are in their 30s, who don’t have children and who aren’t married,” she says. “We live with our long-term boyfriends or we live alone. We have allowed ourselves not to fit in. We want to live our lives as we want, so we never grow up.”

Varvara Melnikova, CEO of the Strelka Institute

This paradox – a world of highly successful women in a seemingly sexist society – is typified by Varvara Melnikova, who at the age of 30 was appointed director of the Strelka Institute for media, architecture and design. Melnikova says being a woman was never an obstacle to her success in Moscow, nor does she ever recall being discriminated against. Despite this, she points to a gender imbalance across Strelka’s different branches: while the cultural institute and the restaurant and bar employ a roughly equal number of men and women, men dominate the academic and consultancy arms.

“In Moscow quite a lot of business is done in an informal way,” she says. “Lots of deals and important conversations can be done at restaurants or bars, in saunas and nightclubs. Perhaps not deals but important conversations. Sometimes to keep up with these conversations, you need to be a man.”

Companies don’t want to hire people with small children: if the children get ill, she has to take time off work Aliona Vladimirskya

Research into gender equality in the workplace reveals a mixed picture. A 2014 report from the International Labour Organisation found a marked gender pay gap, but noted that if wage discrimination due to factors such as “having children” was eliminated, women would receive higher salaries than men.

“If a woman is competent and clever she will get the job,” says Aliona Vladimirskya, who runs the Pruffi headhunting agency for media and IT. She believes the salary gap between men and women is down to men being better at self-promotion. In her opinion, problems for women arise when they decide to have children. “They choose family and don’t give enough time for their careers, and so they lose,” she says. “Whether a woman is 22 or in her 30s, if she has a small child, she’s risky. Companies don’t want to hire people with small children: if the children get ill, for example, she has to take time off work.”

More recently, professional services firm Grant Thornton declared Russia a world leader in workplace gender equality, with 40% of senior business roles held by women – the highest in the world. Why? High male mortality rates, yes, but also the legacy of equal opportunity during the Soviet Union.

Russian billionaire Yelena Baturina. Photograph: Sergey Berezin/RIA Novosti

Although the USSR’s official line on gender parity did not always play out in practice, women enjoyed state-backed childcare, abortion rights and easy access to divorce. The Soviets launched the first woman into space, allowed women to fly on combat missions in the second world war and reserved one-third of the seats of the Congress of People’s Deputies for women. Again, however, the picture is far from rosy: by 1981, officials had also compiled a list of 460 occupations – such as chimney sweep and metro driver – that women were forbidden from holding because they were deemed detrimental to their health. The list still exists today.

Is life in Moscow for women changing for better or for worse? One of the capital’s most pernicious problems is everyday sexism, ranging from the occasional catcall to the expectation that women should do all of the housework and take care of the children even if they work.

Is Moscow changing for better or worse?

That’s not all, says Irina Kosterina, coordinator of the gender democracy programme at the Heinrich Böll foundation: women are also under immense pressure to make sure they look attractive at all times. Kosterina points to Yelena Baturina, Russia’s only female billionaire, as an example of somebody whose looks are considered more important than her success. “People said, ‘OK, she’s very successful and rich, but she’s ugly,’” says Kosterina. “In Russia it’s very important not only to be successful but also feminine. You have to be everything.”

Yet there are some women who refuse to capitulate. Alena Popova, an outspoken advocate for women’s rights, is atypical of many Muscovite women: at the age of 32, she is unmarried, has five adopted children and works in IT as an e-government specialist.

“When I wanted to adopt, the first question was: do you have a husband?” she says. “Well, I have a boyfriend, and I have my own flat, and my own car, and my own salary, so there are a lot of plusses. But on the other side there’s a huge minus, because I don’t have a husband.” This egregious lack of husband proved most problematic when Popova ran for office in the 2011 parliamentary election. “Being a woman was a huge minus, and not having a husband was another one,” she says. She lost.

At Tochka Otscheta cafe in Sokol, a neighbourhood in north Moscow, Popova has gathered a group of seven women to share their personal stories about life in the city. Those in the group with children agree that juggling motherhood and a career is one of the biggest challenges in Moscow today, with expensive childcare being among the most pressing issues.



According to Popova, who is also a co-founder of Startup Women, an incubator for female entrepreneurship, this has led to a rise in the number of women breaking away from large firms to launch their own small businesses – skirting the saunas completely, as it were – and working for themselves. Alla Kommisarova says she left her job in finance to set up La Princesse Choco, a chocolate shop, after she realised her former career did not offer her the flexibility she needed as a mother of two. Another member of the group, Victoria Pashkova, opened her own family law firm at 26 after facing discrimination in job interviews. “They just looked at me and said, ‘Well, you’ll be pregnant in two years so it’s not a good investment for us’,” she says.

If there’s one thing both of those women share with the women of Moscow, it’s a greater self-confidence. “I have seen many changes during the last five years,” says Popova. “Before, when I asked women what they would like to do, the response would be: ‘Me? I don’t know. Maybe I can ask an expert. Can you give me an expert that’s a man? But now we have a new way of thinking in the capital: if a woman is strong, first it’s normal, and second it’s good – because she sets a good example and sends the message: yes I can.”