After posting a few feminist jokes and rants online, Russian blogger Lyubov Kalugina hardly expected to face five years in jail for inciting hatred towards men.

Kalugina, 31, was charged on Sept. 4 after an unidentified man complained about 12 posts she published on Russia's most popular social media network between 2013 and 2016, including her hope that a noisy neighbour would "die of prostate cancer".

"I wish I did something more serious, more useful, as an activist to risk my freedom for," Kalugina, who lives in Siberia and runs two feminist online communities on the site, VKontakte, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation via Skype.

Rights groups say the charges are discriminatory as men often denigrate women, and even advocate rape – along with potential victims' phone numbers and addresses – on Russian social networks, but they are rarely prosecuted.

Russia's Investigative Committee, the state body that investigates crimes, did not respond to requests for comment.

Derogatory comments about women are widely accepted as part of the national culture, with President Vladimir Putin famously praising Russian prostitutes as the best in the world and publicly joking about rape and premenstrual pain.

The case against Kalugina echoes that of the feminist Russian punk band Pussy Riot, three of whom were jailed in 2012 for protesting against Putin.

One of Russia's longest serving leaders, he has enjoyed glowing Soviet-style coverage on state TV – the main source of news for most Russians – for almost two decades.

Kalugina's charges come amid a wider crackdown on freedom of expression in Russia, with dozens prosecuted and jailed since 2012, using anti-extremism legislation, for internet posts, memes, likes and shares, according to rights groups.

Nine out of ten convictions for extremist speech in Russiain 2017 were handed down to those who commented online, said Maria Kravchenko, an expert with the SOVA Center, a rights group that tracks hate crimes.