Racioppi and O'Sullivan See provide a detailed account of nine different Russian women's movements and their leaders. Each of these groups emerged during perestroika and have continued to exist in the post-communist period. To help the non-Soviet specialist understand the challenges that these activists faced, the authors briefly recount the history of the Soviet Union's gender policies. Then, in telling the stories of the organizations, Racioppi and O'Sullivan See explain why the "personal became political" for the movement's leaders. Interviewing their subjects numerous times (anywhere from two to seven) and examining the organizations' literature, the authors describe the emergence of these groups, their leaders views of their contemporary roles and goals, and their connections with other Russian women's associations.
For the student of social movements in general and women's movements in particular, the value of this book is in the diversity of groups and activists studied and the richness of detail. The variety of activists, ideologies, and organizational origins is striking. Leaders vary in age (the oldest was born in 1934 and the youngest in 1958), class origins (their parents were peasants, workers, professionals and intellectuals), and ideological leanings (today they are communists, nationalists, classical liberals, "centrists," social democrats, or postmodern feminists). Some of their groups emerged from the official party structures (like the Union of Women of Russia which was a successor to the Soviet Women's Committee), others originally had ties to state organs (such as the Center for Gender Studies which was housed within the Institute for the Socioeconomic Study of Population of the Soviet Academy of Sciences), and still others formed with no institutional support (like the International Institute for Entrepreneurial Development which held its first meetings in cafes in St. Petersburg).
While they pay a significant amount of attention to demographic variables, ideology, and organizational origins, the authors find no simple connection between these characteristics and the activists' views and behavior. For instance, all were in favor of preserving women's rights and opportunities in the new polity, but to achieve these goals, the different groups undertook a variety of projects, such as running female candidates in elections, establishing rape crisis centers, and providing training programs for women entrepreneurs. The authors account for the diversity in organizations and programs as a logical reaction to the centralism of the Soviet period.
As feminists, however, all were committed to gender equality and worried that girls coming of age today faced greater challenges than they had encountered. Under communism, women were given access to post-secondary education, employment, and child-care facilities. The extent of this access was not complete and the quality of the social services provided was far from perfect, but state policies allowed women to hold down jobs outside the home. Currently, this support for opportunities in schooling and employment, as well as funding for day care is waning. In fact, many political leaders argue that women were "too emancipated" during Soviet times and that their widespread participation in the public sphere caused the numerous societal problems plaguing Russia today. To combat this perception and the resulting political efforts to convince citizens to adopt traditional gender roles, these activists have tended to work for an accurate understanding of the benefits and restrictions accorded to females under communism and have sought to provide support services, training, and advice to women during the transition.
While the stories in this volume are interesting and highly readable, a student of collective action who turns to this book for theoretical insights may be disappointed. The authors do not engage the literature on social movements except to note the importance of resources (defined primarily as funding, physical space, and organizational ties) in mounting challenges to the state. In addition, there is little assessment of the impact of the changes in the political opportunity structure on these movements, and the authors may have probed more deeply the interaction of women's and other (e.g., pro-democracy, nationalist, and labor) groups that were involved in Soviet politics at the end of the Gorbachev era and that continue to be active today. Had the authors consulted some classics on social movement theory and examined works on women's movements in other countries during tumultuous periods, perhaps they may have asked different questions and generated more hypotheses about the causes of the behaviors that they document.
This account of women's activism may also have benefitted from insights from recent theoretical works that examine the complexity of identity and the evolution of feminism. While the authors stress the diversity of the activists, they almost all lived in Moscow, St. Petersburg, or the Moscow region and were highly educated. Thus, these women's concern with gender oppression may not be so surprising, since in many ways these individuals were very privileged in their society. In addition, a discussion of the different kinds of feminism present in contemporary Russia and an acknowledgment that such ideological variety is not unique to that country may have been helpful.
In sum, Russian specialists, social movement scholars, and students of feminist activism will find this book accessible and interesting. The work does not, however, present a fully satisfying explanation of the diversity of behaviors that the authors observe. Racioppi and O'Sullivan See have provided an important introduction to the study of Russian women's activism in the reform and post-communist periods, and anyone hoping to develop a more theoretical account would do well to start with this book.