Dissenting spirit: Factional feminine resistance in wartime Russia

One consequence of the Russian invasion of Ukraine has been the gradual reshaping and dismantling of “traditional femininity” by various groups of Russian women. While Putin’s regime has successfully summoned an extreme and violent version of hegemonic masculinity in wartime Russia, female opposition politicians, feminist activists, and enraged military wives increasingly reject and oppose the conjoined rhetoric of Russian conservative femininity. 

Russian women have contended with the Kremlin’s “gender-conservative” policies for nearly two decades. Initiatives like the 2007 maternity capital programme — a government scheme offering women financial incentives for the birth of two or more children — heralded the beginning of a pronounced gendered ideological shift, paving the way for increasingly repressive policies in the years that followed.

In 2011, in conjunction with its increasingly pronatalist rhetoric, the state enacted controversial legislation limiting access to abortions. By 2012, in an attempt to bolster declining support and consolidate power after the anti-government Bolotnaya Protests, Putin’s campaign for traditional values and social control escalated. The clamp down on feminist activists, most notably the jailing of several members of the punk rock group, Pussy Riot, showcased this new agenda. Events came to a head in 2017, when the decriminalisation of domestic violence underscored the state’s alarming oppression of women’s rights in a country where one woman died every 40 minutes from domestic abuse.

The message was clear: women were expected to renounce gender equality, feminism, and activism in favour of their state-dictated roles as passive wives and mothers. 

Cracks in the foundation

Yet the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 has led to the gradual unravelling of these carefully laid conservative foundations. While wars historically have both challenged and reified traditional gender roles, the Kremlin in this case actively augments the importance of traditional gender roles, prompting swathes of Russian women to fight back and reclaim their agency.

Feminist activists were among the first to mobilise protests against the war. The Feminist Anti-War Resistance (FAS) group launched just one day after the invasion, utilising protest art and guerrilla tactics in the name of anti-war and pro-women’s rights activism. Members have since faced severe persecution — Alexandra Skochilenko, for example, was infamously handed a seven-year prison sentence for replacing supermarket price tags with anti-war messages.

By April 2023, the State Duma was considering a bill to declare feminism an “extremist ideology,” and in 2024, the FAS was designated a “foreign agent.”  The extremity of this repression underscores the feminist movement’s growing prominence, and its threat to the Russian government’s agenda.

Notably, this comes despite the emergence of several so-called “feminist nationalist” groups which support the war, such as the Women’s History Group, who work to promote feminist ideals while simultaneously praising “the heroines of the special military operation in Ukraine” and attacking critics. According to feminist experts however, these groups are “fairly marginal” and at the “far end” of the increasingly active spectrum of Russian feminism.

Meanwhile, the increased involvement of women in protests and demonstrations since the invasion further symbolises the marked rise of female activism. Women have accounted for up to 70 percent of protesters in major Russian cities, especially since the announcement of partial mobilisation in 2022. In comparison, women comprised only 27 percent of demonstrators during the anti-government Bolotnaya Protests of 2012.

The heavy hand

The prospect of women rejecting victimhood in favour of self-agency is far from pleasing to the Kremlin. Determined to maintain societal order against the backdrop of wartime upheaval, Putin’s traditionalist policy rhetoric has steadily hardened.

In August 2022, the Kremlin reintroduced the Soviet-era Mother Heroine award, offering mothers of 10 or more children a $16,500 cash prize in an attempt to bolster the country’s rapidly declining population. But these conservative policy efforts conflict with public sentiments: a 2022 Rosstat survey revealed that 71.6 percent of women wanted no more than two children.

As the war dragged into its third year, Putin declared 2024 the “Year of the Family.” In March, during a speech to mark International Women’s Day, he referred to motherhood as a “glorious mission for women.” Demonstrating the state’s insistence on women forgoing education and careers in favour of child-rearing, senior officials called on girls to begin their motherhood journeys from the age of 18, have at least 3 children, and “maintain their beauty” for the sake of their husbands. Initiatives such as free fertility testing, increased divorce fees, and stricter anti-abortion laws further entrenched the regime’s conservative vision.

Unsurprisingly, these efforts have yielded little. Amid the bloody invasion of Ukraine, political instability, financial difficulties, and rising social anxiety, many  Russian women are postponing or abandoning plans to have children. Official government data from September 2024 revealed that Russia’s birth rate had slid to its lowest in 25 years, with only 599,600 recorded births in the first half of 2024 — 16,000 fewer than during the same period in 2023 and the lowest since 1999.

The Kremlin’s efforts to confine women in its rigid framework of conservative femininity appear to be backfiring, with far-reaching and profound consequences. More and more women are rejecting their assigned roles as producers of the Kremlin’s “cannon fodder” by standing up against the very regime and war that have sought to oppress them.

Domestic frontline

The growing cohort of irate military wives and mothers demonstrates the  danger of underestimating ordinary women with a just cause. “The Way Home” movement emerged in September 2023, after the government announced there would be no troop rotations in Ukraine. Since then, through letter-writing campaigns and social media posts, these women have appealed to the state to facilitate prisoner-of-war exchanges, locate missing soldiers, establish legal protections and improve welfare support for those at war.

While “The Way Home” originally did not oppose the war, the Kremlin’s failure to act on their demands has radicalised the group’s stance, culminating in calls for an end to the war. Combating these convictions has proven challenging. By presenting themselves as patriotic family members of brave Russian soldiers, these women wield an undeniable moral authority over the Kremlin. Hence, when rising discontent has spilled over into public unrest, authorities have avoided  suppressing them by force, instead resorting to public discreditation campaigns and intrusive surveillance tactics.

In addition, the emergence of the Katyusha Movement — a small, state-sponsored pro-war organisation consisting of women claiming to be relatives of Russian servicemen in Ukraine — marked a further attempt by the government to undermine the influence of “The Way Home”. Tensions escalated in May 2024 when the Russian state officially labelled the movement a foreign agent in an effort to entirely disband the organisation and cultivate fear.

Nevertheless, women in Russia’s military families, once a cornerstone of Vladimir Putin’s political support, still pose a subtle but meaningful threat. Through “patriotic dissent”, the women of “The Way Home” movement continue to advocate for the rights of loved ones in a war they increasingly view as unjust. In doing so, they are stepping into traditional male roles as family protectors and rejecting expectations of unquestioning support for the Kremlin’s military endeavours.

As the war rolls into its fourth year, these sentiments could potentially ignite a broader protest movement, especially since women are significantly more critical of the war than men. A 2024 Levada Centre poll revealed that 55% of women favour peace negotiations, while men predominantly support continued hostilities, with 50% advocating for further military action.

In a man’s world

The ascent of women as an oppositional force has also been keenly felt in the political sphere.

Following her husband Alexei Navalny’s death in February 2024, Yulia Navalnaya has inherited the mantle as leader of the Russian political opposition. Commanding domestic and international attention, Navalnaya has galvanised support through impassioned speeches at forums like the European Parliament and the Munich Security Conference, advocating for sustained sanctions against Putin’s regime. Despite living in exile, Navalnaya has consolidated significant support within Russia, evidenced by the acts of electoral dissent instigated through her instruction during the 2024 presidential election. The level of unease Navalnaya has elicited within Kremlin circles was demonstrated by the warrant issued for her arrest in July 2024.

Domestically, journalist Yekaterina Duntsova has also emerged as an unprecedented emblem of the resistance. Defying immense personal risk, Duntsova launched an anti-war campaign during the 2024 election whilst remaining in Russia. Although her candidacy was predictably rejected by Russia’s Central Election Commission on dubious technical grounds, she continued to rally popular support and build her own political infrastructure.

As a low-income mother of three, Duntsova hardly fits the stereotypical image of an opposition politician, and yet, the brutality unfolding in Ukraine provoked this seemingly ordinary woman to take a moral stand. It is this very “ordinariness” that made it difficult for the Kremlin to discredit her image, with state propaganda resorting to attacking her alleged connections to exiled opposition figures. Both Duntsova and Navalnaya have sent an alarming message to the Kremlin: any woman can and will rise up, especially in the face of adversity.

The future is female

The wartime reshaping of Russian femininity highlights a profound shift in societal dynamics. Alienated by the Kremlin’s oppressive policies and catalysed by the war in Ukraine, many women are rejecting victimhood, stepping into leadership roles and advocating for the rights of their families. In doing so, they are defying the state’s decades-long and increasingly rigid vision of traditional femininity, often assuming roles conventionally associated with men.

The true potential of this female-driven resistance remains to be seen. If these women — diverse in background but alike in purpose — can coalesce into a cohesive opposition movement, they might be the final source of Putin’s own undoing. The West must recognize this potential and provide unwavering support to amplify their efforts in this vital endeavour.

In a society where dissent has long been dangerous, these women’s courage signals a transformative shift. Their defiance could mark the beginning of a new chapter in Russia’s political and social history.