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https://theconversation.com/is-russian-misogyny-enabling-sexual-violence-in-ukraine-yes-argues-a-bestselling-author-250802>
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Review: Same River, Twice: Putin’s War on Women – Sofia Oksanen
(HarperCollins)
Sofi Oksanen has a penchant for difficult subjects. The Finnish-Estonian author
established her international reputation with her 2008 novel
Purge, which
examined sexual violence against women and legacies of the Soviet regime in
Estonia. The subjugation of women as part of the complex history of Eastern
Europe has been a central theme in her six novels.
Her latest work,
Same River, Twice: Putin’s War on Women, is a book-length
essay that evolved from a speech delivered to the Swedish Academy in March
2023. Its primary concern is the deterioration of women’s rights under the
regime of Russian president Vladimir Putin.
Oksanen weaves together three narrative threads: the story of her own family,
the historical trajectory of post-Soviet Russia, and the ongoing conflict in
Ukraine.
Her speech examined the link between the general erosion of women’s rights in
Russia and conflict-related sexual violence. The essay is significantly longer,
punctuated by digressions into parallel topics. This transformation is not
seamless. Much of the additional subject matter – such as the status of women
in the Soviet Union, or the history of state propaganda in Russia – is given
only cursory treatment.
But the book makes an important statement about the weaponisation of violence
against women in Russia. As a political and (arguably) a military strategy,
this violence has far-reaching implications.
Oksanen argues that, over the past two decades, the status of women in Russia
has been deliberately repositioned to align with the state’s promotion of
“traditional values” (however vaguely defined). In 2023, Russian politician
Oleg Matveychev drafted a proposed law for the State Duma, Russia’s lower house
of Parliament, describing feminism as “extremist” and feminists as “agents of
the West”."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
