EDITORIAL: Russia, Nation of Pigs

EDITORIAL

Russia, Nation of Pigs

Russian women who drive subway trains don’t dare dream of the day when they might be allowed to sue their employer for sexual harassment or gender discrimination in terms of their working conditions or pay.  That’s because in order to sue about such things you have to first be employed, and a Russian court ruled last week that women aren’t allowed to drive subway trains.  They are, the court said, genetically inferior to men and therefore to be excluded from such professions as might expose themselves or others to physical injury.

Russia is a nation of male chauvanist pigs and, as far as can be seen, it’s proud of it.

Women are also legally banned from being firefighters in Russia. The U.S., by contrast, has 8,500 female firefighters and seems to be getting on quite nicely, thank you — while Russia has one of the most appalling rates of fatality by fire on the planet.  The list of forbidden jobs goes on, and on, and includes:  steelworkers, freight handlers, slaughterhouse workers, oil riggers and divers.  Never mind that Russian men are habitually drunk, violent and sick, living ten years less than Russian women on average.  Women are inferior in Russia, as a matter of law, so they need not apply for any of these positions.

Now think about this:  If Russian courts are willing to legally exclude women from all these professions, how sensitive would they be to discrimination claims from women in jobs they are allowed to perform?  What luck would a woman have charging her employer with a serious crime, like sexual assault?  It seems rather obvious that women need not apply for that sort of relief any more than for a prohibited job.

The Kremlin’s Health and Social Development Ministry explained the state’s position:  “As for women, the slightest possibility of risk, for a woman herself or other people, must be excluded.”  The paternal state, in other words, is protecting women from themselves.

Here’s a forum posting from a young German woman reflecting on her first experience with Russian men last summer (unedited, we apologize for the profanity):

I’ve been to St. Petersburg from June 22nd to July 2nd. The first 6 days I spend at a girl’s place. She was 32 and asked me if I had a problem if a guy from the south of Russia would spend 3 days in her 1 room flat while I was there. I said it’s ok, silly me. Now, this guy was so annoying! So he started to talk sexist bullshit. Some nice examples: Men have to be clever and strong, women have to be pretty. Woman are good for monotonous work and men take all the risk. when a woman turns 50 she’s pretty much old and worthless, whereas a man, well, he’s still a man, if you know what little chimpanze means (I don’t). Women are basically all the same. There are only 5 types of women and little chimpanze can have 2 or 3 types of all of them (he obviously was mistaken with me, hehe). A woman needs a man to protect her (I had no man at hand – that was the reason he thought I’m easy prey). The “unfeminin” women in Europe are the reason for the many (?) gays here. I could hardly believe all this shit he was talking just to make himself feel superior. At the same time that Russian host said I was acting like a man (just because I had an opinion and stood for it).

The comments will ring true to anyone who has spent time in Russia, and a look at the Putin cabinet certainly doesn’t indicate that the Kremlin is taking a stand against sexism.  Three of the last four U.S. Secretaries of State have been female, but Russia has never had a female foreign minister, nor is there a single woman in any significant position in the Kremlin’s inner circle.  The two most outspoken Russian women of the past decade, Galina Starovoitova and Anna Politkovskaya, were both shot and killed.  Russia’s attitude towards homosexuals and blacks, of course, is equally barbaric, if not worse.

To be fair, Russian women themselves contribute mightily to this problem.  Duma Deputy Svetlana Khorkina, a former gymnast who stripped for Playboy before winning her seat, explained the need for women in the Duma like this: “If having more beautiful girls, my colleagues working here will considerably increase the Duma attendance – we’ll consider it our great input.”

But in a society were women are told by courts of law that they are officially inferior and even a danger to themselves, such attitudes on their part are hardly surpising.  And the consequences are lethal. One Russian man murders his wife every forty minutes, acting with impunity because they know that, in effect, their court system supports them, not their victims. As a result, of course, Russia’s divorce rate is among the very worst on the planet.

No society can survive naked barabarism of this kind, which cannot but destroy the very fabric of the Russian family, for very long.