Daria Serenko has x-rayed Russia through the interiors of one of the oceanic state entities on which the country is established, public, gray, bureaucratic organizations that rest on the work of women, who occupy the lowest positions in the Administration.
In her book
From her Girls and Institutions
(Errata Naturae, magnificently translated by Alexandra Rybalko Tokarenko), the writer and feminist and LGTBI+ activist, who had to flee Russia after the invasion of Ukraine due to the regime's persecution of her dissidents (among other things, she starred in "silent" protests : I was alone in the Moscow subway with political posters and feminist reflections), delves into the guts of that autocratic gear of Putinism that exploits women as workers, mothers and aspirants to perfect beauty
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Serenko, 30, was one of those "girls," ageless women who print Putin's portraits and paste them on the walls of public rooms, as the rules dictate, or falsify museum visitor statistics to make them add up. with the official narrative.
Employees watched at their jobs by the cameras of a regime that does not trust its citizens and that endorses a system in which gender violence goes unpunished.
The poet, who now lives in exile in Georgia - the interview is conducted via videoconference - and directs one of the most powerful anti-war organizations globally, Feminist Resistance Against War, maintains the hope that her networking and the actions of partisan groups within the country help the collapse of the Putin regime.
QUESTION
.
You describe a structural gender inequality.
This may shock some sectors of the European left, who see Russia —as they see the USSR— as an egalitarian country, with women engineers, cosmonauts...
ANSWER
.
The Soviet, Russian woman has always lived within a huge contradiction when we talk about equality.
She was required to be the same as a worker, as a member of society, but she also incarnated that role as a woman, as a mother country.
And not only did she have two work shifts, one at home and the other outside, there was a third: beauty, queuing up to buy stockings, cosmetics, being perfect.
Continuous juggling with all those roles of mother, wife, ideal worker.
Is that equality?
There is no gender equality in Russia.
There is a huge wage gap and a huge problem of gender violence.
And now, with the war, they are getting even worse.
Q.
It is an enormously conservative country.
A.
Women's rights are under attack.
The Church and conservative sectors are attacking the right to abortion and it is very likely that there will be restrictions or it will become illegal;
We are already seeing signs.
Russia is also a terrifying country for LGTBI+ people.
The war is dealing a severe blow to the most vulnerable women, lesbians, trans, women from republics with minority ethnic groups.
Q.
In fact, a few years ago Russia decriminalized some crimes of domestic or gender violence —a concept that is not used there— considered “minor”…
R.
I think there is a relationship between gender violence and military violence.
During all those years, the Government has not approved a law on gender violence because it needed to continue perpetuating these schemes of violence within the home to prepare society for violence that comes from the margins of the house.
Many people laugh at me, at this idea, as if they understand that Putin wants to do some kind of domestic experiment.
It's obviously not literal, but it's much easier to defend a culture of violence when you're used to it.
We Russian feminists often say that violence begins at home.
And if society accepts that a woman feels that she has to defend herself—or hold out—within her home, it is much easier for society to accept that we must fight outside our territory.
Q.
In many areas they wonder why people don't go out to protest in Russia.
R.
It is necessary to point out.
The Ukrainians, for example, have every right to ask that question because they also have successful experience in making a revolution, beyond the fact that of course they have the right to any question and criticism.
But normally the people who raise it live in Europe, in countries where they have the right to go out on the streets without exposing themselves to anything extremely serious.
Right now, if we were to put a statistic, for every protester there will be five riot police.
I can't imagine how we can overthrow a military dictatorship just with the force of our banners.
Also, I, as an exile, have no right to tell anyone who is in Russia how to protest, what they have to risk.
Q.
Is there hope for change in Russia?
What is yours?
R.
For each person it is different.
I believe in partisan resistance groups.
Currently there are people who are attacking the military commissioners from where the mobilized people are taken.
There are many resistance movements against the war, feminist and non-feminist.
The protest is not just going out with a banner and having the cameras record how the riot police take you.
It is a fight and it must have its tactics that must be discussed among all.
My greatest hope is this network of resistance, of protest, very decisive, radical, with things very clear and widespread.
Because it's more effective that way: with people inside Russia and also outside, from where we can do things that would be dangerous there, like helping to get resources, technical issues, removing activists in danger, developing cybersecurity instructions.
Those of us who are outside can act because we are safe, we are like the technical support of the partisan network of the resistance, it is important that we exist.
Obviously there are many tensions between those who have stayed and those who have left, frustrations, but all of that can be overcome.
Q.
In a country like Russia, can this network bring down the regime, end the war?
R.
I believe that wars end when resources run out, no anti-war movement is capable of stopping a war on its own.
But I hope, I hope that Russian activism, those of us who have stayed and those of us who have left and are in different parts of the world, join forces so that the Putinist regime runs out of resources to fuel the war.
I also hope that this type of resistance will spread to other countries and that none of them will buy Russian gas, oil, resources, and thus be a collaborator of Putin.
Q.
And emotionally, how do you feel?
A.
I don't feel guilty, because guilt is a negative feeling that paralyzes.
But I do feel responsibility for my future, for the future of my country.
For me, the important thing is what I am going to do with that responsibility, how I am going to approach it, apply it.
Part of my life is also very dedicated to my literature, but this is also closely related to that political activism, because I write activist poetry, feminist poetry.
I just finished a book related to all this and I am also continuously training.
Q.
In what sense?
A.
Russian citizens know very little about the damage they have caused to other countries.
I knew very little about the occupation of Georgia or the war in Chechnya.
It is important to be politicized with the wars that Russia has carried out in the last 30 years.
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