Sexism in Russia is a peculiar paradox. Women form the majority and wield significant influence—they run schools, courts, even local governments. Yet they’re often seen as lesser humans, praised for beauty and dismissed for intellect.

Who maintains this strange balance? Men who enjoy dominance, certainly. But women also contribute, because sexism offers not just penalties but surprising privileges.

Today, I’ll show you exactly how sexism shapes Russian women’s lives—both its hidden benefits and undeniable burdens.

How I First Learned About Sexism

I first encountered sexism when I was in high school. At the time, our city—Nizhny Novgorod—wasn’t exactly a hotspot for foreign visitors. But suddenly, all kinds of American missionaries started showing up: religious ones, political ones—you name it.

They saw us as poor, lost souls desperate for a taste of democracy and true religion. But we weren’t really interested in their messages. We were just excited to see real foreigners in the flesh and maybe practice our clumsy English. Raising your hand after their lectures to ask a clever-sounding question wasn’t about impressing the Americans—it was about impressing your girlfriends, the real audience we performed for.

I vividly remember attending a talk by an American woman, a professor of some sort. She was tall, strong, and had a bit of a masculine look. In her hands, she held a stack of glossy shopping bags, covered with images of sexy women. These bags were wildly popular in the 1990s—imported from Turkey or Poland—and we proudly carried them to school as proof of our teenage coolness.

This professor started explaining that carrying such bags was sexist, and that we shouldn’t tolerate it. Afterward, my girlfriends and I discussed it and quickly reached a unanimous conclusion: the women on the bags were beautiful, and the professor clearly wasn’t. So obviously, she was just jealous.

None of us had any plans to fight for our rights. Our reality was this: we were smart, fast-maturing girls growing up in the ruins of the USSR, absolutely certain our lives would be completely different—and much better—than our parents’. We believed we’d conquer the world because we were the smartest and the prettiest.

As for the boys our age? They were scrawny, awkward little chicks who hadn’t even grown into themselves yet. The idea that they could be superior didn’t even register. Sexism? Gender oppression? What were they even talking about?

Then came the time to apply to university—and that’s when things got interesting. It turned out some of the most prestigious departments simply didn’t accept female applicants. These were the programs training future diplomats and interpreters—people who might someday see the world. Military, police, and intelligence programs? Also closed to women.

Other programs weren’t officially closed, but the gender imbalance was obvious. Math and engineering were mostly guys. Teaching, literature, and history were overwhelmingly female. Sure, plenty of girls excelled in math competitions at school. But the idea of a female mathematician or physicist still felt… off. Unfeminine. Almost ridiculous. You’d picture a dry, slightly eccentric woman with the charm of a wooden stool.

I had no plans to enroll in one of those “girly” programs. Thankfully, I was terrible at math, so my femininity was safe. Instead, I decided to become a lawyer—plus, the law department was full of cute boys.

After university, I quickly landed a “prestigious” job as an administrative assistant at a newly established foreign firm. My duties included photocopying, printing, answering phones, and, of course, bringing coffee to the bosses.

They clearly loved when a sweet nymph in a short skirt appeared in the doorway at their beck and call. That was me back then.

After a year, I figured my brilliance had had enough time to shine through. I had a law degree, after all. Surely they’d start taking me seriously? Nope. Nobody promoted me.

Fine, I thought, if you can’t appreciate my talents—your loss. I quit and took a job at a law office. Just for fun, I brought along my then-boyfriend, tall, handsome Lesha.

At first, our boss gave us joint assignments. We worked together on trial strategies, totally in sync. But soon, it became obvious: the boss was pushing Lesha’s career forward, while I got sidelined. Once again, I was expected to serve coffee with a graceful sway of the hips.

Even when I did get clients, I felt they didn’t trust me. One bluntly said, “Sweetheart, you’re the kind of girl you take to a sauna, not a courtroom.”

It was a cruel joke. If you were young and attractive, doors opened automatically. Men drove me home, bought me dinner, solved my problems—all without asking anything in return. I fully enjoyed those perks. But it didn’t take long to see the glass ceiling—and realize it hung very low.

Family Values, Soviet Style

Girls from my generation were raised with one core lesson: don’t miss your chance while you’re young—marry well.

Take my grandmother, for instance. If I refused to clean my room, she’d scold me like this: “One day, you’ll invite a suitor over. He’ll check how tidy you are, look under the bed, see the dust—and decide not to marry you.”

I’d protest, “Maybe I’ll be the one checking under his bed!” But she’d just laugh and say, “Cleaning isn’t a man’s job.”

That was the rule. Soviet women were expected to serve men.

At social gatherings, it was automatic: men went to the living room to drink beer, women headed to the kitchen to chop salads and set the table.

But grilling meat was considered a man’s sacred duty. Meat was expensive—a kind of luxury—so the saying went: “Shashlik doesn’t tolerate women’s hands.”

Household chores were rigidly split. There was “men’s work” and “women’s work.” A man who did the latter looked weak. I can’t picture my grandfather sewing or mending anything. Laundry, cleaning, doing the dishes—that was women’s domain.

The reverse was just as “improper.” If a woman chopped wood or did construction work, it signaled she didn’t have a man to do it for her—a sign that something was wrong in her life.

And yet women still did heavy labor. My grandmother hauled water in giant buckets and rinsed laundry by hand in the river—even in winter—because her house had no running water.

Until I was about seven, I had never seen a woman behind the wheel of a car. I still remember the first time I did—I was so shocked I kept pestering the adults: “Why is that woman driving? Doesn’t she know women aren’t supposed to do that?”

Sexism didn’t stop there. It seeped into the sexual sphere too. In one of my previous videos, I talked about how Russia puts men on a pedestal—partly due to catastrophic losses in past wars. That shortage inflated men’s social value. So many men felt entitled—to women’s attention, or to their bodies. All of my Russian girlfriends from that era have stories of being harassed or assaulted. A man might smack your butt on the street and call it a joke. On packed buses, someone might grope you. There was no escape.

But in working-class families, there was also another reality: women could use sex as leverage. You could “give it” or “withhold it.” Sex became a bargaining chip—women didn’t need it, supposedly, but men couldn’t live without it. So he had to earn it. But I only heard this kind of thinking from people who grew up in small towns or villages—places with deep patriarchal roots.

In Soviet law, only women got maternity leave when the child was born. If a child got sick, everyone assumed the mother would stay home. Courts almost always gave custody to mothers—men weren’t seen as capable parents.

And if a man was courting a woman, he always paid. Refusing to pay meant instant disqualification. Why would any woman want that kind of man? Calling him “stingy” was like saying he had a shameful disease.

These norms have changed—but only on the surface. Today, much still depends on the woman—and the context. But in most situations, women still expect men to spend money on them.

The Illusion of Equality

The Soviet Union was one of the first countries in the world to declare that women were equal to men—and it did so way back in the early 20th century. But as with many things in Soviet life, what was written on paper had little to do with reality.

What actually happened was that women were “granted” the right to do hard labor—work they’d have done anyway. After several devastating wars, there simply weren’t enough men left.

Real equality? Not even close. Low-paid, low-prestige jobs—cleaners, cloakroom attendants, janitors—were overwhelmingly filled by women, both in the USSR and well into the post-Soviet years.

Still, the authorities had to pretend they cared about the “women’s question.” Russia never had a Committee for Men’s Affairs, but it had plenty for women. There was and still is a national holiday for women: March 8, International Women’s Day. Men had no equivalent, but February 23—Soviet Army and Navy Day—quietly filled that role.

There were whole organizations and magazines just for Soviet women—Rabotnitsa (“The Working Woman”), Krestyanka (“The Peasant Woman”). There were no men’s magazines—because everything serious already belonged to men by default. Science, engineering, politics, international affairs, hunting, fishing—those were male domains. Seeing a woman read about soccer or hockey would’ve been almost comical.

The state needed female role models—symbols of equality and progress. In the 1920s, these were women in creative fields: artists, musicians, political activists. Under Stalin, a new kind of female hero emerged. To glorify sacrifice and labor, the media spotlighted working-class women—tractor drivers, milkmaids, metalworkers. They were praised in newspapers, awarded medals, and called paragons of socialist virtue. A few even made it to Moscow and rose through party ranks.

But let’s be honest—no one actually dreamed of becoming a cow-milker or a coal miner just to end up in a newspaper. Real prestige still meant being an actress, a ballerina, or an athlete. And if you had to be a national symbol, better to be Marina Raskova the pilot or Valentina Tereshkova the cosmonaut.

There was another respected role for women: the connector. In the USSR, important things didn’t happen through systems—they happened through people. If you needed surgery and your town lacked skilled doctors, you had to get into a Moscow hospital. How? Through someone who knew someone. Often, that middleman was a woman.

Contrary to popular belief, not everything was solved with bribes. Many things ran on favors. That was the informal economy: You help me now, I help you later. But to join that world, you needed something to offer—connections, access, influence. If you had nothing, you were useless in that favor-based system. That system was known as blat—and I have a whole video on it if you’re curious.

No one expected women to reach high-level leadership roles in the USSR. When they did, it seemed strange—unnatural. The assumption was that something must’ve gone wrong in her personal life. Maybe she couldn’t have kids. Maybe no man wanted her.

This idea was perfectly captured in the famous Soviet film Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears. The heroine becomes a factory director—an impressive title. But she’s alone. No husband, no equal. In the end, she finds a skilled working-class man who isn’t her social equal, but emotionally balances her out. That’s what made the story acceptable.

Soviet women were expected to work—but not to rise too high. Becoming a doctor, a judge, a mid-level official? Fine. But if a woman made it to the top, people whispered.

Even today, this thinking survives. Take Valentina Matviyenko, now chair of the Federation Council. People say she climbed the ladder thanks to her “strong liver”—she supposedly drank with party bosses in the ’70s and ’80s. Her nickname? “Valentina-the-vodka-glass.”

Or take Margarita Simonyan, head of Russia Today. The rumor is she got the job—and its massive budget—because of her relationship with a Kremlin media boss.

Whether those stories are true doesn’t even matter. What matters is that when a woman gains power, people expect an explanation.

Among regular people, not much has changed. The most common job for women is still store clerk. And women still dominate roles as caretakers and educators. From birth until 18, Russian children grow up in an entirely female world: moms, grandmas, teachers, nurses, pediatricians, librarians.

Naturally, that shapes how boys see the world—and themselves. They don’t feel part of that female realm. But they’re also not fully welcomed into a male one. At some point, they must resolve that tension. Some try to assert dominance over women. Others surrender to female authority. Few ever find a healthy balance.

After the USSR collapsed, the rules began to shift. Many women stepped up, became breadwinners, got degrees, and entered fields previously reserved for men—like law, finance, even programming.

But society was far more comfortable with women in roles requiring precision, attention to detail, or nurturing—traits that didn’t threaten gender expectations. So yes, a woman could be a banker or a business owner. But an inventor? A political philosopher? A president?

Still unthinkable.

As one of my elderly relatives once said, “We don’t need some broad running the country.”

In 2004, Irina Khakamada ran for president. She got less than 4% of the vote.

Of course, it wasn’t a free election. But the real obstacle wasn’t voters—it was the bureaucracy. You need regional officials to back you. Without them, your campaign goes nowhere.

Even the language itself shows the divide.

Some job titles are gender-neutral: teacher, judge, notary. Others are strictly male: soldier, officer, shepherd. Others are purely female: milkmaid, nanny, nurse.

You can add feminine endings to masculine job titles—but they often sound silly or dismissive. “Professor” becomes professorsha. “Poet” becomes poetessa. “Engineer,” “inventor,” “director”—all become subtly diminished when feminized.

In literature, women are accepted, but only in certain genres: children’s books, romance, family sagas, light fiction. “Women’s literature” is still an insult. As if women can’t write great sci-fi or serious historical fiction.But you don’t have to take my word for it. Read my novels—especially The Russian Treasures series. Or just sample the tone and style on my YouTube channel, Elvira Bary: Forbidden Books. See for yourself.

The Chase for Gender Self-Realization

Nothing I’ve described so far leads to real happiness—for anyone. Women don’t feel fully seen or valued. And men? They’re stuck in an endless loop of trying to prove they’re masculine enough.

At the root of all this is something deeper. Our world has changed dramatically, but our behavioral scripts haven’t. We’re still running on old code.

Take success, for example. Most people’s idea of success today isn’t based on reality—it’s based on curated snapshots from social media. From polished influencers, glossy TV dramas, and endless streams of lifestyle content.

Everyone has a smartphone. Everyone scrolls. And even though Instagram is officially banned in Russia, everyone uses it anyway.

Imagine living in Puchesh, a crumbling little town in Ivanovo region. The roads are broken. The men are half-drunk. Your prospects are bleak.

Then you open Instagram. And suddenly it’s Paris. Dubai. Moscow nightclubs. You’re not just poor anymore—you’re invisible. You start to ask: What did I do wrong? Why do they get to live like that and I don’t?

For some women, the dream becomes simple: Send your husband to fight in Ukraine, hope he brings home something. Money, status, or just a new future. Anything.

This tension leads to mass frustration. And where there’s frustration, there’s always a market.

Look at Russia’s booming self-help industry. It reveals what people secretly crave.

There are endless online courses for women: How to fix your relationship. How to attract the “right” man. How to unleash your feminine energy. How to become magnetic.

Some courses teach you to channel “female magic”—to subtly influence your man and make him more successful. Others teach you to reinvent yourself as a “resourceful man magnet.”

There’s even a word for it: mankaya. It describes a woman so irresistible, men notice her the second she enters a room. That’s the fantasy. That’s what many Russian women want to become.

And why wouldn’t they? Many women would love not to work at all. They want to focus on family, art, or personal projects—but that requires a certain kind of man. One who can provide, stay loyal, and not run off with the first 20-year-old who smiles at him.

Others do want careers. They want to build something of their own. But they keep hitting invisible walls—because at the highest levels, Russian power remains a men-only club.

Real decisions still happen behind closed doors: in private restaurants, in exclusive gyms, or in saunas. The message is clear—this space isn’t for you.

Even successful women often get treated as accessories. Trophies. Not partners. That’s why you still see so many Russian oligarchs with stunning wives—or at least glamorous mistresses. A beautiful woman is still considered a man’s status symbol.

But if she dares to stop acting like one? If she refuses to play along?

It’s seen as disrespect. An insult to male pride. She’s not viewed as someone with her own ideas or dreams—she’s viewed as someone who dared to diminish a man’s importance.

That’s why we keep seeing brutal scandals online—where powerful men retaliate against women who left or rejected them. It’s not about love. Not even about jealousy. It’s about humiliation. Because deep down, they believe no woman should have the power to define a man’s worth. And if she tries? She must be punished.

Men’s self-help courses, by the way, are a different story. Learn to invest. Learn to code. Build muscle. Get shredded. Get rich—fast. They focus on image repair. How to become respectable. How to win back power. In this game, women are either a reward or a tool to get there.

Meanwhile, relationships are in full-blown crisis. Roughly 70% of marriages in Russia end in divorce. Even among couples who stay together, happiness is rare.

The real issue? Men and women have wildly different expectations.

For women, it’s: Which successful, desirable man will fall in love with me, give me his resources, and make me his number one priority?

For men, it’s: Which attractive woman will run my household, support me in everything, admire me, and never challenge my authority?

In both cases, people want to feel so uniquely valuable that someone else will sacrifice everything just to keep them.

But that’s not love. That’s a childhood wound. The only people we sacrifice everything for—unconditionally—are our children.

And that’s the heartbreaking truth. Millions of people in Russia are still trying to fill the hole left by the love they never received. They’re emotionally orphaned. Still looking for someone to adopt them. Someone to say: You matter. You’re safe now.

And after everything Russia has lived through in the past hundred years—is it really any wonder?

Where Does Sexism Even Come From?

You’ll still hear it said—casually, confidently, often:  “Women will never be equal to men. They’ve never created anything great in all of human history.”

To which I always want to reply: “That includes you, buddy.”

But let’s be honest—this bias didn’t come out of nowhere.

For most of human history, people didn’t live past 35 or 45. And during those short lives, women got pregnant anywhere from 8 to 15 times.

Many of those pregnancies ended in miscarriage—caused by overwork, malnutrition, or infection. And many babies didn’t survive. So to keep the population from collapsing, women had to be pregnant almost constantly.

That was your great-grandmother’s life: surviving childbirth, again and again.

And I can say this from personal experience—pregnancy and breastfeeding change everything. Your energy drops, your focus narrows to your child. You’re hormonal, sleep-deprived, overwhelmed—and yes, your decision-making suffers.

I breastfed a baby for nearly a year. Could I have done anything “great” during that time? Of course not. My body and mind were fully occupied.

Now imagine spending most of your adult life either pregnant, giving birth, or nursing. No anesthesia. No antibiotics. No support systems.

It wasn’t just hard—it was deadly.

Look up royal biographies on Wikipedia. Count how many queens died in childbirth—and they had access to the best doctors available.

Now imagine what it was like for ordinary women. If you had a daughter, you didn’t know if she’d survive her first birth. And even if she did, she might die during her fifth… or fifteenth.

So, people saw their daughters as fragile, high-risk investments.

Add economic pressure to the mix. In harsh climates like northern Russia, a man could survive alone. A woman without a man? Much harder. She couldn’t cut firewood or plow fields. She needed protection—physically and economically.

So daughters were often seen not as future earners, but as mouths to feed. A liability.

Seen in that brutal context, sexism made perfect sense. It was a survival strategy.

But that world is gone. Women stopped dying in childbirth. They stopped having a dozen children. They learned to earn their own money, build their own lives.

And yet…The old norms didn’t disappear. They’re still quietly shaping our assumptions—about what women should be, what they can do, and what they’re worth.

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