← Back to Documents
Contexts_RevengeoftheLostMen_21_January_2020.pdf
Path: /Users/duboy/side/case3/example-pdfs/Contexts_RevengeoftheLostMen_21_January_2020.pdf
Title: Revenge of the Lost Men: Gender Dynamics in Putin's Russia and Trump's America
Description: Delving into the entwined fabric of hypermasculinity, societal norms, and political strategies, this document illuminates the echoes between gender dynamics in Putin's Russia post-Soviet era and Trump's America. From the cult of masculinity cultivated by both leaders to the intersections of power, nationalism, and misogyny, the text uncovers the profound impact on family dynamics, social structures, and the quest for political legitimacy.
Status:
finished
Pages: 13
Uploaded:
2026-03-02 09:49
Last Processed: 2026-03-02 10:40
Chunks (20)
THE LONDON SCHOOL
oF ECONOMICS AND
POLITICAL SCIENCE
Ashwin, Sarah & Utrata, Jennifer (2020) Masculinity Restored?: Putin’s Russia and
Trump’s America. Contexts, 19(2). https ://researchonline.lse.ac...
fact:
Journal: Contexts, 19(2)
fact:
Publication Year: 2020
fact:
Publisher: London School of Economics and Political Science
fact:
URL: https://researchonline.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/101146/
fact:
Note: This is the accepted version of the journal article.
Sarah Ashwin and Jennifer Utrata Contexts draft feature, 13 May 2019
“Revenge of the Lost Men: From Putin’s Russia to Trump’s America”
A major legacy of the Soviet Union is the overburdening of Russi...
fact:
Title: Revenge of the Lost Men: From Putin’s Russia to Trump’s America
context:
The document discusses the impact of hypermasculinity in Putin's Russia, Trump's America, and the potential connection between them.
fact:
Legacy of the Soviet Union: Overburdening of Russian women and demoralization of men. Putin and Trump's use of hypermasculinity to appeal to men.
Here we focus on the close
affinities revealed by a gender lens on these leaders’ strategies and performances. Trump and Putin rely on similar projections of gendered power to maximize their appeal
to...
Gender is often
mobilized in the service of state power, the nature of its deployment depending on the political
project to which it is hitched. Trump seems to have stolen a page directly from Putin’s...
Sarah Ashwin and Jennifer Utrata Contexts draft feature, 13 May 2019
was a sacrament controlled by the Russian Orthodox Church, divorce was almost impossible,
and fathers had the ultimate power and c...
context:
The text explores the history of gender roles and family dynamics in Soviet Russia post-Bolshevik revolution.
There was no public call for men to share the load of the work at home or with children. Men were seen as having little or no place at home apart from contributing their paycheck. While
this more limi...
In a country where
grassroots feminism was suppressed along with all other forms of independent organization
women mostly accepted that they shouldered more responsibilities than men. They could divor...
fact:
Divorce levels rose steeply throughout the post-WW2 era in Soviet Russia, attributed to unbalanced gender relations.
fact:
Post-Soviet economic crisis exacerbated gender tensions in Russia, leading to profound societal changes.
fact:
Russian experiences post the Soviet Union's demise in late 1991 included a catastrophic fall in living standards, increased inequality, and economic dislocation.
Hopes that marketization would improve
living standards were quickly dashed as ordinary Russians faced a catastrophic fall in living
standards, sky-rocketing inequality, and symptoms of economic dislo...
fact:
Ordinary Russians in post-Soviet Russia faced a catastrophic fall in living standards, rising inequality, and economic dislocation.
fact:
Russians in the 1990s felt abandoned by the state and mourned the loss of a secure and predictable way of life.
fact:
During the 1990s, 'democracy' was associated with disorder, ethnic civil wars, and perceived property grabs.
fact:
Men faced significant challenges to their gender identities during the post-Soviet economic crisis in Russia, with declining life expectancy and struggles as primary breadwinners.
fact:
Men's life expectancy in post-Soviet Russia averaged only 58 years during the 1990s.
Russia still has one of the world’s largest gender gaps in life expectancy and in drinking
rates, with men drinking more and dying, on average, 11 years earlier than women. Alcohol Sarah Ashwin and J...
fact:
Authors: Sarah Ashwin, Jennifer Utrata
context:
The text delves into the historical context of gender roles, family dynamics, and societal expectations in Soviet Russia post-Bolshevik revolution.
Given this context, Vladimir Putin was at first welcomed by many Russians as a force for
order and sobriety, the kind of strong ruler that Russia needed given how unpredictable and
challenging it had ...
Whether American or Russian, ordinary people, too, draw on commonsense ideas about
gender as they make sense of what is happening on the evening news. In Utrata’s research in
Kaluga, a provincial city...
The regime, in alliance with the Orthodox Church, began
constructing opponents as alien “others,” using gender traditionalism as a signifier of
Russianness. Melding nationalist and patriarchal themes,...
fact:
Putin and Trump's use of hypermasculinity to appeal to men. Putin deploys hypermasculinity using visual imagery, such as the iconic image of Putin riding a horse bare-chested in Siberia, alongside humiliating verbal attacks on other men, strategic punishment of rivals, and 'remasculinization' tactics in response to his declining popularity. The regime, in alliance with the Orthodox Church, began constructing opponents as alien 'others,' using gender traditionalism as a signifier of Russianness. Melding nationalist and patriarchal themes, both Putin and church leaders have presented demographic decline as a threat to national security, with abortion rights being restricted in 2011 as part of a pronatalist agenda focused on women’s maternal 'duty.' The 'punk prayer' of the feminist opposition group Pussy Riot, performed in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in February 2012, provided a focus for this neo-traditional backlash, which continued with new laws such as that banning gay 'propaganda' in 2013. It has continued recently with a February 2017 law decriminalizing domestic violence, in spite of Russia’s serious domestic violence problem.
Played out with a tough guy demeanor, the
annexation of Crimea from Ukraine in 2014 — which was mainly greeted with euphoria in Russia
— was an act of national “restoration” with geopolitical implicat...
fact:
Contexts draft feature date: 13 May 2019
fact:
Russia still has one of the world’s largest gender gaps in life expectancy and in drinking rates, with men drinking more and dying, on average, 11 years earlier than women. Alcohol abuse is a major contributor to premature male deaths, with poor and unemployed men particularly vulnerable.
fact:
The annexation of Crimea from Ukraine in 2014 was an act of national 'restoration' with geopolitical implications, mainly greeted with euphoria in Russia.
fact:
A show titled 'Moscow. Kremlin. Putin.' follows Putin's weekly activities in hourlong episodes, aiming to bolster his cult following.
fact:
Russian women have high participation in the paid workforce, contributing to one of the lowest gender gaps in labor market participation in Russia.
Sarah Ashwin and Jennifer Utrata Contexts draft feature, 13 May 2019
more progressive vision of relations between Russian women and men looks rather grim. Russia
is currently experiencing one of the ...
For example, Pussy Riot was
successfully “othered” and marginalized, and even Russia’s feminist movement was divided
about them. Trump’s victory shows that feminism has not fully inoculated American s...
fact:
Lessons for Trump's America include the influence of gender, race, class, sexual orientation, and other structures on everyday life. Both Putin and Trump have successfully melded and mobilized economic, national, racial, and gender anxieties, portraying families and their respective nations as under threat in the face of outsiders. Trump stands accused of fanning the flames of white nationalism and encouraging anti-immigrant sentiment, while fears of immigration and ideas of racial 'purity' have infected Russia’s policy discourse in demography and beyond. Trump’s remasculinization project faces considerably more popular opposition than Putin’s patriarchal revanchism. While the US has a large, vocal and influential feminist movement, all forms of independent organization were outlawed in Soviet Russia including feminism, which has faced an increasingly hostile climate in the Putin era, with feminists frequently branded as national traitors. For example, Pussy Riot was successfully 'othered' and marginalized, and even Russia’s feminist movement was divided about them. Trump’s victory shows that feminism has not fully inoculated American society against the appeal of patriarchal populism. After all, many of his sexist and racist campaign motifs either resonated with voters or did not undermine voters’ support of him. Nevertheless, feminist opposition to his politics remains vibrant and is often effective. Witness, for example, women’s historic gains in the 2018 Midterm elections.
Both leaders are prepared to mobilize gender
traditionalism and racism to further their political projects. . Thus, both have implicitly promised
the restoration of men as patriarchs in the private sp...
fact:
In the short term, the prognosis for a more progressive vision of relations between Russian women and men appears grim due to the repressive period in Russia, alongside the resurgent power of the Russian Orthodox Church, rising traditionalism, backward domestic violence policies, and anti-LGBT legislation. Responding to the patriarchal politics that link Trump and Putin requires understanding the source of their resonance. In both cases, the economic backdrop is deindustrialization, an insecure middle class, and rising inequality. Both leaders tap into the fears of status loss this generates among men, in the case of Trump particularly White men without college education who fear loss of gender, as well as race, privilege. Both leaders are prepared to mobilize gender traditionalism and racism to further their political projects. Thus, both have implicitly promised the restoration of men as patriarchs in the private sphere (note the willingness to normalize wife-beating in Russia and rhetorical 'pussy-grabbing' in the United States). Both have symbolically identified the restoration of men’s status with the restoration of the nation. But the 'restoration' of past glory they appear to offer is false. They offer no remedies to inequality, which raise the stakes of 'failure' and status loss for all, while their vision of a strong, masculine 'nation' is based on exclusion rather than solidarity and fails to come to terms with women’s changing identities and aspirations. Rather than restoring a gender order that is oppressive for everyone, addressing economic anxieties within a new gender order based on flexibility and mutual respect among men and women is imperative. This requires a feminist politics with the potential to liberate both men and women from constraining gender strictures. Not only is solidarity between men and women required, but also progressive alliances between what would be called the 'intelligentsia' and workers in Russia and progressive leaders and the (especially rural) working and middle-classes in the United States in politics which eschew divisive nationalisms. As progressives push for a green new deal, they should consider that a new politics also requires a gender new deal.
As progressives push
for a green new deal, they should consider that a new politics also requires a gender new deal. Heeding the lessons of Russia’s unfinished gender revolution, a gender new deal wou...
context:
Russia still has one of the world’s largest gender gaps in life expectancy and in drinking rates, with men drinking more and dying, on average, 11 years earlier than women. Alcohol abuse is a major contributor to premature male deaths, with poor and unemployed men particularly vulnerable. This gender disparity has persisted despite recent societal changes.
Situates Russia as an extreme case of a stalled revolution in gender relations. Riabov, Oleg, and Tatiana Riabova. 2014. “The Remasculinization of Russia? Gender,
Nationalism, and the Legitimation of ...
Analyzes Russian family life ethnographically and
comparatively, examining the “normalized gender crisis” in everyday family relations from
multiple perspectives, including those of single mothers, ma...
She is the author of Women without Men: Single Mothers and Family Change in the New
Russia, winner of the ESS and PSA best book awards in 2016 and 2017.
context:
Situated as an extreme case of a stalled revolution in gender relations, Russia is the subject of influential works such as 'The Remasculinization of Russia? Gender, Nationalism, and the Legitimation of Power Under Vladimir Putin' by Riabov, Oleg, and Tatiana Riabova, 'Sex, Politics, and Putin: Political Legitimacy in Russia' by Valerie Sperling, and 'Women without Men: Single Mothers and Family Change in the New Russia' by Jennifer Utrata. Utrata's work was the winner of the ESS and PSA best book awards in 2016 and 2017, offering insights into the normalized gender crisis in Russian family life.