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Russian women’s protests against the 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine: exploring motivations and gender dynamics through individual narratives
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2025-02-06
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Abstract
This study explores narratives of Russian women who participated in anti-war protests following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Through 39 semi-structured interviews, the analysis shows how expressive and instrumental motivations, collective identities, emotions, risk perceptions, and gender norms shape women’s engagement in contentious politics. Protest participation simultaneously reinforces and disrupts gender roles, as women leverage feminized stereotypes while also politicizing their femininity and womanhood. Women’s engagement in anti-war protests conflicts with the attempts of Vladimir Putin’s regime to reimagine Russia as a nation of “traditional values.” Hence, women’s dissent, even if largely symbolic, chips away at militarized nationalism by inserting peaceful grief, accountability, and oppositional politics into Russian public life. This study resists simplistic explanations and homogeneous depictions of women’s anti-war protests, instead foregrounding the complex and multifaceted nature of their dissent. It captures diverse subjective reactions crystalizing around Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, revealing the diverse array of societal responses short of mass acquiescent compliance.
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Kuteleva, A. (2025) Russian women’s protests against the 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine: exploring motivations and gender dynamics through individual narratives. International Feminist Journal of Politics, 27(1), pp. 125-151.
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Journal article
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en
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© 2025 The Authors. Published by Taylor & Francis. This is an open access article available under a Creative Commons licence.
The published version can be accessed at the following link on the publisher’s website: https://doi.org/10.1080/14616742.2025.2452556
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1461-6742
EISSN
1468-4470