Searching for lost femininity: Russian middle-aged women’s participation in the post-Soviet consumer culture

Abstract

In the existing literature, the relatively stable period of the 1970s, in Russia, is characterised by the rise of 'socialist consumer modernity', while the affluent 2000s were the time when a new phenomenon, 'the culture of glamour', emerged. Both periods parallel some cultural developments in the western world: the 1970s-1980s supposedly saw the rise of late modernity whereby individuals, freed from constraints of social structures, engage in ongoing process of self-reflexivity and self-fashioning, through consumption. In this article, drawing on the interviews with 20 middle-aged women from Moscow, I examine the limitations on self-fashioning as a means of achieving and maintaining a position of privilege. I particularly focus on the women's concerns about failing to engage in normative practices of self-care, including anti-ageing cosmetic procedures, and hence failing to embody feminine dispositions that had value in their middle-class milieu. The analysis of such concerns helps discern the ways different markers of identity (gender, class and age) interplay and act as enablers or constraints in the mundane struggle for power at the interpersonal level.

The ambiguities of self-governance: Russian middle-aged middle-class women's reflections on ageing

“…The data shed light on the women's engagement in daily mediations of a heightened social pressure to attend to one's appearance through consumption. While at times frustrated with the need to use anti-ageing products regularly or lose weight, they were also ready to conform to such expectations to avoid being perceived as disgusting by younger colleagues or unworthy of a job by a prospective employer ( see also Davidenko 2017). As per Calasanti and King's (2007) definition of age relations, working on the self through consumption of anti-ageing care promises urban middle-class women a competitive advantage, for instance in the field of employment.…”

“…8The retirement of women whose teenage years fell in the long and relatively stable period of the mid-1960s to 1970s (‘socialist consumer modernity’) in the Soviet Union can be compared in its significance to the retirement of baby-boomers in western societies, to which critical discussions of notions such as successful ageing commonly refer. In the affluent 2000s, most participants were in their forties and fifties and participated, to various degrees, in the post-Soviet consumer culture that celebrates competition and glamour (Davidenko 2017). This included their negotiation of the need to use anti-ageing procedures: while questioning the need to re-shape their bodies radically, they admitted that their attitude to both surgical and non-surgical interventions might change if they feel their appearances fall behind the youthful standards established within their milieus.…”

Cross-Cultural Issues and Human Resources Management in BRIC Countries

“…Akin to those lack of congruence with "Habitus," a suspension of their commitment to the "game" (work). On the other hand, men had lost their ability to be providers and hence became "weak" (Davidenko, 2017). The lack of masculinity among Russian can be explained due to strong collectivism, power distance and uncertainty avoidance due to phenomena and attitude of people, such as "wait and hope for protection from the chief" (being dependent), low personal responsibility (afraid being risk taker) (Balykina, 2013).…”

“…Despite that, the advantage of feminism should not be undermined as people with this value possessing strong cooperation, mutual understanding, and interpersonal relations. This can be evidence from the Soviet's time when there is a gender contract between males and females, where females working at home with paid labor (paid less than male) under a state policy (Davidenko, 2017).…”