Earlier this year, emerging on the wave of the #MeToo movement, several female journalists in Russia accused lawmaker Leonid Slutsky of inappropriate sexual advances. Before being cleared by the Duma’s Ethics Commission, Pletnyova defended Slutsky, saying she was not at all concerned about the issues central to the Harvey Weinstein scandal and that there are “more serious things that we [the Committee] are concerned with.”
There are many men like Weinstein and Slutsky around the world, not only in Russia. And I have nothing against Russian men. I am one. But a Russian woman (presuming she likes men at all) might find more desirable those men whose values have been shaped by a tradition of social equality, freedom of opportunity and respect for women’s physical safety. These are not the values perpetuated by Pletnyova or the Russian authorities.
Indeed, mass migration of the most talented and well-educated Russian men — those likely “to fetishize human rights” — who seek greater political freedoms and economic opportunities further reduces the options for Russian women to people like Slutsky or World Cup spectators. Were I a Russian woman, I would go for the latter.
Ilya Nuzov is Head of the Eastern Europe-Central Asia Desk at the International Federation for Human Rights. The views expressed in opinion pieces do not necessarily reflect the position of The Moscow Times.