Tatyana Momonova: Freedom And Democracy: Russian Male Style – Keynote Address

“The shameful trade in the female body flourishes. Slippery, sticky mass culture stands offering a rich assortment of new goods.”

“As we know, the process of society's humanization is prolonged and complex. The liberalism of the 1960s did not develop into the emancipation of woman. She was crushed by the sexual revolution, for it fell to her lot alone to pay for all the pleasure.”

"But female consciousness is rising, and women are no longer willing to work under the old stereotypes."

Abstract:

Attempting to deal with the exploitation of women in prostitution is not new in Russian society. Few probably remember that in the 1920’s Alexandra Kollantai said, ‘Fight prostitution, not prostitutes’. A law was passed punishing owners of bordellos and pimps, not the women they discriminated against. In the 1930's Stalin dealt with the problem differently by sending all prostitutes to Siberia and proclaiming the curse banished from society. Brezhnev evidently did not believe Stalin had solved the problem and repeated the same act in 1980 before the infamous Moscow Olympic Games. In the 1990s the representation of new freedoms in Russian was manifested in selling teenagers to the West for 500 Deutschmarks. Several of them were killed while trying to escape. 50 000 very young women from Eastern Europe came to Germany in the 1990’s, seduced by the idea of dolce vita, only to become prostitutes - 10 000 of them against their will. The Centre for Abused Women and Children in St. Petersburg concluded recently that these matters are taken lightly by the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) media, especially the television broadcasters. The Almanac Women and Russia - the cause of my exile, is now published internationally and called Women and Earth. We distribute it free of charge in CIS and Eastern Europe for raising consciousness among women - women who are actually anxious to fight for real democracy and real freedom. 

Tatyana is the first woman dissident exiled from the former Soviet Union and has been in the public eye throughout the world. Hundreds of national and international newspaper and magazine articles have focused on her, including articles in The Guardian, The Observer, Harvard Women’s Law Journal and The New York Times. In the 1990s, Tatyana founded the publication Women and Earth and continues her career as an international advisor to Ms Magazine. 

Since 1996:

Tatyana is the founder of Woman and Earth Global Eco-Network, the author of multiple books and articles, and an award-winning artist.