In receiving the Nobel Peace Prize last December, Russian editor Dmitry Muratov noted that “journalism in Russia is going through a dark valley”. This opinion is also shared by IPI member Nadezhda Azhgikhina, who in an interview with IPI spoke about the threats, intimidation, and violent attacks that journalists in Russia face, as well as the additional burden of sexism and gender-based discrimination.
Recently, the IPI global network has condemned “the biggest crackdown on independent media in Russia in several years”, as numerous journalists and news outlets have been listed as “foreign agents”, a label which effectively blacklists news outlets, deters funding or advertising, and leaves reporters facing possible jail time for their work. The threats of physical attacks and imprisonment also remain very present in Russia today.
Despite this increasingly suffocating climate, the number of women working in journalism in Russia has been constantly growing since the end of the Soviet Union. But what has been driving this change is not all positive, Azhgikhina noted. The rise in women working in journalism is less a consequence of an environment that is friendly to women than it is of men leaving a profession that is dangerous, enjoys little respect within society and, in most cases, is not sufficiently remunerated. In this reality, sexism is too often treated as a lesser evil, effectively hindering a much-needed dialogue about it.
IPI spoke to Azhgikhina about the challenges that women journalists face today in Russia and her life dedicated to journalism, press freedom, gender equality, and the fight against sexual harassment.
Azhgikhina, a journalist, writer and executive director of the Moscow PEN Centre, started her career path in journalism at a very young age. She worked as a journalist and an editor for the national weekly Ogoniok magazine, where she initiated the coverage of gender-based violence and feminism. By the time she turned 30, she was not only the youngest but also the only woman to join the editorial board of the magazine.
In 1992, Azhgikina, together with some colleagues, established a pioneering NGO, the Association of Women Journalists, which published several books, carried out surveys, organized national and international conferences and public events, and trained young women journalists in Russia and the former USSR countries.
From 1995 to 2001, she was the head of the gender section of the national independent newspaper Nezavisimaya. Later on, Azhgikhina joined the Russian Union of Journalists as its secretary and was a columnist for the independent national weekly Delovoy Vtornik.
She has published and edited several books on gender issues, culture, and media.
In an interview with IPI, Azhgikhina stressed the importance of solidarity and cooperation between various groups in society in the fight for press freedom, human rights and gender equality.
IPI: First of all, are there many women working in journalism in Russia and do they face discrimination?
Azhgikhina: There are many women in journalism and news media in general. The increase in the number of women working in journalism in Russia started after the collapse of the Soviet Union. During Soviet times, when I was a young journalist, there was an equal number of women and men in journalism, but editors and managers tended to be men. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the media landscape changed completely. Salaries became low, which they still are, and this is the reason why many men decided to move to jobs that pay better, like in business, politics, or public relations.
But most of women journalists kept their career path, even though they often have to do some extra jobs in order to survive on their salaries. However, journalists in general don’t choose this job for the money but because they want to contribute to media freedom. It was also important that, after the end of the Soviet Union, women finally had the possibility (right) to establish their own media outlets.
A 2020 survey by the FOJO Institute together with Russian partners showed that in local or regional media around 40 percent of the executives are women, which is still not the majority but it’s going upwards. However, in Moscow there are much fewer women in top positions, around 10 percent. There is a sort of “gender pyramid”, whereby the more money and power a news media has, the fewer women are at the top. The unequal payment between men and women is also noticeable. There is a pay gap of approximately 30 percent, which can be even higher in private news organizations, because some private owners, both men and women, may be prejudiced to think that women are ready to work for less money. And sadly, a lot of women do not demand higher salaries because they often have the feeling that they are not good enough to demand more. Sexism is very deeply rooted in Russian culture, and it is not enough to have laws stating that men and women are equal. Many people of both genders value men in leadership positions more. This is changing, but only slowly.
IPI: Have you experienced gender discrimination in your professional career?
Azhgikhina: I started my journalism experience when I was 16 and I was lucky that I came into a group of people with very liberal minds, so I never had to experience sexual harassment or direct discrimination. Sexism in Russia was, and still is, mostly hidden, and not direct and open. However, I wondered why all top managers were men or why women never covered such topics as politics or the economy.
Later on, when I became the head of department of a very popular national-level magazine, I was respected because I wrote many interesting stories, published interviews with international leaders of feminist groups, or politicians of different countries. So, the editor-in-chief valued my work, because it was something new and different and he understood that it was important. But when I joined the editorial board as the only woman, my colleagues weren’t happy at first. They said: “If she is with us, we cannot share a good joke.”
And they were not the typical die-hard sexists, they were some of the best journalists in the country, fighting for freedom of expression and democratization in Russia, but it was a culture, and it still is the leading culture today: the leadership in Russia is a boys’ club.
So, I cannot say that I faced sexual harassment, but I often had to endure sexist jokes and comments.
Although nothing serious happened to me I know that some women journalists
have experienced sexual harassment and were even beaten by their husbands.
What helped me was writing about these topics. When I started covering discrimination and domestic violence, I started to understand it better. I knew that a lot of women suffered, so I tried to raise awareness about the problem by writing a lot about victims of sexual harassment and domestic violence. I even started a campaign against sexual harassment, but it was hard because a lot of women were not ready to make their experiences public. I am happy to say that today these issues are much better understood and women are not that shy. Also the news media today pays much greater attention to sexual harassment. But it took more than 20 years!
Online harassment and intimidation are very serious problems today, as they target primarily women, in particular those who work on television, and recently on YouTube. Journalists and bloggers who cover topics like feminism, religion, human rights, and domestic violence are even more under attack.
I hope that soon we will have a special law that deals with victims of sexual harassment. And not just a law that addresses a few cases but a mechanism that systematically protects women journalists but also female politicians who raise their voice, because they are the ones that must battle with abusers, attacks, and death threats the most.
But in my experience women are very courageous, they do not give up, the younger generation in particular is very active in organizing events, projects, festivals that raise awareness to feminism and equality.
IPI: Do you think that there is sufficient attention to gender issues in Russia?
Azhgikhina: In journalism, especially in Russia gender awareness is very low, it is often neglected. And it’s a generational problem. Even women managers, editors, media owners of my generation or older do not view gender equality as an important subject. I think this was primarily a reaction to a common Soviet-time practice, which was in fact superficial and hypocritical: gender equality in Soviet times meant that there was a quota for women in all elected bodies, however in reality women had no real voice, they were like puppets, and their everyday life was really hard. As a consequence, many people did not accept gender equality as part of the democratization process in the 1990s.
When I worked for the promotion of gender equality in the 1990s, I was like an “exotic plant”. I was well known, well respected and successful, my husband was a famous journalist and supported me, but no one quite understood why I was so invested in feminism and gender because I did not have these problems myself. This general attitude is still very much alive in Russia today.
The problem is also that many strong and courageous media leaders today do not pay much attention to gender equality because journalism in Russia faces so many other serious threats, including the recent threat to be put on the list of “foreign agents” as a consequence for journalistic work. And, unfortunately, these same people, those who are the heroes of Russian investigative journalism, courageously exposing corruption, in some cases they are also behaving with sexist manners. This has happened within some leading news organizations and they got very angry when women raised concerns about this behaviour because they thought these are not serious issues, comparing to the numerous other threats they face.
Certainly, there are editors and publishers that have understood the need to fight sexism and gender stereotypes in the newsroom. For example, I am really proud of my friend Dmitry Muratov, editor of Novaya Gazeta, who accepted an editorial charter on gender equality and combating discrimination, which had been suggested by a group of young women journalists.
Sexism is a disease in Russian culture, including the media and advertisement sectors, just as is many other countries. But what gives me hope is that in the younger generation journalists do not accept sexism and try their best to prevent the normalization of gender discrimination, by talking about it.
IPI: Throughout your professional career, you have consistently engaged in the fight against gender discrimination in the media and society at large. What were your accomplishments and how do you see this did battle going forward?
Azhgikhina: As part of the Association of Women Journalists (from1992 to 2001) and later the Woman Journalist Club of the Russian Union of Journalists (from 2001 to 2016) I organized many training programs together with international partners, including UNESCO, UNDP, WHO, ILO, UN Women, IFJ and others, and cooperated with gender and professional organizations in many countries. We also organized festivals to stop sexism in the media and also published booklets for media professionals. Because journalists work with facts and data, we conducted a series of surveys to assess the level of inequality. These showed that in 1995-1996 only 4 percent of news presented anything related to women.
Today things have gotten better, women are occasionally invited as guests in TV shows and to radio stations, but it’s still only about 20 percent.
In my opinion it is important to discuss, to talk about gender with the colleagues and analyse our own practices and our own biases, because when we do that, we start paying attention to things that otherwise would go unnoticed. We need to choose our words and our images carefully to avoid sexualizing women.
It is hard to relate when you are not a victim yourself, you often don’t see the problem. So, when you talk about it you understand what people go through.
IPI: If you were to compare the obstacles for women working in journalism during the Soviet time and today, how would you say it has changed?
Azhgikhina: In the Soviet Union it was difficult for women to make a career. Women in leadership positions were in the minority and women journalists rarely got any important assignments, while men could cover politics, economy, conflicts, and international affairs. For example, the official position of the Communist Party was that “women are not moral enough” to be foreign correspondents.
Now women can do anything and have all the opportunities that men have, although women face more discrimination today. While women have more career possibilities now, they are not protected. During Soviet times there was a system where women were supported. If they got pregnant for example they could not get fired. When they had children, they received compensation. Now women are underpaid and fired on a regular basis even though they have a family to take care of and in spite of the fact that there are laws protecting them. But some media owners know how to circumvent the law.
IPI: You established the Association for Women Journalists. Why and with what goals did you decide to establish it?
Azhgikhina: We established the Association in 1992 and formalized it in 1994, and it was active until 2001. Later the Association became part of the Russian Union of Journalists and, when I joined the Union (between 2001 and 2016), it was easier to carry our work in support of women journalists under the umbrella of the Union.
My purpose in the Association was to raise awareness, to support and encourage young women journalists. In order to do that we held conferences and festivals. Because many of us worked in mainstream media, we organized programmes on television and we set up a women-only radio station, which would broadcast 24 hours a day and seven days a week.
Later, in 2000, we decided that promoting gender equality means educating everybody, not only women, because everybody plays a role. Together with the International Federation of Journalists, we arranged international gatherings like “stop sexism in the media”. We also organized training sessions.
As journalists, we tried to bring people together and inform them about what is happening in the world. For example, feminism was misunderstood so we tried to explain it to the people who did not understand the problems.
Now a lot of people in Russia understand that there is a real problem – slowly, but something has been moving. Today we work for human rights because, not only because women rights are human rights, but also because human rights are the basis for gender equality which should be included in the human rights agenda. You cannot train good journalists when gender inequality still exits. It’s important to strengthen solidarity and cooperation between civil society groups that work for gender equality and journalist groups and keep up the dialogue.