Moscow Center for Gender Studies (MCGS)

MISSION*RESEARCH PROJECTS*PROGRAMS*STAFF*CONTACT INFORMATION

It is non-governmental, non-profit research and cultural institution. Here women scholars with strong feminist orientation were brought together by their mission to promote gender research and to withstand gender discrimination in socio-cultural, economic and political realities of present-day Russia.

Center for Gender Studies was founded in April 1990 as a part of the Insntitute for Socio-Economic Population Problems (ISEPP), accoding to the USSR Academy of Sciences Presidium resolution. The event was initiated by Natalya Zakharova and Anastasia Posadskaya, with a support of Natalya Rimashevskaya, Director of ISEPP.

In April 1994 Center for Gender Studies was registered as the Moscow Center for Gender Studies, independent non-governmental organization.

MCGS mission is seen by its members as:

* proposing "gender glasses" to the society and thus incorporating gender approach into academia and social life;
* contributing to the rise of civil society in Russia, by playing coordinating part in the independent women's movement and creating grounds for women's real participation in policy-making process;
* withstanding sexism in the humanities, mass conciousness and social policies under the present conditions, with the growing tendencies to consider women in the light of traditional role stereotypes.

What is being done to implement this mission?

Various MCGS activities include research and expertise on gender-related issues; educational and training seminars; contacts with the official institutions and with the mass media; building up of data-base on women; cooperation with the women's organizations in Russia, in the NIS and in the West.

MCGS research projects:

• strategy for equal right and opportunities for women and men;
• gender discrimination in Russian society;
• gender approach to the power issue;
• women's leadershis in the Russian context;
• women in the new socio- political movements;
• feminization of poverty and unemployment;
• women under the market economy;
• women's enterpreneurship: problemn and potential;
• the image of women in the mass media;
• family in gender context;
• gender and ethnicity in the former Soviet Union;
• reproductive rights of women and men;
• gender and culture;
• oral histories of the Russian women.

MCGS educational and training programs:

* Women's Studies programs are being created for introduction into University and high school curricula country-wide. * Different training courses are offered aimed at integration of women into political activities and market economies (training for women-politicians; unemployed women; women-voters; women running their own business rule 32 ).

Who is working at the Moscow Center for Gender Studies?

These are: Marina Baskakova, Elena Ballayeva, Zoya Khotkina, Tatyana Klimenkova, Elena Kotchkina, Valentina Konstantinova, Natalya Kosmarskaya, Olga Kucerova, Larissa Lunyakova, Marina Malysheva, Elena Mezentseva, Olga Voronina. All the MCGS researchers hold Ph.D.degrees (in Economics, Philosophy, History and Geography).

MOSCOW CENTER FOR GENDER STUDIES

c/o Institute for Socio-EconomicPopulation Problems, Russian Academy of Sciences

32, Nakhimovskiy prospekt, Moscow, 117218, Russia

tel/fax: (7 095) 125-6419

e-mail:MCGS@GLASNET.RU