Sex, Politics, and Putin
Is Vladimir Putin a macho man, or is he a “fag”? In her lecture, Valerie Sperling will explore how gender stereotypes and sexualization have been used as tools of political legitimation in Putin’s Russia. Despite their ideological differences, politicians and political activist groups that support Putin and those that oppose him have used traditional concepts of masculinity, femininity, and homophobia as a way to symbolically endorse and criticize political leaders and policies at home and abroad.
Valerie Sperling is Professor of Political Science at Clark University (Worcester, MA). She is the author of Organizing Women in Contemporary Russia (Cambridge University Press, 1999), and Altered States: The Globalization of Accountability (Cambridge University Press, 2009). Her new book, Sex, Politics, and Putin: Political Legitimacy in Russia (Oxford University Press, 2015) explores the use of gender norms and sexualization in Putin-era Russian politics, with a focus on pro- and anti-regime organizing and feminist protest. Sex, Politics, and Putin received the Davis Center Book Prize in Political and Social Studies from the Association for Slavic, East European, & Eurasian Studies (ASEEES) and also the Heldt Prize for Best Book in Slavic and East European Women’s Studies from the Association for Women in Slavic Studies (AWSS).
