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About portal in details We would like to ask you to forward this letter to your colleagues, women’s informational organizations, to subject teleconferences, gender communities, journalists and to all who is concerned about problems of women’s movement in Russia. Why is there not enough information about women’s issues in Russia? As early as 1998 our organization Regional Public Organization “East-West: Women’s Innovation Projects” placed an order by a group of sociologists to carry out the research on the subject “Representation of women’s issues in mass media” (http://www.owl.ru/content /library/books/p740.shtml (on Russian only)). Results demonstrated that journalists have practically no information about activities of women’s organizations and women’s issues: the feeling appeared that mass media and women’s organizations lived in two parallel worlds. The research revealed the deep misunderstanding by journalists of the women’s movement’s strategy, which was dealing with comprehension of women’s experience and was trying to change stereotypes in consciousness of women. Dominant view of journalists about supposedly existing equal rights of men and women produced the automatic devaluation of the “imported” feminist theory and women’s rights’ advocacy on the Russian ground. For this reason women’s problems are presenting by mass media one-sided with strongly pronounced accent on a few topics broadcasting by all the mass media. During five years Russian women’s NGOs were trying to attract journalists’ attention to objective interpretation of women’s issues in mass media – they organized presentations of researches and publications of educational character. One of the last researches – “Women’s images in modern Russian journalistic. Third Edition” – 2001 (analyze of the federal press, executive editor Irina Jurna). The research covers the period of 2001 and demonstrates the tendency of the Russian society’s attitude to women’s issues in the Russian reality. We should also mention that mass media have the leading position in forming of gender stereotypes. In the absence of clear ideological policy, “gender” competence of journalists as well as of well-known informational resources, women’s issues are presented rather one-sided in the most of mass media. Where is the information about women’s movement in Russia to be found? Since 1996 Russian women’s non-government organization RPO “East-West: Women’s Innovation Projects” (Moscow) has been developing the subject “Woman and Society” in the informational space in Internet at the women’s information site “Open Women Line” – www.owl.ru, which at the end of 2001 has been modernized into informational portal “Woman and Society” (http://www.owl.ru). Informational capacity of the portal today makes up about 60 MB, which is confirming the fact that portal is subject archives of the information accumulated during several years. Visitors’ geography covers nearly the whole world – certain materials are presented at the portal in two languages – Russian and English and therefore those materials are unique for our colleagues abroad. Subject “Woman and Society” is presented at the portal in a wide range. Editors of the portal created the well known Catalogue “Internet – for Women!” (unfortunately in Russian only) as early as in 2000. Catalogue includes, classifies and annotates more than 2000 Internet resources from Russia and abroad, which are demonstrating that women besides cooking, shopping and holidays are also involved into more interesting and social significant processes. Portal “Woman and Society” does not contain information that is traditionally considered to be interesting for women and inserts them into the frames of being “housewives – cooks – top models”. You can find a lot of such materials in Internet. We should also mention here that Internet of advertising and banners since the day of its creation is trying to fix traditional stereotypes, while advertising beauty care products for women and parts of women’s body – for men. Portal “Woman and Society” presents the other side of women’s life – their involvement in the social life. The range of materials presented at the portal “Woman and Society” is very various and deep, however the most materials are in Russian – texts of publications, books, leaflets, research materials, conferences’ records, legal documents (Russian and international). On the portal you can also read the electronic version of the social and educational magazine “Woman Plus…” – English version was supported by Heinrich-Boell-Foundation, till the end of this year it is supported by the Global Fund for Women. This edition has been published since 1994 in order to compensate the lack of serious subject press for women. Unfortunately, the edition of the printed version of magazine is quite small (1000 –1500 exemplars), however it is distributed not only among non-commercial organization but also among regional libraries. Certainly, as for any informational portal are the “news lines” one of the central sections of the portal. Portal includes four subject news lines: “News of the women’s movement in Russia”, “International news of the women’s movement”, “Announcements”, “Events in the Russian civil society”. All the news is annotated in English also. Russian news line is supported by specialists who have been developing the network on collecting and distributing of such kind of news since 1995– information arrives from regional women’s organizations and administrative structures. International news is collecting from different sources: from popular international women’s informational sites, from special subscriptions of the women’s movement organizations. Portal editors would be glad to place information sent by you, our colleagues. News announcements, sent by our colleagues from abroad will be translated into Russian. Section “Announcements” – is designed in order to place information about events in the field of women’s movement, announcements of women’s organizations, or information which might be interesting for participants of the women’s movement. “Events of the civil society” demonstrate that women’s movement is an integral part of the civil society and therefore we cannot take events that happen in the society indifferently. In addition to news lines subject sections of the portal are permanently filled up. These subject sections give a clear concept about women’s participation in the social life, about realization of their initiatives, about their thoughts and legal documents securing women’s rights. Portal includes also the “mirror information” – women in eyes of the society: publications on women’s issues in central mass media. At the portal you can find statistical data of researches, illustrating practical women’s situation. Portal’s section “Women’s organizations” is presenting information about women’s organizations’ activities in Russia: it accumulates information since 1995 and is permanently filled up with new data. Annotations on all the women’s organizations are made in English. Unfortunately, it is not a special database, but on the other hand all those information were sent by actively working women’s organizations, which is also significant for an operative informational resource. Section “Publications” presents full texts (or links to other sites) of subject books, articles, studies – on the subject “Woman and Society”. Section “Open pages” gives the opportunity to women to write about themselves, what do they think, how do they interpret the world around them. Section “Important, urgent, interesting” presents interesting facts, statistics concerning women or important and urgent information about events in the world of the women’s movement. Section “Mass media about women” monitors mass media in order to display and summarize information about how Russian mass media are reflecting women’s situation in the society, what are the accents, what tendencies are presented in the covering of women’s issues. Certain portal’s sections are designed as original sites because before they have been created as separate projects. Sections, joined up in the portal became an integral part of the portal. For example, Catalogue “Internet – for women!”, created in 2000 as printed and electronic subject catalogue is developing its electronic version on the portal now: rather 2000 annotated links to resources, divided into fourteen categories: women’s movement, women’s rights, researches, politics, violence issues, mass media, health, education and trainings, social issues, creative work, economy, religion, fundraising, sexuality. Section “Vital Voices” (full English version available) – project that is rendering informational space to activists of the women’s movement, business and politics. Speaking about the role of women in the society, it is impossible to ignore culture and creativity. Since both men and women contribute to forming of the society’s culture on the certain phase of the development. Section “Art” presents projects of women artists, writers, poets. In view of the fact that women’s and gender studies and researches become more and more popular in Russia, new terminology is entering our life. Separate educational project – Glossary of gender terms (Russian version only) fits in the subject portal harmonically. Informational portal “Woman and Society” differs from the most of informational portals existing in Internet – there is no advertising. As long as six years this project on the development of the Russian site exists as non-commercial project and lives on the initiative and owing to efforts of a small group of social engaged women and to support of the Heinrich-Boell-Foundation (earlier Frauen Anstiftung, Germany). Not all of the commercial Internet projects are existing for more than a year. Six years is enough than a longer period of time which allows us to talk about stability of the informational resource and as we hope about high-quality materials, professionalism of those who is designing a women’s island in the Russian Internet – called “Woman and Society”. We would be glad to place your information at the portal and to translate into Russian your annotations or announcements about coming conferences, seminars, important events in the world of the women’s movement as well as joint projects’ and partnership proposals. Your letters to editors are welcome! - ed@owl.ru You can also subscribe weekly digests of portal’s sections. Welcome to “Women&Society in Russia” information portal! http://www.owl.ru/english/ Natalia Babich, editor P.S. Portal’s editors would be glad to view your proposals about cooperation in order of increasing of the volume translated on English portal’s informational filling. ____________________________________ -
"Women&Society" information portal -
"East-West: Women's Innovation Projects" -
box 24, Moscow, 119607, Russia -
tel/fax +7(095) - 962-6773, +7 (902) 6040548 -
e-mail: ed@owl.ru -
URL: http://www.owl.ru/
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