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The “gender problem” emerging today in CA as it relates to and involves education actually has long history, and was a target of serious social and political reform during Soviet times. We are interested in describing the problematic emergence; subsequent decline; and current difficulties, policies and practices connected to gender equality CA – with a particular focus on education and higher education. There are important historical writings on this topic, as well as contemporary statistical description of the issues. We undertake to illustrate briefly and describe work in both areas to begin this writing. Yet, this chapter is as much interested in the experiences and understandings of gender, education and lived culture as it is in what the history books say and how the statistics read. Our historical and conceptual discussions and generalizations are thus used primarily as scene setters for our later ethnographic accounts.

This study increases understanding of the influence of Russian culture and society on travel practices during Soviet times and now, through the subjective experiences of Russian women. Based on the life-history narratives concerning travel of Russian women who lived in the USSR and worked for the government, the study explores features of traveling during Soviet and Russian times: norms and rules, gender aspects, Russianness and habitus. Both culture and governmental restrictions and societal rules affected how women traveled in Soviet times. This study demonstrates how historical and social contexts and habitus were significant for women in the past and continue to be so in the present, as well as how they have affected these women’s travel practices. By drawing on social reality, gender literature, Bourdieu’s concept of habitus, and sociohistoric patterning of consumption from the research domain of consumer culture theory, this study seeks to fill the gap in understanding the significance of these aspects for travel practices.

The chapter explores the image of the Soviet female spy in a variety of Bond films. Representations of Soviet women in these films are as intense as they are stereotypical. Tatiana Romanova (From Russia With Love, 1963), Anya ­Amasova (The Spy Who Loved Me, 1977), Pola Ivanova (A View to a Kill, 1985), the murderous dominatrix Xenia Onatopp (GoldenEye, 1995) and ­Natalya ­Simonova (GoldenEye) embody a combination of contradictory qualities. They are tough, strong, intellectual, successful and dangerous yet also feminine, ­sexual, beautiful and exotic. The presence of the dangerous communist seductress in Bond films petered out after the end of the Soviet Union.

This chapter also examines the origins of each of the stereotypes which seem to be a curious mixture of fantasy and reality of the fear and desire of the Western male gaze yet combined with elements of the Soviet ideology (for instance, the war on gender stereotypes in the Soviet Union and the heavy ideological emphasis on gender equality).

Russia is one of the few countries where surrogacy is both legal and regulated. Still, volatile legislation and the lack of public acceptance of the practice make surrogacy an experience that is hard to navigate. This chapter presents an exploration of the meanings Russian surrogates attach to their work, remuneration for it, and their relationships with intended parents. Drawing on 23 semi-structured interviews with surrogates, we find that while Russian surrogates frame surrogacy as a job and engage in calculations of a fair price for their services, they provide unrequited care for intended parents and their children and embed surrogacy in the context of their motherhood as a way to provide and care for their own children. In this, Russian surrogates occupy the typical position of a post-Soviet ‘mother-worker’.

Purpose: After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Belarus began to develop a national policy on reproductive health, influenced by late Soviet policy, market relations, and international actors. The central question of this research is how the issues of reproduction and woman’s health are reconsidered in post-Soviet Belarus, in light of the influence of various social and political factors.

Methodology/approach: This chapter critically examines discourses of legal regulations of reproduction and how they promote certain understandings of national security and traditional values through reproduction. In particular, the study is based on the discourse-analysis of the official legislative documents on reproduction in Belarus between 1991 and 2015.

Findings: The transformation of the post-Soviet social protection system, reproductive health care, family policy, as well as specific configuration of public discourse legitimize one model (unified and homogenized normative body that is heterosexual, fertile, healthy, prosperous) and exclude others (non-normative bodies that are non-heterosexual, infertile, unhealthy, poor, and thus precarious for the nation) in favor of the interests of biopolitical governance, nation-building, and neoliberal ideology. Moreover, legal documents legalize new principles of social stratification and produce new ideas about responsible parenthood.

Social implications: Although there is some scholarship on reproduction in Belarus, a thorough analysis of the public discourse and the legal regulations of reproduction has yet to be conducted. Contributing to the debate about post-Soviet reproductive politics, this chapter explores the influence of the biopolitical dialogue and the panic around depopulation on social policies. In particular, this chapter offers more critical perspective toward the economic and social dynamics in Belarus, taking into account the variety of processes and configurations of discourses that influence official policy.