Equalization of Legal Status with Respect to Gender

Abstract

This article discusses the current trends in Russian legal doctrine and legislation on aligning the legal status of women and men, taking into account the legal positions of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation and the European Court of Human Rights. It analyzes and critically reflects upon the gender aspects and content of those branches of Russian law in which such aspects are most clearly represented, either objectively or by tradition – techniques for gender neutralization of legal norms, the establishment of gender privileges and gender restrictions in legal status. Constitutional law: the basic premise of gender equality, preferential treatment for certain categories of citizens, gender limitations; problems of quotas for women’s representation in government, administration and other structures, provisions for women’s representation in party electoral lists, etc. Criminal Law: trends in the gender neutralization of crimes of a sexual nature while maintaining criminal responsibility for offenses against pregnant women, etc.; gender neutralization of preferential treatment in the punishment of persons with children. Family Law: Russia’s traditional view of marriage and parenthood; privileges for women in the divorce process, disputes about children, maintenance obligations; gender restrictions on adoption, assisted reproductive technologies; variants of gender neutralization of some family law norms. Labor law: the preservation of absolute protection of the rights and interests of pregnant women and mothers of young children; the trend for gender neutralization of the legal status of parents of young children; continued restrictions on women’s access to certain areas of work. Analysis of the legal positions of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation and the European Court of Human Rights shows that on a number of gender equality aspects in Russian legislation and law enforcement practice, the views of these courts differ greatly. At the same time, there is a convergence of views on certain issues (for example, on the implementation of the legal status of persons with family responsibilities).

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 7 citations exist upstream.