Authors

Valeriya Utkina¹;  ¹ University of Helsinki, Finland

Discussion

The Eurasian Women's Forum, initiated by the Russian Federation, has evolved into an international platform for discussing gender equality, social protection, and women's contributions to sustainable development. Drawing participants from diverse regions, it engages women leaders, politicians, and entrepreneurs, promoting experience-sharing and collaborative decision-making to advance women's rights. This approach serves as a soft power strategy, attracting international partners and creating diplomatic inroads under the guise of advocating gender issues.

Between 2015 and 2024, the forum held four sessions, the latest in September 2024. The inaugural event in 2015 was a landmark, broadening the discourse on women’s status in Russia and ultimately contributing to the adoption of the National Strategy for Women (2017-2022), designed to enhance women’s roles across social and personal spheres. The forum thus acts as a public policy instrument aimed at fostering women’s leadership and mitigating gender inequality.

However, a discourse analysis of these forums reveals a nuanced evolution under the influence of Russia’s "conservative turn." While initial discussions emphasized gender equality, recent forums highlight traditional family values and women’s roles in bolstering societal stability. This reflects state-driven shifts in public discourse, where gender discussions now intertwine with themes of national security and traditional family ideals.

Interestingly, this conservative shift coexists with an undercurrent of progressive discourse at the forums themselves. Official documents retain bureaucratic language that reinforces conservative government rhetoric. Yet, within the sessions, a progressive narrative of women’s empowerment emerges, aligned with Sustainable Development Goal 5 (SDG 5) on achieving gender equality. This duality illustrates the ambivalent role of the Eurasian Women’s Forum, where soft power meets an ideological balancing act—promoting gender agendas that resonate with international norms while maintaining alignment with national policies.