When civil dissent is unintelligible

Protest by women in Russia’s military families and the war against Ukraine

Bibliographic Data

ID8911943
AuthorsN Danilova (0000-0003-2576-726X, corresponding author), Jennifer G Mathers (0000-0002-0130-2786)
Year2025
Volume61
Issue1
Pages206-233
Publication date2025-10-31
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueCooperation and Conflict (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0010-8367 • E-ISSN: 1460-3691
PublisherSAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/00108367251383694
OpenAlexW4415726071
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited63

This article exposes the reluctance of both pro- and antiwar Russian media to provide a nuanced understanding of the political challenge posed by the protests of wives and mothers of Russia’s soldiers involved in the war against Ukraine. Drawing on Holloway Sparks’ concept of non-radical civil dissent, we demonstrate that despite lacking overt antiwar or anti-militarist messaging and an explicit alignment with feminist antiwar resistance, these women’s actions constitute a disruptive and meaningful form of protest within Putin’s militarised state. Using feminist content and discourse-theoretical analysis on an original dataset of Russian state-controlled and independent digital media ( Meduza and MediaZona ), we demonstrate how state media render their protest ‘unintelligible’ – either by erasing their political subjecthood or absorbing it into the figure of the ‘caring mother-patriot’. Independent outlets, while affording these women some agency and recognising them as proactive, ‘patriotic dissenters’, nonetheless depoliticise their actions through gender-stereotypical, motherhood-centred portrayals. Finally, we highlight how hierarchies within independent coverage continue to privilege the (Russian) citizen-soldier and the protest of conscript families, while marginalising the experiences of families whose soldier-relatives are ex-prisoners, militia members, migrants, and marginalised groups that play a dominant role in Russia’s war against Ukraine

Agency (philosophy · Dissent · Militarization · Political dissent · Politics · Privilege (computing · Spanish Civil War · State (computer science · Gender Politics and Representation · Gender, Feminism, and Media · Gender, Security, and Conflict

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