Men's Words, Women's Work: Exploring the Reverse Gender Gap in Post 2022 Russian Emigration

Abstract

Are men truly more engaged in politics or do they just talk a good game? Since February 2022, over a million Russians have fled political repression, and among them, a surge in female activism has emerged, challenging traditional gender roles. Despite having fewer resources than men, Russian women are more politically and civically active abroad. This "reverse gender gap" has been marked in interviews with exiled activists and consistently observed in the OutRush survey. Traditional predictors of political participation do not fully explain this gap, which seems to be driven by war-induced emotions. I demonstrate that efforts and rewards are unfairly distributed between the genders: while women engage in intellectual work, they are, inter alia, disproportionately burdened with emotional labor, as well as the "domestic" and invisible tasks within the movements, whereas men focus primarily on high-visibility roles.