Yulia Menshova: "Feminism is not suitable for our patriarchal society"

And she also shared her thoughts on children, the problems of modern women and journalism.

About visiting a father who was in intensive care

I couldn't be there, but I was in intensive care once. I very much asked the doctors to let me come to the intensive care unit, because I understood that the dynamics was getting worse day by day, and he was 82 years old. And all this is dangerous... And I understood that everything is possible, so I asked permission to come to the intensive care unit, although this... But I am very grateful for that, for the fact that I was allowed to do so.

This was the order of the chief physician himself. It was all pretty scary. It's not just a "red zone", it's a "burgundy zone" where you dress just like in a disaster movie.

And this, of course, once again caused me some admiration for doctors. I don’t understand why they don’t come out to some kind of demonstrations against people who, therefore, are fighting over... With their idiocy about the fact that we are being chipped... These anti-vaxers ...

You just have to see this place, it's a real horror movie. It's as real as a disaster movie. Here is something like a series about "Chernobyl".

These are these gigantic corridors, where they lie on these sofas, sleeping face down ... This is an incredible level of achievement, and against this background... I do not understand why they are silent.

This is such disrespect for these people who have been in the regime every day, for almost two years now... I would like to simply send one of these anti-vaxers, so that they at least put on this suit, which I wore on myself, in which these people do not just put on every day, they just work, walk, and most of them perform operations and generally take care of the sick in some way.

In general, I put it all on myself and went. I brought my dad some food, delicious. I really wanted to please him, so that it somehow added strength to him.

He was conscious. But we could not talk, because he was already under a mask that could not be removed, because his saturation immediately dropped very strongly.

He recognized me at once, although I, in general, of course, did not look like myself.

About what you understand with the departure of your parents

With the departure of your parents, you understand that no one will ever love you like that.

Not in the sense that no one compares to this. This is not the point. But never like that. And it really hurts.

And that's what dad mentioned in our last interview with him.

He told about a philosopher who asked a priest a question, who listened to many, many confessions, listened to many, many people - the philosopher asked, what conclusion did you draw about them? And he said, "There are no grown-up people." This is an ingenious formula.

For the last fifteen years of my conscious existence in the world, I feel myself in such a huge kindergarten. A huge, large-scale, planetary kindergarten.

We don't grow up. We remain guided by our feelings, but we can cover them up with a huge number of social masks.

About journalists and about yourself in journalism

I have never called myself a journalist. In this sense, I am not a generalist. I am an interviewer, probably this would be the correct designation of what I am doing.

The journalist, it seems to me, assumes a very wide range of skills that I do not possess.

… Today the question is in which direction we are looking for free journalism. If on federal channels, then there probably is not it to the extent that, perhaps, we would like. There is, of course, more propaganda, but these are federal channels, they have the right to dictate their agenda.

I do not see anything unique in this for our country, and in other countries I also see it.

Is there free journalism on independent platforms? There is. For me, yes. YouTube, among other things, is this platform. I don’t know if the reasoning that they will cover it up is fair or not, it doesn’t seem to me that this is a reasonable action, it seems to me that it’s such a horror story.

Why children are needed and why self-centeredness is bad

It seems to me that children are the only mechanism in which you lovingly learn altruism and the rejection of egocentrics, on which you are simply closed while you are young.

You don't learn anything about life, you look terribly flat at it. Terrible. You are not really open. Even your energy flows through you differently.

Because you can feel sorry for another person, not speculatively, but with all your heart, only after you pass through this path of pacifying your egoism.

About what women were before, and what they are now

Today society requires a woman to be an accomplished person. So fashionable, so right.

Not everyone wants it, but you can't admit it.

That is why parenting becomes so tragic.

And these "mom's chats" - well, this is an attempt to exaggerate their importance as a parent. Because you have not taken place at work, you are not fashionable, you are not in trend, but you are the BEST MOTHER IN THE WORLD.

Women of my generation did not have such a problem, because you were not required to be successful. You could choose this.

But, in general, if the husband could earn more, then the woman would gladly leave it, because she had enough at home, these concerns, especially, there are several children, not one, but two, three.

And there were a huge number of women who liked it.

And today there is such a complete change on the contrary: you must be a person, and, in general, not everyone wants this.

Our society, with all its patriarchy, is not very suitable for a feminist agenda.

Because I think we have a huge problem in the connection between men and women.

And it has already been manifested in my generation; this is generally the legacy of the first world revolution, this whole chain, and the 1990s, including when men were killed, when women were left alone.

This is the kind of phenomenon that happens in the case of a child whose mother dies, he can feel anger and hatred towards his deceased mother, because she left him alone.

Men died in such a huge number, and women were left alone, they had children in their arms, they had to survive, and on the one hand, their men were idealized, because the "dead, dead, wonderful" dad, grandfather, brother, husband, and on the other hand, they felt anger and hatred towards them for leaving them alone in the face of the wildest difficulties.

All this has accumulated in our society in approximately such a volume, this spring, that even during the Soviet era it has not yet fully unfolded and has not figured it out.

The entire episode with the participation of Yulia Menshova can be viewed here.