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Russian women in the driver’s seat as ban on some professions lifted

By
Reuters
Published Jan. 21, 2021, 2:09 p.m. ET

MOSCOW – Muscovite Sofia Dorofeyeva had always been drawn to the trains traveling across the vast expanses of her native Russia but until this year she and her female compatriots had been barred from occupying the driver’s seat.

Russia, from Jan. 1, shortened the list of jobs it bars women from holding because of their physical demands or hazardous nature, allowing them to become metro drivers, train conductors and lorry drivers.

After graduating in 2020 from a college that trains public transportation workers, Dorofeyeva eagerly awaited the start of the year to become an assistant train driver.

“All of us women who wanted to get this job had been waiting for a very long time,” said the 21-year-old, who for years had been sketching anime-like illustrations of trains and female conductors, foreshadowing her profession.

This combination of handout pictures created and released by the Moscow transport department on January 1, 2021 shows female train drivers posing for a picture inside the cab of a train at a depot in Moscow.
This combination of handout pictures created and released by the Moscow transport department on January 1, 2021 shows female train drivers posing for a picture inside the cab of a train at a depot in Moscow. Moscow transport department/AFP

“At first we couldn’t believe it, but then of course we felt great joy as well as a sense of calm. Instead of fighting, we could finally just take this job after passing our exams.”

The battle for Russian women to have access to professions deemed too demanding or hazardous by the state began long before Dorofeyeva’s time.

Female train drivers posing for a picture at a train depot in Moscow on January 1, 2021.
Female train drivers posing for a picture at a train depot in Moscow on January 1, 2021. Moscow transport department/AFP

In 2009, Anna Klevets, a student in St. Petersburg, responded to an advertisement on the metro calling on men to apply to become assistant metro drivers.

When her application was rejected because of her gender, Klevets took her case to court. It eventually reached the Constitutional Court in 2012, but women remained barred from operating metro trains.

Subway train driver Maria Yakovleva takes part in the launching ceremony of the first train driven by a woman at Moscow's Underground in Moscow, Russia
Subway train driver Maria Yakovleva takes part in the launching ceremony of the first train driven by a woman at Moscow’s Underground in Moscow, Russia. EPA

“I understood that it would be a long process,” Klevets told Reuters. “But of course I didn’t think it would take 10 years.”

Klevets has been pleased to see her legal battle stir debate, even though scores of professions, including some that require exposure to explosives and chemicals, remain out of reach for Russian women.

“Everything should be available” to women, Klevets said. “Because a woman can decide on her own what to chose, where to go, who to be and what to do.”