Intelligence Squared – Julia Ioffe and Clarissa Ward on Putin, Russia, and the Women Fighting For A Better Future (Part One)

Date: January 11, 2026
Host: Clarissa Ward
Guest: Julia Ioffe
Producer: Mia Sorrenti
Location: Kiln Theatre, London

Episode Overview

This episode features a live conversation between CNN’s Chief International Correspondent Clarissa Ward and award-winning journalist Julia Ioffe, discussing Ioffe’s new book, Motherland — a sweeping history of Russia told through the stories of women, from revolutionary feminists to Pussy Riot. The discussion traverses the evolution of women’s roles across 150 years of Russian and Soviet history, exploring emancipation, the complexity of “feminism” in Russia, Soviet policies, and the unique burdens placed on Russian women. The conversation also dissects the erasure of pioneering women from the national narrative and contrasts Western and Russian concepts of female identity and activism.

Key Points & Insights

The Book’s Genesis and Concept

• Initial Reluctance & Perspective Shift
  • Julia Ioffe began reluctant to write "a women's history," viewing it as less serious—a bias shaped by a male-dominated journalism culture ([04:25]).
  • Her agent questioned the supposed “ordinariness” of Ioffe’s female ancestors, pushing her to explore why their achievements seemed so exceptional to Americans but were typical among Soviet women ([05:10]).
  • Ioffe wanted to get away from writing about Vladimir Putin and instead illuminate Russian history through its women ([06:45]).

Notable Quote:

"I didn't want to write a women's history. I want to write something serious. Because, like you, I spent my career around male journalists with male bosses. And you kind of come to think about what's serious, what's important and what isn't, based on what they think is important and serious and what isn't."
— Julia Ioffe, 04:25

Women’s Emancipation in the Soviet Union

• Early Reforms & Alexandra Kollontai
  • The Bolsheviks addressed "the woman question" with radical policies led by figures like Alexandra Kollontai, who championed issues such as economically motivated marriages, collective childcare, and women’s independence ([08:36]).
  • Soviet policies included the world’s first paid maternity leave, no-fault civil divorce, access to all professions, free higher education for women, and legalized abortion (remarkably early, in 1920) ([11:45], [19:12]).
  • Kollontai’s ideas prioritized work and self-fulfillment for women above marriage or motherhood. Despite her enormous legacy, she was quickly ousted and largely written out of history ([15:44]).

Notable Quote:

"In 1918, she introduces some incredibly revolutionary reforms that are, by the way, I think, revolutionary even now, over 100 years later. Paid maternity leave, no fault civil divorce... The right to claim child support from a man you're not even married to... They went for free. They studied the sciences."
— Julia Ioffe, 11:45

Family Memories & Research Process

• Interweaving Personal and Political
  • Ioffe details her reliance on interviews with elderly relatives, diaries, and family papers to illuminate both personal and national history ([12:52]).
  • Describes the gap between reality and sanitized or idealized family memories, and the surprises of finding documentation corroborating stories ([14:00]).

Notable Moment:

"Luckily, both my grandmothers were still alive when I started this project... At one point, a friend of mine is here who has seen the evolution of this book over the last, what, like 27 years that it took me to write it."
— Julia Ioffe, 12:52

Wartime & Aftermath — Russian Women as Warriors

• Women’s Pervasiveness in War Efforts
  • Soviet girls, shaped by co-ed militarized education, entered WWII ready for combat: tens of thousands became snipers, artillery gunners, and pilots, forming all-female units ([27:07]).
  • Despite their significant role (8% of the forces), their contributions were erased post-war: women were shamed, their memoirs unpublished ([27:46]).

Notable Quote:

"...By the end of the war, they are 8% of the Soviet armed forces. But they're not just nurses and translators and, you know, radio operators. They had all female squadrons of fighter pilots. They had some of their best snipers were women..."
— Julia Ioffe, 27:07

Western vs. Russian Feminism

• Misconceptions, Erasure, and Political Use
  • Russian history’s powerful female figures are little-known domestically; the regime benefits from this absence, painting feminism as a dangerous Western import ([23:58]).
  • Indigenous Russian concepts of female emancipation—rooted in collectivism and revolutionary socialism—differ sharply from individualistic Western feminism ([23:58], [26:00]).
  • Legalized abortion, normalized for a century in Russia, offers a stark contrast to ongoing Western debates ([19:12], [23:18]).

Notable Quote:

"...the fact that these women have been completely written out of the history serves the current regime really, really well. Because then they can say that feminism is a Western import, right? It's an invasive chestnut... If we let it in, it's going to corrode Russian society from within..."
— Julia Ioffe, 23:58

The Post-Soviet “Backlash” and Beauty Culture

• From Amazons to Stepford Wives
  • Both women recount feeling out of place in 2000s Moscow, where women’s lives seemed overtaken by relentless beauty standards and the relentless pursuit of marriage to wealthy men ([29:56]).
  • Ioffe describes “finishing school” rituals for women, including a surreal class on “breathing through your vulva” aimed at marriage market readiness — symbolizing the post-Soviet hyper-feminine ideal ([31:32]).
  • The conversation underscores how, despite decades of “emancipation,” Russian women were left with a double shift: full-time jobs plus all domestic labor, resulting in exhaustion and, eventually, disillusionment with “liberation” ([36:00]).

Notable & Humorous Moment:

"There's this academy that teaches women how to snare husband. And they have classes like the Art of Walking beautifully and the Secrets of the Jade Cave... There's about 30 women lying on their backs on the floor... the instructor is guiding them in an exercise of breathing through their vulvas."
— Julia Ioffe, 31:32

The Double Burden and Devaluation of “Women’s Work”

• Invisible Labor & Occupational Downranking
  • Soviet promises to collectivize housework were never fulfilled. Women ended up with two jobs (paid and unpaid) while men did not share domestic work ([38:00]).
  • The feminization of professions led to their decline in prestige and pay. By late Soviet times, women made up 70% of physicians—but only in low-status or low-paid specialities ([39:00]).

Notable Quote:

"...when a field gets feminized and 70% of its practitioners are women... Do you think that they're at the top of the social prestige hierarchy? Do you think they're getting paid the most? No. They're getting paid the least. Because the more a field becomes feminized, the least prestigious and less remunerative it becomes."
— Julia Ioffe, 39:10

Noteworthy Quotes and Memorable Moments

• Clarissa Ward on Russian Women’s Post-Soviet Role:

  "Their whole raison d'etre was to look beautiful so that they could snare a rich man... I have never felt, like, so hideous in my life because every woman, A, looks like a supermodel... I would go to dinners with Russian men and women, and the women would, like, sit in silence and, like, push like a lettuce leaf around their plate. And I would be talking a lot and people would be like, oh, she's so loud... she's wearing sweatpants. It's very sad, you know?"
  (Clarissa Ward, 29:56–30:58)

• Julia Ioffe on Historical Unknowing:

  "When I started researching this book... I was like, who is Alexandra Kollontai and why have I never heard of her? ... She was pushed out of government and written out of the history very, very quickly."
  (Julia Ioffe, 15:44)

• On Soviet and Western Experiences of Abortion:

  "They legalized abortion in 1920. First country in the world to do that. So what is completely stupefying for me, for my mother, I think for other women from that part of the world, is the way that... we all took it for granted completely, the right to have an abortion. Because, you know, we grew up with stories of our great grandmothers getting one, and it wasn't a big deal."
  (Julia Ioffe, 19:12)

Select Segment Timestamps

• [04:25] – Book's origin, Ioffe’s resistance to writing “a women’s history”
• [08:36] – Bolshevik Revolution: the “woman question” and Alexandra Kollontai’s radical ideas
• [11:45] – Specific Soviet policies: paid leave, free education, access to professions
• [15:44] – Kollontai’s erasure from history
• [19:12] – Abortion legalized in 1920 USSR; contrast with Western debates
• [23:58] – The regime’s incentive to erase indigenous Russian feminism
• [27:07] – Young women’s combat roles in WWII
• [31:32] – “Breathing through your vulva” finishing school anecdote
• [34:44] – The double burden and feminization of professions
• [39:00] – Gendered decline in occupational prestige
• [40:08] – Episode wrap-up

Tone & Style

The conversation is witty, candid, and personal, blending rigorous historical discussion with sharp, sometimes self-deprecating, personal anecdotes. Both speakers balance humor with incisive social critique, offering rare insight into the experience of Russian women and drawing astute contrasts with Western feminist politics.

Summary Takeaways

• Russian women’s emancipation was a top-down project; it gave unprecedented rights and responsibilities but ultimately demanded relentless labor without true liberation.
• Female pioneers like Kollontai were sidelined, their legacies nearly erased—allowing today’s Kremlin to brand feminism as “alien.”
• Modern Russian femininity and the post-Soviet beauty obsession are, ironically, products of both Soviet policy failure and global influences.
• The “double burden” (work and home) became the norm, leading to exhaustion and disillusionment with the Soviet feminist project, while feminized professions (e.g., medicine) lost status and pay.