EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION

This issue continues our conversation about family. This time we write about families of a new sort – egalitarian ones based on the principles of partnership and equal rights.

Ten years ago specialists had already determined that this kind of “nucleus of society” best corresponds to today’s stage of social development. It must be said that women adopt these relationships much more quickly than men do (at least in Russia and the other countries of the Confederation of Independent States [former Soviet Union]).

What does it mean to be a man in the post-industrial world, where there is no need to hunt and kill mammoths or use exceptional physical strength in plowing fields? What can today’s father teach his sons? In our pages both women and men reflect on this, including leaders of our still few men’s organizations.

We hope the other materials in this issue will also be of interest to you, whether on the American experience of families or the fate of the first cosmonauts in our country, or the review of various recent publications on the Russian women’s movement.
Nadezhda Azhgikhina