Kyiv women taught to manipulate

Modern Ukrainian women need to learn how to manipulate men through the use of traditional feminine roles, according to a Russian psychologist who has imported his self-help course from Moscow to Kyiv.

Vladimir Rakovsky, 41, has taught Stervologia, or the art of being a “bitch,” for 10 years in Russia, and now he is offering Ukrainian women his knowledge as part of a multi-stage course costing hundreds of dollars.

According to Rakovsky, a former rescue worker with Russia’s Emergencies Ministry who holds a master’s degree in psychology from Moscow State University, a “sterva” is a woman adept at the art of manipulation, who knows how to use different female roles to her advantage.

“Really smart women pretend to be weak,” exhorts Rakovsky’s website, “a sterva is first and foremost an actress.”

Stervologia “teaches women how to be the neck that turns the head.” A sterva is a successful, confident woman, a caring mother and a passionate lover.

Rakovsky’s course begins with a two-day session that comprises the first of three levels and costs Hr 1500, or $300.

Marking one of his first trips to Kyiv in what will become regular, monthly visits, Rakovsky gathered a couple of dozen women aged 18 to 56 at the Pecherska Lavra on March 17-18.

Among the participants were college students, mothers and business women.

Rakovsky launched his first monthly Stervologia sessions in Kyiv this January, while monthly trainings in Odessa were started two years ago and in Dnipropetrovsk one year ago.

He teaches alongside his 21-year-old wife of two years, former model Yevgeniya Steshova, who demonstrates to course participants how to be a model “sterva.”

Steshova also teaches a related course, called “School of Seduction,” at which women learn how to accentuate their femininity and sexuality through exercises that include lap dancing and strip tease.

Participants in the Stervologia course are encouraged to stand in front of the group and talk about their relations with men, while Rakovsky listens, analyzes and engages the class in discussion.

Kyiv is similar to Moscow several years ago, when it was more popular for women to be assertive and vampy, the Russian psychologist told the Post.

Now his wife’s Seduction course is more popular up north.

“In Moscow, they know what they want from this course. Usually, they are women who have good careers, from high levels of society, and they come just to learn how to be attractive women,” Steshova said.

“While building their businesses, they forgot how to be charming, how to seduce men,” she added.

Rakovsky said Kyiv women will also come to this, but for now, the image of the assertive female “vamp” is still very popular, due to the country’s economic situation.

The large divide between the poor and rich forces Ukrainian women to be strong and compete for men on a higher economic and social rung, he added.

Regular Kyiv sessions of Stervologia are being organized through Womanline, a company started by Marina Altukhova, who attended one of Rakovsky’s courses in Odessa.

Altukhova heard about Rakovsky’s course through a friend, who had participated in one of his Moscow trainings and praised it.

“I was delighted, I learned all the information, which in my view a mother should pass on to her daughter,” said Altukhova.

She said that after going to the first level, her husband encouraged her to continue on to the next ones.

“After [completing the training] I realized that I wanted to share my experiences with other women, so that they can feel how I did,” she said.

Now, after starting Womanline, Altukhova is working as a partner with Rakovsky and Steshova to bring both Stervologia and the School of Seduction courses to Kyiv on a regular basis. As of last month, she had organized two trainings. A third training session is slated for late April.

Oleksandra Rudnyeva, president of the Kharkiv Center for Women’s Studies (KCWS), a think tank focusing on women’s human rights and the achievement of gender balance in Ukrainian society, believes in the benefits of psychological courses that help the sexes better understand each other.

However, she believes the information provided by such courses is harmful to the development of gender balance if used toward manipulative ends.

“Manipulation is something from the past,” Rudnyeva said. “For many ages women had to survive, that is why they had to manipulate men.”

Nowadays, women and men need to work to understand one another, to work toward the goal of developing deep understanding and friendship.

“All trainings that provide proper and scientifically exact information on the issue are really valuable,” Rudnyeva said.

“If women know properly how different men are, how they think, react and behave, and if men know the same [about women], it’s really socially valuable to have this knowledge,” Rudnyeva said.

Rudnyeva said that Ukraine has strong laws protecting gender rights, but problems still exist with implementing them and changing personal biases.

Through a program called the Inter-Regional Young Women’s Group, KCWS works with young women to help them develop knowledge of gender theory and principles. Their main goal is to help women use this knowledge to develop strategies and cooperation with municipal and regional councils, as well as the parliament, “toward the aim of developing deep understanding and friendship between men and women,” she said.

“Lack of knowledge on this subject really leads to misunderstandings, misinterpretations and conflict at the end of the day,” added Rudnyeva.