Valeria Valeryevna Lukyanova: The Barbification of Family Values

On the topic of "the ostensible endgame of the Odessa bride" — wife and mother — human Barbie, Valeria Valeryevna Lukyanova has stated in an interview with GQ that parenting is the pinnacle of selfishness.

Michael Idov broached the subject of whether a nuclear family was in the future for Valeria Lukyanova and her husband Dimitry as Lukyanova browses the movie selection at a local 5D movie theatre. 

Being raised in Ukraine, Valeria grew up with the notion that "a woman here is brought up for two things: marriage and motherhood." 

"Oh God, no!" 

"It's unacceptable to me," says Valeria. "The very idea of having children brings out this deep revulsion in me."

She continues to state in a staccato rant that,

"Most people have children to fulfill their own ambitions, not to give anything. They don't think about what they can give this child, what they can teach her. They just try to shape her according to some weird script—whatever they couldn't do in life, like becoming a writer or a doctor. Or some woman who's almost 30 and thinks no one needs her, she says, 'Oh, I'll have a kid. He will love me and become my reason to live.' And then this kid becomes a soccer ball she and her boyfriend will kick back and forth.

"I'd rather die from torture," she concludes, "because the worst thing in the world is to have a family lifestyle."

This rant about the unfulfilling and often selfish role of being a parent compels the interviewer, Michael Idov to state,  "You know, I can't help saying, that last part sounds almost feminist." 

Idov's statement of these supposed feministic values perfectly illustrate the lack of intersectionality of white feminism.

With Valeria Lukyanova also stating in the same interview where she displayed racist opinions and asserted that race-mixing can cause “degeneration” and that this is why there are apparently fewer attractive women in society today.

She also stated that a child born to a Russian mother and an Armenian father would require plastic surgery in order to have her nose reduced in size.

From Michael Idov's point of view, Lukyanova — as Michael Idov believes — is the ultimate demonstration of what a Ukrainian woman is willing to do to herself. A fantasy that is often created by men in fiction and manga has become real and that Valeria is throwing men's fantasy in their face. 

"I bet she is exactly what men dream about." 

She may be indeed but she has reclaimed the power that so many women take for granted or don't realize they ever had. 

Despite of Valeria's barbie-like appearance, she is no barbie.

You can be anything is a slogan used to sell dolls but not Valeria's idea of opposing gender norms. 

Feminism is the equality between the genders and offering the support to women who are oppressed due to a sheer number of factors such as gender roles, patriarchy and violence against women. 

Valeria's barbification has led to a number of realizations that borderline on eugenics and racism. In spite of her lack of mothering nature, this does not mean she is a feminist anymore than the earliest suffragettes who believed in a similar ideology of eugenic feminism. 

In recent years, many early suffragettes of the women's movement have been fraught with allegations of racism and notions of eugenics philosophy such as Susan B. Anthony and Margaret Sanger. Even the 2019's Women's March was roiled with antisemitism accusations. 

All of this is to say that feminism in its earliest forms was not inclusive to all women. Despite decades since the Suffrage Movement of the early 1900s, white feminism is still pulling down the movement at the expense of POC, BIPOC, disabled women and is leading to those not well-informed in what feminism should be to claim women like Valeria Lukyanova are the pinnacle of an ideal feminist. 

Learn more about the importance of intersectionality in feminism by reading "The Trouble with White Women: A Counterhistory of Feminism," written by Kyla Schuller. (Check out my Instagram post here.)