The Russian government, seeking to improve the status of women across the country, has appointed a man to head a special commission on the issue, officials said on Wednesday.
A government decree named Deputy Prime Minister Oleg Sysuyev to coordinate policy on women, who are hugely underrepresented in politics and have borne a particularly heavy burden of both raising families and earning a living at a time of profound economic crisis."The commission is made up almost entirely of women, so you need a man at the top to balance them out," said Sysuyev spokeswoman Svetlana Krystanovskaya.
A spokeswoman for the Russian government was less sanguine about the announcement. "It is strange, as a woman would be in a better position to address these issues, but that's how things work around here," she said.
Sysuyev, until March the mayor of the Volga city of Samara, has already complained that he has been saddled with distracting extra responsibilities not related to his primary role overseeing regional affairs.
There is only one woman of cabinet rank in the Russian government.