How prison helps you understand feminists. The management of our prison camp calls me in. And says: - Your rehabilitation, convict Navalny, is impossible without involving you in labor. You’ve been sitting here with us for nine months already; it’s time you did some work. Taking recent releases into account, the available openings were: barracks orderly, cook, baker, general laborer, and the sewing workshop. I won’t bore you with the finer points of prison jobs. If you don’t know about them, all the better—you have no need for that knowledge. I’ll only say that I rather like the image of myself as a baker: there I am, a rosy-cheeked big fellow in a white chef’s hat, hands on hips, watching the BREADS bake in the oven and smiling thoughtfully about something. Still, I decided to stay away from the more privileged inmate positions and signed up for the sewing shop instead. Closer to “the masses.” - So, a seamstress, - the management said. And I thought: what kind of people are these? They just had to say *seamstress* in the feminine form to needle me. There doesn’t seem to be any word like *seamster*, but surely there must be a masculine term for this profession. But then I look at the training application: “seamstress.” And on all the notice boards: “seamstress.” And in all the documents. That is simply what this profession is called: “seamstress.” There is no other term. And “sewing machine operator” (which you probably thought of) is a different job. And I said to myself: “Wasn’t it you, Alexei, right here on Instagram, making fun of feminists who didn’t want to be called a ‘blogger’ or an ‘author’ using masculine forms in Russian, and instead wanted feminine forms?” Didn’t you joke about that? Didn’t you say, “What difference does it make? What a ridiculous word”? Well, now life has played the same joke on you. What difference does it make to you whether you’re a seamstress or a seamster? So even before, I wasn’t against feminine job titles in Russian (that is, words like feminine forms of “author” and “editor”), but I used to think it was trivial nonsense and a good excuse for trolling. Now, though, I wholeheartedly support everyone’s right to call themselves whatever they want. After all, that’s what language is for, and it should evolve in line with society’s demands. Society, I’m submitting a request for a masculine form of the profession “seamstress” 😉 Seamster? Seamlord? Seamander? Seam-whatsit?