In Russia, feminism originated in the 18th century, influenced by the Age of Enlightenment in Western Europe and mostly confined to the aristocracy. Throughout the 19th century, the idea of feminism remained closely tied to revolutionary politics and to social reform. In the 20th century Russian feminists, inspired by socialism, shifted their focus from philanthropic works to labor organizing among peasants and factory workers. After the February Revolution of 1917, feminist lobbying gained suffrage, alongside general equality for women in society. Through this period, the concern with feminism varied depending on demographics and economic status.

After the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, feminist circles arose among the intelligentsia, although the term continues to carry negative connotations among contemporary Russians. In the 21st century, some Russian feminists, such as the punk-rock band Pussy Riot, have again aligned themselves with anti-government movements, as in the 2012 demonstrations against Russian president Vladimir Putin, which led to a lawyer representing the Russian Orthodox Church calling feminism a mortal sin.

Russian feminism originated in the 18th century, influenced by the Western European Enlightenment and the prominent role of women as a symbol for democracy and freedom in the French Revolution. Notable Russian intellectual figures of the following 19th century, such as Alexander Pushkin and Alexander Herzen, wrote positively about the increased power and independence of women in their society and supported the growing concern for gender equality.

In aristocratic Russian society, the greater freedoms allowed to women led to the rise of the powerful, socially-connected woman, including such iconic figures as Catherine the Great, Maria Naryshkina, and Countess Maria Razumovskaya. Women also began to compete with men in the literary sphere, with Russian women authors, poets, and memoirists increasing in popularity.

The loosening of restrictions on women's education and personal freedom that were enacted by Peter the Great in the 18th century created a new class of educated women, such as Princess Natalia Sheremeteva, whose 1767 Notes was the first autobiography by a woman in Russia. In the 19th century, Sheremeteva was one of the "Decembrist women", the female relatives of the Decembrists. The male Decembrists were a group of aristocratic revolutionaries who in 1825 were convicted of plotting to overthrow Emperor Nicholas I, and many of whom were sentenced to serve in labor camps in Siberia. Though the wives, sisters, and mothers of the Decembrist men shared the same liberal democratic political views as their male relatives, they were not charged with treason, because they were women; however, 11 of them, including Sheremeteva and Princess Mariya Volkonskaya, still chose to accompany their husbands, brothers, and sons to the labor camps. Though they were portrayed as heroes in popular culture, the Decembrist women insisted that they were simply doing their duty to their family. While in Siberia, some of them cared not only for their own relatives, but also for the other prisoners. They also set up important institutions like libraries and clinics, as well as arranging lectures and concerts.

In the historical writing of the time, the humble devotion of the Decembrist women was contrasted with the intrigues and hedonism of female aristocrats of the 18th century, like Catherine the Great, whose excesses were seen as the danger of too-sudden liberation for women. Although they did not explicitly espouse a feminist agenda, the Decembrist women were used as an example by later generations of Russian feminists, whose concern for gender equality was also tied to revolutionary political agendas.

In the late 19th century, other aristocratic women began to turn away from refined society life and focused on feminist reform. Among them was Anna Pavlovna Filosofova, a woman from an aristocratic Moscow family married to a high-ranking bureaucrat, who devoted her energy to various societies and projects to benefit the poor and underprivileged in Russian society, including women. Together with Maria Trubnikova, Nadezhda Stasova and Evgenia Konradi, she lobbied the Emperor to create and fund higher education courses for women. She was also a founding member of the Russian Women's Mutual Philanthropic Society and responsible for helping to organize the All-Women's Congress of 1908. Stasova, Trubnikova, and Anna Filosofova became close friends and allies, and were referred to by their contemporaries as the "triumvirate". The three spent much of their lives working to advance the cause of women, leading the first organized feminist movement in the Russian Empire.

The triumvirate, alongside a number of others, founded the Society for Cheap Lodgings and Other Benefits for the Citizens of St. Petersburg in 1859. The group had two factions, the "German party" and the "Russian party", which differed on their preferred approach. The "Germans" favored a then-traditional method of philanthropy that involved close supervision of the poor. The "Russians" focused on self-help and direct aid, attempting to avoid patronization and maintain the privacy of those aided. In early 1861, the organization split in two, with the Stasova-Trubnikova-Filosofova triumvirate leading the "Russians". The reduced group's charter was approved in February 1861. The organization provided housing and work as seamstresses to its female clients (primarily widows and wives whose husbands had abandoned them). It included a day care and a communal kitchen.