Kazakh leader's daughter says men are too feminine

ASTANA (Reuters Life!) - The influential daughter of Kazakhstan's president said on Wednesday the world has become "increasingly effeminate" because of men's growing interest in fashion and beauty.

"Men are now paying more attention to themselves and fashion," Dariga Nazarbayeva, 45, told a women's congress. "They started going to beauty parlors and hair salons a lot more often. They started doing manicure.

"I can't say it's a concern but, looking at the appearance of contemporary young men, one may notice how much their notions of masculinity have changed, how this masculinity is being sometimes replaced by femininity."

She told 400 women and the 10 or so men who attended the conference: "One cannot help but notice that the world of men has become increasingly effeminate. ... I don't know whether we can see this as our gender's victory."

Dariga, a businesswoman and former member of parliament, is President Nursultan Nazarbayev's eldest daughter. Many Kazakh women see her as a role model.

Once tipped as a possible successor to her 67-year-old father, Dariga has been largely absent from public life after her former husband, media and sugar magnate Rakhat Aliyev, fell out with the Kazakh president last year.

Kazakhstan is a vast steppe nation west of China whose 15 million people cherish links to their centuries-old nomadic culture. Kazakh women complain that western notions of feminism and equality are slow to take root.

A consumer boom sparked by Kazakhstan's growing oil revenues has however given rise to a fast-growing health and beauty industry, with new spas, salons and fitness centers attracting people's attention in its biggest cities like Almaty.

(Reporting by Raushan Nurshayeva; Writing by Maria Golovnina; Editing by Matthew Jones)