Learning Activities:

Session 2. Women’s political subjectivity and democratization processes in the cross-cultural dimension.

Post-feminist and gender theories of women’s subjectivity; psychoanalytic conceptions of the foundations of women’s movements; basic elements of Ukrainian women's movement as social practice and democratization of social and political life; subjectivation and state power in the realization of the women's movement in Ukraine; “the psychic” of post-Soviet power; discoursive possibilities of representation of women’s movements in post-Soviet society and the logic of "Otherness"; performative subjectivity and discoursive possibilities of women’s representations in the post-Soviet conditions.

Writing assignment:

Students should read the materials for this section, and compare the practices of women’s movements in three countries: Ukraine, the United States and any other country of the student’s choice, analyzing the information using theories and arguments from the readings. Each student should write a 5-8 page paper of her/his analysis including the following:

1. What do these practices mean to woman’s subjectivity appeal?
2. How are these practices related to the basic gender and society issues in each country?
3. What can you conclude about practices of women’s subjectivities and positions of women in Ukraine and the USA? Are women characterized in these practices as different or similar?
4. Conclusion: Summarize key ideas of your analysis of gender and woman’s subjectivity.

Activities:

1st hour: Lecture/class discussion on readings.

2nd hour: Small group work, answering the following questions::

1. In groups of 2-3 people, discuss on what basis there can be a political association of women? What should be the purposes and forms of political action of women for their rights in contemporary conditions of subjective identity loss, including women’s, and what kind of feminist policy should be developed outside of оntological basis of a uniform category of woman?

2. Based on the assigned readings, discuss what kinds of political and social activities are possible inside feminist positions, represented now outside of the concept of the universal subject of deconstructed experience with absence of stable Self?