Curriculum Modules>
Contemporary Women's Movement in Ukraine: Comparative Perspectives

Gender See "Introduction to Gender Studies" module.

Gender identity See modules “Introduction to Gender Identity: Comparative Perspective” by Olena Ivanova, and Deborah Kilgore and “Development of Gender Identity”, by Olena Ivanova.

Women’s movements in post-Soviet countries See module “From Gender to Nation: Gender Stereotypes in the Post-Soviet Nation-Building Politics in Ukraine” by Sergey Zherebkin.

Feminist politics of identification: marginal strategies of unbelonging to the traditional social-symbolic order that are constructed as intellectual project of creation, legitimation and representation of multiplicity of alternative forms of women’s experience. Distinctions in individual style of life, religious, ethnic, cultural, national, sexual and other orientations became a project of women’s self-expression based on feminist methodology. This process emphasizes the development of new forms of women’s identities in a context of social and political activity directed toward social change, including protest against existing structure of authority and prevailing norms and values.

Women’s subjectivity: gender marked subjectivity (unlike the sexless classic, or as “other” in relation to the masculine type of subjectivity), based on conceptions of specific and plural “women’s experience.”

Democratization: processes of decentralization of power away from elected governments, corporations and regional and world bodies including meaningful political participation and community-based actions, programs, and organizations that allow women (and other marginalized groups) to determine their lives, participate in decision making, and contribute to the creation of civil society as well as directly influence key political, economic, and cultural institutions.

Women’s grassroots activities: women’s collective actions oriented not to the state institutions, but civil activity and actions at the level of local networks.

Political subjection (subjectivation): act or fact of submission or subordination to some form of authority, becoming a subject subordinated to power, and, at the same time, forming a new subjectivity that involves the comprehension of new forms of democracy and practices of new social movements as political freedom actions.

Questions for the module:
The following questions will be considered jointly with the participants of discussions in the process of study of the topic of the module:

1. What basic elements of the women’s movement as social practice can be used for democratic society building and recognition of civil rights?
2. What obstacles has the women’s movement encountered in contemporary Ukrainian society?
3. How has the behavior of various women involved in political and social activities been correlated with state supported gender constucts (stereotypes) and ideologies presented by mass media discourse and political programs?
4. Why are there multiple women’s movements, rather than a single movement united by common purposes and values, that involve separate activities of different social, demographic, and nationalistic women’s groups and organizations?
5. What does the category of gender identity mean and how does it intersect with other categories of identity (such as race, class, ethnicity, sexuality, religion) in the context of the Ukrainian women’s movement?
6. What does the concept of “pragmatic feminism” mean in the current stage of modernization of contemporary Ukrainian society? How does it affect the purposes of women’s organizations not to change the secondary position of women in society but rather to solve concrete social problems?