Written by Catherine Fender, Simi Kolodka, Tyler Newhouse, Lindsey Rhyne, and Mary Renfroe

Introduction:

Since its declaration of independence in 1990, Ukraine has experienced significant regional divisions due to both domestic politics and foreign political orientation, heightened by the diverse ethnic and linguistic composition of the state (Giuliano, 2018, O’Loughlin, et al., 2016).

Key Events:

1. Orange Revolution: In 2004 Viktor Yanukovych, a Kremlin-backed presidential candidate, won a controversial run-off election that caused supporters of his opponent, Viktor Yushchenko, to host protests threatening to secede from Ukraine. Following an election recount, Yushchenko won with 54% of the votes (Pifer, et. al, 2016, Katchanovski, 2016, Kuzio, 2012, O’Loughlin, et al., 2016).

2. Euromaidan Protests: In 2010, Viktor Yanukovych re-ran and won the presidential election. This victory, combined with competing nationalist ideologies, resulted in pro-European demonstrations across Ukraine. In response, Yanukovych created legislation to restrict freedom of protest and speech, resulting in the overthrow of his administration in February 2014 (Pifer, 2020, Kuzio, 2015).

3. Separatist Movements: All the while, pro-Russian separatist movements gained traction in eastern Ukraine. Yanukovych supported these movements by violating the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation, and Partnership from 1997 by authorizing a self-determination referendum that would legitimize Crimea’s annexation by Russia in early 2014 (O’Loughlin, et al., 2016).

4. Currently: Since August of 2014, the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic (DNR) and the Luhansk People's Republic (LNR) in the Donbas region of Ukraine have received military support from Russia to strengthen their pro-Russian separatist movements (Katchanovski, 2016). Civil wars have since prevailed with the height of the conflict being when Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022.

In order to protect itself from ongoing threats, Ukraine underwent intense militarization in 2014. This militarization had a variety of impacts on the population of Ukraine, effecting the experiences of civilian women, civilian men, women in the military, families, the LGBTQ+ community as well as various other individuals within Ukraine.

It is important to note that many of those in Ukraine have not one single identity, but multiple identities. These identities often intersect and multiply the insecurities and vulnerabilities that they face in this time period of conflict in Ukraine. For example, the experience of a cilvilian woman with an unemployed husband and is a mother of two children will be vastly different than that of a lesbian civilian women who is single.

A discussion on power dynamics should include the state-centered nature of the conflict. Power is constantly shifting, and throughout Ukraine’s recent history the Ukrainian government, Russian government, and pro-Russian separatists have all held various amounts of power. Each of these groups have different goals for Ukraine’s future and have been willing to use force to achieve them. This has left many groups in the crossfire, from civilian women and men to minority populations such as the LGBTQ+ community. The clashing politics and violence of war have disproportionate effects on these various groups and do not account for human experiences. Thus, there is a severe disconnect between the power that the states hold and the power that individuals hold.

At an interpersonal level, the way gender roles interact has significantly shifted due to state actions. As Ukraine militarized, money was moved out of traditionally women-centered spaces such as the home and into male-centered spaces such as the military. This has had a number of consequences. On one hand, women have come to hold more domestic power because the men overwhelmingly were required to serve in the military, leaving the women to head the family. But on the other hand, this power is limited because the resources that women relied on to provide for their families have diminished as the country focused on increasing military strength. Ukraine’s National Action Plan focuses on the “militarization of the economy,” while separating the WPS agenda from economic changes (O'Sullivan, 2020). The austerity measures included in the NAP shift power away from women and towards the state by cutting economic support for programs in health, education, transportation, and social wellbeing, which women are reliant on at a higher rate than men. The NAP preaches inclusion of WPS programs but presents a detrimental problem by not linking gender with economics. This military focus has bled into other areas, even those that are dominated by female power, such as feminist spaces. Discourse among Ukrainian feminists has in recent years become militaristic and nationalistic, with state victory placed above anything else (O'Sullivan, 2020). This has damaged prospects for peacebuilding and restricted conversations about other problems facing Ukraine, such as domestic violence.

Domestic violence, while not a salient topic because of the war, has increased during the conflict. Studies have shown that civilian men not engaged in combat feel demasculinized, which has pushed them to resort to violence in order to assert their masculinity (O'Sullivan, 2020). The rise in domestic violence certainly relates to power dynamics, as men use force to claim power in the traditionally female domestic sphere when they cannot exercise their power in other spaces, particularly the military.

Interestingly, increased conflict has caused not only money but women themselves to move from domestic to military roles. Power in the military has always been in men's hands; women in Ukraine were long relegated to support roles such as medics or cooks (Barth, 2021). This changed during the recent crisis, when women were welcomed into combat roles. But rather than empowering these women as the Ukrainian WPS agenda suggests, women were often stereotyped and placed in roles that are not physically demanding. Specifically, they were often stereotyped as snipers, a role that is removed from the front line and requires traditionally feminine characteristics such as patience and precision rather than masculine characteristics such as brute force and strength (Regamey, 2016). The social norms that are instilled in this stereotyping give men de facto power over women, even if de jure policies have changed in recent years (Martsenyuk, Grytsenko & Kvit, 2016). Even though more women occupy the traditionally male male space, men continue to hold power.

Clearly, there are many factors which influence who holds power in Ukraine. The shift in economic policy, which is inextricably linked to shifts in which people occupy which spaces, have caused dramatic changes to the once traditionally gendered power dynamics in the country.

Bibliography:

1. ADC Memorial & Center for Civil Liberties (2016). Violation of LGBTI Rights in Crimea and Donbass: The Problem of Homophobia in Territories Beyond Ukraine’s Control. The Human Rights Report. https://adcmemorial.org/wp-content/uploads/lgbtENG_fullwww.pdf

2. Ambrosio, T. (2017). The fall of yanukovych: Structural and political constraints to implementing authoritarian learning. East European Politics, 33(2), 184–209. https://doi.org/10.1080/21599165.2017.1304382

3. Barth R. (2021). Ukraine’s Female Combatants: The Influence of Conflict on Gender Roles and Empowerment. In: Bluhm K., Pickhan G., Stypinska J., Wierzcholska A. (eds) Gender and Power in Eastern Europe. Societies and Political Orders in Transition. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-53130-0_6

4. Giuliano, E. (2018). Who supported separatism in Donbas? ethnicity and popular opinion at the start of the Ukraine crisis. Post-Soviet Affairs, 34(2-3), 158–178. https://doi.org/10.1080/1060586x.2018.1447769

5. Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (2022). Ukraine. https://www.internal-displacement.org/countries/ukraine

6. Jormanainen, J. (2021). Conflict Duration and LGBT Vulnerability : A Comparison of Azerbaijan, Tajikistan, and Ukraine (Dissertation). Retrieved from https://www.diva-portal.org/smash/record.jsf?pid=diva2%3A1565195&dswid=5678

7. Katchanovski, I. (2016). The separatist war in Donbas: A violent break-up of ukraine? European Politics and Society, 17(4), 473–489. https://doi.org/10.1080/23745118.2016.1154131

8. Khromeychuk, O. (2017). “Experiences of Women at War Servicewomen during WWII and in the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the Conflict in Donbas.” Baltic Worlds , Special section: Herstory Revisionism. Women’s participation in political upheavals, vol. X:4 (2017): 58–67. https://balticworlds.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/BW_4_2017_OLESYA_KHROMEYCHUK_pp58_70.pdf.

9. Kuzio, T. (2012). Russianization of Ukrainian National Security Policy under Viktor Yanukovych. The Journal of Slavic Military Studies, 25(4), 558–581. https://doi.org/10.1080/13518046.2012.730372

10. Kuzio, T. (2015). Competing nationalisms, euromaidan, and the Russian-Ukrainian conflict. Studies in Ethnicity and Nationalism, 15(1), 157–169. https://doi.org/10.1111/sena.12137

11. Levin, M. (2018). Men in Ukraine hold fast to gender norms, Landmark Study finds. Retrieved March 3, 2022, from https://www.unfpa.org/news/men-ukraine-hold-fast-gender-norms-landmark-study-finds

12. Martsenyuk, T.O., Grytsenko, G., & Kvit, A. (2016). The "Invisible Battalion": Women in ATO Military Operations in Ukraine. http://ekmair.ukma.edu.ua/bitstream/handle/123456789/10735/Martsenyuk_The_Invisible_Battalion.pdf?sequence=5&isAllowed=y

13. O’Loughlin, J., Toal, G., & Kolosov, V. (2016). The rise and fall of “Novorossiya”: Examining support for a separatist geopolitical imaginary in southeast Ukraine. Post-Soviet Affairs, 33(2), 124–144. https://doi.org/10.1080/1060586x.2016.1146452

14. O’Sullivan, M. (2019) “‘Being Strong Enough to Defend Yourself’: Untangling the Women, Peace and Security Agenda amidst the Ukrainian Conflict.” International Feminist Journal of Politics 21, no. 5: 746–67. https://doi.org/10.1080/14616742.2019.1599981.

15. O'Sullivan, M. (2020). The Forgotten Lives: Connecting Gender, Security, and Everyday Livelihoods in Ukraine's Conflict. Politics & Gender, 16(3), E13. doi:10.1017/S1743923X20000343.

16. Pifer, S., & Thoburn, H. (2016, July 29). Ukraine: Protests and memories of the Orange Revolution. Brookings. Retrieved March 3, 2022, from https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2013/11/26/ukraine-protests-and-memories-of-the-orange-revolution/

17. Pifer, S. (2020, February 21). Ukraine: Six years after the Maidan. Brookings. Retrieved March 3, 2022, from https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2020/02/21/ukraine-six-years-after-the-maidan/

18. Regamey, A. (2016). “Falsehood in the War in Ukraine: The Legend of Women Snipers.” The Journal of power institutions in post-soviet societies. https://doi.org/10.4000/pipss.4222.

Digital Media Sources for the Video (in order of appearance):

1. Map of separatist regions in Ukraine from the North Africa Post

2. Ukrainian military photo from War on the Rocks

3. Ukrainian military photo from The Economist

4. Medical photo from Wellstar

5. Education photo from Forbes

6. Transportation photo from Institute for Transportation & Development Policy

7. Masculine imagery from Psy Post

8. Feminine imagery from The Ladies Coach

9. Ukrainian Women's Union photo from Urban Media Archive

10. Gay pride photo from The Guardian

11. Ukrainian women in the military photos from Hindustan News Hub , Daily Mail , The Mirror

12. Ukrainian women in the military video from CNN

13. Refugee family photo from Gallup News and refugee protest photo from The Guardian

14. Mother and daughter refugee photo from The Economist