Women in the Army: The Case of Ukraine
Date and time:
Wednesday 8 March, 2023
17:00 - 18:00
Location:
In the face of Russia’s war, Ukrainian society has shown remarkable resilience and ability to reform under immense pressure. One example of this is women's participation in the Ukrainian Armed Forces. In November 2022, there were almost 60,000 women in the armed forces. This is indicative not only of the preparedness of Ukrainian citizens to join the army in order to withstand Russian aggression but also of the opportunities for service that have been made available for women in Ukraine.
Until 2016, women’s service in the armed forces was severely restricted by legislation. Advocacy campaigns and a powerful veteran movement achieved the lifting of a large number of restrictions and a move towards gender equality in the army. Join us to discuss the challenges of active participation of women in wars, how they can be addressed, and how analysing the case of Ukraine can help us understand the war zone as gendered space.
Speaker
Dr Tamara Martsenyuk
Dr Tamara Martsenyuk holds a Ph.D. in sociology, she is an Associate Professor at the Department of Sociology, University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy. After evacuating from Kyiv following the full-scale invasion, Tamara was hosted by Free University Berlin. She is also a visiting scholar at Leuphana University (Germany). Her research interest relates to gender and social structure, among them women’s access to the military. In 2015-2021 Tamara was part of the research team that conducted the sociological study “Invisible Battalion” that demonstrated the successes and challenges of gender equality implementation in the Ukrainian armed forces, the status of female veterans, and the problem of sexual harassment in the military.
Speaker
Alisa Kovalenko
Alisa Kovalenko is a Ukrainian director, living in Kyiv. She graduated the Karpenko-Kary University of Cinema of Kyiv. Later on, Alisa studied at the Andrzej-Wajda cinema school of Warsaw. After a first feature-length documentary, Sister Zo, Alisa directed her debut feature-documentary Alisa in Warland, about the war in Eastern Ukraine. Alisa’s second documentary, Home Games was selected in 65 festivals (8 awards). Home Games was nominated for the best Ukrainian documentary in 2019 at the the Ukrainian Film Academy. Alisa was working on a film on the conflict in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region in 2014 when she was stopped at a separatist checkpoint, taken away for questioning, then sexually abused by a Russian officer in a nearby apartment. “I promised myself if a war ... will cover all Ukraine, then I will fight not with my camera but with a gun.” Days after Russian forces charged in on Feb. 24, she put down her camera, suspended most work on her latest production and volunteered to fight on the eastern front.
Moderator
Olesya Khromeychuk
Olesya Khromeychuk is the Director of the Ukrainian Institute London. She is a historian and writer. She has taught the history of East-Central Europe at several British universities, and has written for The New York Times, The New York Review of Books, Der Spiegel, the Los Angeles Review of Books, and Prospect. Khromeychuk is the author of The Death of a Soldier Told by His Sister (2022) and “Undetermined" Ukrainians. Post-War Narratives of the Waffen SS "Galicia" Division (2013).
