Texts

August 2019

<p>In this paper, we delineate a genealogy of feminisms in Ukraine in 2007-2017 with particular attention to the feminisms that establish multiple connections between nation, state, neoliberalism, coloniality, war, sexuality and cis-normativity. This paper is an attempt of the situated knowledge produced from within the studied communities. It is based on our participation in activism and reflects our enduring search for a proper language for the analysis of feminisms in Ukraine, where the latter is typically designated through geo-temporal categories of Eastern Europe, post-Sovietness, post-socialism or Global South. Read the whole paper in Ukrainian or in English. Reprinted with permission from «Гендер в деталях».

UkrEng

“The Tolerance Trap” or One Step Forward and Two Steps Back

Review

Ganna Gnedkova

June 2019

The “tolerance trap” implies that those who are tolerated agree to be tolerated, and thus assimilated, adjusted to the model, neutralized Others. The LGBTQ movement, according to Walters, has forgotten not only the original meaning of “tolerance”, which it had to put up with, but also its original demands: the respect for differences, not in spite of differences, and the achievement of full – not partial and exclusive – rights in a civil society. (Read the full text in Ukrainian)

UkrEng

Unravelling the Militarism Package: Feminist Analysis and Resistance

Translation

Cynthia Enloe

March 2019

Translated by:

Kateryna Burkush

Militarism is a package of multiple ideas. Many of those ideas that the militarism package is comprised of are ideas about what it means to be “manly”, what one has to do to be seen as a “respectable woman”. Challenge one of those militarized gender ideas and you can start to unravel the entire militarism package... We cannot really understand the full package of militarism and its popular appeal unless we start asking explicitly feminist questions about the package. (Translation into Ukrainian)

Listen to the audio paper in Ukrainian

UkrEngMUL

Hegemony in Post-Soviet Georgia: Types of Nationalisms and Masculinities

Issue Article

Aia Beraia

https://doi.org/10.52323/fc4-5

January 2019

Abstract

The article concerns the political history of the post-Soviet Georgian state. The new post-Soviet nation state is being created and gradually transformed into a political economy of liberal democracy and neoliberal capitalism. In this transformation, Georgia moves away from the Soviet Union and its successor Russia and acquires European identity via the discourse and practices of national political and economic elites. The discursive production of this hegemonic pro-Western nationalism is intertwined with the production of hegemonic masculinities. This article analyzes the discourses of these elites and reveals three types of hegemonic masculinity, which acquire their meaning alongside and through the processes of national independence, militarization, and/or neoliberal reforms and policies. These new masculinities aim to replace old, Soviet, hegemonic masculinities in Georgia and thus, a new kind of hegemonic culture and patriarchy is being created. Further, the historical domination of pro-Western nationalism can be interpreted variously: while Georgia is open, nearly from the outset, to the Western-style political system (liberal democracy), one can also look to certain historical moments as the turning points when an active neoliberal transformation and (discursive) attainment of European identity began in Georgia. Keywords: nationalism; masculinities; hegemony; post-Soviet Georgia.

UkrEngMUL

Whose Feminism? Feminist Movements in Russia and “Western” Cultural Hegemony

Issue Article

Vanya Solovey

December 2018

It is common knowledge that feminism is a “Western” invention and if Russia has any feminism to speak of, then it is nothing but a copy of the “Western” one. Those ideas appear at every turn in dominant discourses and sometimes even within Russian feminist communities. Are Russian feminisms really forever doomed to try “catching up” with “Western” ones? This essay discusses “Western” cultural hegemony with regards to feminism and the various ways to critically interact with it. It deals with the question why the feminist “manual” relies so much on “Western” theories and what alternative foundations it can have. (The full text is available in Russian).

UkrEng

Masculinity Without Men (Introduction to "Female Masculinity")

Translation

Judith Halberstam

December 2018

Translated by:

geo sharovara

Maria Mayerchyk

When we think about gender variations such as male femininity and female masculinity, it is essential not to create a new dichotomy where masculinity always signifies power. In alternative models of gender variation, female masculinity is not simply the opposite of female femininity, nor is it a female version of male masculinity. Instead, as we can see in some artworks and gender performances, the unholy union of femaleness and masculinity can produce wildly unpredictable results. (Translation into Ukrainian).

UkrEngMUL

Co-Optation of Feminism: Gender, Militarism and the UNSC Resolution 1325

Translation

Anna Nikoghosyan

November 2018

Translated by:

Natalka Chekh

United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 is often referred to as a landmark resolution. Despite its revolutionary potential, I argue that the Resolution was developed through gendered discourses that allowed its use for militarist purposes. Informed by poststructuralist international relations feminist theory, I refer to the Resolution as a discursive practice and claim that the ways in which the UN conceptual apparatus understands and interprets gender and security open up possibilities for states to co-opt the very radical meaning of the Resolution by legitimising and normalising militarist practicing and silencing anti-militarist critique. In order to show this, I examine the gendered discourses behind the creation of the Resolution and address two major ways (including the ongoing militarisation processes in the Republic of Armenia) by which the Resolution is being militarised. (The full text is available in Ukrainian translation and in English).

Listen to the audio paper in Ukrainian

UkrEng

What Is New in My Backpack

Feminist Collective

Mariam Agamian

November 2018

In Ukraine, racism is usually discussed in comparison to other countries, primarily as a contrast. And it is mainly white experts who do all the talking. It appears that denying racism today is a sign of one's good manners. There is even a golden collection of arguments. Presumably, “we don't have racism, because everyone is white here,” “racism does not exist here because we did not have slavery, Ukraine did not colonize anyone but was colonized itself,” “technically, it's not even racism, because this is a matter of class, not race,” “if whiteness is about access to privilege and wealth, then everyone is racialized in Ukraine” and so on. (The full text is available in Ukrainian).

UkrEngMUL

“I would never say: this poem is about lesbians, that one is about price increase for public transportation, and those poems are about the horrors of capitalism”

Feminist Collective

Mariam Agamian

October 2018

"Regarding queer-poetry, it is everywhere in Ukraine. No matter how the ultra-right dudes want to make their dreams about purity and holiness true, this country has never been homogeneous. It’s difficult not to drown in the variety of stories that in one way or another push to think beyond simple oppositions. Contradictions that surround authors in the Ukrainian context are inexhaustible material." (The full text is available in Ukrainian.)

UkrEngMUL