UKRAINE: WAR AND WOMEN

UKRAINE: WAR AND WOMEN

Snezhanna Klevaka-Myagchilova.

Diplomat expert on international cooperation

The Slavic people have the following expression: “War does not have a woman’s face,” which personifies the cruelty of war and the unnaturalness of the combination of the words “war” and “woman.” But unfortunately for millions of Ukrainian women today this phrase has become more than stereotypical and no longer reflects the whole truth about the ongoing war in Ukraine. Since this war does have a female face. Or rather, a lot of female faces. Ukrainian women defend their homeland on the front line and rescue the wounded, provide life support to the population in the rear, and work in the field under rocket fire. Millions of Ukrainian women have lost their homes, jobs and livelihoods, and become widows, internally displaced persons or refugees.

There is such a job – to defend the homeland. With this motto, thousands of Ukrainian women are on the front line of this brutal war. Thus, according to the Personnel Center of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the number of women in the Armed Forces of Ukraine has increased to 62,062 people.43,479 are female military personnel (according to various sources, which ranges from 7.3% to 30 % of the Armed Forces of Ukraine), 18,583 are civilian employees of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Moreover, 5,160 women are in senior military positions. The most common professions among women are paramedics, signalmen, workers in moral and psychological support units, and snipers. In almost two years of full-scale war, the number of military women in Ukraine has increased by 40%, which makes the Ukrainian Armed Forces one of the most feminized armies in Europe.

At the same time, the gender issue is still relevant for women who decide to serve in the army. In 2018, Ukraine passed a law that guarantees equal opportunities for persons of both sexes when concluding a contract for military service. In addition, women are guaranteed equal access to positions and military ranks, as well as an equal degree of responsibility in the performance of official duties. Moreover, as noted by observers, although women officially have equal access to military service on an equal basis with men, in reality they face gender stereotypes and problems of equality, such as discrimination in participation in combat operations, where women are deliberately excluded on the basis of gender, and also cases of sexual harassment.

Despite all the difficulties, more and more women decide to remain in defense of their homeland, despite the mortal risk. They fight, they die, they win. More than 350 women received state awards, including Heroes of Ukraine. According to the latest official data, 107 women military personnel died in the line of duty.

But the history of war, and especially women and war, is not limited only to military victories. Obviously, the women of the home front play a huge consolidating role in Ukrainian society: volunteers, everyone working today to support the country’s economy, who fights the enemy on the information front, who works in rear medical institutions, who restores destroyed infrastructure, who ensures the survival of their own family, helps others cope with complex psychological problems.

Despite all the difficulties, more women decide to remain in defense of their homeland, despite the mortal risk.

The volunteer movement both inside and outside Ukraine has become a large-scale support for the army and people of Ukraine in difficult times, the absolute majority of whose participants are women. Many women of different professions and ages have united under a volunteer community to help military and civilian residents of Ukraine. Women weave camouflage nets and Molotov cocktails for military needs, prepare food for the military, help refugees, participate in rehabilitation activities for children who survived the occupation and bombing, take care of the old and infirm, provide food and medicine to those in need, and translate news from Ukraine for foreign media and so on. Ukrainians in
the war show themselves to be highly consolidated to fight Russian aggression, and the cooperation and support of Ukrainian women is of no small importance, which speaks both to the high role of Ukrainian women in the war, and to the growth of civic consciousness and the development of civil society in Ukraine as a whole.

We cannot ignore Ukrainian women journalists on the information front, who, despite the risk to their health and lives, remain in the hot spot of the conflict to cover the current military operations. According to the latest data, at least 5 female journalists died during Russia’s military aggression against Ukraine.

To date, at least 7 million people have left Ukraine as refugees, of which, according to various estimates, 70-90% are women. Forced emigration as a means of escaping from war placed many trials on the shoulders of women. Many have lost their loved ones, their homes and property. Many had to start living “from scratch” in a new country, look for opportunities to earn money and adapt to new living conditions. Moreover, many women were forced to leave their native country, saving their children from the war and taking upon themselves the independent care of them while in exile involuntarily. It is psychologically, physically and financially difficult to arrange your life overnight in a completely new country. But these women find strength in supporting their country by organizing volunteer work, anti-war rallies, and with their lived stories they show the realities of the war in Ukraine. And they, too, are the female faces of war.

And the main female faces of war and Russian aggression are the faces of dead female civilians, of whom there are already more than 2,600. And those women who live every day in war conditions, each time exposed to the risk of losing their lives, health, and being subjected to violence from the invaders.

The war continues. A war that can be told in the form of women’s faces – women who defend the country with a machine gun in their hands, women who save the wounded in hospitals, women who save their children under artillery fire and many others who are affected by this war. War has a woman’s face.