In Ukraine, feminism confronts warfare

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Since 1 October 2023, Ukrainian girls aged 18-60 working within the medical discipline have been required to look earlier than a navy fee with a view to register for attainable service within the military. The summons considerations medical doctors, nurses, midwives, dentists and pharmacists. Though not all of them shall be referred to as up, they have to now envisage such a risk. Exemptions are solely out there to pregnant girls, girls on maternity depart, single moms, moms of huge households, moms caring for disabled kids and wives of Ukrainian navy personnel.

Some Ukrainian feminists imagine that equality in mobilisation needs to be taken even additional and that girls needs to be conscripted into the military on the identical foundation as males, as in Israel.

A girl’s obligation to serve

Based on Hanna Hrycenko, a Ukrainian sociologist on the Gender Analysis Institute (Інститут Гендерних Програм), “it is a view you’ll be able to typically hear from girls combating within the Ukrainian military”. She says that “the ‘civilian’ feminists are extra reticent on this topic. They level out {that a} nation at warfare not solely wants troopers, but additionally girls to take care of kids. To not point out the truth that girls play a key function in all types of voluntary initiatives.”

“Only a few years in the past – when the warfare was confined to the east of the nation – Ukrainian feminists had been against giving girls a larger function within the military, out of pacifism. They modified their minds as quickly as missiles began falling on their heads”, quips Hrycenko. “It is arduous to even hear this type of opinion at present.”

Oksana Potapova and Irina Dedusheva are authors of “5 Theses on Feminism and Militarism” within the journal “Gender in Particulars”. In it, they word that whereas Western anti-militarism (together with its feminist model) is laudable in its intention, it’s utterly unsuited to the scenario in some colonised international locations.