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Abstract
A gendered perspective on politics is used for explaining why Ukraine's Orange Revolution has so far not led to a dramatic increase in the political influence of civic associations or to a broader democratization of power relations within the political system. Women entered the post-communist political system in a marginal position. They were also never able to develop political bargaining power in the authoritarian political system that emerged after Ukraine's independence. The prospect of integration into the European Union has increased the salience of gender inequality, because states that seek to join the EU must enact extensive equal opportunity legislation. But elite divisions about Ukraine's geopolitical orientation reduce the likelihood that gender equality measures that have been introduced will be implemented successfully.
This article benefited from helpful comments from David Mandell and Nicole Edgar Morford. The International Research and Exchanges Board (IREX) and the Reed College Levine Fund generously provided funding that made possible the research upon which this article is based.
Notes
This article benefited from helpful comments from David Mandell and Nicole Edgar Morford. The International Research and Exchanges Board (IREX) and the Reed College Levine Fund generously provided funding that made possible the research upon which this article is based.
1. Adrian Karatnycky, ‘Ukraine's Orange Revolution’, Foreign Affairs, Vol.84, No.2 (2005), pp.35–52.
2. See, for example, Valerie J. Bunce and Sharon L. Wolchik, ‘International Diffusion and Post-communist Electoral Revolutions’, Communist and Post-Communist Studies, Vol.39, No.3 (2006), pp.283–304. For a further discussion of whether Ukraine is likely to head down the path towards democratic consolidation, see also Paul D'Anieri, ‘Explaining the Success and Failure of Post-Communist Revolutions’, Communist and Post-Communist Studies, Vol.39, No.3 (2006), pp.331–50; and Henry E. Hale, ‘Democracy or Autocracy on the March? The Colored Revolutions as Normal Dynamics of Patronal Presidentialism’, Communist and Post-Communist Studies, Vol.39, No.3 (2006), pp.305–29.
3. There are now many exceptions. For one of the earliest studies to incorporate gender into an analysis of political support, see Vicki Hesli and Arthur H. Miller, ‘The Gender Base of Institutional Support in Lithuania, Ukraine and Russia’, Europe–Asia Studies, Vol.45, No.3 (1993), pp.505–32.
4. The assumption that Western aid to develop civil society was ‘non-political’ has persisted among social scientists even though, from the start, studies demonstrated that all forms of Western aid were dominated by state elites and were being used to shore up their position of advantage. For analyses of state involvement in programmes to build civil society, see Sarah L. Henderson, ‘Selling Civil Society: Western Aid and the Nongovernmental Sector in Russia’, Comparative Political Studies, Vol.35, No.2 (2002), pp.139–67; Alexandra Hrycak, ‘Foundation Feminism and the Articulation of Hybrid Feminisms in Post-Socialist Ukraine’, East European Politics and Societies, Vol.20, No.1 (2006), pp.69–100; and Janine R. Wedel, Collision and Collusion: The Strange Case of Western Aid to Eastern Europe, 1989–1998 (New York: St Martin's Press, 1998).
5. See Tania Khoma, ‘Chy Buv Feminizm v Ukraini?’, Yi, No.17 (2000), pp.21–7; Oksana Kis', ‘Modeli Konstruiuvannia Gendernoi Identychnosti v Suchasnii Ukraini’, Yi, No.27 (2003), pp.37–58; Solomea Pavlychko, ‘Feminism in Post-Communist Ukrainian Society’, in Rosalind Marsh (ed.), Women in Russia and Ukraine (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), pp.305–14; Solomea Pavlychko, ‘Progress on Hold: The Conservative Faces of Women in Ukraine’, in Mary Buckley (ed.), Post-Soviet Women: From the Baltic to Central Asia (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997), pp.219–34; Marian Rubchak, ‘In Search of a Model: Evolution of a Feminist Consciousness in Ukraine and Russia’, European Journal of Women's Studies, Vol.8, No.2 (2001), pp.149-60; and Tatiana Zhurzhenko, Ukrainian Feminism(s): Between Nationalist Myth and Anti-Nationalist Critique, IWM Working Paper No.4/2001 (Vienna: Institut für die Wissenschaften vom Menschen, 2001), available at <http://www.univie.ac.at/iwm/p-iwmwp.htm#Zhurzhenko>, accessed 23 Nov. 2001.
6. On the ‘feminization’ of Ukrainian men, see Nila Zborovs'ka and Maria Il'nyts'ka, Feministychni Rozdumy na Karnavali Mertvykh Potsilunkakh (Lviv: Tsentr humanitarnykh doslidzhen' L'vivs'koho natsional'noho universyteta, 1999), pp.80–89. On the ‘feminization’ of Ukrainian national character, see Elena Lutsenko, ‘“Zhinoche Nachalo” v Ukrains'kiy Mental'nosti’, in Liudmyla Smoliar (ed.), Zhinochi Studii v Ukraini: Zhinka v Istorii ta Siohodni (Odesa: Astroprint, 1999), pp.10–19.
7. For analyses of the Berehynia myth, see Kis', ‘Modeli Konstruiuvannia Gendernoi Identychnosti’, pp.38–45; Marian Rubchak, ‘Christian Virgin or Pagan Goddess’, in Marsh (ed.), Women in Russia and Ukraine, pp.315–30; Rubchak, ‘In Search of a Model’, pp.149–51; and Zhurzhenko, Ukrainian Feminism(s), pp.1–5.
8. Zhurzhenko, Ukrainian Feminism(s), p.8.
9. See Marian Rubchak, ‘Yulia Tymoshenko: Goddess of the Orange Revolution: Calling Tymoshenko the Goddess of the Orange Revolution Is More Than Glib Praise’, Maidan, available at <http://eng.maidanua.org>, accessed 14 May 2005; and Marian Rubchak, ‘Yulia Tymoshenko, Goddess of the Orange Revolution’, paper presented at the 37th National Convention of the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies, Salt Lake City, Utah, 4 Nov. 2005.
10. On the crucial role of youth in the Orange Revolution and similar democratic protest movements, see Taras Kuzio, ‘Civil Society, Youth and Societal Mobilization in Democratic Revolutions’, Communist and Post-Communist Studies, Vol.39, No.3 (2006), pp.365–86. On the similar role youth played in initiating and sustaining the independence movement, see Alexandra Hrycak, ‘The Coming of “Chrysler Imperial”: Ukrainian Youth and Rituals of Resistance’, Harvard Ukrainian Studies, Vol.21, No.1/2 (1997), pp.63–91.
11. See Wsewolod Isajiw, ‘Civil Society in Ukraine’, paper presented at the Chair of Ukrainian Studies Workshop ‘Understanding the Transformation of Ukraine’, University of Ottawa, 15–16 Oct. 2004, p.3; see also Alexandra Hrycak, ‘Coping with Chaos: Gender and Politics in a Fragmented State’, Problems of Post-Communism, Vol.52, No.5 (2005), pp.69–81, esp. pp.76–9.
12. Susan Gal and Gail Kligman, The Politics of Gender after Socialism: A Comparative-Historical Essay (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000); and Susan Gal and Gail Kligman (eds.), Reproducing Gender: Politics, Publics, and Everyday Life after Socialism (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000).
13. See Steven Saxonberg, ‘Women in East European Parliaments’, Journal of Democracy, Vol.11, No.2 (2000), pp.145–58; and Richard E. Matland and Kathleen A. Montgomery (eds.), Women's Access to Political Power in Post-Communist Europe (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2003).
14. For a discussion of the applicability of theories drawn from Western Europe to post-communist cases, see Saxonberg, ‘Women in East European Parliaments’, pp.147–55; see also Richard E. Matland, ‘Women's Representation in Post-Communist Europe’, in Matland and Montgomery (eds.), Women's Access to Political Power, pp.321–42.
15. Matland, ‘Women's Representation in Post-Communist Europe’, pp.322–3.
16. According to the Inter-Parliamentary Union, the percentage of women in national legislatures in Eastern Europe is at present: Belarus 29.1% lower house and 31.0% upper house (2004); Bulgaria 22.1% (2005); Lithuania 22.0% (2004); Republic of Moldova 21.8% (2005); Croatia 21.7% (2003); Latvia 21% (2002); Poland 20.4% lower house and 13.0% upper house (2005); Estonia 18.8% (2003); Bosnia and Herzegovina 16.7% lower house and 0.0% upper house (2002); Slovakia 16.0% (2006); Czech Republic 15.5% lower house and 12.3% upper house (2006); Montenegro 12.5% (2002); Slovenia 12.2% lower house and 7.5% upper house (2004); Serbia 12.0% (2003); Romania 11.2% lower house and 9.5% upper house (2004); Hungary 10.4% (2006); the Russian Federation 9.8% lower house and 3.4 upper house (2003); and Albania 7.1% (2005): see <http://www.ipu.org/wmn-e/ classif.htm>, accessed 23 Aug. 2006.
17. Researchers have debated how the move to a mixed majoritarian–proportional system affected the gender gap in Ukraine. One approach argues that women in Ukraine's 1998 parliamentary elections were no more likely to be elected in proportional than in majoritarian districts: see, for example, Anna V. Andreenkova, ‘Women's Representation in the Parliaments of Russia and Ukraine: An Essay in Sociological Analysis’, Sociological Research, Vol.41, No.2 (2002), pp.5–25. However, a different method of analysis leads to the conclusion that they were more likely to be elected through party lists: see Sarah Birch, ‘Women and Political Representation in Contemporary Ukraine’, in Matland and Montgomery (eds.), Women's Access to Political Power, pp.130–52.
18. For a comprehensive review, see Andrew Wilson, Virtual Politics: Faking Democracy in the Post-Soviet World (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2005).
19. Lucan A. Way, ‘The Sources and Dynamics of Competitive Authoritarianism in Ukraine’, Journal of Communist Studies and Transition Politics, Vol.20, No.1 (2004), pp.143–61.
20. Paul Kubicek, ‘The Limits of Electoral Democracy in Ukraine’, Democratization, Vol.8, No.2 (2001), pp.117–39.
21. Keith Darden, ‘Blackmail as a Tool of State Domination: Ukraine Under Kuchma’, East European Constitutional Review, Vol.10, No.2/3 (2001), pp.67–71.
22. Jessica Allina-Pisano, ‘Informal Institutional Challenges to Democracy: Administrative Resource in Kuchma's Ukraine’, paper presented at the First Annual Danyliw Research Seminar in Contemporary Ukrainian Studies, Chair of Ukrainian Studies, University of Ottawa, 29 Sept.–1 Oct. 2005.
23. Organized groups of citizens have emerged. They have begun to articulate their demands and have even been able to engage in effective acts of protest, most visibly the Orange Revolution. But they have so far proved unable to use Western-style advocacy techniques to achieve the changes they have sought in their relationship with the state. For a discussion of the negative impact of adopting Western funding and advocacy techniques on women's engagement in local politics and public life, see Hrycak, ‘Foundation Feminism’, pp.89–100; and Alexandra Hrycak, ‘From Global to Local Feminisms: Transnationalism, Foreign Aid and the Women's Movement in Ukraine’, Advances in Gender Research, Vol.11 (2007), in press.
24. Sidney G. Tarrow, Power in Movement: Social Movements and Contentious Politics (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998).
25. Gal and Kligman, The Politics of Gender after Socialism, p.8.
26. Solomea Pavlychko, ‘Between Feminism and Nationalism: New Women's Groups in the Ukraine’, in Mary Buckley (ed.), Perestroika and Soviet Women (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), pp.82–96, esp. pp.82–4.
27. For in-depth examinations of gender issues in the economy, see Tatiana Zhurzhenko, ‘Zhenskaia zaniatost’ v usloviakh perekhodnoi ekonomiki: Adaptatsiia k rynku ili margynalizatsiia?', in Irina Zherebkina (ed.), Femina Postsovietica: Ukrainskaya zhenshchina v perekhodnyi period: Ot sotsial'nykh dvizhenii k politike (Kharkiv: Kharkiv Gender Studies Centre, 1999), pp.231–80; and Tatiana Zhurzhenko, Sotsial'noe vosproizvodstvo i gendernaya politika v Ukraine (Kharkov: Folio, 2001).
28. Alexandra Hrycak, ‘The Dilemmas of Civic Revival: Ukrainian Women since Independence’, Journal of Ukrainian Studies, Vol.26, Nos.1–2 (2001), pp.135–58, esp. p.149.
29. According to the United Nations, the proportion of women among those who registered with the state reached a peak of over 80% in 1992. It later decreased slowly: in 1995, 73% of those registered as unemployed were women; since 1998 the proportion of women among the unemployed has remained stable at about 62%: see United Nations Development Programme, Gender Issues in Ukraine: Challenges and Opportunities (Kyiv: UNDP, 2003).
30. Allan M. Williams and Vladimir Balaz, ‘International Petty Trading: Changing Practices in Trans-Carpathian Ukraine’, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Vol.26, No.2 (2002), pp.323–43.
31. United Nations Development Programme, Gender Issues in Ukraine, pp.35–7.
32. Human Rights Watch, Women's Work: Discrimination Against Women in the Ukrainian Labor Force (New York: Human Rights Watch, 2003).
33. Pavlychko, ‘Between Feminism and Nationalism’, p.83.
34. Hrycak, ‘The Dilemmas of Civic Revival’, p.153.
35. For a discussion of the organizational niches women occupied in the Communist Party of Ukraine, see Solomea Pavlychko, ‘The Role of Women in Rukh and Ukraine's Society in the 1990s’, The Ukrainian Weekly, 8 and 15 April 1990, pp.5, 13.
36. For a thorough analysis of this issue, see Olha Kulachek, Rol' Zhinky v Derzhavnomu Upravlinni: Stari Obrazy, Novi Obrii (Kyiv: Vydavnytstvo Solomii Pavlychko ‘Osnovy’, 2005).
37. Birch, ‘Women and Political Representation’, pp.135, 147; Vladimir Fesenko, ‘Dinamika politicheskogo uchastiya zhenshchin: Samoorganizatsiya, politicheskoe dvizhenie, vkhodzhenie vo vlast’ (1989–1998)', in Zherebkina (ed.), Femina Postsovietica, pp.83–151, and Solomea Pavlychko, ‘Women's Discordant Voices in the Context of the 1998 Parliamentary Elections in Ukraine’, in Anna Cento Bull, Hanna Diamond and Rosalind J. Marsh (eds.), Feminisms and Women's Movements in Contemporary Europe (New York: St. Martin's, 2000), pp.244–62.
38. Kis', ‘Modeli Konstruiuvannia Gendernoi Identychnosti’, pp.38–45; Solomea Pavlychko, ‘Feminism in Post-Communist Ukrainian Society’, in Vera Aheyeva (ed.), Feminizm (Kyiv: Osnova, 2002), pp.67–78; and Rubchak, ‘In Search of a Model’, pp.149–51.
39. Zhurzhenko, Ukrainian Feminism(s), p.1.
40. Kis', ‘Modeli Konstruiuvannia Gendernoi Identychnosti’, pp.42–5.
41. Pavlychko, ‘Progress on Hold’, pp.220–22.
42. Pavlychko, ‘Between Feminism and Nationalism’, pp.220–21, 229; and Pavlychko, ‘The Role of Women’, p.5.
43. For discussions of the factors and conditions that influence the role women play in political parties of the right and centre-right, see Fesenko, ‘Dinamika politicheskogo uchastiya zhenshchin’, pp.108–14; Hrycak, ‘The Dilemmas of Civic Revival’, pp.153–5; Hrycak, ‘Coping with Chaos’, pp.75–6; and Pavlychko, ‘Women's Discordant Voices’, pp.191, 198–204.
44. For a further discussion, see Pavlychko, ‘Between Feminism and Nationalism’, pp.90–95; and Pavlychko, ‘Progress on Hold’, pp.229–32.
45. Birch ‘Women and Political Representation’, pp.143, 147.
46. At <http://www1.deputat.org.ua>, accessed 10 Aug. 2006.
47. Studies find that increasing integration into regional and international structures enhances opportunities to raise gender inequality as a political issue; on the EU, see Leah Seppanen Anderson, ‘European Union Gender Regulations in the East: The Czech and Polish Accession Process’, East European Politics and Societies, Vol.20, No.1 (2006), pp.101–25; on the UN, see Mark M. Gray, Miki Caul Kittilson and Wayne Sandholtz, ‘Women and Globalization: A Study of 180 Countries, 1975–2000’, International Organization, Vol.60, No.2 (2006), pp.293–333.
48. At <http://www.yuschenko.com.ua>, accessed 10 Aug. 2006.
49. Liudmyla Smolyar, ‘The Women's Movement as a Factor of Gender Equality and Democracy in Ukrainian Society’, in Oleksandr Sydorenko (ed.), Zhinochi Orhanizatsii Ukrainy. Ukrainian Women's Non-Profit Organizations (Kyiv: Innovation and Development Centre, 2001), pp.27–44, esp. pp.38–9, 43.
50. Nora Dudwick, Radhika Srinivasan and Jeanine Braithwaite, Ukraine Gender Review (Washington, DC: ECSSD, 2002), p.61; Alexandra Hrycak, ‘From Mothers’ Rights to Equal Rights: Post-Soviet Grassroots Women's Associations', in Nancy Naples and Manisha K. Desai (eds.), Women's Community Activism and Globalization: Linking the Local and Global for Social Change (New York: Routledge, 2002), pp.64–82; Hrycak, ‘Coping with Chaos’, pp.72–3, 79; Hrycak, ‘From Global to Local Feminisms’, pp.23–5.
51. Hrycak, ‘From Global to Local Feminisms’, pp.22–3.
52. Oksana Kyseliova, ‘Instytutsiini Mekhanizmy Zabezpechennia Hendernoi Rivnosti v Ukraini v Kontektsi Ievropeiskoi Intehratsii’, in Jana Sverdljuk and Svitlana Oksamytna (eds.), Zhinka v Politytsi: Mizhnarodnyi Dosvid dlia Ukrainy (Kyiv: Atika, 2006), pp.144–55, esp. pp.152–3.
53. Hrycak, ‘Coping with Chaos’, pp.78–9; and Marfa Skoryk, ‘Na Shliakhu do Hendernoi Polityky’, in Zh. Bezpiatchuk, I.L. Bilan and S.A. Horobchyshyn (eds.), Rozvytok Demokratii v Ukraini, 2001–2002 (Kyiv: Ukrainskyi nezalezhnyi politychnyi tsentr, 2006), pp.71–92, esp. p.75.
54. Kyseliova, ‘Instytutsiini Mekhanizmy’, p.152.
55. Hrycak, ‘Foundation Feminism’, p.92.
56. Ibid., pp.79–83.
57. Hrycak, ‘From Global to Local Feminisms’, pp.19–23.
58. Oleksandr Sydorenko, ‘Zhinochi Orhanizatsii Ukrainy: Tendentsii Stanovlennia’, in Oleksandr Sydorenko (ed.), Zhinochi Orhanizatsii Ukrainy: Dovidnyk (Kyiv: Tsentr innovatsii ta rozvytku, 2001), pp.45–52.
59. Hrycak, ‘Foundation Feminism’, pp.93–7.
60. Hrycak, ‘Coping with Chaos’, pp.75–6; and Jana Sverdljuk and Svitlana Oksamytna (eds.), Zhinki v Politytsi: Mizhnarodnyi Dosvid dlia Ukrainy (Kyiv: Atika, 2006).
61. See <http://www.spu.in.ua/program.php>, accessed 15 Aug. 2006.
62. Yet the party programmes of member parties of the bloc include a range of themes. The Our Ukraine People's Union claims in its programme to support the protection of rights for all citizens; it also supports increased social benefits for mothers and children. The Party of Industrialists and Businessmen of Ukraine supports equal constitutional rights and freedoms for all citizens, but makes no specific proposals regarding women or gender equality. The Congress of Ukrainian Nationalists makes no statements regarding rights; it backs increased state support for mothers and children. Narodniy Rukh Ukrainy states that it places priority on guaranteeing the rights of children and also advocates increased state support for mothers and children. The Christian Democratic Party makes no direct references to material guarantees for maternity and equality of rights of men and women.
63. Andreenkova draws these conclusions about nomination and resource disparities, see Andreenkova, ‘Women's Representation’, pp.24–5.
64. Hrycak, ‘The Dilemmas of Civic Revival’, p.154.
65. Olena Bondarenko, ‘Zhinky-Polityky’, in Jana Sverdljuk and Svitlana Oksamytna (eds.), Zhinka v Politytsi: Mizhnarodnyi Dosvid dlia Ukrainy (Kyiv: Atika, 2006), pp.20–27.
66. Ibid., p.24.
67. ‘Zhinky Verkhovnoi Rady: Bantyky Tymoshenko, Kvity Zasukhy, Khalatky Semeniuk’, tabloid, available at <http://www.tabloid.com.ua/news/2006/7/12/709.html>, accessed 12 Aug. 2006; see also Bondarenko, ‘Zhinky-Polityky’, p.25.