Like many Ukrainians, I feared losing my beloved people, home, identity, and future when Russia’s full-scale aggression commenced. I was located abroad at the time, doing a Master’s program in Gender and Peace Studies. I started looking for solidarity and discovered a challenging reality.
The response generated by some Western feminist collectives and organisations did not represent my voice and lacked a Ukrainian vision of peace and solidarity. In an attempt to comprehend this lack of solidarity, I applied feminist standpoint theory and critical discourse analysis (CDA) to some main statements produced by key international feminist groups, such as Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) and Feminists Against War (FAW), in 2022. In this text, I look at how Russia’s war against Ukraine reveals power relations within the global feminist community and Ukraine’s position in it. It is based on my Master’s thesis, which I had to finish navigating between shock, pain, hope, and reason.
Questions and responses prompted by the full-scale invasion
The sleepless night when Russia launched a full-scale invasion found me at a student hall in a foreign country. I scrolled the news, reading analyses from international experts, the majority stating that if Moscow were to attack, Ukraine would fall within days or weeks. At about 2:30 AM local time, I saw the news that Russia’s president had declared war against Ukraine, calling it a ‘special military operation’. Subsequently, reports emerged about air strikes all over Ukraine, including in my hometown, Berdyansk, where my family lived, and Mariupol, where I used to work and where many of my friends were. Within days, the Russian army occupied my hometown and soon levelled most of Mariupol to the ground. Still, Ukraine stood, and Ukrainians continued to resist.
When the first calls for peace commenced in February-March 2022, I noticed that the expressions of international feminist solidarity generated a difficult conversation about the meaning of ‘peace’ and the right of Ukrainians to armed resistance. Some of their responses lacked solidarity with and understanding of the Ukrainian resistance’s reality, which caught me off guard.
Reading their publications affected the choice of my research focus and made me think:
“How did the initial response from visible feminist organisations define feminist discourse in the first period of the full-scale Russian invasion? What does it say about power relations within the global feminist community and their perception of Ukraine?”
What tools do I have to talk about it?
I used feminist standpoint theory for my research to approach a situation when subjects with stronger and more noticeable voices advocated for a peace agenda without considering the voices of those directly affected by the war. Feminist standpoint theory has been used by feminists who fought for the rights of marginalised groups from class, race, and gender oppressions (see Dorothy Smith, Sandra Harding, Donna Haraway). This approach encourages feminists to focus on marginal voices and challenge the existing system of knowledge production that privileges those in power; to speak up rather than to be spoken about.
Then, applying CDA, which problematises power relations embedded in the text, I assessed the implicit messages communicated by WILPF and FAW. Both feminist networks appeared to be blind to imperial Russia’s invasion. They reproduced the subjugated position of Ukraine to global powers such as Russia, the US, NATO and others.
The analysis highlighted the dilemma of applying a postcolonial perspective on Ukrainian history at the intersection with the dominant post-Soviet and postsocialist frameworks.
Analysis of feminist solidarity responses by WILPF International and FAW
In response to the full-scale Russian invasion, feminist organisations shared messages of support and advocated for peace in Ukraine. Yet, some of them lacked a Ukrainian perspective and reproduced the global power relations that prescribe dominant (active) and subordinate (passive) positions to countries.
For the analysis, I selected publications from WILPF International and FAW. WILPF is a long-standing organisation and a large network uniting feminist peacebuilders and policymakers in more than 40 countries. Its voice has political value and institutional power, which it used to call for global peace and demilitarisation concerning Ukraine on its official webpage. FAW presented itself as an international feminist coalition formed in Spain. FAW’s anti-war manifesto (published on 14 March 2022) gathered more than 2000 signatures worldwide, calling for a ceasefire and denouncing militarisation (which included arms support to Ukraine). In the first months of the full-scale invasion, their message was affective — it was met with criticism from Ukrainian feminists, who issued The Right to Resist manifesto in response, calling for global feminist support and recognition of Ukrainian agency and self-determination.
For analysis, I chose documents focused on Ukraine over a period between January 2022 and May 2022 (the time of conducting analysis of this part of the research): 11 publications on the WILPF website (please, see the list in the notes) and 1 manifesto publication from FAW.
The publications assigned Ukraine a passive role, equating it to, e.g. ’a pawn’ (also here) or ‘one field of “play”’. Several publications used the construct ‘the war over Ukraine’, suggesting Ukraine is a territory being fought over rather than a side of the war with Russia. If Ukraine is not acknowledged as a subject, the vision of Ukrainians would not be meaningful for the global world because it is war ‘over’ Ukraine between more powerful subjects. With this logic, if Ukraine is only seen as a wrestling ground by global powers, it is not for Ukrainians to decide whether to resist or surrender. Notably, none of the publications was authored or co-authored by a person from Ukraine.
The discourse presented Russia’s aggression against Ukraine as a geopolitical power struggle between NATO and Russia. Only a few publications named the invasion imperial, yet with no elaboration of what that meant for Ukraine. Such elaboration could help make sense of the nature of the war and the consequences for people and their choices of defence. Rather than being associated with the continued colonial experiences counted in generations, Ukrainian resistance was framed in these texts as unnecessary deaths for the sake of global powers.
Finally, it is important to acknowledge these publications’ power and impact on Ukrainian feminist resistance. Power can be exercised through access to particular discourses, such as the global discourse on peace and security concerning Ukraine. WILPF has an influential position in the feminist peace community and the UN. Their voices, reinforcing the Eurocentric perspective, represent the global feminist peace agenda, thus, muting those in the margin.
The analysis led me to the concepts that could explain the perception of Ukraine by the global feminist community.
Visibility of Ukraine through post-Soviet and postsocialist conceptual frameworks
The end of the Cold War, marked by the collapse of the Soviet Union, commenced the dissolution of the so-called ‘Second World’, which referred to socialist states under the rule or influence of the Soviet Union. New terminology, such as ‘post-Soviet’ and ‘postsocialist’ spaces, provided frameworks for understanding these regions. I underpin two dimensions in which these frameworks are problematic when utilised to describe and make sense of Ukrainian history and context.
First, they do not provide the possibility for analysis of postcolonial experiences. As argued by Tlostanova, the postcolonial and postsocialist discourses were built on opposing foundations: while the postcolonial framework has been informed by anti-capitalist and neo-Marxist analysis, the postsocialist lens focuses on the rejection of socialism and navigation toward capitalist ideas in the region. To the present day, postcolonial and postsocialist occupy separate intellectual spaces in feminist scholarship. Koobak, Tlostanova and Thapar-Björkert provide an account of how this leads to distorted feminist transnational solidarity.
Second, the post-Soviet framework tends to be Russo-centric — the region is analysed through Russia’s dominant lens. It is often from the Russian perspective that academics worldwide learn about former Soviet states. Ukrainian scholar Kuzio points out that although research in Western academia has increased knowledge production about Ukraine since the beginning of Russia’s invasion in 2014, it has been limited to the authority of Western expertise and the hegemony of Western or Russian knowledge about the former Soviet states.
As a result, the Ukrainian experience of oppression from colonialism and imperial rule is still invisible, while Ukraine continues to be presented through the oppressor’s Russo-centred lens.
Towards decolonial feminist solidarity
This blog piece helps set a framework to reconceptualise and understand experiences that have been unheard of. The next step would be to ask what the solidarity that Ukrainian feminists want is. Being a feminist from Ukraine, I will not give you a universal answer. However, I encourage you to learn from your mistakes and take three practical steps.
The decolonial scholarship is growing, with academics and practitioners increasingly investing in rethinking and (re)learning about regions affected by Russia’s imperialism. We need to take an interest in what knowledge from the margin has to say, produce knowledge based on their experiences, and be the advocates of such an approach.
There is a need to revisit the feminist standpoint theory, which continues to be a valuable framework for Ukrainian feminist scholars and practitioners. Experiences of oppression that stem from a personal feeling of ‘it does not feel right’ matter and can serve as a source of knowledge. For instance, the response from the centres of knowledge production, whom we trust, fails to address our needs. I also hope this text contributes to ongoing conversations about marginal knowledge from feminists in other contexts.
Finally, we should practice feminist curiosity — be prepared that every case might require careful contextualisation and ongoing reflection on our own positionality when expressing solidarity. To achieve this, we may need to (un)learn about those with whom we stand in solidarity.
Notes:
- Acheson, R. (2022a). Don’t Normalise Nuclear Weapons and War— Abolish Them. WILPF. [online] 19 Apr. Available at: https://www.wilpf.org/dont-normalise-nuclear-weapons-and-war-abolish-them/ [Accessed 12 Jul. 2022].
- Acheson, R. (2022b). End War, Build Peace. WILPF. [online] 1 Mar. Available at: https://www.wilpf.org/end-war-build-peace/ [Accessed 12 Jul. 2022].
- Acheson, R. (2022c). Militarism Cannot Prevent War: An urgent call for de-escalation, demilitarisation, and disarmament in relation to Ukraine and beyond. WILPF. [online] 14 Feb. Available at: https://www.wilpf.org/militarism-cannot-prevent-war-an-urgent-call-for-de-escalation-demilitarisation-and-disarmament-in-relation-to-ukraine-and-beyond/ [Accessed 12 Jul. 2022].
- Magallón, C. (2022). Weapons will not Save Us. WILPF. [online] 3 Mar. Available at: https://www.wilpf.org/weapons-will-not-save-us/ [Accessed 12 Jul. 2022].
- Porobić, N. (2022a). F*** You and Your World Order! Voices for Peace, Freedom, and Solidarity. WILPF. [online] 7 Mar. Available at: https://www.wilpf.org/f-you-and-your-world-order-voices-for-peace-freedom-and-solidarity/ [Accessed 12 Jul. 2022].
- Porobić, N. (2022b). Holding onto Nonviolence and Feminism in the Midst of War. WILPF. [online] 9 May. Available at: https://www.wilpf.org/holding-onto-nonviolence-and-feminism-in-the-midst-of-war/ [Accessed 12 Jul. 2022].
- WILPF (2022a). Open Letter to Fridays for Future on the Crisis in Ukraine and its Threats to the Planet and People. WILPF. [online] 24 Feb. Available at: https://www.wilpf.org/advocacy_documents/letter-to-fridays-for-future-regarding-the-crisis-in-ukraine-and-its-threats-for-planet-and-people/ [Accessed 30 Jul. 2022].
- WILPF (2022b). Open Letter to the United Nations Security Council. [online] 14 Apr. Available at: https://www.wilpf.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/Open-Letter-to-the-United-Nations-Security-Council-2.pdf/ [Accessed 30 Jul. 2022].
- WILPF (2022c). Statement Calling On European Governments to De-escalate Conflict in Ukraine. WILPF. [online] 30 Jan. Available at: https://www.wilpf.org/advocacy_documents/wilpf-call-on-european-governmentsto-de-escalate-conflict-in-ukraine/ [Accessed 30 Jul. 2022].
- WILPF (2022d). War ‘Over’ Ukraine: Militarism is Killing Us All. Open Letter to the UN Security Council on Ukraine. WILPF. [online] 28 Jan. Available at: https://www.wilpf.org/advocacy_documents/open-letter-to-the-un-security-council-on-ukraine/ [Accessed 12 Jul. 2022].
- WILPF International Secretariat (2022). Call to Action: No More Wars! Not Now, Not Ever Again! WILPF. [online] 14 Feb. Available at: https://www.wilpf.org/call-to-action-no-more-wars-not-now-not-ever-again/ [Accessed 31 Jul. 2022].
The views of the author do not necessarily reflect the position of the members of the organisation.