Women in War’s annual conference: GENDER IN REVOLUTION, Odessa 6-7-8 October 2017

Gender in Revolution War and Peace-Building 1917-2017

Гендер у революції, війні та миробудуванні

International Conference organised by Women in War (Paris)
in partnership with the Democratic Development Centre (Kyiv)
and Southern Ukrainian National Pedagogical University (Odesa)

6-7-8  October 2017 ° Odessa, Ukraine

This unique conference organised by Women in War (Paris) Democracy for Development (Kiev) ,the Pedagogical Institute (Odessa) and, for the art events Q Rators (Kiev-Paris) brought together international scholars, researchers, activists and artists working women’s revolutionary experiences worldwide influenced by the Soviet revolution of 1917 (and China), including the consequences of the fall of the Communist empire and ensuing war, especially in Ukraine and an attempt to evaluate long-term gains and losses in personal and collective empowerment and their influence on gender relations. Art events took place throughout the conference, starting with the first evening at Underpub, Primorskaya 15-17 (near the legendary steps!)

After Sarajevo in 2014, Beirut in 2015, Yerevan in 2016, the 2017 annual international Women in War conference, held in Odessa in October 2017,  explored different aspects of the social and political transformations in gender relations, especially the life of women, resulting from one century of revolutions, up till the present day. These will include uprising and revolts where women have played exceptional roles with major social consequences. The ongoing war in the Donbass  has been included through participations of female voluntary military

In this unique conference, we  focused on women’s revolutionary experiences worldwide as influenced by the Soviet revolution of 1917, in order to establish commonalities and differences in terms of women’s participation and influence

Day 1, October 6 :

 9:15 – 10:15 AM : Opening remarks

Presented by Svitlana Naumkina, Professor of the Department of Political Sciences and Law, Ushynsky South Ukrainian National Pedagogical University

– Maxim Stepanov, head of Odessa Oblast State Administration

– Oleksiy Chebykin, rector of Ushynsky South Ukrainian National Pedagogical University

– Carol Mann, Women in War (Paris)

– Ella Lamakh, Democracy Development Centre (Kyiv)

– Sylvain Rigollet, Attaché de coopération scientifique et universitaire, Ambassade de France en Ukraine

KEYNOTE I – Maria Berlinska, Head of “Institute of Gender Programs”, Kyiv (Ukraine) : Female Volunteers at War

PANEL 1 : Gender issues in War, Revolutions, and Peace-Building in Ukraine

Olena Strelnyk, Ph.D., University of Kyiv (Ukraine) : Gendered Protest in Contemporary Ukraine : Motherhood and Activism at a Time of War

 Olga Labur, Ph.D. Candidate in History, Kyiv Polytechnical University : New Women in new Revolutionary memory after 1917

David Kurkovskiy, Yale University (USA) Yale University Parker Huang Fellow, currently on a post-undergraduate research fellowship at the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy in Kyiv : Revolution and LGBT Rights : Understanding LGBT Rights against the Backdrop of the Russian, Orange, and Maidan Revolutions

 PANEL 2

Living in Troubled Times, Individual Women’s Life Strategies

Marianna Baidak, Ph.D. candidate University of Lviv (Ukraine) : The Polish-Ukrainian War of 1918-1919 in the Private Writing of Halychyna Women

Laurence Ritter, Ph.D. in sociology from EHESS in Paris, (Armenia) : One Woman’s Life in Armenia, Spanning 95 years, From Genocide, Sovietization of Armenia, to the Fall of the USSR

Yu-Hsuan Hsu, Ph.D. student in Development Studies from National Chengchi University (NCCU), Taipei, studied at National Taras Shevchenko University of Kyiv. (Taiwan) : A Chinese Revolutionary, Communist Leader, Taiwanese Feminist : Xie Xuehong in the Age of Turbulence

Angela Shpolberg, Ph.D. in Linguistics from Odessa National University, Brandeis University Center for Women and Gender Studies, (USA) (presented by Masha Shpolberg, Ph. D candidate and lecturer at Yale University) : American Women on the Russian Revolution

PANEL 3

Resolving Conflicts, Transforming Justice, Securing Peace

Svitlana Zakrynytska: U.N. Women, Peace and Security

 Natalia Dubchak, Gender Expert on Security and Defense : Challenges to Women in Defense System

Day 2,

Theme of the Day : MEDITATING ON THE GENDER DIMENSION OF REVOLUTION AND WAR 1917-2017

 KEYNOTE SPEAKER : Margaret Owen, director for Peace and Democracy

 PANEL 5

 From idealism to state feminism

 Aia Beraia, independent researcher, Tbilisi (Georgia) : Georgian feminists in the pre-revolutionary period

 Hasmik Khalapyan, Ph. D, American University of Armenia : Ideological and Economic Construction of Armenian Women’s Labor in the Early Soviet Period

Svitlana Liuta, Ph. D candidate, University of Zaporizhia : The Gender Status of Members of the “Lotta Sviard” Organization at the Time of the Soviet-Finnish Conflict : Equality or State-sanctioned Segregation

Nona Shahnazarian, Ph.D. in Anthropology, Institute of Archeology and Ethnography, Yerevan (Armenia) : Historical Beginnings of Soviet Era State Feminism ­and the Femina Sovetica : Challenges and Advantages of Armenian Women’s Labor in the Early Soviet Period

Hanna Muzychenko, Professor at Ushinsky University Odesa (Ukraine) : The Social Adaptation of Women in Ukraine’s Armed Forces

PANEL 6

The Ideals and Promises to Women from USSR to China and Africa

 Marina Voronina, Ph. D, Lecturer in History, Kharkhiv University, (Ukraine) : The “Baba” as a leader in Soviet times

 Jean-Louis Margolin, Ph. D, Professor at Aix-Marseilles University (France) : Women and the Chinese Cultural Revolution

Nadine Siegert, Ph. D, Iwalewahaus, University of Bayreuth (Germany) : The Militant Woman in the African Revolutions, 1960-1985

Lucy Mathieson: Women in Conflict, Biopolitical and Critical History

PANEL 7

The intersection between Gender, War and Racism in World War 2

Irena Druzhkova Elected Female Representatives in Odesa’s City Hall in 1917

 Marta Havryshko Ph. D, Krypiakevych Institute of Ukrainian Studies in Lviv (Ukraine) : In response to sexual violence : coping strategies among female members of the Ukrainian Nationalists Underground.

Andrii Usach, Ph. D candidate in history, Ukrainian Catholic University in Lviv (Ukraine) : Local Female Perpetrators of the Holocaust in Nazi Occupied Ukraine : the Women’s Experience of Participation in Extreme Violence Commitment.

 Liudmila Askerova, Ph.D, historian, Chernihiv (Ukraine) : Repressed Volksdeutsche in Chernigov District, An Archival Study.

 PANEL 8: Women as recognized activists or collateral damage

Hanna Muzychenko, Professor at Ushinsky University Odesa (Ukraine) : The Social Adaptation of Women in Ukraine’s Armed Forces

Patrycja Hala Saçan, Ph. D Student of Political Science and International Relations at Izmir University of Economics (Turkey) : Invisible Women of Solidarity Movement in Poland.

Boroka Paraszka, recipient of Thomsons Reuters fellowship, researcher in war zones and journalist, Radio Romania (Romania) : A Comparison of (Anti) Gender Politics Between the So-called ‘Communist’ Era Before 1989 and the Decades After the Revolution in Romania.

Elliot Dolan-Evans Human rights activist and Ph.D. student at Monash University, who works within the Gender, Peace and Security research group, (Australia) : The Role of International Actors in Social PoliticalTransformations for Post-USSR Bosnia and Ukraine : What Has it Meant for Women ?

 Day 3, October 8 :

Theme of the day : Women in world-wide revolutions

 KEYNOTE SPEAKER : Professor Galia Golan, Scholar and Peace Activist (Israel)

Panel 9

Female Guerillas and Combatants

Elodie Gamache, Ph. D candidate, University of Paris 3, (France) : FARC revolutionaries in Colombia. (not recorded)

Marta Romero-Delgado Ph.D, Complutense University of Madrid : “Cruel, unnatural and deprived of agency”: Social representations about female combatants. The case of women from Peruvian Communist Party-Shining Path and Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement. (not recorded)

Tebessum Yilmaz, Feminist Activist and Scholar, forcibly exiled from Turkey, Ph. D candidate Humboldt University (Germany) : From the PKK to Jineoloji and the Kurdish Women’s Movement in Bakur and Rojava.

Deniz Dilan, Crossways in Cultural Narratives master program, Erasmus Mundus (Turkey) : Media Representations of Women Guerillas in Rojava.

PANEL 10

Women in Ukraine at war

Ulia Matvienko: Sexual harassment in the Ukrainian army

Tetiana Tsymbal – Feminine psychology of Mothers and Wives at War

Victoria Arnauta: Counsellor to the Ukrianian Military Command

PANEL 11

Gendered Victories… or Tragedies in the Post-Communist world

Jiayin Wang, M.A. University of Columbia, (China) : The “Natural” Women : Gender Equality, or Gender Essentialism ? – Reconsidering Sex Revolution in China.

Karolina Ristova-Aasterud and Ivanka Dodovska, University of Cyril and Methodius, Skopje (Macedonia) : The Three Intertwined Revolutions of Women in Macedonia (1941-2017).

Carol Mann: Concluding remarks

FROM WAR WITH LOVE BY Q RATORS

This unique conference extendED into Odesa through avant-garde art events organised here by Q Rators (Kiev-Paris), sponsored by Women in War through its policy of associating young scholars, activists and contemporary artists.

Recommendations by the Ukrainian participants of the conference «Gender in revolution, war and peace-building»

October 6-7-8, 2017

 To the governmental structures and international organizations:

 – To pay more attention to new groups of women, which have emerged in the recent years due to the ATO and which are not represented in gender or feminist movements, have little knowledge about the National Action Plans (hereinafter NAP) for the implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 1325, CEDAW and the Sustainable Development Goals. These groups include, among others: widows, female veterans, women in the military and working on the front line, mothers of the military personnel on the frontline, female IDPs, women living near the frontline. All these groups can support the process of peace-building but first they need to learn about gender mainstreaming, international and Ukrainian legislation.

– To bring together different social groups to new events for better synergy between theoretical knowledge and best practices and to encourage development of horizontal connections.

– To support the newly established women’s organizations, help them with capacity building and train them in the issues of gender mainstreaming, feminism, and leadership, encourage them to participate in public councils and in development of policy documents.

– To pay attention to education of boys and men about gender equality and combating gender-based violence and to encourage them to participate in practical activities related to these issues.

– To regularly conduct trainings on combating gender-based violence in the professions, which were and are predominantly men-dominated and in which stereotypes about women are still wide-spread.

– To support and fund research on the status of different groups of women during the armed conflict and in the post-conflict situation.

– To conduct research «How much does the war cost for women», taking into consideration the interests of women of different social groups, places of residence and age.

– To collect and publish the comparative data on funds allocated for the social sphere and for the military needs.

– To include the topical sections on conflict resolution, combating gender-based violence and on peace-building processes into curriculum of educational institutions.

– To conduct monitoring and evaluation of implementation of National Action Plans on 1325 and how they align with the CEDAW recommendations and the Sustainable Development Goals.

– To coordinate NAP implementation between donors and governmental structures for implementation of all NAP goals at all levels.

– To engage more local NGOs at city, town, and rayon level to NAP implementation by providing them grants.

– To study the lived experiences of women (military and civilian) during the armed conflicts, occupations and in the peace-building processes, their survival strategies and practices, and counteraction to violence. We know little and speak even less about violence against women, in particular, during World War 2 and in the current armed conflicts. To be resolved, these issues need to be addressed and acknowledged and discussed with the wider public.