Ukraine's Ancient Matriarch as a Topos in Constructing a Feminine Identity

Bibliographic Data

ID3195892
AuthorsMarian J Rubchak (Department of History at Valparaiso University, in Valparaiso, Indiana., corresponding author)
Year2009
Volume92
Issue1
Pages129-150
Publication date2009-07-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueFeminist Review (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0141-7789 • E-ISSN: 1466-4380
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1057/fr.2009.5
OpenAlexW2046561269
LanguageEN
Citations received6
References cited6

In 1991, Ukrainian independence opened an important theoretical channel for debating the status of its women. The people's collective memory of an ancient matriarchy generated a neo-matriarchal mythology which has been transformed into a delusional ideology that legitimizes female subordination, in the name of her alleged empowerment. Fieldwork in Ukraine - annual visits, including travel from one end of the country to another in official capacities, and many extended stays in Ukraine, as a scholar, researcher, educator and participant in key events, provided opportunities for exchanging views with countless people from many walks of life throughout the country. Participation in a host of programs - television 'specials' on gender, seminars, retreats, workshops and conferences, designed to raise the consciousness of women and men alike - provided an array of opportunities to observe at first hand the way that today's women construct individual identity. Extensive research in the press (many runs of daily newspapers, including Den', in Kyiv, and Vysoky Zamok in Lviv, and women's journals such as the widely read Zhinka, among others) added further insights. Television viewing, popular publications collected habitually during my numerous visits to Ukraine, copies of documents contributed by my Ukrainian friends and colleagues, outdoor advertising, posters and intimate gatherings at the homes of likeminded women, all played a part in the formation of my impressions of Ukrainian women's inferior status. In this paper I use my findings to explore the conflicting discourses on women's alleged empowerment, and the essentialist constraints on their self-realization, together with measures adopted to date on changing gender stereotypes and promoting equal rights and opportunities

Aesthetics · Empowerment · Essentialism · Identity (music) · Ideology · Media studies · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Ukrainian · Eastern European Communism and Reforms · Gender Studies · Global Economic and Social Development · Historical Gender and Feminism Studies · Law

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