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WOMEN’S HISTORY When I began researching women’s movements among Ukrainians, some seven years ago, I expected to find a feminist and a socialist women’s movement of small sig nificance and marginal importance. I presumed the U- krainian women’s organizations would be patterned on those of the better known Austrian, Russian or even German women. I was even less ready to see in opera tion a concept of pragmatic feminism than its own prac titioners had been to articulate it. The inability to recog nize their own originality had been another important realization about the Ukrainian women that had become apparent only after I sifted through reams of papers spanning the whole spectrum of organizations from the Catholic Church to the Tsarist police. Ukrainian women, busy with their work and often struggling for survival, did not analyze their own significance. Ukrainian men, often hard at work asserting their own position, over looked the women. Generally, feminism is defined as the product of an articulate, educated middle-class constituency, its goals being the acquisition of legal equality, educational op portunity and the right to participate in the political pro cess. The Marxist-socialist women’s movement begin ning in the 1890’s aimed at economic and social eman cipation of society, lashed out against capitalism and the patriarchal family, and a priori spoke in the name of the workers. But it too was the product of the articulate and educated, if not the middle class, then of the up wardly mobile intelligentsia. It too reflected the aspira tions made by the articulate on behalf of the inarticulate masses. Ukrainian women fit into neither of these categories of women’s movements. Yet between 1884 and 1939 organizations of Ukrainian women developed in all polit ical states in which Ukrainian women found themselves — the Russian Empire, the Austrian Empire, Poland, Rumania, Czechoslovakia, Austria, Germany, the United States, Canada, and Soviet Ukraine. Sometimes, some of these women denied being feminists while being very much involved in organizations promoting women’s auto nomy and in community action. My research has led me to posit the existence of a pragmatic, practical feminism, which its practicioners did not articulate, yet one which would soon emerge among the “third world” women. Because Ukrainians functioned largely within a Euro pean context a parallel of this type was not readily apparent; in fact it was overlooked. The most interesting of the many characteristics of the Ukrainian women was their involvement in grass roots community life. Divided among different regimes and subjected to varying degrees of discrimination, the women, often independently of each other, developed similar forms of community action as a response to the needs at hand. Yet when they confronted their status as women they did so within the categories and ideologies they knew, which were the same which existed in con temporary Western Europe — feminism, socialism, phi lanthropic activity. Precisely because they were not so cialized into ideological thinking, the women did not realize the originality of their brand of feminism. Despite the different political and social systems under which the Ukrainian women found themselves, they independently gravitated toward “pragmatic femi nism.” It is characterized by practical self-help, by a lack of interest in the theory of feminism, very little discus sion of sex, and an ability to adapt to existing institu tions. The real goal of the women’s organizations and activities was economic, social and cultural progress. They functioned within the parameters of existing socie ties. For the most part they did not question the family unit, only argued for greater power and importance of the women in it. The realities of their existence made the major strivings of nineteenth century women — higher education and suffrage — secondary to the problems facing their own societies — illiteracy, low-yield agricul ture, land shortage, inadequate hygiene. The women grappled with them. They were not “problems,” or “is sues” to be discussed, but day-to-day matters which confronted them. Striving for the same opportunities males had in upwardly mobile societies was not appropriate for these women. Nor, but for some exceptions, were these women revolutionary or consciously socialist. The major feminist among Ukrainians, Kobrynska, who also was a socialist, was the first person to argue with the socialist that social ism without feminism would not change the patriarchal attitudes of men toward women, even if it succeeded in changing the economic system. This prophetic argument found no sympathy among Ukrainian socialists, none whatsoever among the socialist women of Europe, and Kobrynska herself failed in gaining a following among Ukrainian women. Ukrainian women did not want theory, as brilliant and as original as it might be; they wanted action that would be of immediate benefit to themselves and their families. They thought themselves a part of the family, clan, community, a larger entity which gave them meaning, even if it circumscribed their freedom. Women in non-industrialized societies are more likely to join these types of women’s organizations, rather than the openly feminist or revolutionary ones. Women are not used to seeing themselves primarily as a key part of a broad society. They tend to defer to men, accept roles that are ascribed to them and, failing to articulate the rationale of their functions, do not inte- Видання C оюзу Українок A мерики - перевидано в електронному форматі в 2012 році . A рхів C У A - Ню Йорк , Н . Й . C Ш A.
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