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struggle for their sons. A smaller state, they felt, would be less likely to become a totalitarian monster than a large one that had to defend its borders from foreign enemies and itself from its own citizens. They saw an independent Ukrainian state as an effective means of creating a system capable of controlling the abuses of the military and of the state. In the process they had to take on the whole military complex of the USSR. The accident in Chornobyl, preceded by less publicized but equally disastrous industrial accidents in Western Ukraine, placed all children and not only young men of draft age at risk. The disastrous ecological conditions made many mothers aware of the connection between the domestic and foreign policies of the regime and the threatened welfare of their children. Every woman with child in Ukraine was a Ukrainian mother, interested in establishing a state in which she could have a say about the life her children would lead. Ecological disasters did not recognize ethnic boundaries. At the end of January 1992, the Women’s Union (Soyuz Ukrainok), by claiming to be the heir to the democratic traditions of the pre-Worid War II Women’s Union, challenged the ostensible Soviet monopoly on supporting women’s issues and tried to sever the popu larly accepted notion that women’s liberation and com munist ideology are mutually related. The Women’s Union, a decidedly middle class, patriotic organization, has been moving toward programs promoting participa tion of women in economic development, especially through cooperatives. Many women in Ukraine feel that the feminists’ insistence on equality of women was as responsible as Marxism for the double burden of work heaped upon them. Because the communist regime in its propaganda stressed the achievements of women in the USSR, established a quota of women’s seats in local and state legislatures, and eliminated restrictions on women’s work, many contemporary Ukrainians equate women’s rights with communist exploitation of the individual, thus discrediting any attempt at women’s rights. Furth ermore, feminization of low paying professions, the preponderance of women in labor-intensive physical work, and a more direct exposure to idealized middle- class dreams of wives comfortably supported by loving husbands have also contributed to giving any aspect of feminism or women’s rights a questionable reputation. Women’s distrust of the communist system was evi dent in the inability of the official Soviet women’s organ izations to restructure themselves during the period of p e re s tro ik a . In a move that did not bring him the sup port he expected, Mikhail Gorbachev, on January 30, 1987, called for the formation of Women's Councils of the USSR and in the republics. In Ukraine, the creation of a separate women’s council was already a conces sion to local pressure, although there is no evidence to suggest that the party in power was aware of the histor ical antecedents of the Ukrainian council of women which existed during the period of the Ukrainian National Republic and through a decade of exile in the 1920’s. The Council of Women of Ukraine (Rada Zhinok Ukrainy), established in 1987 and headed by Maria A. Orlyk, a long time party functionary who also served as the vice president of the Council of Ministers of Ukraine, was not able to muster women’s support for Gorbachev. By the fall of 1991, Orlyk used the Council to keep party women in an organizational structure that became the League of Women of Ukraine, Spilka Zhinok Ukrainy.3 It had to make significant adjustments in its activities once its government support was severely curtailed, but it still claims to number about 50,000 members. This association has focused on helping its members to become self-sufficient. At its second conference in December 1992, it established a Society of Ukrainian businesswomen. The government and the political parties formed in Ukraine in the 1990’s are primarily interested in vouch safing human rights, establishing a rule of law, creating conditions for economic development based upon pri vate property, and preventing the amassing of power by any one single structure or individual. Women’s rights are not an issue and a deeper discussion of gender equality, which is assumed as a given, is only begin ning. All political parties articulate detailed programs that reflect the views of their members on civil society, politics, power, justice, capital punishment, and outlaw ing of war, but few mention issues relating to women.4 For the most part, women have not tried to organize for specifically political purposes. Olha Horyn’, a politi cal activist from Western Ukraine, organized a Christian Women’s Party in 1991, but it was never able to gather much momentum and simply disintegrated. There have been no other attempts at establishing a specifically women’s political party. The conditions for such a party do not exist: gender equality is almost universally taken for granted, as far as political rights are considered, and nuances of affirmative action, glass ceiling, internalized acceptance of gender discrimination are rarefield luxur ies for a few academics and writers. Contemporary women in Ukraine take for granted the responsibility of the government for basic social welfare of the whole population, especially for needy women and children. They stress that over 70% of the indigent are families with minors. Perhaps as a reaction to the ineffectiveness of communist-style equality, they presume some preferential treatment of women. They argue that women ought to form a pressure group to assure that the government would address women’s concerns in the new state administration. At the same time, many organizations draft ambitious programs that focus on setting up cultural and training centers, eco logical awareness programs, and private day care cen ters, schools and nursing homes. Many hope to set up 22 ’НАШЕ ЖИТТЯ”, ЛИСТОПАД 1995 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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