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8 WWW. UNWLA.ORG “НАШЕ ЖИТТЯ”, БЕРЕЗЕНЬ 2012 Gender ed u- cation and the raising of gender awareness are nece s- sary in all spheres and for all ages . t he second half of the 19th and the early 20th cc. What struck you the most in Ukrainian women ’ s lives of this period? The most striking thing is how truly difficult the life of Ukrainian pe a- sant women was as late as the b e- ginning of the 20th century. When I started my research in 1994, I (as well as most of my colleagues) had a very idealistic image of the Ukra i- nian Woman in mind . We imagined a happily married woman, bri m- ming with health and wearing an elegant national costume, singing a lullaby to a rosy - cheeked baby while sitting in her neat little house in the middle of a cherry orchard... This idyllic pi c- ture, however, quickly vanished when I heard the stories of ordinary peasant babusi about their own childhood and about the lives of their mot h- ers, relatives, and neighbors. From them I found out the bitter truth about the daily li ves of Ukra i- nian women, about their endless hard work at home since a ve ry early age, about the parents’ reluctance to give their daughters an education, about the violence against girls at vechornytsi [village youth parties — OW] and against women in families, about the hard life of a single mother and the advantages of bein g a widow, about di s eases and injuries in infants due to lack of super vision, about wo m- en’ s mortality at childbirth and after botched abortions... I was astonished at how simply and honestly these older women spoke about the most private and th e most painf ul aspects of wo m- en’ s experience s . Without false shame or guilt, without embellishing or loo k- ing for sympathy, they spoke about the things which one cannot find in histo r- ical monographs, for all of this was an integral part of their lives and, in turn, it constitutes an integral part of Ukrainian history. Recently, the UNWLA created an Endo w- ment for the development of a Women ’ s/ Gender Studies Lectureship at the Ukrain - ian Catholic University in L ’ viv. In your opinion, why is such a project important f or today ’ s Ukraine? This is an immensely valuable initiative, which I wholeheartedly support. Women’ s and gender studies in Ukraine began to develop fairly recen t- ly, and we still lack specialists as well as oppo r tunities to gain syst e- matized knowledge in this inte rdi s- ciplinary field. Like women’ s history, gender studies remain without an academic “ home ” in Ukraine. Fort u- nately, thanks to university auton o- my, higher education is more flexible and open to innovations. Since 2005 I have b een regularly teaching a course in gender studies to students of the Humanities Faculty at UCU, and every time I see a great interest in gender issues on the part of the students, which manifests itself not only in heated in - class discussions but also in t heir selection of topics for research, their participation in NGOs that work towards gender equality, etc. Many of my former students eve n- tually come back to gender issues in their own pr o- fessional or scholarly work and ask for advice or reading suggest ions. It is clear to me that our youth need such knowledge. Despite the fact that gender is a fund a- mental category of culture (as everything, from language to government, has a gender dime n- sion!), young Ukrainians are deprived of the o p- portunity to study and critically examine this a s- pect of societal life. Ukrainian society, in spite of the government guarantees of equal rights and opportunities for men and women, remains quite co n- servative in its vision of gender roles. Gender stereotypes are ev erywhere; they permeate our life since early child - hood when, without much thought, parents choose toys for their little ones (cars for boys and dolls for girls), th e- reby already ushering them into the stereotypical social roles for their gender and formin g their life strat e- gies. School textbooks, which give few examples of professionally successful women and instead feature female ch a- racters who focus exclusively on family or household tasks, instill in girls the idea that the public sphere is not a place for women. Popular culture and TV commercials advertise a glamo r- ous, carefree lifestyle of sexually liberated girls who all look like models... Should we be surprised then that the majority of Ukrainian women co n- sider their bodies and sexuality their great est a s- set, a resource which first demands a lot of effort and financial investment but later should bring a 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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