"Childbirth Is Not A Car Rental": Mothers And Obstetricians Negotiating Choice And Relationships In Russian Commercial Maternity Care

This article explores how commercialization of maternity care in Russia offers new opportunities and imposes new limitations on both mothers-tobe and doctors. The research is based on 35 in-depth interviews with patients and 24 with professionals in paid maternity car in St. Petersburg (2015–2017). It is a significant and illustrative case within the broader trends in the Russian health care system of the 2000s–2010s. This article’s contribution is an understanding of maternity care’s post-socialism market development from the perspective of women: mothers-to-be and mostly female doctors. The ongoing reforms and organization of paid maternity care in Russia are analyzed. I explore the position of mothers-to-be as consumers with growing demands, and of professional women as they respond to such demands. I depict how doctors, though improving their economic and working conditions, resist the symbolic decline of their status and seek to restore their power, and how mothers-to-be accept doctors’
authoritative role in highly medicalized maternity care.

Beijing +25 Years On. Parallel Report Ukraine 2014-2019

While highly appreciating the National Report prepared by the State, the Ukrainian women’s NGOs decided to independently summarize the efforts on promoting the rights of women and girls in Ukraine in the last five trying years. The war and loss of a part of the Ukrainian territories, over a million of internally displaced persons, economic decline, and the need for the countrywide reforms have created additional challenges for the governmental policy.

Исследование проблемы насилия в отношении женщин, живущих с ВИЧ, в Восточной Европе и Центральной Азии. Аналитический отчет 2019

В исследовании были проанализированы проблемы, с которыми сталкиваются ВИЧ-позитивные женщины, подвергшиеся насилию после того, как им был постав- лен диагноз «ВИЧ-инфекция». Уникальность исследования заключается в том, что оно было разработано, организовано и проведено сообществом женщин, живущих с ВИЧ и уязвимых для ВИЧ, в рамках региональной кампании против гендерного насилия «Насилию нет оправдания!». В этом исследовании приняли участие 464 ВИЧ-положительные женщины, пережившие насилие, и 120 женщин специалисток из 12 стран региона Восточной Европы Центральной Азии (ВЕЦА). Исследование подтверждает важность приоритезации вопросов насилия в отношении женщин, живущих с ВИЧ, в повестке дня, касающейся раз- вития стран региона ВЕЦА.

"Prostitutes" and "Defectors": How the Ukrainian State Constructs Women Emigrants to Italy and the USA

Scholars of sending countries emphasise the role of economics in shaping state policies towards emigration. They argue sending states are converging around a set of discursive strategies that aim to facilitate the influx of remittances from emigrants. One such strategy uses discourses of cultural nationalism to celebrate emigrants as ‘heroes’ of the nation. Drawing on a state sponsored media campaign and ethnographic data, I found the Ukrainian state does the opposite. It stigmatises its emigrants to both Italy and the USA as ‘prostitutes’ and ‘defectors’ respectively. However emigrants are differentially stigmatised. Emigrants to the USA are simply dismissed, but the Ukrainian state constructs migration to Italy as a shameful social problem. It does this even though emigrants to Italy send back significantly more remittances. Economic interests cannot explain Ukrainian state practices towards emigration. Instead, in the context of post-Soviet transformation, I suggest the Ukrainian state has prioritised the construction of a national identity. The state then constructs policy with an eye to cultural rather than economic outcomes. I argue the Ukrainian state actively stigmatises the migration to Italy because it poses challenges to the nation-building process, whereas the migration to the USA is peripheral to this key state concern.

Crisis, War and Austerity: Devaluation of Female Labor and Retreating of the State

Following the Euromaidan, the outbreak of war and ensuing economic crisis, the Ukrainian government introduced wide-ranging reforms guided by the neoliberal idea that stability and economic growth can be generated by cutting social spending.

Despite the government’s proclaimed intent to support the poorest and weakest members of Ukrainian society, the opposite has occurred, and the negative effects of the new reforms have ended up targeting them most. Women in Ukraine are particularly harshly hit by these savings measures. Despite superficially pro-women legislation, women tend to have the opposite experience. Cuts to the civil service and social spending generally lead to lay-offs and thus to the firing of women, who overwhelmingly work in these sectors.

Further consequences of Ukrainian austerity policies are, among others, an ongoing devaluing of reproductive labour (care, education, etc.), the dismantling of social infrastructure and a neoliberal, profit-oriented restructuring of the education and health care systems.

The Ukrainian left is faced with the challenge of fundamentally criticizing these processes and articulating alternatives. Left-wing feminists must build a strong network of allies in order to lead the fightback.​

Gender and Choice After Socialism

The end of socialism in the Soviet Union and its satellite states ushered in a new era of choice. Yet the idea that people are really free to live as they choose turns out to be problematic.  Personal choice is limited by a range of factors such as a person’s economic situation, class, age, government policies and social expectations, especially regarding  gender roles. Furthermore, the notion of free choice is a crucial feature of capitalist ideology, and can be manipulated in the interests of the market. This edited collection explores the complexity of choice in Russia and Ukraine. The contributors explore how the new choices available to people after the collapse of the Soviet Union have interacted with and influenced gender identities and gender, and how choice has become one of the driving forces of class-formation in countries which were, in the Soviet era, supposedly classless.

Фразеологизмы о беременности и возможность репродуктивного выбора [On the Representation of Pregnancy and Reproductive Choices in Gender-Biased Idioms]

Статья рассматривает фразеологизмы, номинирующие репродуктивные процессы. Выделяются два основных способа такой номинации: ознáчивание репродуктивной «зрелости» и номинация различных стадий и «обстоятельств» беременности. Фразеологические единицы этой группы во многом представляют собой языковые «подсказки» направленые на сохранение существующего распределения властных и социальных ресурсов гетеросексисткого общества. 

Sexuality and Revolution in Post‐Soviet Ukraine: LGBT Rights and the Euromaidan Protests of 2013–2014

While some attention has been paid to the role of women and gender aspects during the Euromaidan protests (2013–2014), there is a lack of research focusing on questions of homosexuality in this connection. This article examines the evolution of the situation regarding homosexuality and LGBT rights during the Euromaidan protests. The empirical base consists of 20 interviews conducted in July–August 2014 with LGBT rights activists, all of whom were involved in the Euromaidan protests. The respondents were asked a number of questions about the visibility of the LGBT community during the Euromaidan; about which events they considered to be significant for the LGBT community; and about the positive and negative aspects of the Euromaidan with regard to the human rights situation for LGBT people. The “strategy of invisibility” chosen by LGBT activists during this protest is analyzed and criticized here with the help of the concept of “homonationalism.” In addition, the article investigates the ways in which LGBT activists in Ukraine reproduce the West vs. East and EU vs. Russia binaries.

Why Women Protest: Insights from Ukraine's EuroMaidan

This article examines why Ukrainian women participated in the 2013–14 anti-government protests, widely known as the EuroMaidan. Based upon in-depth interviews with female protesters, the study uncovers a wide range of motivations for women's engagement in the revolution, including dissatisfaction with the government, solidarity with protesters, motherhood, civic duty, and professional service. Political discontent was the most cited reason for protesting. Solidarity with protesters was another major catalyst for political engagement. In addition, women who were mothers invoked the notion of mothering to provide a rationale for activism. The study contributes to the growing literature on women's participation in contentious politics in non-democracies.

Запрещенные женщинам профессии – гендерная дискриминация

Отчет посвящен «спискам профессий, запрещенных для женщин», – дискриминационным подзаконным актам, унаследованным от советского законодательства и до сих пор действующих во многих странах бывшего СССР.
Отчет выпущен в рамках кампании АДЦ «Мемориал» #allJobs4allWomen.