War, Men and Women: Do Conflicts Promote Old Gender Roles? -Panorama

While adult men under the age of 60 are currently not allowed to leave Ukraine and are supposed to defend the country, while increasing numbers of male volunteers from other European countries are providing military support to Ukraine, millions of women are leaving the war zone. Dramatic farewell scenes between women and men, fathers and their families take place at Ukrainian train stations and at the border. What happens to equality and gender roles when there is war? The historian Claudia Kraft works at the University of Vienna on comparative European contemporary history and on gender relations in Central and Eastern Europe.

SZ: Ms. Kraft, is Putin’s war in Ukraine promoting old gender roles – combative men, defenseless women?

Claudia Kraft: Flight and defense are a logical reaction to a brutal war of aggression forced upon this country. It’s true that many men want and need to stay in the country. But I wouldn’t see it as cementing old gender roles. That would not fit the conditions in Ukrainian society at all.

Volodymyr Zelenskiy, who delivers his speeches with a hoarse voice in military uniforms, the armed forces in full gear – isn’t masculinity also staged in the pictures taken by the Ukrainian leadership?

In war, the representation of masculinity always plays a role. From a historical perspective, it’s interesting right now how images of masculinity differ.

What do you mean?

Selenskij doesn’t come across as martial, but as a good friend from the street who talks to his people. In contrast to a Putin detached from the people, who represents a completely different masculinity. Interestingly, however, not military either, but more like a suit masculinity.

There are also impressive photos of Kiev’s mayor, the boxer Vitali Klitschko: how he hugs women in the subway in Kyiv, a few days later you can see him in the field with a machine gun. What is being communicated?

Klitschko is adept at portraying a diverse, modern masculinity. You can see that he is able to take on different roles, including as a comforter and protector. The poses of defense are then all the more effective in their effect. It shows that the men in the Ukraine, and you can see that particularly clearly with Zelensky, simply didn’t wait to play military, hyper-masculine roles. But they’re getting in there as a result of the robbery. This is also important for a global audience to see.

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That means that the world public is no longer as receptive to authoritarian masculinity as embodied by Putin – but is it to modern heroism?

Yes. This conflict is taking place between an authoritarian or dictatorially ruled Russia and a Ukraine that has been on the way to becoming a modern, pluralistic society for more than a decade – one could even say since 1991. If you’re waging a war over political values, it would be difficult to convey if you only saw heroically exaggerated, tough men.

What role do women play?

We see women taking the responsibility for their children and their elderly. It’s incredibly courageous and independent to flee, which is why it only looks like a “traditional image of women” at first glance. You see actors who take risks, who look after and care for their loved ones.

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What about women in Ukraine?

They are often very emancipated and have a lot to lose in this war. That still has something to do with the employment of women in the Soviet Union, but also with how women had to function during the transition period. The welfare state collapsed, they had to make ends meet, there was no way of retiring to being a housewife.

How important is equality in Ukraine today?

The Western women’s movement initially had a difficult time there in the 1990s because the very idea of ​​such a movement had been spoiled by Soviet state feminism. The country has been a member of the Council of Europe since 1995 and, since the beginning of the 21st century, has passed several conventions dealing with equal opportunities for women in the workplace and curbing domestic violence. It is also part of the democratization of a society that gender justice is established through legislation.

In Germany, Ukrainian women are stereotypically associated with the topics of the marriage market, surrogacy, forced prostitution – i.e. the exploitation of femininity.

This is not the problem of a supposedly backward Ukraine but the problem of Western Europe. There is a neoliberal, problematic attitude towards Eastern European countries, which are seen as a kind of reservoir of cheap caregivers and bodies made available for Western needs via surrogacy.

Together with two colleagues from the University of Vienna, you recently published a statement on the “special situation of women in Ukraine”. Why is this necessary now? One could also point out the special situation of the young men who are now being forced to take up arms.

I also asked myself: Isn’t this the moment when everyone has to pull together and defend themselves against Putin instead of talking about gender? But in a society that is already very far from becoming democratic and pluralistic, as is the case in Ukraine, issues such as gender equality, the recognition of difference and the rights of LGBTQI are extremely important. It must also be emphasized in times of crisis, also and precisely because that is precisely what Russia does not want.

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Historically, is war more of a kind of leveling machine or does it not cut a deep swath between the sexes?

If you look at wars in the 20th century, things go very differently. Of course, with the arming and mobilization of soldiers, there is an incredible shift in the image of men. And while women are challenged as actors, they are also often victimized. This sacrifice is also used as a propagandistic stylistic device in the sense of the demand: “We have to protect our women.” The real distortions, however, tend to arise in the post-war period.

In what way?

The return of militarized men to civilian life, as we saw after World War II, is a difficult process. Especially with defeated armies. Then, at the expense of women and families, male dominance was restored in peacetime.

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A refugee woman is viewed differently than a refugee man, right?

Yes, we are experiencing this in a very extreme way at the moment. The incredible willingness to help in Poland, for example, certainly has a lot to do with the fact that the people who come are mainly women, children and old people. And maybe also because they are Christians from the neighborhood.

Looking at the experts today, one gets the impression again: War is still seen as a matter for which men are responsible – women take care of the human side.

In historical studies, the question is always: Who has the opportunity to tell about an event? When a war is over, victories are the stories most often told, and perhaps defeats as well. But everyday life, which goes on in the state of emergency, is not told. In the end it’s about who won and who lost. Not about how people continued to support families or sustain village communities during the war.

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An exorbitant special fund is now being created for the Bundeswehr. Is remilitarization a threat to equality in this country?

I do not think so. A positive process is actually taking place here in these terrible times. Germany has been good at always looking far away and being content with itself. Now the federal government, but also society, is asking itself: What is actually happening around us? And can we stand smugly and say we don’t define ourselves militaristically, we’re over the fact that there is such a thing as war and peace?

But doesn’t such a process change the DNA of a society?

May be. I would only say as a historian that the DNA of a society is changed by a lot. Legislative acts such as the marriage split affect gender equality much more sustainably than the question: Do we perhaps have to reconsider how we position ourselves in the world?