Involvement of women in military education in Ukraine

Abstract

Women’s access to military education is an important component of building the value of equal rights and opportunities in the military sphere. Ukraine’s implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 1325 “Women, Peace, Security” provides for equal access of women and men to educational institutions of all levels of the security and defense sector. It is about providing full access to women to enter military educational institutions, integrating gender approaches into the system of training specialists for the security and defense sector, ensuring infrastructural and material and technical conditions of educational institutions of the security and defense sector for the training of girls. Protection from sexual harassment in the military in general and in military educational institutions in particular is another important aspect for the implementation of gender equality policy.Public opinion on whether women should be given equal opportunities with men to obtain military education was determined on the basis of a representative survey for Ukraine conducted in September 2018. Differences in support for the statement that women should be given equal opportunities with men to obtain military education were found depending on the respondents’ gender, age, region of residence, size of the settlement, and level of education.Women appeared, on the one hand, to be slightly more egalitarian in supporting women’s access to military education. Expectedly, more egalitarian views regarding the involvement of women in military education were demonstrated by respondents with a higher level of education, as well as residents of large cities. Residents of Eastern Ukraine to a lesser extent than in other regions support the opinion that women should be given equal opportunities with men to obtain a military education. Since there are several military educational institutions in the East of Ukraine (in particular, in Kharkiv), it is important to draw additional attention to the visibility of women in this field.