Manipulation of Gender Equality Issue as a Current Trend of Cognitive Warfare

Abstract

In February 2019 in Ukraine, the fateful Law «On Amendments to the Constitution of Ukraine (regarding the strategic course of the state to acquire the full membership of Ukraine in the European Union and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization)» was adopted. This legislative act enshrines changes to the Constitution of Ukraine, which confirm the European identity of the Ukrainian people and the irreversibility of the European and Euro-Atlantic course of Ukraine. Ensuring equal rights and opportunities for men and women, the fight against discrimination is one of the main directions of state policy in Ukraine in the context of the course on European and Euro-Atlantic integration. This approach causes the mobilization of Russian «doctrinal thinkers» to develop a new wave of semantic war, which, according to their plan, should affect the value reference points of the Ukrainian society by manipulating the meanings of European values. The purpose of the article is to analyze the current manifestations of the use of the gender issue in the manipulation of the public Ukrainian consciousness, to review the ways of creating state stability in the context of a hybrid war, during which cognitive weapons are used. The author analyzes the latest research on the topic of gender equality manipulation; determines the roots, sources and content of the manipulations; describes the subjects, channels of influence through which the manipulations of the gender equality issue and the level of threat to European integration processes in Ukraine are used; determines the ways of forming the stability of the Ukrainian state and society under the conditions of a hybrid war in the context of the prospects to implement the course set in the Constitution of Ukraine for the European and Euro-Atlantic integration. The effectiveness of countering gender-based manipulation is ensured by legal, informational, communicative measures, as well as the publication of the content of manipulative technologies used by the Russian Federation to discredit the development of gender equality policies in Ukraine. Among such technologies, the author highlights the use of social stereotypes as universal tools for the recognition and transmission of socially significant information; the introduction of anti-gender content; the counteraction to gender education. The author comes to the conclusion that it is vitally important in Ukraine to introduce the effective mechanisms for informing various target audiences that gender equality is the equality of women and men in rights and freedoms; the equality of women and men in duties; the equality of women and men in responsibility; the equality of women and men in opportunities and chances of their realization. Key words: gender equality, cognitive war, manipulation of gender meanings, gender education.