“We’re Not Just Sandwiches”: Europe, Nation, and Feminist (Im)Possibilities on Ukraine’s Maidan

Abstract

This article discusses Ukrainian feminists’ attempts to “vernacularize” feminism, to use Sally Engle Merry’s term, in the context of the 2013–14 mass mobilizations in Ukraine. Based on extensive participant observation during the entire span of the protests as well as on interviews with feminist activists, I suggest that feminists’ attempts to intervene in the mobilizations faced major challenges because of their consistent marginalization in Ukrainian political society since independence in 1991. While these protests began in order to show support for the idea of Ukraine as part of Europe, they eventually became focused on establishing an idealized, sovereign Ukrainian nation. Feminist activists presented their political discourses as more reflective of a progressive European reality than the majority of protesters did. However, because feminism has long been seen as a threat to national ideologies thanks to its grounding in both socialist and Western development, feminists were unable to make their position relatable to others in the mobilizations. As evidenced through ethnographic explorations of the protest camp, participants drew on specific narratives of historical, militarized masculinity that would support an idealized Ukrainian nation. This notion relied on gender roles that forced women to participate only as either the supporters of men or in militarized women’s self-defense brigades that mirrored those created by men. Ultimately, these limitations meant that feminists shifted their attempts to vernacularize feminism away from Europe and onto more localized initiatives to make feminism and women’s activism legible to contemporary Ukrainians.