Ukranian Feminist Workshop: "After 24 February, we've faced many difficult questions"

Could you please tell us a bit about yourselves?
The Feminist Workshop was formed in 2014 as an initiative created to unite feminists and activists and spread knowledge about feminism and gender equality. We started working specifically with educational projects. We also created content about feminism and initiated projects aimed at strengthening female activists and implementing feminist projects together.
How has your organizational work changed with the war?
How does being a feminist organization resonate with Ukrainian society?
The older generation and men are a completely different audience. They are more prejudiced towards feminism. The situation depends a lot on political views. Feminism is often supported by male activists from friendly movements, like the LGBT community, and people who support ecological and liberal views and movements. Most active opponents are men from right-wing movements.
1. Reform old structures for international peace
Advocate not only for fighting against military aggression, but also for prevention the possibility of imperial states such as Russia and others, to attack the sovereignty of other states. For ages we’ve been fighting for our own state and boundaries. For us, this cruel war is not a coincidence, not a surprise. But for the whole world it’s time to recognize that dependence on cheap resources and allowing the maintenance of nuclear weapon can lead to big wars. The structures for peace that were developed after the Second World War are not helping any longer. We need to develop better solutions for global peace. This will be best for civil society in Ukraine and in fact for all of Ukrainian’s society.
2. Support for a diverse civil society
Support grassroots initiatives and volunteers. In times of active military actions society functions in a very different way. We need to be very quick and flexible in our responses, in aiding and in rebuilding new structures. Grassroot structures are essential to this and actually do most of the work. Women, youth, queers, people of color are a big part of these movements. But they are not visible, they don’t have PR departments. To build a new diverse and strong civil society we need to recognize different efforts and different actors.
3. Value local experts and efforts
Speaking about International organizations. While fighting against Russian colonialism it has become clearer to us how post-colonial relationships in Europe deepens economic inequality and justify the gap between rich and poor.
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