Introduction
As Russia has attempted to regain its position as a global power under Vladimir Putin's second stint as president, it has accompanied its military interventions in neighbouring countries with the use of soft power to expand its sphere of influence in the neighbourhood.Footnote 1 Putin has branded Russia as the defender of ‘traditional values’ in a world that has fallen prey to immoral, liberal ideologies. As such, Russia embodies the emergence of a new type of gender norm entrepreneur on the international stage, which, contrary to the liberal gender norm actors that have traditionally dominated this space, casts its engagement in illiberal, radical right-wing (RRW) populist terms. This development has sparked the interest of mainstreamFootnote 2 and feminist International Relations scholars and experts alike.Footnote 3 As a result, over the last five years a small, but growing body of publications concerning or referring to Russia's use of gender norms as a foreign policy tool has emerged. Nevertheless, gaps remain in this body of literature. One of these gaps constitutes the lack of research on the responses of defenders of women's rights and gender equality both in the West and in states at the centre of Russian influence, such as Ukraine.
Focusing on the failed ratification process of the Istanbul Convention in Ukraine, this article expands the focus, taking into account the EU's, and conservative and progressive domestic actors’ responses to the promotion of anti-gender ideology in Ukraine. Relying on interviews with relevant actors in Brussels and Kiev,Footnote 4 this offers a more comprehensive assessment of the impact that the idea that gender values are connected to certain geographical areas – a notion this article refers to as geographical value spaces – has on the advancement of gender equality. More specifically, it aims to provide insight into the consequences/desirability of the framing of the fight against violence against women (VAW) as either a European or Ukrainian affair.
Radical right-wing populism, traditional gender norms, and Russia's opposition against the Istanbul Convention
This section discusses how Russia's promotion of traditional gender justice norms in general, and its opposition to the Istanbul Convention in particular, are emblematic of a RRW populist foreign policy, which uses these values to curb the EU's influence in eastern Europe. With the rise of RRW populism across the globe, and the adoption of gender norms as a useful tool for alliance building by some of its proponents, a new type of player has entered the stage of global gender politics: the promoter of ‘traditional’ gender norms. Depending on national specifics, these actors have opposed: ‘LGBT rights, reproductive rights, sex and gender education in schools, gender itself (as meant in gender violence, gender studies and gender mainstreaming).’Footnote 5 Efforts aimed at promoting any of these issues have been described by RRW actors as emblematic of ‘gender ideology’. RRW populist actors’ attempts to curb advances in this regard have therefore been described as ‘anti-gender’ campaigns.Footnote 6
Not all RRW populist actors espouse anti-gender ideology, and actors who use anti-gender ideology to achieve political goals are not necessarily RRW populists.Footnote 7 Nevertheless, in certain parts of Europe – and in the US – RRW populist actors have been the core or dominant drivers of anti-gender ideology. Russia is a core example of an actor that has used the promotion of anti-gender ideology for RRW populist purposes. As the EU has embraced the image of a liberal defender of women's rights, Russia has used gender norms to create a normative distinction between itself and the EU, as part of a competition over the shared neighbourhood.Footnote 8 Russia depicts ‘traditional values’ as inherently Russian, contrary to the liberal gender norms promoted by ‘the West’, specifically the EU, or what Russian backers of anti-gender ideology like to refer to as ‘Gayropa’.Footnote 9
In 2015 Russia went as far as ‘securitising’ traditional values,Footnote 10 by identifying their preservation and development as a long-term national security interest in its National Security Strategy. According to this document one of the main threats to public security is activities
focused on destroying the unity and territorial integrity of the Russian Federation, destabilizing the domestic political and social situation – including through inciting ‘color revolutions’ – and destroying traditional Russian religious and moral values.Footnote 11
Kristina Stoeckl has found that the Russian Orthodox Church has been a leader of the promotion of ‘Russian values’ at home and abroad.Footnote 12 Patriarch Kirill, the leader of the Russian Orthodox Church, has also continuously emphasised the EU's ‘moral relativism’ as the key threat to the EU's and the whole of Europe's security.Footnote 13 Under his supervision the Church has engaged in bilateral and multilateral diplomacy targeted at other Church leaders as well as states and international institutions. Since 2010, bodies responsible for the management of external relations of various national branches of the Orthodox Church have rapidly spread across Europe. These bodies have united in the Committee of Representatives of the Orthodox Churches to the European Union (CROCEU). In addition to the diplomatic efforts of the Russian Orthodox Church, Russia has also supported ‘grassroots’ civil society associations that advocate against gender ideology.Footnote 14
One concrete issue that has become the target of Russia's anti-gender ideology crusade is the Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence (also known as the Istanbul Convention).Footnote 15 The Istanbul Convention is the first legally binding international treaty that criminalises violence against women. It puts State Parties under a positive obligation to fully address VAW in all its dimensions, which means that they can be held accountable in case of a failure to adopt measures to prevent violence against women, to protect its victims, and to prosecute its perpetrators.Footnote 16 Being A Council of Europe instrument, it is open to ratification to all countries on the European continent including Russia and Ukraine. As noted, Russia is strongly opposed to this document: this opposition is rooted in the document's use of the term ‘gender’.Footnote 17 The Istanbul Convention defines gender as ‘the socially constructed roles, behaviours, activities, and attributes that a given society considers appropriate for women and men’ (Article 3), and clearly states that it considers violence against women to be gender-based violence, meaning that it understands that women become victim of this type of violence because they are women. Russia's opposition is born out of the fact that some of the preventive measures the Istanbul Convention propose focus on addressing traditional gender roles and gender stereotypes. In this regard a 2017 CROCEU statement posited that:
Being aware of the fact that the protection of women from domestic violence and other forms of violence needs effective legal tools and measures to be dealt with, CROCEU welcomes the intention of the signing parties of the Convention to provide a legally binding document aimed to create a common comprehensive framework in this area.
CROCEU, however, expresses serious concerns about the introduction into the text of the Convention of a new legal term, namely ‘gender’ and other terms related to it.
There is a strong reason to believe that the Convention could be used as the first step towards future attempts to legalise the notions of ‘gender’ and ‘gender identity’ in the context, which would contradict the biblical teaching about men and women and relations between them (‘slippery slope argument’).Footnote 18
As discussed below, for Russia it is not enough to prevent the slope from slipping at home. Convincing other eastern European countries from ratifying the Istanbul Convention has become an integral component of the religious diplomacy and other types of foreign policy interventions discussed above.
The EU geographical value space and the Istanbul Convention in Ukraine in theory
The notion that the EU promotes immoral gender norms is central to Russia's gender norm entrepreneurship. This section finds that when it comes to the Istanbul Convention the EU has indeed become an increasingly vocal proponent of this document, describing it as integral to its value system. As Ukraine, in the wake of Maidan, has embarked on a path towards closer EU integration, ratification of the Istanbul would have be a strong signal of its commitment to this goal.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Ukraine gained independence and embarked on a path to democracy. Nevertheless, for much of this period, the country's economy and politics remained strongly intertwined with Russia.Footnote 19 This interdependence ended in 2014 when President Yanukovych's last minute refusal to sign an agreement to facilitate the creation of closer ties with the EU sparked the Euromaidan protests.Footnote 20 While Russian pressure had been at the root of Yanukovych's abrupt rejection of the EU Association agreement, the Euromaidan protests eventually resulted in his ousting. Ukraine cloaked the political transition that followed Russophobe, Europe-centred rhetoric, such as President Poroshenko's allusions that ‘nothing can stand between Ukraine and its European ambitions’.Footnote 21
Ukraine's European ambitions include a desire to embrace what is commonly referred to in the Ukrainian context as ‘European values’.Footnote 22 While feminist scholars have contested the use of the term ‘European values’ for its colonial connotations,Footnote 23 since the Euromaidan the EU has been conceived of as a ‘value space’ by Ukrainian citizens.Footnote 24 This claim is supported by surveys that show that Ukrainians who are in favour of closer integration with the EU strongly support the founding principles of the EU being respect for human dignity, freedom, democracy, the rule of law, and – a particularly important one in the context of this article – equality.Footnote 25
Ukraine signed the Istanbul Convention in 2011, and ratification would have been a strong signal of its commitment to European values. Whereas Russia has presented itself as the main detractor of the Istanbul Convention and the values it represents on the European continent, the EU's leadership has increasingly turned out as a principal defender of this document. In 2017, the year that the Commission dedicated to fighting violence against women, the Council decided in favour of the EU signing the Istanbul Convention. On this occasion first Vice-President Frans Timmermans and Commissioner Věra Jourová emphasised the importance of the Istanbul Convention for the EU, stating that:
The Council's decision today is a significant step towards the EU becoming – along with its Member States – a full party to the Convention preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence (the Istanbul Convention). This is the first binding and comprehensive international instrument in Europe that addresses violence against women.
The signing of the Istanbul Convention sends out an important political signal during the year the Commission dedicated 2017 to fighting violence against women: the EU is committed to putting an end to violence against women.Footnote 26
Ratification would also have been urgent from a purely feminist perspective, as at that point Ukraine's legislative framework did not recognise domestic violence as a crime. Moreover, as the conflict in eastern Ukraine resulted in increased levels of VAW across the country,Footnote 27 and the occurrence of conflict-related sexual and gender-based violence in Donbas,Footnote 28 ratification would contribute to addressing a persistent, pervasive, and intensifying problem.Footnote 29
Ratification of the Istanbul Convention by the Ukrainian parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, was foreseen to go hand in hand with signing into law a set of bills that would amend existing Ukrainian legislation in order to bring it in accordance with the provisions of the Istanbul Convention. However, in 2016 the parliament voted against ratification: instead, it settled the matter by adopting legislation that criminalised domestic violence and recognised sex without consent as rape in 2017.Footnote 30 However, this legislation did not put in place many of the other guarantees of the Istanbul Convention particularly those aimed at ‘tackling the prevention of violence against women strategically and in longer-term and by creating the necessary institutional mechanisms and supporting multi-agency coordination (Articles 7 and 10 of the Istanbul Convention)’.Footnote 31 This course of affairs constitutes a significant blow to the feminist cause; moreover it also raises questions about Ukraine's commitment to the notion of ‘European values’.
The European geographical value space and the failed ratification of the Istanbul Convention in practice: a value paradox?
In Ukraine some of the strongest opponents of the Istanbul Convention have simultaneously strongly condemned Russian influence in and expressed favour towards European values. This provides the impression that Ukraine is experiencing a value paradox on its path towards closer integration with Europe. Resistance against the Istanbul Convention's ratification in Ukraine has been driven by powerful domestic actors, most notably the Ukrainian Council of Churches.Footnote 32 This opposition is rooted in the belief that recognising and addressing the negative implications of traditional gender roles would threaten social stability by undermining the natural order between men and women and the sacrosanctity of heterosexual marriage. This is reflected in public statements that posit that:
Such a twisted approach … can make the Istanbul Convention an instrument for popularizing new ‘gender roles’ and same-sex relations in Ukrainian schools and universities, which would be a disastrous way for Ukraine.Footnote 33
As such, the Ukrainian Council of Churches’ rhetoric on the Istanbul Convention is reminiscent of Russia's traditionalist vision on gender. Before the eruption of Euromaidan, Russian Orthodox leader Patriarch Kirill was reported to engage in outreach activities targeted at conservative Ukrainian women focusing on the negative influence of feminism:
Speaking to a meeting of the Union of Orthodox Ukrainian Women in Moscow, Kirill slammed feminism for leading women to look beyond the traditional family for fulfilment. According to Kirill, women are first and foremost ‘the guardians of the family fire, the centre of family life”. He accused feminism of being opposed to ‘family values’.Footnote 34
In addition, Ukrainian women's rights defenders indicated in interviews that in recent years they had noticed a surge of conservative groups that called themselves ‘parents’ committees’, which had disseminated propaganda against the Istanbul Convention.Footnote 35 When it comes to these organisations’ ties to Russia, Strelnyk notes that the All Ukrainians’ Parents Committee, Ukraine's leading conservative parents’ group, ‘is officially registered as a charitable organization that sustains itself from donations and voluntary contributions, but [that] it is difficult to discern to what extent people support the organization financially’.Footnote 36 However, a recent in-depth investigation by the Southern Poverty Law Centre demonstrated strong ties between Russian oligarchs close to Putin and the All Ukrainians’ Parents Committee, a finding supported by an interviewee who was convinced that Russia had financed these organisations.Footnote 37, Footnote 38
In October 2013, just before President Yanukovych was presumed to sign the EU-Association agreement, the World Congress of Families, a US organisation that promotes ‘Christian values’, published a press release, stating:
The Ukrainian leaders expressed concern about the pressure brought to bear on their nation to accede to the homosexual agenda (including ‘gay marriage’) as a condition for membership in the European Union.Footnote 39
This statement followed in the wake of a WCF trip to Ukraine to lobby the All Ukrainians’ Parents Committee and a selection of Ukrainian parliamentarians. Soon afterwards, the All Ukrainians’ Parents Committee repeated this language in a statement of its own, which read:
We oppose the signing of the association agreement with the EU, because it will lead to the inevitable homosexualizing of Ukraine.Footnote 40
What is remarkable is that the rejection of the Istanbul Convention coincided with a period in which Ukraine-Russia relations, including those at the religious level, were at an all-time low. Some of the strongest Ukrainian detractors of the Istanbul Convention also happen to be those most strongly opposed against Russian interference in Ukraine. The Ukrainian Orthodox Church for instance has completely cut off ties with the Moscow Patriarchate after having been part of one Church for centuries.Footnote 41 The then Ukrainian President Poroshenko identified this development as part of Ukraine's ‘pro-European and pro-Ukrainian state strategy’,Footnote 42 and he described Moscow's loss of control as ‘the fall of the “third Rome” as the most ancient conceptual claim of Moscow for global domination’.Footnote 43
Ukraine thus seems to be embroiled in a rather paradoxical situation where a desire to move in the direction of the EU goes hand in hand with the rejection of values that are – supposedly – central to the EU's identity. Moreover, while one could argue that these patriarchal worldviews are inherent to most religious institutions, one would expect political elites committed to closer EU integration to distance themselves from these values. Not in Ukraine, however. President Poroshenko's 2019 campaign slogan ‘Army, language, faith’, signified the importance that religion and religious rhetoric played in his (failed) re-election bid.Footnote 44 This raises the question of how Ukraine's religious and political elites reconcile their pro-Europe and pro-EU language with their – apparent – adherence to traditionalist societal views. The subsequent section will reflect in more depth on the factors that allowed for this paradox to exist looking both into the justifications of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church and the role of Ukrainian Presidency and EU elites as enablers of this vision.
The value paradox as a signifier of the fragility of the notion of ‘European values’
In order to mitigate this value paradox, Ukrainian detractors of the Istanbul Convention had to engage in creative interpretation in order to reconcile their desire for closer EU integration with preservation of values reminiscent of those Russia has been promoting in eastern Europe. However, for this fiction to continue to exist, the EU had to turn a blind eye on Ukraine's failure to live up to its European ambitions when it comes to gender equality. Interviews with EU officials provide the impression the EU did so in view of the need to advance other foreign policy interests. Such impression not only suggests the fragile character of ‘European values’ as such, but also the danger of casting the fight for gender equality in eastern Europe in terms of Russian vs European values.
Emily Channell-Justice's research on female activists who participated in Euromaidan suggests that Ukraine's embrace of ‘Europe’ during the Maidan served more to signify what Ukrainians did not want Ukraine to be – that is, closely intertwined with Russia – than what Ukraine should be.
Discourses about Europe that gained traction during the Euromaidan mobilizations were used to establish a specific vision of Ukraine as not Russian (and therefore not Soviet) rather than being a realistic interpretation of European reality.Footnote 45
This suggests that for some Ukrainian actors the adoption of Europe-centred rhetoric by (patriarchal) Ukrainian actors only serves the pursuance of other interests. The amenability of European values has allowed opponents of liberal gender values to justify this paradox, while the lack of real commitment to their promotion on behalf of those who present themselves as their defenders, has allowed this reality to persist.
The Ukrainian Council of Churches has argued that there is no paradox, as in their understanding, traditionalist values are European values. In this regard Ukrainian Patriarch Filaret has, for example, stated that: ‘It is precisely because Ukraine is a part of Europe that we believe our people have no fewer rights than other peoples to maintain their own identity within the European family and to adhere to traditional spiritual and cultural values.’Footnote 46 A joint statement by the Council of Churches, issued before the eruption of Euromaidan, even suggested that Ukraine should join hands with like-minded actors to promote these ideas in Europe:
It is clear that modern united Europe has achieved much, but there is still much that needs to be changed or corrected as in our own Ukrainian home. Traditional religious, cultural, family and moral values, which for centuries have served as the basis for life of the peoples of Europe, are a precious treasure which we should work together to value, protect, defend and multiply.Footnote 47
This mindset has been at the root of the previously discussed advocacy efforts directed towards the Council of Europe, aimed at removing ‘gender ideology’ from the Istanbul Convention.Footnote 48 This demonstrates that the concept of European values, while traditionally associated by both proponents as well as detractors with a liberal worldview, is sufficiently amenable to be appropriated for illiberal purposes as well.
Former President Poroshenko opted for the selective interpretation and invocation of ‘European values’ depending on the audience he is addressing. Even though patriarchal institutions dominated his recent electoral campaign rhetoric, he also emphasised the importance of ratification of the Istanbul Convention at the Second Ukrainian Women's Congress that took place in December 2018. The Council of Europe reports that during the plenary session President Poroshenko called on the Verkhovna Rada to ratify the Istanbul Convention, stating that:
I would like to absolutely clearly insist and call to make everything possible to complete inter-state procedures and ratify the convention. Why not bringing it [on the agenda] of the nearest session of the Verkhovna Rada? … We signed it as early as 2011. As of today, some 33 nations have ratified it, and I regret to say it that there are still some certain manipulations about this topic in our society, including the understanding of the term gender.Footnote 49
Ukrainian actors have thus managed the value paradox through a mixture of denying the validity of commonly held perceptions of European values or by employment of double speak adjusted to the audience that is listening. While this might be effective in the national context, one would expect the EU – presumably the arbiter of these values – to come in between.
The creative interpretation of what ‘European values’ stand for and/or their arbitrary invocation, however, has been facilitated by the EU's own ambivalence towards the promotion of women's rights and gender equality in Ukraine. On paper, the EU's commitment to the promotion of women's rights in Ukraine has been robust. As mentioned, over the recent years the EU and its representatives have continuously emphasised the importance of gender equality in general and the ratification of the Istanbul Convention in particular. Gender equality also is a central principle underpinning the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement.Footnote 50 Interviews with EU officials in Brussels and Ukraine confirm that ratification of the Istanbul Convention has been the EU's priority issue in Ukraine in the area of women's rights promotion.Footnote 51 This raises the expectation that both before as well as in the wake of the failed attempt to ratify the Istanbul Convention, the EU must have been engaged in significant efforts to change the visions of both those in power, as well as the Ukrainian population at large, on the Istanbul Convention. This could include financial support for advocacy in favour of the Istanbul Convention, diplomatic efforts, and the rendering of other types of support conditional upon ratification of the Istanbul Convention. Since the EU has provided Ukraine with ‘unprecedented assistance’ since Euromaidan, it seems to have both the means as well as the political leverage to turn the tide for the Istanbul Convention.
Publicly, the EEAS Principal Advisor on Gender, Ambassador Mara Marinaki, called upon Ukraine to ratify the Istanbul Convention during her visit to the country in April 2017.Footnote 52 During fieldwork in Brussels in June 2017, and in Kiev between October and December 2017 EU representatives indicated that they had consistently raised the issue in political dialogues with the Ukrainian authorities before and in the aftermath of the Verkhovna Rada's failure to ratify the document. However, the EU did not allocate funding to local projects that address this goal until 2018.Footnote 53 This means that in the period running up to the actual vote for ratification, and for two years after it, the EU did not provide any tangible financial support to awareness raising and/or advocacy efforts that could have influenced public opinion on the Convention.Footnote 54 Moreover, no high-level EU functionaries, for whom gender is not their daily preoccupation, denounced Ukraine's failure to ratify the Convention, strengthening the impression that women's rights did not figure among the core values, or at the very least priorities, the EU is trying to promote in Ukraine.
This impression was confirmed during interviews by representatives of both other international, as well as local, organisations working on women's rights in general, and the Istanbul Convention specifically in Ukraine. Asked about the EU's contribution to the fight for the ratification of the Istanbul Convention, the gender advisor of another international actor active in Ukraine exasperatedly replied: ‘The EU – what do they do? I don't know, to be honest’.’Footnote 55 Ukrainian civil society representatives also complained about both the EU's failure to commit funding to advocacy and awareness raising, as well as its near total invisibility. Comparing the public outreach on the Istanbul Convention conducted by the EU and the Council of Europe, one interviewee remarked in this regard:
Мårten [Representative of the Secretary General in charge of the co-ordination of the co-operation programmes in Ukraine], he is everywhere: in the parliament; he has small meetings, he was in Budapest, elsewhere, and he is always speaking in a very inspiring and simple fashion. He meets with different people. One day he can meet with the parliament or the president, and the other day with grassroots organisations. And this shows that international organisations do work, and compared to that the EU looks really bad. The EU looks like ‘we are closed, we are very closed, we don't do anything, maybe sometimes we give money’.Footnote 56
Others criticised the diplomatic efforts the EU did undertake as too insignificant. For instance, when questioned about the impact of Mara Marinaki's visit to Ukraine, one representative of a Ukrainian women's rights NGO mentioned that the radio station where she appeared for an interview was a very niche station not listened to by many Ukrainians.Footnote 57 Another prominent Ukrainian women's rights defender indicated she was not aware that Ambassador Marinaki had visited Ukraine:
E: And do you think that the visit of the Principal Advisor on Gender, Ms Marinaki, that was this year, right?
I: I don't know, I don't remember. So many events, I …
E: Ah, okay, but that didn't make a big impact?
I: No, no, no. You know, a visit of any kind of important person makes sense and impact only if during the visit of this person something happens, what confirms this importance, like signing of some documents. If not, it is just process, not result.Footnote 58
Thus, whereas Russia has significantly invested in the consolidation of its normative influence in Ukraine through both (religious) diplomacy as well as funding for conservative civil society groups, the EU has largely failed to take similar action to promote its own values at both the diplomatic and programmatic level. This raises questions about the EU's commitment to the promotion of gender equality in Ukraine.
EU interviewees suggested that while ratification of the Istanbul Convention is the EU's number one priority in the field of women's rights in Ukraine, it is not one of the EU's many priorities in Ukraine.Footnote 59 One EU official, for instance, stated:
And then, very quickly, when we would like to raise an issue or push, for example, for the ratification of the Istanbul Convention, our leadership says: ‘Well what is the legal basis for that, we already have a lot of contentious issues, do we really need to add this too?’. That is one side, and on the Ukrainian side they are getting hammered with loads of stuff they need to do and are not doing. So they are also a bit allergic to yet another issue.Footnote 60
Asked about the reasons behind the EU's exclusive reliance on gender mainstreaming rather than a combination of gender mainstreaming and the allocation of targeted resources to support for women's rights, the gender focal point in the EU Delegation in Kiev replied that it is ‘better, really to mainstream, to make sure that the gender component is ensured in all our policies, in all our assistance that is coming up, the new assistance let's say from 2018 to 2022, because it is going to touch upon the education, upon the governance, judiciary etc., etc.’ However, she also indicated that:
It is rather … Again, it is a question of where you want to put the money on. For the time being, we are thinking that we have to really invest in the reforms. We have to invest in the Association Agreement to make this country more prosperous, more stable and so on, again the fight against corruption and all those issues, but without leaving gender you know completely aside. I mean, we understand that we also have to integrate this perspective in. So I think for the benefit of the country it is better to have it incorporated than having it as a separate priority.Footnote 61
This might be the case if gender mainstreaming was systematically implemented, but the wording ‘but without leaving gender you know completely aside’, implies that within the EU Delegation in Kiev supporting gender equality and women's rights – through gender mainstreaming – is not a priority issue. Moreover, during political dialogues the Istanbul Convention has not been singled out as a priority issue and the obtaining of further EU macro-financial assistance or other types of benefits has not made conditional upon ratification of the Istanbul Convention. When it comes to the EU's fight against corruption in Ukraine, the establishment of a visa free regime between the EU and Ukraine was made conditional upon the adoption of a number of measures to combat corruption.Footnote 62
When asked about critiques on the EU's ineffective use of its leverage EU officials in Brussels insisted that as the ball was in the Verkhovna Rada's court, there was not much that the EU could do. However, they also mentioned that the EU is a political body, which needs to look at the bigger picture:
There are a lot of forces at play, and the EU is involved in loads of reform processes in Ukraine. The EU cannot just be tough on Ukraine in order to safeguard future cooperation. Moreover, we also need to acknowledge that Ukraine cannot do everything at once. The EU does use conditionality, but in a smart way.Footnote 63
This type of statement suggests that for the EU, promotion of European values, and gender equality in particular has been subjugated to advancing other – more important? reforms.
In the battle surrounding ratification of the Istanbul Convention in Ukraine Russia has most effectively invocated the notion of geographical value spaces. Not only has it most consistently acted upon its own values, but it has also benefited from the EU's inconsistent approach in this regard. More specifically, by continuing to provide the impression that European values and the Istanbul Convention is a priority, the EU provided fuel to Russia's RRW populist narrative that everything the EU is in favour of is bad. This could have been justified if the EU would subsequently have acted upon this rhetoric. However, as it did not do so, it seems that pledging commitment to ‘European values’ was counterproductive.
Ukrainising the fight for women's rights?
The notion that casting the fight for gender equality in Ukraine in terms of ‘European values’ is not reflective of reality and likely counterproductive has been confirmed by the response of domestic women's rights defenders. Many have denounced the idea of describing Ukraine's fight for gender equality in terms of a move towards Europe either out of disappointment with the EU's actual support for this cause, or concerns about alienating more Eurosceptic Ukrainians. Feminist activists have tried to ‘Ukrainise’ the struggle for gender equality in different ways. In relation to the Istanbul Convention, some have suggested to drop gender terminology when advocating for legislation to combat VAW to make adoption of such measures more palpable to Ukrainian citizens.
When it comes to Ukraine's struggle for gender equality in the wake of the fall of the Soviet Union, Hrycak has argued that the openness of Ukrainian women's groups to Western influence and pro-Western political advocates has allowed them to operate effectively in the patriarchal, conservative environment of Ukraine. This notion that a move to the West presents an opportunity for a feminist awakening was reflected in the way feminist activists framed their struggle for equality during Maidan. Academic observers – and participators – of the Maidan have described feminist activists holding signs stating ‘Europe = equal wages for women’, ‘If you're afraid of gender, you can't be part of Europe’ and ‘Do you want to be part of Europe? Say no to sexism and homophobia’.Footnote 64 However, they have also reported disillusionment on behalf of Ukrainian feminists with the response of ‘Western’ actors to their issues, and surprise about the limited extent to which supposed allies understand the struggle of the Ukrainian feminist movement for equality post-Maidan.Footnote 65
Channell-Justice convincingly argues that this disillusionment was accompanied by a more pragmatic observation by Ukrainian feminist activists that if they wanted their message to resonate more with society at large they would have to frame it in a more nationalist vernacular and focus on women's contribution to the struggle for an independent Ukraine.Footnote 66 One way to forge this connection has been through a feminist focus on a woman's right to fight on an equal par with male combatants in the conflict in Donbass. Khromeychuk illustrates this by invoking Mariya Berlinska, a prominent feminist Maidan activist who joined the army to fight in Donbass, and who conveyed that she ‘is hopeful that the participation of women in the armed conflict in the East of Ukraine is likely to improve rather than aggravate the plight of Ukrainian women’. She thinks that ‘women's voices in society are becoming louder as a result of their engagement in the conflict’.Footnote 67
This vision is reflected in a surge of feminist research on women's role in and contribution to Ukraine's struggle for independence from Russia as a vehicle for emancipation.Footnote 68 Ukrainian feminist scholars and activists have directed significant energy towards examining women's participation in brigades during the Maidan and subsequently women's rights to participate on equal terms in the conflict in Donbass.Footnote 69 While this type of research was initially driven by the observation that women did not receive equal treatment in these endeavours,Footnote 70 significant advances have been made when it comes to the recognition of female soldiers in the conflict in the Donbass, signifying the effectiveness of a strategy that aligns women's rights with broader societal battles.Footnote 71
These types of more pragmatic approaches towards women's rights promotion in Ukraine have also been the topic of feminist critique. The tendency of some feminist activists and academics to focus on women's integration in the military has been questioned. In line with Cynthia Enloe's visions on militarisation,Footnote 72 commenters such as Mayerchyk have argued that focusing on women's role as combatants contributes to the normalisation of war:
Women participating in this initiative weren't able to come up with consistent war criticism, or to denounce the destructive role that military hierarchies play in peaceful resistance. In fact, they did quite the opposite: they attempted to ‘meet’ the male standards – power and barricades – and became themselves the mechanisms of reinforcing this androcentrism.Footnote 73
In line with this, O'Sullivan has questioned the practical dividends this approach has yielded for women, highlighting the imbalance between the high amount of energy that has been devoted by international and national actors to integrating women in the security sector – be it police or military – and the low level of commitment to targeted action aimed at promoting gender equality in society at large.Footnote 74 The investment of significant levels of feminist energy in examining women's role in the military, and the embrace of militaristic language by Ukrainian feminist activists might make these actors feel legitimate in their choice of prioritising female participation in these endeavours. In these cases, the ‘Ukrainisation’ of the feminist agenda therefore might have consequences that refute the ideals that are at the core of feminist thought.
Nevertheless, in relation to the struggle against VAW some interviewees argued that it might be desirable to present these efforts in a vernacular that resonates with Ukrainians.Footnote 75 Practically, this entails staying clear of the gender language used in the Istanbul Convention and adopting a vocabulary that resonates with the Ukrainian population at large in broader advocacy efforts as well as (future) legislative texts put forward to enhance Ukraine's response to VAW. In the words of one Ukrainian feminist activist interviewed for this research:
Everyone tries to push ratification of the Istanbul Convention, but there are many factors that are not favourable this time to do it. The primary factor is the text of the Istanbul Convention itself. I have a lot of criticism in relation to it since its first day. It relates to language in draft laws that were prepared in in the framework of the ratification process. As I said, there was a gender equality law approved in Ukraine in 2005. It contains a description of gender equality, and we have this synonym that we use: the principle of equal rights and equal opportunities for women and men. I think it is good enough, but people who wrote the text of the draft law, they got rid of this term and added the term gender, but it is the same.Footnote 76
Certain activists and practitioners working on the fight against VAW also emphasised the importance of focusing on efforts aimed at sensitising medical professionals, police forces, and the judiciary to the issue of VAW that could be implemented without the Istanbul Convention having been ratified.Footnote 77 Here, the Ukrainian authorities have displayed a certain level of willingness to respond to the issue of violence against women in a fashion that does not touch upon the sensitivities of more conservative factions of society. As mentioned, instead of ratifying the Istanbul Convention, the parliament, for instance, criminalised domestic violence in the end of 2017, through a law that does not evoke the term ‘gender’. With the support of international agencies, the Ukrainian police have started to implement reforms aimed at improving its responsiveness to the issue of domestic violence.Footnote 78
However, other interviewees opposed this more pragmatic attitude towards the fight against VAW and questioned the feminist credentials of feminist actors who are in favour of skipping gender language for pragmatic purposes. In this regard, one interviewee stated:
You probably already know that there has been a failed attempt to adopt national legislation on the implementation of the Istanbul Convention and that it is very much connected to the use of the concept of gender in the legislation. So I would say that for some activists and organisations the gender term is not so important, and they would agree removing it, provided that the substantial provisions of the law are implemented, but for others if we eliminate gender, if you cross it out of the legislation, it is a very principled thing, because it shows a structural step back in terms of the promotion of women's rights.Footnote 79
Most interviewees shared this position, highlighting the important role that stereotypes about women and the traditional division of labour between men and women in Ukraine play in perpetuating violence against women. The inclusion of the term ‘gender’ in the Istanbul Convention serves to acknowledge these obstacles. Removing it is equal to acknowledging that there is a problem without looking into the root causes of this problem.
I think we need to care about the political economy question; it is people facing multiple types of discriminations, and women facing multiple kinds of discrimination with a low level of income who are working all day or in illegal employment. They don't know what is a feminist, but they are very emancipated, and they are very active and progressive in practice, but they don't know what is feminism, what is the history of feminism, and they are just doing feminism, feminist practice, but know nothing about this. And in our meetings we try to explain where we are, how to call their work, and how their work connects with feminism.Footnote 80
Conclusion
Russia has constructed its promotion of traditional values, including traditional gender norms, around the existence of a European attack on its spiritual and cultural foundations. In this vein it has positioned its own traditional ‘Russian values’ as being in conflict with the EU's liberal ‘European values’. Gender equality is perceivably central to the latter, which explains why liberal gender norms have become central to Russia's anti-European narrative. Russian efforts aimed at prohibiting ratification of the Istanbul Convention, is a tangible example of this anti-gender attitude. As such, the discovery of gender values as a foreign policy tool by RRW populist actors has resulted in these values being discussed increasingly in geographical terms.
One would expect both the EU and Ukraine to engage in a counter-offensive by fully embracing the Istanbul Convention. However, based on interviews with relevant actors in Brussels and Kiev, this article has found that in Ukraine, powerful domestic adherents to the notion of ‘European values’ as well as the EU itself have not acted as to defend these values despite rhetoric that implies otherwise. Both the amenability of the term European values as well as a lack of serious insistence on these values on the EU's behalf has allowed Ukrainian actors to mitigate this apparent paradox.
What does this imply about the desirability of the invocation of geographical value spaces in the struggle for progressive gender norms? It should be noted that the EU's inaction on its own values in this context starkly contrasts with the approach taken by Russia, for which the promotion of traditionalist values has become a foreign policy interest in itself. Apparently it is easier to reconcile values with interests in a RRW populist foreign policy philosophy. Russia's opposition against the Istanbul Convention, however, is heavily dependent on the existence of an – imaginary – European value space. Therefore, the EU's invocation of European values without acting upon them has not only been empty, but also potentially harmful. In absence of tangible EU action to advance European values, it seems that the thing that the notion of ‘European values’ has done most successfully is fuelling Russia's case for the need for traditional gender norms.
Ukrainian feminist activists have therefore increasingly tried to present their fight for women's rights on Ukrainian terms, depicting them as integral to Ukraine's struggle for independence. This includes casting the fight against VAW in a vernacular that is palpable to local audiences, by not invoking the term ‘gender’. Such an approach can contribute to reducing the risk that gender justice agendas are sidelined because they are – mistakenly – understood to further foreign worldviews. However, in the Ukrainian context this article finds that it cans also contribute to a failure to address the root causes of the prevalence of high levels of VAW. Therefore, this article concludes that while in some cases connecting the fight for gender justice to geographical value spaces and narratives might contribute to quick gender justice gains, casting the fight against VAW in terms of Ukrainian values does not contribute much to advancing sustainable women's rights outcomes. As long as geographical value spaces are associated with and conditioned by patriarchal interests, their contribution to the feminist cause will either be limited or negative.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank the LSE Engenderings blog series for accepting and publishing my blog post ‘When “European values” do not count: Anti-gender ideology and the failure to comprehensively address GBV in Ukraine’, which first discussed the ideas that have been elaborated and explored in this article. I would also like to thank the reviewers and editors for their thorough feedback on earlier versions of this article. I am grateful to my PhD supervisors Professor Louise Mallinder and Eilish Rooney for providing me with support during the final editing phase.
