Resistance strategies of Ukrainian women. Female dissidents, volunteers, refugees

Abstract

In this article, I present the issue of resistance activities in Ukraine in the context of everyday practices of building social support networks in the perspective of women’s experience. The analysis is based on biographical interviews of three categories of narrators: Ukrainian female dissidents from the 1960s–1980s, female volunteers from 2014–2016, and refugee women who arrived in Poland in the aftermath of full-scale Russian aggression against Ukraine in 2022–2023. I show how women acting in social (private) space cross the boundary of political (public) space. The analysis of the interviews provides the basis for an exploration of the specificity of resistance strategies and associated social support used by women. Dissident women’s resistance manifested itself in acts of everyday life, did not carry heroic traits and was easily forgotten. This type of resistance finds a continuation in the events surrounding the Russian-Ukrainian war starting in 2014. The role of women in the voluntary movement in the early years of the war is particularly significant. It was a movement that created a civil society and made possible the social change that continues and evolves to this day, even under conditions of full-scale warfare. This is also true of the refugee women who arrived in Poland, who undertook various activities in support of Ukrainian society and the army. These non-obvious forms of resistance, although overshadowed by direct military resistance, are worth exploring in the perspective of the future shape of Ukrainian society.