The rally for women’s rights promoting gender equality and condemning violence has drawn a diverse audience of both women and men, including from the LGBTQ community in central Kyiv on March 8.
The Women’s March was organized by the Kyiv-based LGBTQ non-profit Insight and the Ukrainian Women’s Fund.
According to the organizers, around 2,000 people have attended the event.
“We are uniting for a common goal: to strengthen the voice of women and our visibility in society. We will no longer tolerate supremacy, contempt, sexism, sexual objectification, and violence. Our needs are not ‘women’s issues,’ as we often hear from officials, the media, and society as a whole. Our needs are integral human rights,” one of the organizers said before the rally has started.
The rally’s participants marched in Kyiv downtown to promote gender equality, the rights of the LGBTQ community and the ratification of the Istanbul Convention, the Council of Europe’s agreement on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence.
The participants carried placards condemning the patriarchal system in Ukraine and violence against women, with writings like: “Burn the patriarchate,” “My body is my business,” “No tolerance for harassment,” “Woman is not a commodity” and “Woman is a person, not an incubator.”
One of the participants, Oleksandra Shurubura says that Ukrainians used to celebrate International Women’s Day as a holiday dedicated to spring and femininity. However, she says she now realizes that it was a quite sexist approach.
“This is a day of solidarity and equality,” Shurubura told the Kyiv Post.
Communication Officer of United Nations Woman in Ukraine Narmina Strishenets also joined the Women’s March.
She says that around the world, March 8 is the day of protests for equality of rights and opportunities. She says that it’s important to change the image of feminism in Ukraine.
“Thanks to feminists we (women) have access to education, health protection, the right to vote,” Strishenets told the Kyiv Post. “It is so important to explain the meaning of feminism and the real meaning of this day to our (Ukrainian) society.”
But not everyone agreed with the rally’s slogans: Dozens have gathered to stand up for the so-called traditional family values and against feminism.
A couple of men, allegedly members of far-right organizations, tried to provoke the rally’s participants. At least two men were quickly detained by the police, as numerous law enforcement officers defended the protesters during the rally.
Some protesters carried posters with slogans condemning the government policy against gay people, and the statements of Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine Oleksandr Turchynov in particular. He recently made offensive comments regarding LGBTQ people criticizing them for “propaganda of immorality” and advocated for “traditional family values.”
Violetta Tarasenko came to the rally with a poster reading: “Inflicted traditional family values hinder the development of personality and peace.”
She believes that the propaganda of traditional values will not increase Ukraine’s population, as Turchynov wants it.
“It’s so inhuman to consider a family as only a man and a woman, denying our diversity,” Tarasenko told the Kyiv Post. “I think that only economic stability can raise birth rate in Ukraine.”
Each year on March 8, more than 100 countries celebrate International Women’s Day, a day set aside to recognize the achievements of women around the world. First observed in the U.S. in 1909 as National Woman’s Day, the holiday has grown into a global salute to women since the United Nations officially declared March 8 the International Women’s Day in 1975.
