Illustrations: Lesia Mazanik
We recently spoke to a DIVOCHE.MEDIA journalist about our work. You can read the article about us below:
The NGO Feminist Workshop has been working for over 10 years to build a feminist community in Ukraine. The organization’s activists strive to improve the position of women in society, in particular to combat various forms of discrimination and violence. After the full-scale invasion, the Feminist Workshop’s activities expanded to include childcare, resettlement assistance, and support for elderly women.
DIVOCHE.MEDIA spoke to members of the Feminist Workshop to find out how the organization helps teenagers, their parents, and older people to create a safe space for living and socializing.
“Once I came to give a talk at a school and saw a notice for students on the wall of the classroom: How to protect yourself from crime. There were strange tips like not wearing provocative clothes, not talking loudly, not wearing makeup. I was speechless when I saw it. I came to give a lecture on violence and why it happens, and I came to tell the students that violence is not provoked by clothes or loud laughter. Violence happens when people have gender biases,” says Hanna Chyr, a legal expert at the Lviv-based NGO Feminist Workshop.
Hanna conducts educational meetings for young people (pupils, students), teachers, and parents: she talks about gender equality, consent to sexual interaction, and responsibility for violations of sexual freedom and inviolability. Usually, these lectures are comprehensive, with the participation of a psychologist and a gynecologist, who talk about the body and feelings, physiological maturation, and love. Hanna, a lawyer by training and profession, talks about important aspects of growing up from a legal point of view.
I don’t know if they took that poster down in the classroom,” she adds, “I tried to tell the teacher before the lecture, and during the lecture, I pointed it out to the kids: ‘Did you see what was up there? I explained to them that it was a wrong note. And after the lecture, I asked the teacher to take it down. I explained what the culture of victimization is and that it is very strange to talk about provoking violence. The teacher left the lecturer’s comment unanswered. When Hanna left the classroom, the note was still up.
The lecturers and specialists of the Feminist Workshop hold meetings for girls and boys without separating them into different audiences. They talk not only about adolescent physiology and first sex. They also discuss feminism and gender equality, cyberbullying, contraception and abortion rights, and gender bias and stereotypes. Hanna admits that when meetings with students are held regularly at a particular educational institution, qualitative changes are quickly noticeable: children and teenagers discuss the lectures and what they have heard during school breaks.
But even a single lecture can be an important stimulus for a child, and sometimes it can change his or her mind. Hanna recalls a student who started the lecture by saying that he wanted a son when he grew up because boys can fight: “And I came to talk about feminism and human rights! But I let this child speak anyway because I realized that his words came from the gender stereotype that men can fight because they are stronger and can take it. And when you explain to the person where these prejudices come from, and how dangerous such thoughts can be, the child begins to understand where these ‘boys can fight’ come from.
According to the expert, this is an echo of outdated ideas that still prevail in society: about boys who don’t cry, about men who don’t need sympathy, who shouldn’t be emotional or vulnerable.
Hanna says that when she begins to explain to the children where these thoughts come from, she finds that by the end of the lecture, a trusting relationship usually develops between her and the students, and even the biggest troublemakers in the back of the classroom become attentive listeners.
“During my talk, children ask me about masturbation, what to do if you are photographed from below in the school bathroom, and the teacher begins to apologize for the students being so open and naughty.
“At the beginning of the lesson, the children are usually very closed. During the lecture, I try to create as safe a space as possible so that they feel free to express themselves. I often find that for some of them, this is the first time a lecturer or teacher has allowed them to speak. In schools, especially public ones, there are often signs of punishment. What I don’t like the most is when teachers sit at the back of the classroom during lectures, and as soon as the children raise their hands, they growl at them: “Shhh! You can’t ask questions, sit quietly,” says Hanna, noting that this adult behavior does not encourage children to ask questions or seek answers.
The expert believes that a child should have the right to ask any question, even if it seems strange and inappropriate.
“When teachers immediately dismiss a child’s curiosity, it’s not good for anyone. It has happened that during a lecture children are very active, asking about masturbation, what to do if you are photographed from below in the school toilet, and the teacher begins to apologize for the students being so open and naughty,” Hanna continues.
That’s why, she explains, Feminist Workshop representatives do not limit themselves to lecturing exclusively to children or teenagers. The lecturers give courses both to the educational community and parents, teaching them how to talk to their children about growing up, sex, and relationships in a proper, competent, and appropriate way, without going to extremes: excessive secrecy or, on the contrary, excessive openness in conversations. But it is not only young people who benefit from the educational projects of the Feminist Workshop. The organization also supports the community of elderly women.
Yaryna Dehtyar, a member of the organization, recalls that on the eve of the full-scale invasion, the Feminist Workshop was planning to close down after nearly a decade of work. “At that time, there were problems with finances, motivation, and understanding where to go,” she admits, “but after February 24, all concerned people and organizations had to become as active as possible, and after the transformation, our humanitarian areas started working. We opened several shelters and started helping IDPs. We started to do something we had never done before – digital courses for elderly women. At first, it was only for IDPs in our shelters, but later we started inviting all adult women to participate.”
According to Yaryna, older women often did not have access to many of the services offered to IDPs because they simply did not know how to fill out a Google form or use Diia [a Ukrainian government app for digital services – TN]. So Feminist Workshop specialists began developing courses to teach women how to master the capabilities of a modern smartphone: how to use Viber, online banking, Diia, Google Maps, and various government services.
“In our shelters for IDP women, I was the administrator. And when I wanted to give some information to the 20 residents, I realized that I couldn’t physically go around them all because each of them had their own business, so it was easier to write it in a common chat. But barely 10% of our clients read the chat, which complicated the situation,” recalls Anastasia Zhabka, a digital literacy trainer at the NGO Feminist Workshop. “We also wanted to help these women find employment, so they could look for jobs – they needed a resume, and that included working with digital material.”
The first classes, recalls Kateryna Dovbnya, the crisis center’s coordinator, were held right in the shelter’s kitchen: “Someone was frying cutlets, and we taught the women how to put likes Viber.” After receiving its first training grant, the organization made its first official class. The students are over 60 years old.
Kateryna adds: “I see the effectiveness of the project in the fact that women come back to us and speak well of these courses. We are talking about women between the ages of 60 and 80. Our program starts with basic phone settings. First, we literally show them which side of the phone to talk on, which side to listen on, and end with ‘Diia’. The logic is that they need to understand how apps work, how the phone works, and that they shouldn’t be afraid of it – it’s just a thing that helps in life, it’s enough to understand how it works. And when I see that a person is able to turn on a series on YouTube, I am sincerely happy: “Wow, we made someone’s life a little bit better.” These are elderly people, many of them have no family, they are alone all day, but now they can watch their favorite movie or TV series”.
Kateryna believes that the students keep coming back, not because they are unable to complete the course, but because they need the classroom atmosphere they create. In addition, the Feminist Workshop offers women a variety of activities, from lectures by a nutritionist or dementia specialist to fitness and drawing classes.
“I try not to see our students as unhappy and frail old ladies who can no longer do anything in life. “These women are the first to break the stereotype of a haunted and uninteresting old age,” Anastasia notes. “Since more than 100 participants have taken our courses, I have not one or two examples of women over 80 who come to us and say: “I love life!” They are learning, making new friends, gaining new knowledge, and mastering new hobbies.”
“The biggest fear of women learning digital literacy is the fear of banking.”
So what are the older women who come to the Feminist Workshop’s digital courses really looking for: new knowledge, a friendly atmosphere, and people? The activists explain: “A little bit of everything. It is just as important for older women to learn how to navigate a Google Maps route to a concert hall with a free performance as it is to learn how to fill out applications for humanitarian aid. Communication is equally important, and according to Kateryna, it works both ways.
“I often think how cool it is to talk to older women because I can learn from them about life, have a rough idea of what life situations I can expect at 40, 50, 60 – of myself, of my body, of how society will treat me. I’ll be able to prepare myself. But in reality, there are not many active older women. Before the course, we distributed flyers and asked women: “What would you like to learn, what are you interested in now, where would you like to go?” and there were some who just ran away from us, and there were some who said: “I don’t care about any activities, this is the end of my life.” We had 140 women come to our class, which is not a lot for a city of millions in Lviv. But I think it’s because no one in our city has thought about how to engage an older person who doesn’t use the Internet because they don’t know how. And this is the group we want to continue working with, we will definitely come up with something and show them – there is something free and interesting for them in Lviv, and life does not end while it lasts,” says the crisis coordinator.
Kateryna admits that even she was surprised to discover what an invisible community older women really are. She recalls looking for a nutritionist who would be willing to talk about proper and healthy nutrition for the over-60s. She says it was a mission impossible.
“It seems that women in Ukraine live to be 40, and that’s it, there are no older people. Either you look for information about your health yourself, or you lie down and die. But in fact, women over 60 were very interested in our lectures on how the brain works in adulthood, how memory is lost, how to restore it, how to eat healthy, and what happens to the female genitals. In particular, there was a lecture on how to communicate with doctors and how to prove that if you feel bad physically, you should and can be treated, and that it is normal for an older person to feel good,” the expert adds.
However, one of the biggest fears of women who come to learn digital literacy is the fear of banking. Anastasia says that for many, “invisible money” is such an incomprehensible concept that it makes them anxious and worried.
“If it’s not cash that you can count, hold in your hands, and put under your mattress, it’s something very scary and unknown to these women, because they’re afraid that ‘fraudsters are lurking around me’. For them, every call from an unknown number is a potential fear of losing their pension. And the issue of money is very painful for older women because they don’t have much, and it’s about surviving on a meager pension that they need to feed themselves, buy warm shoes or a coat for the winter,” says the trainer.
“The Old Age I Don’t Want”
The Feminist Workshop plans to expand its digital learning course to include computer skills. For many women, this will be a potential opportunity to find a relatively affordable and physically easy job that they can do from home, especially if they no longer have the physical ability to work full-time as cleaners or do heavy physical labor.
Seeing the challenges that digital course participants face makes activists think about their own old age when it comes.
“I don’t want a poor old age,” Anastasia shares her thoughts. “I feel that the participants of our courses are not so much deceived women, but women who were promised a lot. They were promised that if you work three shifts, raise children, and devote your whole life to your family, then sooner or later this life will bear fruit and you will be loved and taken care of in your old age. And then real life happens, and you are left without the means to survive in some shelter in a city you don’t know. I don’t know if I can protect myself from such an old age. But it motivates me not to deceive myself with unnecessary promises and hopes.
“What kind of old age do I want for myself?” Kateryna thinks, “The kind where I have to prove that I am a human being, even in my old age. And that I deserve a normal and dignified attitude. I don’t know what the world will be like, maybe I will go to some training courses myself. Sometimes I get the impression that our task in these trainings is to “fit” women into this world that is no longer made for them. Because I feel that they are trying to fit in, but many of them are not very successful. I don’t know what I will be like when I am old, but I would like to feel that this world is for me too.
“In my old age, I see myself involved in some kind of social activity,” Yaryna smiles, “I’ll be a grumpy old lady who won’t sit still, but will be involved in contributing to the community. At least I hope so.
