Feminism in Ukraine generates rejection. Inna, who has made history in her company by being the first woman to occupy a position until now reserved for men, frowns when asked if she is a feminist. “No, no,” she responds, rejecting the label, which for her has a charge of aggressiveness. This engineer is leading, however, the first stammering steps on the country’s path towards equality in the workplace. The labor shortage caused by the war is driving legislative changes and training programs to hire workers like her in masculinized professions.
The Deputy Minister of Economy, Tetiana Berezhna, explains that “due to the mobilization of men, there is a shortage of personnel in construction, industrial production, the agricultural sector, etc.” As he details, the country needs “women to replace men in production.”
The bleeding of the Ukrainian labor market due to the large-scale Russian invasion—in the form of refugees, civilians converted into soldiers, and soldiers who fell or were injured on the battlefield—is seeding the country with pioneers, as a collateral benefit. The first subway driver, the first bus drivers, truck drivers, miners, lathe workers… Ukraine has lost around 3.5 million workers (men and women), according to Hlib Vishlinski, director of the Center for Economic Strategy. This represents around 17% of a workforce that in 2021, before the start of the war, the World Bank placed at 20.5 million.
In Soviet times, the percentage of working women was higher than in modern Ukraine. “Workers were exploited as much as possible. Nursery schools were open 24 hours a day, so that women could work in the factory,” explains Vishlinski in his office in the center of kyiv. But more women working was not synonymous with equality: “They had to work, but they were also expected to take care of the house and children,” she adds.
Stereotypes remain
Now 56% of women work, compared to the EU average of 68%. The stereotypes remain. “War is an opportunity to open the door to women; in Ukraine we have a gender gap in the labor market,” explains Larisa Lisogor, researcher at the Institute of Demography of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. Reconciliation and care are still their responsibility, and there is little supply of early childhood education places. Women have traditionally worked in lower-paid positions in sectors such as education, health, services and commerce. “Male jobs receive better salaries, because they are considered more dangerous and intensive,” details the expert.
In conversations about this topic, it is common to quickly point out that many women have been absent in certain sectors due to convenience or physical limitations. Even Inna, 45 years old, who prefers to preserve her last name for safety reasons—she works at an aeronautical components company in the defense sector—and embodies the perfect example of the opposite. “In my job there are limits for women, unfortunately, because we are not physically strong enough to move certain things that can weigh up to 100 kilos,” she says, sitting in the lobby of an almost dark hotel in Zaporizhzhia.
In the position Inna has been in for three months, the work largely consists of traveling on an improvised basis to any place, sometimes in the middle of nowhere and with sub-zero temperatures, to repair aeronautical equipment. “Normally, women prefer to be in warmer places,” she says two days after returning from Gdansk, Poland, where she worked at five degrees below zero. But when asked, between a strong woman and a man unable to lift weights and sensitive to the cold, who does he think would be more respected, he answers without hesitation, “most likely, him.” When she arrived at her new position, where it is all men, her colleagues thought she would dedicate herself to administrative work, paperwork. “Now they understand that we are at the same level, they don’t think they are better than me,” he points out.
Banned professions
In many cases it was not a question of wanting to do a job or not, but of power. A Soviet law, partially repealed in 2017, prohibited hiring women in 450 professions considered dangerous or requiring heavy lifting, with the supposed goal of preserving their reproductive capacity. All underground or gas-related work, for example, was prohibited. Nor could they be naval mechanics, nor drive long-distance buses. Other regulations, dating back to 1971, prohibit them from working night shifts, or prevent them from taking business trips if they have more than three children. “Ukraine is not Iran,” defends Vishlinski. “The law that prohibited women from working in the mine was to protect them; It had more of a populist aspect than patriarchy,” he says.
The Government is finalizing a new labor code and martial law has introduced some legislative changes that facilitate the entry of women into the labor market. The Vice Minister of Economy assures that one of the priorities of her department is to “strengthen female leadership, expand economic opportunities for women and eliminate salary differences between men and women.” The gender gap in salaries in 2021 was 18.6% and the Government has set the goal of lowering it five points.
The Executive, with the support of companies and international partners, is launching training and recycling programs for some 150 professions, in which there is a labor shortage. “Since the beginning of 2024, more than 22,500 people have been trained, 73% of whom are women,” explains the vice minister in a written response. “Notably, in November this year, the Government added 31 specialties to the list of professions in which women have traditionally been underrepresented. These include trolleybus driver, tram driver, forklift driver, milling machine, crane driver, turner, carpenter and others.”
Women, driven by the war and these vocational training programs, are going down to the mine, getting behind the wheel of trucks or at the controls of heavy machinery in steel companies. There are also changes in the mentality of some employers, “willing to hire women for atypical positions,” as Deputy Minister Berezhna says. “In addition, modern technology makes it much easier to perform physically demanding jobs, making ‘traditionally male’ professions more accessible to women.”
The phenomenon is not comparable in volume to that of the Munitionettesbritish,women employed in the military industry in the United Kingdom in World War I. Or the millions who were hired as workers in factories, shipyards, etc., in the United States, while men fought in World War II, who were represented by the iconic Rosie, the Riveter(the riveter). “It’s just a few thousand jobs among millions of workers,” says Vishlinski. “But it’s a good start; The objective is to demonstrate that women can be truck drivers if they want,” adds Volodímir Landa, senior economist at the same economic think tank.
Inna, in this new stage of her life, has just bought a car, also as a result of the conflict. “It’s in case we have to evacuate,” he says, but it is another symptom of his recent empowerment. In relation to the pride she feels in paving the way for other women, she says: “That women are beginning to have these positions is a consequence of the war, not of feminism. We want to have the same rights as men, but we are so far away…” In any case, as Lisogor, the researcher at the Institute of Demography of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, points out, “new challenges are driving changes in stereotypes.” “Now we have this opportunity. It is the beginning of the process.”
