Ukrainian women are switching up the traditional wartime narrative that portrays women, and mothers with children especially, as victims of war instead of as agents of change.
Rejecting the narrative that casts women with children as victims of war, more and more Ukrainian mothers are choosing to become agents of change, actively fighting to bring about the war’s end.“I’m not a mother anymore,” Marta said, looking down as she wrings her hands. She does not mean it literally—her three sons, a 28-year-old and 14-year-old twins, mean everything to her.
They were ready when the full-scale invasion erupted and were immediately deployed to defend the nearby Sikorsky Airport. When it became obvious that the country would not be conquered in three days, as the Kremlin had predicted, Marta alternated between performing medical duties and other carework, like cooking and cleaning, for her division.
Although all of the women said that they felt respected and appreciated by their fellow service members, every woman shared experiences of sexist treatment and the constant need to prove themselves to counter gendered assumptions about their abilities and know-how.
In a mass burial site, wooden crosses mark where at least 440 Ukrainians were interred during the Russian occupation of Izyum, in the Kharkiv region. Kristina had to argue with the recruitment officer at her local military outpost to sign up on Feb. 24, 2022, she recalls, as she carefully picks her way through the rubble of a freshly bombed municipal building, still on fire and possibly mined, on the eastern front of the war in Ukraine.
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