You are here: Home / Featured / Men die in EuroMaidan in Ukraine. Hooray feminism?!
euromaiden

Men die in EuroMaidan in Ukraine. Hooray feminism?!

By 19 Comments

This article is also available in Swedish and Portuguese.

It happened again. The Swedish media did its best to find something feminist (or at least perceivably feminist) in the fact that over 100 men died and over 600 people (mostly men) were wounded during the violent clash between the EuroMaidan protesters and the governmental forces of the pro-Russian Ukrainian government lead with an iron fist by Viktor Yanukovych.

The editor of the Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter, Peter Wolodarski, writes in his latest piece1 that the violent acts that occurred in Kyiv were “in fact” the worst in Europe since the Balkan Wars. Wolodarski then tries to provide a timeline of the events that occurred in the last 4 months in Ukraine in such manner so as not to upset the very thin sensibilities that govern the Swedish media.

He chooses to insert a carefully selected quote from an article published in NY Books2 by Timothy Snyder which says:

The diversity of the Maidan is impressive: the group that monitors hospitals so that the regime cannot kidnap the wounded is run by young feminists. An important hotline that protesters call when they need help is staffed by LGBT activists.

There are at least two problems with this quote. The first problem is that it’s simply not true.

There are no feminists who run anything right now on EuroMaidan and haven’t for quite some time – long before the violence escalated. The feminists, by their own admission (through various propaganda mouthpieces such as OtherNews, The Nation, Anarcho-Communist/Syndicalist websites, etc.) left the scene at the end of last year. They realized that the EuroMaidan, as a whole, thinks it’s inappropriate to spout messages like “Freedom, Equality, Sisterhood” or “Europe is sex education” while facing bigger problems like the State sending Orwellian text messages to any citizens who dare to walk the streets and voice disagreement with the State.3

The fact that an American intellectual got things partially wrong when it comes to things happening in Eastern Europe is not news for anyone who engages in sensible thinking. Timothy Snyder’s report tried to counteract the demonization against EuroMaidan protesters that has been going on in English-language media for the last month with an otherwise sensible article. But, intended or not, the consequence was to give fodder to the Swedish feminist establishment and allow Dagens Nyheter to pull yet another stunt.

This brings us to the second problem with the quote: The fact that Peter Wolodarski should have known better.

Peter Wolodarski was born in Sweden but he is the son of the relatively well-known architect Aleksander Wolodarski, who fled Communist Poland in the late 1960s. Given this connection, his father could have told him what it’s like to live in an authoritarian regime, and how feminism is viewed in Eastern Europe. It should have made him think twice and check the veracity of the statement made by Mr. Snyder. It should have provided him with a more honest view.

The fact of the matter is that, besides FEMEN and a few anarcho-communist-oriented individuals, there is no feminism in Ukraine. And both these factions are frowned upon by pretty much everyone in Ukraine.

The anarcho-communists (or anarcho-syndicalists as they sometimes like to refer to themselves) have whined on various forums that they were shown the door when they tried to subvert Euromajdan claiming that the “far-right” (whatever that is) is oppressing them.

Outlets like The Nation rushed to paint everyone on the Majdan as a bunch of violent extremists.

Yet who is the extremist? A bunch of unarmed men being cut down by sniper shots for daring to disagree with the State?4 Or maybe the music teachers, the violinists, the attorneys or the former sportsmen who also dare to disagree with the State?5

The reality is that one can better understand what EuroMaidan is really about by watching the various raw unedited streams that were (and some still are at the moment of this writing) broadcast over the Internet straight from the site of the conflict. This possibility gives us the chance to see beyond what the ideologues of any flavor want us to see or hear. And I, for one, after over a month of watching and listening closely to hours of daily live and recorded broadcasts from Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities, I’ve never found evidence for most of the claims that the media tells me are happening in the EuroMaidan.

Feminists and women are words to be used interchangeably in the minds of most mainstream Swedish journalists. But if Peter Wolodarski really wanted to talk about the involvement of women on EuroMaidan, then he probably should have mentioned that women were explicitly asked to leave the scene before the violence escalated, both by the leaders of the protests6 and by the governmental forces.7 And a significant proportion of them chose to ignore the warning and stayed there to offer food, warm tea8 and prepare Molotov cocktails.9 Interestingly enough, this fact remained unexploited by the feminist media and it’s quite tempting to engage in speculation as to why this happened.

It’s not the first time we’ve seen this narrative, nor will it be the last.

During the Arab Spring, the Western European media (especially the Swedish media) pulled similar stunts, claiming that women were at the forefront of the fight for liberty – while men were the only ones doing the fighting and suffering the consequences (death and injuries). In one of the few protests dominated by women in Egypt, the favorite chant was:10

Drag me, strip me, my brothers’ blood will cover me!

The NY Times article where the quote is coming from even has the audacity to claim that women “stood at the forefront of the initial revolt.” Is this how women stand at the forefront of a revolt? By demanding more blood be shed by men?

Going back even more, during the Kosovo war, the Western media literally effaced11 the men from any reporting – even when men were being killed solely because they were men and women were being carried out from harm’s way solely because they were women.

To add insult to injury, organizations such as Women for Women UK seize the opportunity, even today, to commemorate the Srebrenica massacre (in which men were killed en-masse because they were men) to talk about… the sufferings of women.12

Let me be clear: I have an enormous amount of respect for the women of Ukraine who didn’t submit to the feminist narrative and didn’t pull the gender card when shit hit the fan. They’ve earned my respect and the respect of tens of millions of Eastern Europeans who have been at the point where the people of Ukraine are right now.

But there’s also a fundamental truth that can not and should not be either brushed off or sugar-coated. The truth is that men, and mostly men, are the ones driving the revolts against tyrannical regimes and it is men, and virtually only men, who water the tree of liberty with their blood!

If you’re a journalist and this truth offends you or, worse, you explicitly refuse to acknowledge it, as is the case with Peter Wolodarski, then you are part of the problem.

AVFM Sverige editor, Gustav Evensen, writes:13

The day I’ll read in the mainstream media that “there were men at the forefront of the fight for freedom,” in any context, that’s the day I will begin to believe that there is hope for equality in Sweden.

Gustav is being kind. The bigger problem than the lack of equality in the media reporting is the huge propensity to outright lying. It would not (necessarily) be evidence of equality if the mainstream media would write about men being at the forefront of the fight for freedom – but it would definitely be evidence of the media becoming more truthful. Unfortunately, we not only lost the balance in the media (if we ever had it) but we’ve lost sight of even the most basic commonsensical truths. And for that, Peter Wolodarski is partly to blame!

References:

[1] http://www.dn.se/ledare/signerat/peter-wolodarski-moskvas-man-skjuter-medan-putin-ser-pa-os/ – Peter Wolodarski: Moskvas män ­skjuter medan Putin ser på OS, published in Dagens Nyheter, 24.02.2014 (in Swedish)
[2] http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2014/mar/20/fascism-russia-and-ukraine/?insrc=hpss – Timothy Snyder – Fascism, Russia, and Ukraine, published in NY Books, 19.02.2014
[3] http://motherboard.vice.com/en_ca/blog/maybe-the-most-orwellian-text-message-ever-sent – Brian Merchant – Maybe the Most Orwellian Text Message a Government’s Ever Sent, published in Vice, 21.01.2014.
[4] http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2563609/Truce-Kiev-collapses-hours-official-day-mourning-28-people-killed-protests-erupts-violence.html – Ted Thonrhill – Harrowing footage emerges of UNARMED protesters being cut down by sniper fire on a day of violence in Kiev that has brought today’s death toll to at least 70, published in Daily Mail, 20.02.2014
[5] http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/22/world/europe/growing-support-and-tea-from-young-women-embolden-kiev-street-fighters.html – Andrew E. Kramer – Growing Support, and Tea From Young Women, Embolden Kiev Street Fighters, published in The New York Times, 21.02.2014
[6] http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/opposition+demonstrator+holds+Molotov+cocktail+during+clashes+with+police+Kiev+February+2014+Opposition+leader+Vitali+Klitschko+Tuesday+urged+women+children+leave+opposition+main+protest+camp+Kiev+Independence+Square+known+Maidan+riot/9521200/story.html – “We ask women and children to quit Maidan as we cannot rule out the possibility that they will storm (the camp),” – Opposition leader Vitali Klitschko.
[7] http://www.france24.com/en/20140218-live-ukraine-kiev-protesters-killed-clashes-police/
[8] ibidem 5
[9] http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4490282,00.html
[10] http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/21/world/middleeast/violence-enters-5th-day-as-egyptian-general-blames-protesters.html
[11] http://adamjones.freeservers.com/effacing.htm – Adam Jones, Ph.D. – Effacing the Male: Gender, Misrepresentation, and Exclusion in the Kosovo War, Published in: Transitions: The Journal of Men’s Perspectives, 21: 1-3 (2001)
[12] http://www.womenforwomeninternational.org.uk/blog/in-the-country-2013-peace-march-in-bosnia-and-herzegovina/
[13] http://se.avoiceformen.com/nytt/feminister-och-hbt-aktivister-i-ukraina-lyfts-fram/ – Gustav Evensen – Feminister och HBT-aktivister i Ukraina lyfts fram, Published in: AVFM Sverige, 24.02.2014 (in Swedish)

 

Editor’s note: “Euromaidan” is also spelled “Euromajdan” in multiple sources; the latter appears closer to the native spelling used by the protestors. –DE

About Lucian Vâlsan

Hated by the local feminists, despised by most ideologues and appreciated by high profile debate societies, Lucian Vâlsan is the Romanian guy that will tell you unapologetically that misandry has no language barrier. He is also the European News Director for AVfM, the host of The Voice of Europe radio program, and can be reached at lucian@avoiceformen.com .

Main Website
View All Posts
  • http://www.deanesmay.com Dean Esmay

    Just to cut any confusion off at the pass: the word “maidan” being used here is not in any way related to the English word “maiden,” although reporters anxious to give this a feminist spin might like it that way. So far as I can tell, it literally means “square” or “plaza” as in “Trafalgar Square” or “Tiananmen Square.”

    • ComradePrescott

      I was wondering about that the whole time.

    • JinnBottle

      Dean – I recall the word in “A Passage to India”. The context seemed to indicate “town green”. Anyway, something big enough for a couple of polo players to volley on.

      • Bewildered

        Maidan (versions: maydan, midan, meydan or majdan)

        (ميدان‎, maydān)[1] — originally Arabic,[1] also exists in Urdu, Persian, Turkish, Armenian, Georgian, and other languages, meaning any open space area, park or square.
        A word for square in the Arab World (Middle East and North Africa), Turkey, Pakistan, Iran, Afghanistan, India, Ukraine and Poland.

        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maidan

    • mparrotte

      MAIDEN = Maidan Nezalezhnosti , literally: “Independence Square” is the central square of Kiev, Since the start of Ukraine’s independence movement in 1990, the square has been the traditional place for political rallies, including for large-scale radical protest campaigns: the 1989 student “Revolution on Granite”, the 2001 “Ukraine without Kuchma”, the 2004 Orange Revolution, and the ongoing Euromaidan

  • ComradePrescott

    “But there’s also a fundamental truth that can not and should not be either brushed off or sugar-coated. The truth is that men, and mostly men, are the ones driving the revolts against tyrannical regimes and it is men, and virtually only men, who water the tree of liberty with their blood!”

    This sentiment strikes a cord with me. It’s something I have thought about plenty and talked about before, though probably as well as you do.

    It absolutely astounds me at the amazing level of arrogance and ungrateful entitlement people, or maybe I should say women, demonstrate when they are offended by this fundamental truth. I use to say that freedom has and will always be purchased and defended by the blood of patriots, but I realize you are right. It isn’t done by patriots, it is done by men.

    But yet having an ounce of respect for the people that make these sacrifices is apparently too much. How dare these sub-humans, whose purpose it is to serve (as human doings), oppress everyone by demanding the undeserved privilege of being human beings?!

    In the words of Hillary Clinton, when men die it is women who suffer because they lost property.

    • ComradePrescott

      probably not as well as you do*

    • SlantyJaws

      Yeah it was the same for second wave feminism. They didn’t make an appearance until after the firehoses, church bombings, truncheons and attack dogs were put away, and actual civil rights activists were none too happy with them co-opting their movement either.

      This whole “men are obsolete” sentiment that appears to be cropping up more and more often these days is more of the same, on a wider scale.

      • earth one

        They didn’t make an appearance until after the firehoses, church bombings, truncheons and attack dogs were put away…

        Of course not, showing up at the beginning, launching the revolution, would have put them at greater risk: “let the men do that part…”

        And yet, no doubt we can look forward to the day in the not-too-distant future when Feminists tell us that the first human to set foot on the moon was a WOMYN…

  • Caprizchka

    Feminists demand credit for every bit of good that women do even when what those women are doing is *supporting* traditional gender roles.

    I am not an equalist because I believe that it makes more sense for the cause of freedom to have each individual do what they do best and the history of women supporting their heroes tells me that this is the human condition. Of course, there will be a few (very few) women who truly desire and therefore dedicate themselves to becoming physically and intellectually equipped to cross gender roles–and bless them because they have their work cut out for them given that in women so much blood that would otherwise be bound for the brain and extremities tends to get bogged down in the uterus. But isn’t a cause like freedom more important than equality?

    However, those women who are holding their legs together while passing out tea and cookies are doing so because revolutions are no place for babies. Even if (and I don’t know Ukraine–notwithstanding my alias) birth control is widely available, revolution is not the best time to fritter away strong male energy on something as trivial as sex. Of course, I’m sure that there are women crossing that picket line as well (and the feminists will take credit for those women’s actions as well).

    Those women supporting those men *are* brave to go against the grain of feminism which is only too fickle in terms of crushing or coopting anyone who dares to challenge its hegemony and totalitarian thought.

    My question for the author is, if feminism is *co-opting* this movement, does that mean that the movement is already corrupt or that feminism merely has its eyes on the spoils?

    • earth one

      Those women supporting those men *are* brave to go against the grain of feminism which is only too fickle in terms of crushing or coopting anyone who dares to challenge its hegemony and totalitarian thought.

      Beautifully put. They are the women who are supporting the revolution, the future of the nation, and The People. They, standing beside the men, are the true heroines of this conflict. Being caught in the middle of a violent, bloody revolt does not appeal to the Feminist principal of Self Interest First. Feminists are not interested in the future of The People, they are only interested in their own welfare, the welfare of The Wimmin.

      I’m not the author, but I would guess if Feminists have already started spinning the narrative – they definitely “have their eyes on the spoils.”

  • OldGeezer

    “The truth is that men, and mostly men, are the ones driving the revolts against tyrannical regimes …”

    Which explains a lot of authoritarian (governmental and non-governmental) support for feminism and its consequential emasculation of society. And yes, I include many fake democracies in the so-called “free world” that actually live in mortal fear of any real freedom … especially amongst the male constituents of their populace. Females, in general , are much easier to persuade about the authoritarian versions of things like “liberation” and “equality” as is very well exemplified by feminism itself.

  • Jay Boppana

    Absolutely excellent to have your viewpoint Lucian, considering we have a media quick to cry men/boys = evil, women/girls = good at any opportunity.

  • J Galt

    Different perspective for what its worth ……….

    You can bet your ass that if the blood of any women was spilled the whole conflict would be over and fewer men would be dying and suffering. The world would not stand for it but since it’s the men it seems to be okay. I personally don’t appreciate the limp gestures of serving tea. If these women want to truly help end this conflict and help their men get some fucking plywood and get out there and bleed with them.

    If your freedom isn’t worth bleeding for then your not worth bleeding for. IMHO

    And the feminists……….waste of space, fuck em.

    • Caprizchka

      RE: “The world would not stand for it…” So, are you suggesting that if the women martyr themselves in will come NATO and “liberate” everyone…or just the men? I’m so confused.

      • J Galt

        I view violent conflicts as an opportunity to kill men (on both sides). The use of snipers highlights the effort. Killing men is fair game anywhere on the planet, killing women is not, public opinion internationally won’t stand for it. Even Putin would be made to back off. Without women dying the killing of men will continue, it’s socially acceptable. The lack of women on the lines dying beside the men highlights the fact that with women equality is what you can take not what you can give.

        It is unlikely that government forces would use killing tactics if there were an equal mix of women in the crowds of the protesters. Public opinion would not stand for targeting women. Less men would die if more women were in their ranks. Its a personal perspective.

        The idea that NATO would come and liberate the “men” is an absurdity that has never happened and never will. I’ve always considered absurdity more entertaining than confusing so be entertained.

  • RM1970

    “Yet who is the extremist? A bunch of unarmed men being cut down by sniper shots for daring to disagree with the State?”
    I have a problem with these questions, they are not true!
    You can check that “unarmed” protesters actually brought guns to the “peaceful” protest, they threw several Molotovs in the policemen and one policeman was burnt alive. I think that Mr. Valsan is stuck in a time warp in 1989. Russia and USSR are very different countries, the USA and EU have changed as well.
    The USA and EU impose gender quotas, I don’t like Mr. Putin, but he is the lesser evil, I am talking from a male perspective.
    The terrorists and Neo-Nazis released the sentenced Yulia Tymoshenko from prison, Victoria Nuland was caught talking who was behind these “legitimate” protests, the USA spent more than US$ 5 billion to overthrow the current Ukrainian administration.
    A puppet government, controlled from Brussels and Washington is a nightmare for men, don’t start to show your Russophobia or bashing Mr. Putin, again, I am not defending him, I think that the EU and the USA have a way too large misandric legislation to ignore. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0kTv_8lwiQ
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wEKviJYIlJ4
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mlKEF5uoU_I
    http://ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/featured-articles/2014/february/09/victoria-nulands-ukraine-gate-deceptions.aspx

    • Caprizchka

      A puppet government is a nightmare to all those who wish to control their own destiny. Sounds like this is the usual “regime change” imperialism perfected since Mohammed Mossadeq.

  • Graham Strouse

    I think part of the problem with a lot of western thinking is grokking the fact that central Europe never really bought into feminism. There are lots of western feminists who think they’re marxist but there aren’t very many central Europeans, male or female, pro-western or anti-western, who buy into the notion of feminism. At all. There are pro-Russian women who support Putin’s grab and anti-Russian women who defy Putin’s grab but feminists, this song ain’t about you!