I am writing this with a certain degree of gratification. My article “Is Feminism Possible in Ukraine?” carried by the magazine Art-Line, not too large and claiming no special publicity, prompted Yurko Izdryk, a columnist at what I consider the best newspaper, The Day, to appear with a feature effectively titled “In Search of Lady Chatterley’s Lover.” (translated in the previous issue - Ed).
I will get to the title later and now I would like to start by pointing out that this article amused me, because it was not a string of obscenities habitually addressed to this author or to feminism in general, and I feel grateful. Mr. Izdryk is an intellectual (I wrote something to this effect when praising his novel Wojciech), he has read Lawrence and knows how to use notions like “philosophic context,” “secular Weltanschauung,” “moral imperative,” and “patriarchal society.” In a word, it is always a pleasure to cross verbal swords with a clever opponent. Or be with him in the same discourse.
I say opponent, because there is no denying that Mr. Izdryk and yours truly hold different views. Mr. Izdryk claims that feminism is nonsense, yet admits that he could not fully grasp the idea from my article. Of course, it would serve a better purpose if he read not only my article, but also certain far more fundamental writings dedicated to the subject (e.g., Mary Wollstonecraft, James Stuart Mill, Kate Millet, and others, or if this seems too sophisticated, some ideas could be borrowed not from research papers but fiction like Simone de Beauvoir, Nobel Prize winner Toni Morrison, Margaret Atwood, etc.). I would further recommend Milena Rudnytska, and that very same Lesia Ukrainka who Mr. Izdryk mentions, quoting Ivan Franko’s sacramental words about her being “perhaps the only man in all of today’s Ukraine.” But I don’t want to assume a tutorial manner. Moreover, the list of recommended references would be too long.
Also, I write this not to teach Mr. Izdryk things quite well known in the civilized world. My response is not an attempt to justify my views which need no justification — I mean feminism in all its political and cultural manifestations. Exactly one hundred years ago Lesia Ukrainka would find this improper; she explained Olha Kobylianska’s withdrawal from the feminist movement by the fact that “the very idea of women’s equality is such that it does not require theoretical proof.” In other words, it seems improper trying to prove something proven a very long time ago.
I would like to broach a broader subject.
Mr. Izdryk asks, somewhat naively, “...what does she have in mind exactly, championing the feminist idea so consistently, in almost every article she writes? Is it really women’s equality, liberties, stuff like that? Hard to believe. She is a Ph.D., author of five books, a self-made woman. Why her feminist obsession?”
I should like to inform Mr. Izdryk (and The Day’s Editors) here and now that yes, I do believe in “stuff” like equality and liberties in every aspect — political, economic, historical, social, cultural, even sexual (I hope Mr. Izdryk and other moralists like him will blush here) — every nuance, in the truest sense of these words. I do consider that women’s liberties and equality are part of that great struggle for freedom and equality which has been moving at least some of the historical process, resulting in the appearance, among others, of my long — suffering home country which is agonizing now precisely because “stuff” like freedom and equality does not work here. Talking of women’s liberties as part of this freedom, they are nonexistent in the absence of men’s liberties, when “equality” remains an illusion for some and “stuff” for others.
There is something in Ukraine which is like a quickly spreading virus, eating away at what we call our intelligentsia: apathy and nihilism, an ironic (some would call it postmodern) world view, and condescending criticism addressed to a handful of individuals of both sexes who, remaining a habitual minority, try to champion some “stuff,” defending someone’s rights, urging others to do something socially, publicly. I can sense this apathy in Mr. Izdryk’s “recipes.” The latter can be deciphered: “Go on, make waves, we’ll just stand and watch, for we know the score.”
Getting back to the title of Mr. Izdryk’s article. He claims that the problem with feminism is to be found in the feminists (primarily yours truly) failing to find their Lady Chatterley’s lovers, those real tough men who, using their sexual prowess in the first place, can show us women what real happiness is all about. There is nothing new about this argument. Back in the sixties it was widely used in the West, mostly in antifeminist gutter journalism, but never in the academic or literary context, never by full-bodied prestigious newspapers. Several years ago in our journal Suchasnist this argument was addressed to Oksana Zabuzhko by Viktor Neborak. It hurt then and it hurts now. Not because it is offensive, but because of the polemic level.
Here is what I have to say. Dear gentlemen writers, is it really possible that you have let yourselves be deceived for so long? I mean things that have long been known elsewhere in the world. Do you really believe that feminism will disappear after women “discover the habitat of men of the caliber of Lady Chatterley’s lover”? You of all people, should know, that this lover never existed, that he was born of Lawrence’s sick imagining, because he, haunted by multiple complexes, sought to solve his own personal problems.
Izdryk is correct in referring to the title of my article as rhetorical. The question mark does not mean that I expect feminism to turn into a mass phenomenon in Ukraine. I am sure, however, that feminism is necessary, for women to be paid on equal terms with men, not to be pink-slipped ahead of men, not to act as family draft animals or as the only available work force for collective farm fields. There is also intellectual feminism, and it exists and is actively spreading even now. Its task is to redesign culture with its stereotypes and dogmas, serve as a tool of dialogue and modernization, and eventually as a cold shower for all those expecting feminism to disperse like smoke once a Lady-Chatterley-caliber lover steps in.







