Last week, in the United States, conservative radio show host Rush Limbaugh made an inappropriate slur against a law student. He apologizes, but some 10 sponsors of his radio show, fearful of negative public opinion, withdrew support.
Things are more difficult for women in Ukraine. There, public opinion demanding ones’ human rights is harder to come by as the state exerts pressure on the media and clamps down on citizen protests.
Women, in particular, suffer from the abuse. They are far away from such Western values as women’s equality in the workforce, equal pay for work of equal value, or sharing family and other household responsibilities.
Unfortunately, the political leaders set the tone.
On the eve of International Women’s Day, the speaker of the Verkhovna Rada insulted them. Volodymyr Lytvyn, who holds a doctorate in what is now a passe discipline–Soviet ideology, supposedly the sina qua non of communism — forgot his lessons.
During the parliamentary session dealing with gender legislation — designed to bring more women into political office and other places of power — he decided that women are lesser human beings than men. Why? Because they were not created equally, as they come from Adam’s rib. Adding insult to injury, he refused to apologize.
He is not alone. His views are shared and acted upon with the full force, or rather with the full disdain, of the law. President Viktor Yanukovych’s male chauvinists in Ukraine serve as a model to other Neanderthal leaders. He has determined that a woman’s job is not in politics, the last-minute appointment of Taisa Bohatiryova as deputy prime minister of humanitarian affairs — as capable as she is –notwithstanding. His remarks were aimed at ex-Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, his nemesis, and his words weren’t harmless utterances.
The smart, feisty and beautiful woman, who narrowly lost the presidential election to him, has consistently surpassed him in the polls. To ensure that she does not run in the next elections, Ukraine’s kangaroo court handed her a seven year sentence. The president’s hate for Yulia, as she is popularly called, is ruining his presidency, his country, and undoubtedly his place in history. To date, his male ego has not allowed him to “display the political courage and wisdom “as five leading foreign ministers of Europe are urging him to do. He is wrong and he must let her go.
Last week the Canadian Group for Democracy in Ukraine published an open letter urging a grassroots movement modeled on the pro-Nelson Mandela and Aung San Suu Kyi activism which successfully contributed to their freedom. On International Women’s Day, and the days after, let your voice be heard. Proclaim that last century’s men have no place in politics; they must go. Men in high places who serve their egos or their pockets instead of their people must go. Men whose hatred is strong enough to pervert the national justice system in order to “a ja jiji pokazhu,” show, who has the upper hand, must go.
Add your voices to those who are speaking up.
he latest condemnations come from Denmark’s leaders saying that Yulia has become a symbol for freedom, a very powerful force that Yanukovych has unleashed. In turn, the Swedes are defying Ukraine’s authorities and visiting her in prison.
Yanukovych might even look to his friend, Russia’s newly elected President Vladimir Putin, to see that moderation is “in”: He has instructed a review of the prison sentence of his own nemesis, the former oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky.
The women’s movement has come a long way since it began decades ago. It will have made further strides with the release of Ukraine’s key political opposition leader. Justice has a habit of prevailing when aided by people of good will from those who spread the word about the iconic democrat to the young FEMEN women who bare their breasts in order to draw attention to Yulia’s plight.
Don’t be afraid to defend one of our own. We’re free to act; she’s not. Let’s get going, there’s work to be done.
Oksana Bashuk Hepburn is the former director of the Canadian Human Rights Commission.
