I'm not exactly sure what this means, but on the surface it would appear that some women in the Ukraine were pleased to see a women - Hillary Clinton - leading a delegation to their country. So you don't have to stare too hard, it says "welcome" on the woman in the middle.
I found this post on Ukrainiana through Ropi's (on my blog roll in the right column) blog roll. Ukrainiana got it from FEMEN. I checked with a friend who's fluent in Russian and the FEMEN site is written in Russian (rather than Ukrainian), and it does appear to be a legitimate feminist site.
Their chant on the video (at both sites) is
“Hillary, help! Hillary, help! No strong woman, no free country!”I would note that Ropi did mention that the weather was pretty warm in Budapest, but I assume this was more about getting attention for their cause than being comfortable in the heat. My consultant on this said that there were other posts that talked about grievances that women students had at the university, but wasn't sure what problems were.
We did discuss why this might be in Russian rather than Ukrainian. One possibility is because more people can read Russian than Ukrainian. Also, there's a large Russian population in Ukraine and these women could be ethnic Russians. But we don't know.
In any case, it seems like a pro-democracy demonstration is an appropriate July 4 post.
Well, in the Central and Eastern European region it is hard to make career for women. In Hungary female used to be the Speaker of the Parliament - Szili (pronounced as silly) Katalin, in Ukraine there was a female Prime Minister, while Slovakia just elected a female Prime Minister.
ReplyDeletethe day I can walk around topless here,without being arrested, will be a big step.
ReplyDeleteThe students seem like well-rounded individuals. . .
ReplyDeleteThank you for your interest!
ReplyDeleteThese ladies actually rally in Ukrainian:)
When they speak and write Russian, it's because urban Ukraine remains heavily Russified, after centuries of Russian domination.
Thanks for all your comments. Taras, particularly thanks for clarifying things for me. We used to hear that women diplomats wouldn't be accepted in foreign countries - particularly Islamic countries - but after three women Secretaries of State in a row this doesn't seem to be the case. In any case, it is good to see that in some cases women diplomats are welcomed BECAUSE they are women. Thanks for doing the post originally.
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