War opens the way for Ukrainian women in male-dominated professions

Feminism in Ukraine is met with criticism. Inna, who made history at her company by becoming the first woman to occupy a position previously reserved for men, frowns when asked if she is a feminist. “No, no,” she replies, rejecting the label, which she considers to be aggressive. However, this engineer is leading the first, tentative steps on the country’s path to equality in the workplace. The labor shortage caused by the war is driving legislative changes and training programs to recruit women workers like her in male-dominated professions.

Deputy Minister of Economy Tetyana Berezhna explains that “due to the mobilization of men, there is a shortage of personnel in construction, industrial production, the agricultural sector, etc.” As she explains, the country needs “women to replace men in production.”

The drain on the Ukrainian labor market from the Russian invasion — in the form of refugees, civilians turned soldiers, and military personnel killed or wounded on the battlefield — is sowing the country with pioneers, as a collateral benefit. The first female metro driver, the first female bus drivers, truck drivers, miners, lathe operators… Ukraine has lost around 3.5 million workers (both men and women), according to Hlib Vishlinski, director of the Centre for Economic Strategy. This represents around 17% of a workforce that in 2021, before the start of the war, the World Bank put at 20.5 million.

In Soviet times, the percentage of women workers was higher than in modern Ukraine. “Workers were exploited as much as possible. Nursery schools were open 24 hours a day, every day, so that women could work in the factories,” explains Vishlinski in her office in central Kyiv. But more women working did not mean equality: “They had to work, but they were also expected to take care of the house and the children.”

Stereotypes remain

Now, 56% of women are employed, compared with the EU average of 68%. Stereotypes remain, however. “The war is an opportunity to open the door for women; in Ukraine we have a gender gap in the labor market,” explains Larisa Lisogor, a researcher at the Institute of Demography of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. Conciliation and care are still women’s business, and there are few places available in early childhood education. Women have traditionally worked in lower-paid jobs in sectors such as education, health, services, and trade. “Men’s jobs are better-paid because they are considered more dangerous and labor-intensive,” explains the expert.

In conversations on this topic, it is common to quickly point out that many women have been absent from certain sectors due to convenience or physical limitations. Even Inna, 45, who prefers to keep her last name confidential for security reasons — she works in an aeronautical components company in the defense sector — is the perfect example of the opposite. “In my job there are limits for women, unfortunately, because we are not physically strong enough to move certain things that can weigh up to 100 kilos,” she says, sitting in the lobby of a nearly dark hotel in Zaporizhzhia.

In the position Inna has been in for three months, the work consists largely of travelling to a variety of locations on the fly, sometimes in the middle of nowhere and in sub-zero temperatures, to repair aircraft equipment. “Normally, women prefer to be in warmer places,” she says two days after returning from Gdansk, Poland, where she worked at minus 5ºC. But when asked who she thinks would be more respected, between a strong woman and a man who is incapable of lifting weights and sensitive to the cold, she answers without hesitation that “most likely, him.” When she took up her new position, in a company dominated by men, her colleagues assumed she would be dedicated to administrative work, paperwork. “Now they understand that we are on the same level, they don’t think they are better than me,” she says.

Banned professions

In many cases, it was not a question of whether or not women wanted to do a job, but one of power. A Soviet law, partly repealed in 2017, banned women from being hired in 450 professions considered dangerous or requiring heavy lifting, in the alleged aim of preserving their reproductive capacity. All underground or gas-related jobs, for example, were banned. They could not be ship mechanics or long-distance bus drivers. Other rules, dating back to 1971, ban them from working night shifts, or prevent them from going on business trips if they have more than three children. “Ukraine is not Iran,” argues Vishlinski. “The law that banned women from working in the mines was to protect them; it had more of a populist aspect than patriarchy.”

The government is finalizing a new labor code and martial law has introduced some legislative changes that facilitate women’s entry into the labor market. The Deputy Minister of Economy states that one of the priorities of her department is to “strengthen female leadership, expand women’s economic opportunities, and eliminate wage differences between men and women.” The gender gap in wages in 2021 was 18.6% and the government has set itself the goal of reducing it by five points.

The state, with the support of companies and international partners, is launching training and retraining programs for around 150 professions where there is a labor shortage. “Since the beginning of 2024, more than 22,500 people have been trained, 73% of whom are women,” Berezhna explained in a written response. “In particular, in November this year, the government added 31 specialties to the list of professions in which women have traditionally been underrepresented. These include trolleybus driver, tram driver, forklift operator, milling machine operator, crane operator, lathe operator, carpenter, and others.”

Women, driven by the war and these vocational training programs, are heading down the mines, taking up driving trucks, or operating heavy machinery in steel companies. Changes are also taking place in the mentality of some employers, who are “ready to hire women for atypical positions,” says Berezhna. “In addition, modern technology makes it much easier to perform physically demanding jobs, making ‘traditionally male’ professions more accessible to women.”

The phenomenon is not comparable in size to that of the British Munitionettes, the women employed in the military industry in the United Kingdom during World War I. Or the millions hired as workers in factories, shipyards, etc., in the United States, while men were fighting in World War II, represented by the iconic Rosie the Riveter. “There are only a few thousand jobs among millions of workers,” says Vishlinski. “But it is a good start; the goal is to show that women can be truck drivers if they want to,” adds Volodimir Landa, senior economist at the same think tank.

Inna, in this new stage of her life, has just bought a car, also as a result of the conflict. “It’s in case we have to evacuate,” she says, but it is another sign of her recent empowerment. Regarding the pride she feels in paving the way for other women, she emphasizes: “The fact that women are starting to have these positions is a consequence of the war, not of feminism. We want to have the same rights as men, but we are so far away…” In any case, as Lisogor, the researcher at the Institute of Demography of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, points out, “new challenges are driving changes in stereotypes. Now we have this opportunity. It is the beginning of the process.”

Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get more English-language news coverage from EL PAÍS USA Edition