Gender Equality in Wartime: How War Changed the Role of Women in Society

The article analyzes the current state and promising ways of ensuring gender equality in the defense and security forces of Ukraine. The aggression of the Russian Federation against Ukraine, the resulting violation of territorial integrity, sovereignty, encroachment on Ukraine’s independence, brought to the fore the issue of overcoming gender stereotypes, establishing equality, and combating gender-based and sexual violence both in Ukraine and around the world. In these conditions, first of all, the state policy regarding the development of the Armed Forces of Ukraine was revised. This article focuses on the issues of military service from the point of view of equal rights, opportunities and equal value of the results of the activities of men and women. “Stereotyping” of their roles in resolving armed conflicts is one of the reasons for gender inequality within the security and defense sector of Ukraine. The author analyzed the number of armed forces of some foreign countries for genetic equality. Some countries already have female (or predominantly female) units, however, regular armies rarely involve them in direct combat. It is concluded that women play a significant role in the modern Ukrainian army, and recent events, in particular Russian aggression against Ukraine, continue to create instability in the world. And in such difficult conditions, our state, most likely, will have to exist for quite a long time. Therefore, it would be possible to significantly strengthen the defense capability of the country by attracting women to mandatory military service. The article also draws attention to the fact that in modern conditions there is a steady trend towards a significant increase in the number of women, the geography of the positions held by female servicemen is expanding significantly, but in order to ensure gender equality in the Armed Forces, the legislator must still improve the mechanism for taking into account the characteristics of social gender under time of military service. Moreover, the understanding of gender equality in the military should become established - not as a mechanical identification of men and women, but as taking into account the specifics of the capabilities of one or another social gender to effectively perform their official duties in certain positions with the most positive result.