Olena Strelnyk

Project

As a sociologist and researcher of gender issues, Dr. Olena Strelnyk reformatted the subject of her research with the beginning of Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine. Currently she studies various aspects of the impact of the war on gender roles and expectations, and on women’s rights in Ukraine.
During the Fellowship Program at TUM-IAS, she worked on the topic of cultural and media representations of women in the context of war. The focus of the research is how ideas on women’s roles and “femininity” are ­(re)­constructed. Using examples of different (social) media images of women, Dr. Strelnyk demonstrated how these representations – including stories of women's coping strategies, resistance, and agency during the war that become more visible in the Ukrainian media space – form a contradictory and complex picture.
She also used the program as an opportunity to strengthen the position of Ukrainian studies in Germany, gave several public lectures, participated in many conferences and public discussions, and wrote several blogs about the gender aspects of the war in Ukraine. ­­Dr. Strelnyk also coordinated a special Ukrainian panel at the 41st Congress of the Sociological Association of Germany.