January 9, 2023: Women in Wartime - Lessons from Ukraine with Oksana Kis, Elaine Showalter, and Sonya Michel. Moderated by Carolyn Stewart.

On January 9, 2023, American Purpose hosted a panel on Women in Wartime - Lessons from Ukraine.

Is war purely "men's business"? Historians have begun to question this assertion by probing the role of women in war and popular perceptions of gender. Much of the research has focused on patterns emerging from the two World Wars, especially in the West. The current war in Ukraine fits some of those patterns but also challenges them, as our upcoming discussion will explore.

Speakers included Oksana Kis, a leading Ukrainian women's historian who has experienced the war directly and Sonya Michel, who writes on how war affects women and social policy. Carolyn Stewart, managing editor of American Purpose, will moderate. Elaine Showalter, a pioneering feminist literary critic whose work has examined "male anxiety" in wartime, was unable to join.

The discussion provided context for the upcoming exhibit of work by contemporary Ukrainian women artists, "Women at War." The exhibit, an American Purpose—Stanford in Washington joint venture, will be on view at the Stanford in Washington Gallery beginning on January 12 and closing on March 21.