The year 2024 marks the 140th anniversary of the Ukrainian women's movement. Women's NGOs, activists, and the media are organising information campaigns, holding themed events, and implementing various projects and initiatives to mark the occasion. This campaign will last until December 2024, as the Ukrainian women's movement is associated with the 8 December 1844.
Our university has also launched educational and awareness-raising events to celebrate the 140th anniversary of the women's movement in Ukraine, with a focus on technology and the scientific achievements of our compatriots.
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On 20 September 2024, the Faculty of Sociology and Law opened the pages of the life stories of scientists of different times who made a significant contribution to the development of our country. The organisers have selected the figures of Ukrainian women who created the conditions for the formation and development of the modern women's movement and popularised Ukrainian science in the world.
The photos of women found in open sources were processed by artificial intelligence to create the portrait gallery of the event. The Midjourney generative neural network was chosen for this purpose. To emphasise the modernity of the Ukrainian women's movement, the Art Nouveau style was chosen. However, the process of processing the portraits revealed a certain gender aspect: network intelligence artificially ‘decorated’ and sometimes even ‘sexualised’ women's images. In the end, says Yurii Perha, associate professor at the Faculty of Sociology and Law, they had to create queries for Midjourney using another artificial intelligence, the GPT chat. The images of the women turned out to be modern, beautiful, and yet significantly ‘rejuvenated’.
The poster accompanying the event announcement was also generated by artificial intelligence. From many points of view, it was not very perfect. However, it was decided not to correct it manually, but to leave it as it was, because it is a stage in the development of artificial intelligence recorded in living history and a certain visualisation of the current perception of Ukrainian women in science.
The location for the Train to Equality event - next to the State Polytechnic Museum near the steam train - was not chosen by chance. Here, the word ‘train’ became a symbol, because it has two meanings: a train, the movement of which is impossible without a locomotive, and a train - an urgent desire for something: for the women's movement, it is an unbridled desire and struggle for equality in rights and opportunities with men. So on 20 September, the playback theatre ‘On Guard’ performed on this lawn. This is a modern improvisation theatre where the audience tells stories from their lives and the actors perform them on stage to the sound of live music. The themes of motherhood, support and understanding in the family, which are also relevant to our contemporaries, were played out in a creative interactive way. The performance captivated our colleagues, scientists and students. In general, the event brought together like-minded people of different generations. We felt the spirit of unity and pride in outstanding Ukrainian women, and the participants were able to plunge into the atmosphere of struggle, inspiration and victories of Ukrainian women in science and technology.
Ilona Zhovta, a lecturer at the Department of History who specialises in women's history and the history of women's education, prepared and delivered an interesting mini-lecture with a number of little-known facts from the lives of each of the prominent women. However, the main idea of the project was to show the participants the unstoppable train of life of Ukrainian women scientists through an exhibition, performance, and playback theatre. Women's lives. A full, rich human life, in which family chores, birth and upbringing of children are closely intertwined; caring for others is combined with creativity and beauty, with achievements and accomplishments in science and active citizenship. Therefore, between the portraits were fixed a kind of ‘symbols’ of such a life in the form of household trinkets, children's things, toys, and dishes. The gallery was opened with a portrait of Sofia Rusova, a prominent figure in the Ukrainian women's movement and professor of pedagogy. Among others, there was a photo of Nina Virchenko, a true Ukrainian patriot, an outstanding national mathematician, and a professor at our university
At the end of the gallery, an empty frame was placed and everyone could give an impromptu interview, in which they shared their own vision of the women's movement and the development of Ukrainian science, talked about their achievements, plans and dreams. Thus, the Train to Equality has successfully completed its journey through the history of the Ukrainian women's movement and is moving on to the future...