‘I Remember the Posts About Women Who Were Killed: How Beautiful She Was, She Should Still Be Blossoming and Having Children. It’s Humiliating’ — Olena Shevchenko
On March 8, 2023, Suspilne published an interview with Olena Shevchenko — head of Insight NGO and organizer of the Women’s March — whom Time magazine had just named one of its twelve Women of the Year for her human rights work during the full-scale war.
The title of the piece comes from the painful observation that opens the conversation: under posts about fallen women soldiers, people write en masse, “she was so beautiful, she should have been blossoming and having children.” Instead of recognition of her service and conscious choice, the woman is reduced to her appearance and reproductive function — and that, Olena says, is a humiliation.
The interview also covers the hate — and the unexpectedly strong support — that followed the nomination, the invisibility of women in the army even though they die in this war just as men do, women’s habit of underestimating their own work, and the humanitarian dimension of Insight’s work: in one year, the team helped about 75,000 families.