STRATEGIES OF REPRESENTING FEMININITY IN SONGS OF THE RUSSIANUKRAINIAN WAR PERIOD: GENDER DICHOTOMIES

Abstract

The aim of the article is to analyze the strategies of representing femininity in Ukrainian songs created during the Russian- Ukrainian war (2014–2025) and to explore how contemporary models of womanhood are constructed within them, how these models correlate with traditional views on the role and place of women during wartime, and what new meanings they introduce. The object of analysis comprises the lyrics of popular songs that are actively functioning in the modern media space. The methodology of the study is based on an interdisciplinary synthesis of gender studies, cultural semiotics, and discourse analysis, which allows considering wartime songs not only as artistic or communicative phenomena but also as complex mechanisms of social identity construction. The article primarily applies the principles of gender criticism developed in the works of Judith Butler and Simone de Beauvoir, as well as the concept of the «ethics of care» elaborated by Carol Gilligan and Nel Noddings. This approach enables the interpretation of femininity as a performative practice represented through the verbal, musical, and visual dimensions of song texts. The study reveals that contemporary Ukrainian wartime songs reproduce traditional archetypes of the mother, widow, and waiting woman (the girl or wife awaiting her beloved or husband’s return from the front), as well as the witch figure, while simultaneously actualizing new models of femininity – the female fighter, medic, and volunteer – that embody the ethical and corporeal subjectivity of women in war. At the same time, elements of essentialism persist: there is a tendency toward the sacralization of female sacrifice, the merging of beauty and selflessness, and the identification of the feminine with moral and ethical categories. As a result, it is demonstrated that models of femininity in wartime songs are based on the triadic structure of female roles – the mother, guardian, and beloved. However, all these roles undergo significant transformation under the conditions of war through patterns of heroism, political discourse, and practices of resilience. A new paradigm of femininity emerges, one that is no longer reduced to obedience or suffering but becomes synonymous with endurance, moral strength, and cultural resistance. The wartime song discourse not only reflects but also actively shapes social perceptions of gender, becoming an arena for the contestation between traditional and innovative models of womanhood, in which femininity emerges both as a symbol of national resilience and as a form of cultural resistance.