Proper Men and Proper Women of a Proper Country: Neotraditionalism in the post-revolutionary Ukraine

The aim of this thesis is to answer the question of how does the Ukrainian nationalist movement (represented by the most prominent Ukrainian far-right organization and party Pravyi Sektor) frame gender order of the post-revolutionary Ukraine in the context of a simultaneous rise of the LGBT and feminist movements. The materials produced by Pravyi Sektor since the beginning of 2016 up to April 2018 have been researched through media content analysis and framing analysis. The concept of hegemonic masculinity developed by RW Connell has been tested in the context of Ukrainian ‘heroic masculinity’. The concept has been verified along two arguments of Connell (1993a, 1997, 2016): (1) the current form of hegemonic masculinity is heterosexual, aggressive, competitive, and homo-social; (2) major threats to hegemonic masculinity are the contemporary LGBT and feminist movements. During my research, I have found out that both of the arguments correspond to the realities of Ukrainian nationalist masculinity, however, to different extents. While the ‘heroic masculinity’ of Ukrainian nationalists is indeed heterosexual, aggressive, and homo-social, it is to a lesser degree competitive and has its own peculiarities for each characteristic. LGBT and feminist movements are framed as threats to traditional gender order supported by ‘heroic masculinity’