Women's mobilizations gain strength in Belarus and dislodge Lukashenko

Women are at the forefront of protests in Belarus.

Thousands of them have marched through the streets again in Minsk and other cities this Saturday to demand an end to the repression and the departure of Aleksandr Lukashenko.

In a deeply patriarchal country, where its authoritarian leader does not skimp on sexist comments and there are no specific laws against sexist violence, many women now discover themselves as political and rights subjects.

And although gender equality does not yet occupy a substantial place on the agenda, her constant mobilizations for democracy lay the foundations of an incipient feminist wave.

The first 'women's protest' arose spontaneously in a Telegram group at the beginning of the demonstrations against the alleged electoral fraud, when the police repression tried to violently quell the protests and thousands of detainees, mostly men but also many women , reported harassment and torture in custody.

That group attracted the attention of hundreds of

and

and had to be shut down.

Quickly, the feminist Marina Mentusova and other citizens launched

, a Telegram channel that today has more than 12,500 subscribers and that, in addition to trying to coordinate marches, channels news.

"We wanted to focus on the situation in Belarus, but highlighting the idea of ​​overcoming fear, changing it for hope and the desire to go out and fight for their own rights," says Mentusova, 27-year-old events director.

The women's marches and their power completely dislodged the Government, Marina Mentusova has an impact.

Nor did she expect presidential candidate Svetlana Tijanóvskaya, along with two other women, to lead and unify the opposition.

Aleksandr Lukashenko called them "poor things" and assured that they were being manipulated.

“He let her participate in the elections because she did not believe that she could win, or even attract the citizens;

and that shows how far it is from reality.

Deep down, his derogatory phrases towards all women and specifically towards Svetlana helped us to unite ”, she says.

Although Tijanóvskaya has always presented herself as a mother who had no political ambitions but was running for the presidency because her arrested husband could not do so and insisted that he was willing to "fry chops again."

Today, the opposition leader, exiled in Lithuania, has changed her speech a bit and is already talking about equal rights.

"We are marching for peace in Belarus, what is happening in this country is inadmissible and it is in our power to change it," says Anna Pustovaya at the Minsk march.

This 53-year-old teacher has participated in women's protests from day one, when they were called “solidarity chain” or “solidarity marches” and hundreds of women dressed in white and with flowers demanded an end to violence.

Now, the women's march is repeated daily.

This Saturday it has gathered about 10,000, according to independent media;

5,000, according to the Vesna organization.

Women of all backgrounds and backgrounds come.

Those who identify as feminists and those who don't;

those who, like Pustovaya, participate in their first protests and who are used to activism.

Like the feminist Dasha Vitushka.

"This is a protest to demand fair elections, for democracy, but democracy also means equality," says 36-year-old Vitushka.

This Saturday, the protest action had the slogan "the march of the world", and some flags of other countries have been displayed;

Also, and for the first time, several rainbow flags, for the rights of LGTBI + people.

Lena Aharelysheva, a gender researcher who has analyzed the development of the campaign since Tijanóvskaya ran for president, believes that what Belarus is experiencing is not a “feminist revolution”.

“According to stereotypes, women have to do more in critical situations, and in this case the impulse for many has been to leave for their husbands, parents, brothers, friends, detained, beaten, persecuted;

because within these stereotypes there is also the one that women are weak subjects towards whom it is frowned upon to use the police force ”, she comments.

Although there are also many documented cases of police brutality towards detainees and female opponents, activists and critics are constantly threatened and harassed, as civil rights organizations such as Amnesty International have denounced.

"What is happening has more to do with a first feminist wave or with the suffrage marches of the early 20th century," says the researcher.

In the protests there are no gender claims, although that empowerment, sisterhood that is being experienced and questioning of leadership roles can be the bellows to put equality on the agenda, says Aharelysheva.

In fact, the Belarusian equality expert indicates, as feminist claims are not prominently on the table and gender roles are not being openly raised, female protests do not receive substantial attacks from official propaganda.

“Many commentators and observers, most of them men, inside and outside Belarus, cite these demonstrations and the role of women in them only because they defend men, stand up to protect them, avoid their arrests.

They consider it 'exemplary' feminism, telling us again how we have to protest and giving their 'approval' because they do not feel their privileges in danger, "she adds.

When they begin to highlight the still nascent claims of equality, she says, it will probably not seem so exemplary.

"It is probably said that this is not the time, that there are other 'priority' issues ahead of time," remarks Aharelysheva.

With a conservative ideology like other neighboring countries, such as Russia, the regime's propaganda has identified feminism as something related to Western values ​​that can “endanger” what it considers the traditional family and its concept of the State.

And although young women increasingly identify as feminists, the word still carries a significant stigma.

Gender equality is not on the agenda of the European country, where there are 34% of female deputies - a figure higher than in Germany or the United Kingdom - but which is among the worst in the world in terms of women's participation in the Government, according to the latest UN Women report of 2019. A law against domestic violence has not been able to move forward - and there is not even a law against sexist violence on the table -;

Two years ago, the authoritarian leader Aleksandr Lukashenko remarked that it was not necessary and parked.

“I cannot speak of the reasons for all women to come out to protest.

They mobilized and united for their rights, but what will come after must be decided in new fair elections, ”says Marina Mentusova.

And she adds: "I don't know if it can be called a feminist march or a women's march, but what is clear is that in Belarus the revolution has the face of a woman."

Another opposition figure Belarus leaves the country

Another opposition figure has left Belarus.

The activist and lawyer Olga Kovalkova, a prominent member of the coordinating council of the persecuted Belarusian opposition, arrived in Poland this Saturday after being detained for ten days in a Minsk detention center.

Kovalkova assured in Warsaw that the Belarusian authorities had forced her to leave the country.

The lawyer thus joins the presidential candidate Svetlana Tijanovskaya, forced into exile in Lithuania, as her family and other prominent critical voices feel threatened who have had to leave Belarus due to the harassment and repression of the Aleksandr Lukashenko Administration.

"Representatives of the security forces and the Belarusian Interior Ministry approached me and told me that if I did not agree to leave I would face long detentions ... They assured me that there would be [arrests] to infinity," Kovalkova said in a press conference in Warsaw.

She said that they had taken her out of prison masked, laid her in the back seat of a car and transported her to the border with Poland, where she crossed on foot.

The lawyer Kovalkova, who has ensured that she will return to Belarus to continue fighting in the opposition, was arrested on August 25 outside a state factory, where she had come to support the employees who were on strike to demand the departure of Lukashenko and new elections.

She was accused of organizing illegal protests and riots.

The trade unionist Sergei Dilevsky, arrested along with her, has remained in a Minsk detention center ever since.