Sustainable development of society is impossible without attracting the potential of the majority of the population of Ukraine - women. Our university is one of the first in the development of the gender component of education and has significant achievements in the implementation of gender issues in the educational process of specialists training.
From 2001 gender disciplines are taught in Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute, first as an elective and later as full disciplines. We were the first to introduce the teaching of the theory of "Gender" for IFF students, ahead of such progressive countries in terms of gender as Canada and Sweden. "Theories of Gender", "Gender Studies", "Sociology of Gender" and others were taught to students of the Faculty of Sociology and Law.
The new educational and professional training program for social workers of the first (bachelor's) level of higher education also requires the study of the discipline of gender issues. The discipline "Fundamentals of Gender Studies" belongs to the disciplines of basic training of the general training cycle. And now we are in the gender vanguard among the technical higher education universities of the world. This academic year, the discipline "Gender Studies" was chosen by students of 3-4 years of studying of the Faculty of Biotechnology and Biotechnics and the Faculty of Radio Engineering.
There are always a lot of controversies and fabrications around gender issues, but the aim of the course is to form competencies that our graduates will need in the future, both in professional realization and in personal life. In particular, these are the ability to:
- the positive perception of women and men as equal and full members of society;
- apply gender analysis and acquired knowledge for the development of personality in professional activities, research and private sphere;
- to resist the negative influence and pressure of the environment on the norms and role models of femininity and masculinity;
- apply mechanisms of protection against gender discrimination;
- apply a gender approach to the analysis of conflict situations that arise in the working group and defend their rights, avoiding gender discrimination;
- find rational ways to avoid critical situations related to sexual violence, to cut off sexual harassment in the professional and labour sphere;
- overcome socio-psychological stereotypes and prejudices regarding the perception of women and men in modern society;
- to build interpersonal relationships on a partnership egalitarian basis.
After studying this discipline, future engineers will be able to conduct a gender analysis of documents accompanying professional activities and navigate in gender law.
Of course, young students are most interested in the topics of love and sexuality. They even tried to derive a formula for love, not even a formula, but a system of equations! Girls and boys with various problems related to sexual and gender issues come to me for consultations. Therefore, the development of the course took into account the experience of more than twenty years of consulting and cooperation with social services and public organizations.
In addition, female students and staff of Igor Sykorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute are involved in international women's science and technology programs. This year, the Polish educational foundation "Perspektywy" within the European project "Women in Tech Summit" provides an opportunity for female students and young women scientists of Ukraine to participate in the international conference "Women in Tech Summit" on November 27-28, 2018 in Warsaw. The conference will be a meeting place for women working in the fields of mechanotronics, robotics, electronics, nanotechnology, telecommunications, information technology. Participants will be able to meet with leaders of world-famous high-tech companies, improve their scientific and technical knowledge. All participants from Igor Sikorsky Polytechnic Institute, who meet the requirements (training direction and age) and register on the site: www.womenintechsummit.pl, will receive a grant from the Ukrainian-Polish Center to travel to a conference in Warsaw.
In general, our Ukrainian Centre for Gender Education and the Faculty of Sociology and Law have extensive experience in cooperation on gender issues, in particular in the development and implementation of international experience in educational and research programs in various fields of knowledge. Therefore, teaching gender subjects will be useful for students of different specialities.
Yulia Strebkova, Candidate of Philosophic Sciences,