XENOLOGY OF THE FEMININE: UKRAINIAN WOMEN IN PERCEPTIONS OF CHINESE YOUTH

Abstract

The article represents results of a socio-philosophical study of the ideas of educated Chinese youth about modern Ukrainian women. The survey had been carried out on Summer 2023 during a full-scale Russian war against Ukraine. At the same time, we proceeded from the standpoint of the current state of Ukrainian-Chinese relations and the least possible politicization of the survey. The study involved an analysis of associations and was an in-depth loosely coupled interview with a orientative set of questions. The guide-interview was written in Ukrainian and English, with subsequent translation into Chinese. It is important for research that the interviewer was a woman. The interview was conducted by the Chinese co-author of this article under usual conditions. The answers were translated into Ukrainian. Direct translation of some answers was quite difficult, so clarifications and explanations were made in English. The research is socio-philosophical and does not fully correspond to sociological canons. The sources of the formation of these ideas were also investigated. In particular, coverage of the status of Ukrainian women during the Russian war in the Chinese segment of the Internet in English and Chinese. The article demonstrates how the publications available on the sites outline ideas about modern women and then broadcasted by young people in the form of concepts, lines of thought, contexts and accents. By definition of xenology the author means the direction of socio-philosophical searches aimed at understanding the "outlying", "other" and "different". In the course of the research, it was found that the characteristics of Ukrainian women do not contain signs of "alien" or "enemy". It has been demonstrated that the socio-cultural space of Chinese youth is permeated with various stereotypes, among which gender stereotypes occupy a leading place. The need for further research into an important problem for Chinese youth – surrogate motherhood – had been well-founded. It had been noted that the study of stereotypes requires a methodology that uses intersectionality and is based on an interdisciplinary approach. The study had confirmed that socio-philosophical analysis based on an intersectional approach can serve the interdisciplinary transfer of experimental data in gender studies.