To date, ethnographic research in Kyiv, Ukraine since 1998 has analyzed popular, political, and academic engagement of the “civil society” construct in the postsocialist context by examining ten nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) led by women. Further goals of this research have been to outline the challenges facing women in the post-Soviet period, and to examine the long-term effects of the Soviet gender contract. I argue that, in many cases, leadership roles in social organizations are a form of alternative employment for women, who have been forced out of their jobs in the context of postsocialist economic crisis and a revived nationalism that emphasizes women’s domestic, care giving functions
