Free Market Ideology and New Women’s Identities in Post-socialist Ukraine Tatiana Zhurzhenko V. KARAZIN KHARKIV NATIONALUNIVERSITY, UKRAINE ABSTRACT Transition to the market economy in post-socialist Ukraine, followed by the destruction of the ‘working mother’ gender contract, has led to the emer- gence of new forms of women’s identities. But the formation of new identities in the transformational period appeared to be mediated by free market ideology, linked to the development of consumer capitalism and dissemination of western consumer standards and lifestyles. The seeming diversity of the new identities promised by the ‘free market’ turned out to be reduced to two models: housewife and businesswoman. Imported along with western mass culture, they can easily be inscribed onto the Ukrainian cultural context. At the same time, the everyday practice of economic survival through informal business and the difficulties of adaptation to the market economy have a profound impact on women’s identity formation. KEY WORDS businesswoman identity ◆ consumer society ◆ free market ideology ◆ gender contract ◆ housewife identity ◆ market transformations ◆ working mother identity Ukraine is among the states that have emerged after the breakup of the USSR and that are moving along the path towards what are generally defined as the free market and democratic institutions. The breakdown of the Soviet system, along with the destruction of a unitary ‘Soviet identity’, as it first seemed, opened the floodgates for diverse social initiatives and movements organized around cultural, national, religious and other values, and thereby for the formation and representation of new forms of identity. The growth in the number of women’s organizations and their activities, as well as the emergence of the first, and thus far singular, figures of women thriving in business and in politics also bears evidence of the successes of democratization. At first glance, the dynamics of these processes in post-socialist countries comply entirely with the global The European Journal of Women’s Studies Copyright © 2001 SAGE Publications (London, Thousand Oaks and New Delhi), Vol. 8(1): 29–49 [1350-5068(200102)8:1;29–49;015615]