Gender-based violence trends in Eastern European Societies: the case of Lithuania

The presentation will discuss the gender-based violence from the Eastern European perspective: from the traditional societies to current times. It will focus on the case of Lithuania – a land, that, many centuries in history, was seen as a symbolic frontier between the East and West: in terms of religion, culture and society. Many factors here had shaped the current gender reality: a dominant Catholic faith but also influence of the Eastern Orthodox Christianity, Traditional law and customs of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, but also the influence of the Soviet type industrialization and modernization.


On the one hand, Lithuanian women today are perceived as strong and equal to men. The former Lithuanian President, the current Prime Minister and the Parliament Speaker – they are all female. On the other hand, domestic and sexual violence – and the victim blaming – are still a big problem in the society. We will discuss, how history shaped the gender norms and trends in this particular place, how these norms were internalized by the different generations of Lithuanian women  – and what general lessons on gender and equality we can learn from this particular story. 



Personal Website BIO: http://pscrime.lt/about-the-author/ 
Dr. Monika Rogers (former Kareniauskaite) specializes in Soviet and post-Soviet history, law, gender and criminality. She is currently a Researcher at the Lithuanian institute of History, Department of Twentieth-Century History.


Monika’s research and interests cover criminal prosecution systems in Soviet and post-Soviet Lithuania and the USSR, anti-Soviet resistance, Gender-Based violence and Gender Equality, the dissident movement and the culture of remembrance in the former Eastern Bloc, Digital Humanities. 

In 2017 she received a Ph.D. in History (Vilnius University). She has been a Research Fellow at the University of St. Gallen (Switzerland, 2013-2014), a project coordinator and research assistant at the Berlin-Hohenschönhausen Memorial (2015), a leader of a research project on gender-based violence in twentieth-century Lithuania, a Postdoctoral Associate at Yale University (2019), a visiting scholar at Bremen University (2021) and a Research Fellow at the Davis Center at Harvard University.


ORCID: 0000-0002-1495-8055


Current research Projects: “Mnemonic Reality: Investigating Memory Law's Impact on Reality and Reality's Impact on Memory Laws”; “Pursuing justice for the victims of genocide, mass repressions and war in Lithuania and Ukraine: law, history, memory”

- this seminars is free to attend but registration is required.