Ukrainian army comes under fire for making female cadets wear high heels to parade-National

UkraineAfter critics called him to shelve the idea, the defense minister is trying to overturn a plan for female students to parade in high heels during the Independence Day celebrations next month.

Defense Minister Andriy Taran (Andriy Taran) initially planned to let these women wear black high heels to participate in the military parade on August 24, which will be the 30th anniversary of Ukraine’s declaration of independence from the Soviet Union.

Social media users and several government officials criticized the idea, calling it outdated, sexist and insulting. Some even called for Taran to wear their shoes — or in this case, high heels — for a mile in the parade.

“The purpose of any military parade is to demonstrate the military’s military capabilities. There should be no room for stereotypes and gender discrimination,” the three cabinet members said in a joint statement issued over the weekend.

Officials also pointed out that there are approximately 57,000 women serving in the Ukrainian Armed Forces. They “did not prove their worth with high heels, but proved their worth with machine guns.”

Elena Kondratyuk, the deputy speaker of the Ukrainian Parliament, denounced these plans as “ferocious garbage” in a statement. Facebook Position, and the former Secretary of Defense Andrei Zagorodniuk call This is “a step towards North Korea.”

Irina Glashchenko Call this idea A kind of “humiliation”.

The Ukrainian Ministry of Defense sparked a controversy last week when it released photos of female students practicing high heels parade at the Taras Shevchenko National University in Kiev. The trainees wore camouflage pants, shirts and hats, and black high heels.

The ministry later defended itself Post on Facebook, It pointed out that high heels are part of women’s military uniforms in many other countries.

Taran visited the trainees on Saturday and acknowledged the controversy, saying that he had instructed officials to study “experimental” shoes for these women. Local reports claim that these “experimental” shoes are ankle boots.

Ministry of Industry and Information Technology in one copy statement On Saturday, the protesters’ official women’s uniforms “exposed many shortcomings”.

“It’s inconvenient for female soldiers to walk in shoes like this,” it said.

Taran did not explain why women must wear different shoes from men.