Feminist Library

Anna Muradyan work

The Power of Knowing – How Knowledge Reproduces Inequality: A Glance from Armenia to Europe

Read the article in Armenian

By Anna Muradyan

We are pleased to present educational feminist materials, which were created under different projects at our office. We hope that the scarce literature about feminism in Georgian language will be enriched by these articles and will become more available for the broader public.

Newest publication

Mother with a sleeping liitle girl

Feminist Mother Diaries

The publication includes 6 articles written by Tamta Tatarashvili.

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Director Nana Mtchedlidze on a film set, "someone is late for the bus", 1967

A Feminist Manifesto for Creative Women

Very often, national histories are constructed through mythology and Georgia is no exception in this regard. Rather opposite, often we are exaggerating the country’s glorious past.

By Anna Dziapshipa

Rusudan Khizanishvili, from series Every Day I Am Writing a Letter, 2013-2017

Woman’s Identity in the Georgian Visual Art: Pagava, Iankoshvili, Kvesitadze, Khizanishvili

Over the last thirty years woman’s identity in Georgia has undergone significant change and this transformative process has not yet been completed. Significantly this shift was predetermined by a corresponding radical revision in the global economic and social paradigms. As it happened in many other countries, women in Georgia had to leave their traditional social roles and alongside men take active part in the capitalist labor marketplace.

By Nina Mdivani

Articles

The LGBTI rights and the Revolution

The political party of the revolution leader Nikol Pashinyan – the Civil Contract – was founded in 2015, and it did not even mention the rights of LGBTI in its founding documents and programmes.

By Arthur Minasyan

რევოლუცია სომხეთში, გაღიმებულ ადამიანებს ხელები ზემოთ აქვთ აწეული და ხარობენ

A Story about Armenian Emancipation: The Long Way to the Dawning

I woke up knowing that this time around there would be no way to reach the centre by car.

By Nvard Manasian

#metoo, three, four – sexism for beginners

Perhaps it is time to get rid of the idea that patriarchy only harms women, because patriarchy mutilates us all.

By Dr. Mithu M. Sanyal

How to Fight Sexual Harassment in Georgia through Legal Mechanisms?

Sexual harassment first became topic of public discussions in April 2016, and later in March 2018, when women started to expose the cases of sexual harassment in different spheres.

By Tamar Dekanosidze

Justice System and Women – taking away control over one’s life

"The first principle of recovery is empowerment of the survivor. She must be the author and arbiter of her own recovery. Others may offer advice, support, assistance, affection, and care, but not cure," - Judith Herman.

By Ana Arganashvili

Women's Political UnderRepresentation: a Problem or a Pretence

Discussions about representation crisis in the Georgian Parliament has been increased among advocacy groups during the recent years. I claim, that these discussions lacked normative rethinking of the following: Why should women be represented in the parliament? And what threats does their invisibility imply for the democracy?

By Nazibrola Beridze-Gabaidze

Is Multiculturalism Bad for Women?

Georgian translation of famous essay by Susan Okin. Full text is available only in Georgian.

By Susan Moller Okin

Who is afraid of feminism in Georgia? Book review

"Who is afraid of feminism in Georgia?" by Tamar Tandashvili.

By Tamar Tandashvili

The Importance of Collective Care as a Feminist (Prefigurative) Political Act

What does feminist political labor look like in Armenia?

By Nelli Sargsyan

Women's Subordination and the Role of Law

This essay explores two aspects of the law's role in maintaining women in an inferior status.

By Elizabeth M. Schneider and Nadine Taub

Decolonizing Armenia: Metropole and Periphery in the Era of Postsocialism

In this article, I take up this relationship in a quite different context – not that of the postcolonial, but of the postsocialist, and particularly in the postsocialist Republic of Armenia.

By Tamar Shirinian

Co-optation of feminism: Gender, Militarism and the UNSC Resolution 1325

I argue in this essay that the UNSCR 1325 was developed through gendered discourses that allowed the use of the Resolution for militarist purposes.

By Anna Nikoghosyan

Experiences of protracted displacement in narratives of Internally Displaced women from Abkhazia

Based on life history interviews with internally displaced women, my goal is to understand how displaced women remember, revisit and construct their past.

By Nargiza Arjevanidze

Letter to My Daughter

"I wish that freedom could be a blank page for you, which you can fill as you wish and write on it, what you desire - fearlessly and freely." Full article is available only in Georgian or could be read in German here.

By Nino Kharatishvili

Feminist Groups in Georgia: Agenda, Policy and Practice

Article analyzes the agenda, policy and practice of the feminist groups in Georgia based on the interviews with The Independent Goup of Feminists, Women's Movement, Women's Gaze and The Georgian Young Greens.

By Maia Tabidze

'Don't Kill me, Mommy' - or the frameworks that limit debates on abortion

Pro-abortion activist argue that fetus is not a life and thus, abortion cannot be a murder. Their opponents claim that - exactly, abortion is a murder.

By Maia Tabidze

Women and State Pension: Privilege or Invisible Inequality?

While women have been entering the job market, it is interesting to observe, if their interests and specific needs have been reflected in the social policies?

By Gvantsa Khonelidze

Application of Special Temporary Measures (Quotas) in Armenia in Support of Women in Armenia: Prehistory and Assessment of Effectiveness

As the results of the 2012 elections show, on average in party lists women stood at 23%, however, in the end when in the parliament their overall share amounted to only 10.7% (now down to 10%). This fact already shows the ineffectiveness of the applied gender quota.

By Tamara Hovnatanyan

Unearthing the Gender discourse in Armenia: from Hysteria to Constructive Dialogue

In spite of the efforts invested both by the state, civil society and international community, the reality shows that there is no common understanding of the “gender” and related terms and, what is more, there is overuse and at the same time misunderstanding of those, what leads to deflected discourse on gender equality and (re-)produces misinterpretations and further stereotypes.

By Anna Harutyunyan

Tough Obedience: How is Militarized Masculinity Linked with Violence in the Army?

It is not surprising that the concept of masculinity is so normalized within the army that it is not being questioned at all. In most societies, masculinity is generally not perceived as something, which needs to be scrutinized.

By Milena Abrahamyan

Under Western Eyes: Feminist Scholarship and Colonial Discourses

Full Essay is available only in Georgian.

By Chandra Talpade Mohanty

What do Feminist Economists Have to Share with Us?

It’s about money, but it's also about time."

By Marta Hozer-Kocmiel

Shades of Radical Leisure: How Colonization of Time Relates to Workers Exploitation and Women’s Oppression

The idea of worker's leisure is so shocking for the privileged classes that they create them as if the poor do not know what to do with it.

By Maia Barkaia

Essence of Culture and a Sense of History: A Feminist Critique of Cultural Essentialism

Cultural essentialism is destructive for feminist agenda. Full esay is available in Georgian.

Sociology of the Georgian Body

Article explores the new Georgian bodies, which have emerged as a result of the merging of global and local values. Full article is available only in Georgian.

By Giorgi Urchukhishvili

Access to the Female Body - Legal and Illegal Frameworks of Prostitution

Prostitution is based on the idea that men have unlimited access to a female body and sexuality. Also, it assumes the necessity of satisfaction of the male sexual needs. Full article is available only in Georgian.

By Nana Dikhaminjia

The fight for Public Space: History of May 17 in Georgia

Georgia is the only country in the world, where anti-gay demonstrations have a longer history than those supporting LGBT rights. Full article is available only in Georgian.

By Eka Aghdgomelashvili

Structural and Cultural Causes of Gender-Based Violence in Armenia

Gender-based violence is the cause and the negative outcome of women’s multidimensional disadvantages in social and political life. The contributing factors can be divided into structural and cultural categories.

By Gohar Shahnazaryan

Women's Art versus Feminist Art: Categories and Contradictions in Practices of Armenian Art

It would not be superfluous to note that some women artists were the protagonists of a style characterized as strongman painting, one heavily invested with simulations of male artistic practices, and which adhered to the aesthetic models common to Armenian traditional painting and art.

By Susanna Gyulamiryan

Lesbian Feminism and Separation as Political Resistance

One of the most interesting aspects of lesbian feminism is the idea of separatism, which implies emotional, social, sexual, economic and political separation from men and patriarchal institutions. Article is available in Georgian.

By Natia Gvianishvili

Women and Mass Media

In advertising and magazines, women are usually portrayed as young, slim and with beauty that meets the accepted standards. Women with this kind of appearance are often associated with sex objects.

By Anna Davtyan-Gevorgyan

Ugly "Beauty" Myths

Beauty myths are used against women, Naomi Wolf States. The article is available only in Georgian.

By Eka Imerlishvili

Sexual Harassment in the Public Spaces: Declaration of Power or Invisible Discrimination?

Sexual harrassment in the public spaces is the least debated issue and the form of invisible discrimination. The article is available only in Georgian.

By Alla Parunova

Women in Politics and Political Texts in Armenia

According to international reports, Armenia is on 103rd place among 142 countries by the index of women’s political participation.

By Ruzanna Tsaturyan

Lessons of History: Public Activism of Armenian Women in 19th and early 20th Century

19th century was marked by the phenomenon of women public activism, and the emergence and development of women’s social organizations. Women entered the public sphere in a triumphal procession, and the impact they left on the Armenian culture is undeniable.

By Anahit Harutyunyan

How Divergent Concepts and Economic Interests Created a Disabling Environment for the Emancipation of the Armenian Women

Independence, that apparently have had the ambition of having solved the liberation of nations from the Soviet rule, discarded March 8. Instead, April 7 now was the Day of Motherhood unobstructed introduced to the calendar.

By Nvard Manasian

Myths about "Dangers" of Feminism in Armenian Society

The presentation of myths about feminism circulated in the Armenian society should start from the study of stereotypes in countries where feminist approaches have received extensive legal and cultural legitimization.

By Anna Voskanyan

Woman, Women, Feminisms - Rethinking of Differences in the Feminist Theory

The article deals with the topic of "difference", which seems a simple issue but provokes controversieas and debates. Full article is available only in Georgian.

By Dako Bakhturidze

Closet or Coming-out? From individual queer visibility to community activism

Coming-out has a ritualised meaning - you kind of mark the day in a calendar as a turning point. Usually, it happens once for the people around, but for us, coming-out means a new daily routine.

By Shota Kincha

Georgian Women's Movement - One Year of Fights, Doubts and Victories

The article reviews one year history, challenges and results of Georgian Women's Movement, which started in November 2014 as a response to the numerous femicide cases. Read full article in Georgian.

By Nino Danelia

Equality of men and women according to Orthodox Theology

The article discusses issues of equality according to Orthodox Theology. Full article is available only in Georgian.

By Tinatin Megrelidze

Girls of Zürich: on the track of 19th century Georgian students

Russian Nadezhda Suslova became the first female student at the University of Zürich in 1866. Her words: "I am the first, but not the last" had come true. Georgian women also studied in Zürich.

By Tamta Melashvili

Women and Feminism

Chapter from the Georgian translation of publication "Thirty Years of Bundestag Presence: A Tally of the Greens’ Impact on the Federal Republic of Germany’s Political Life and Public Culture". A. Markovits's and J. Klaver's essay.

We and the National Congress

1917 year, newspaper "Voice of a Georgian Woman", author: Kato Mikeladze. Kato responds to the National Congress, where she was denied to read her speech.

Anti-Feminism: Incompetence, irresponsibility or fight for privileges?

This article is an attempt to analyze movements against feminist in a theoretical framework.

By Tamar Tskhadadze

Modern feminist activism in Georgia

Article discusses modern feminist activism in Georgia.

By Tamta Melashvili

Gender and Sexuality in Georgian movies

Article aims to analyze women's representation in Georgian movies from feminist perspective.

By Tamta Tatarashvili

Where are genius women in arts?

Very often, we hear an assumption, that woman painter/composer/writer cannot be a genius. To what extent is this idea wrong? Maybe, we deal with the history fraud.

By Davit Gabunia

Who is afraid of Femme Fatale?

The article analyzes history of development of the image of "Femme Fatale".

By Teo Khatiashvili

Women in Christianity - Eva or Mary?

The article critically discusses women's role according to Christian theology.

By Tamar Tata Tsopurashvili

Feminism and Women's rights: Movement from the Edges to the Centre

The article describes history of women's movement and its main actors. Also, readers will be given an opportunity to connect history of western feminist ideas to the Georgian reality.

By Lela Gaprindashvili