Where Are The Women In Armenia’s Revolution?

Sara Khojoyan

Women had a highly visible role in the peaceful protests that unseated Armenian premier Serzh Sargsyan last month, with female activists seen on the barricades and setting up the roadblocks in demonstrations that brought the capital Yerevan to a standstill.

But those who hoped that this level of involvement would lead to a new government with a fairer gender balance have been disappointed.

The journalist-turned-politician who led the protests, Nikol Pashinyan, promised the National Assembly on May 8 he would ensure proper representation for women, who he acknowledged “played a major role” in unseating Sargsyan and the ruling Republican party.

“We need to create equal opportunities for all women to continue being part of political decisions in the new Armenia,” Pashinyan said.

Some hailed this as a historic speech, the first time in Armenia’s history when a prime minister had highlighted the role of women in the country’s future success.

However, just a few days later, Pashinyan warned that that there would in fact be few female politicians in his cabinet due to an agreement he had reached to share positions amongst a number of other parties.

Indeed, only two of the new government’s 17 ministers – for culture and for labour and social affairs – are women. All three deputy prime ministers are all men.

Armenia Adopts Law against Domestic Violence at Last

Rupen Janbazian

 

The National Assembly of Armenia today adopted legislation aimed at combating domestic violence by introducing criminal and administrative liability against those found guilty of the newly defined crime.

The law was passed with 73 votes for and 12 against, with 6 abstentions, after debate and some resistance from a few parliamentarians.

Prime Minister Karen Karapetyan’s government pushed the bill through despite opposition from some of his fellow Republican Party of Armenia (RPA) members. The 12 parliamentarians who voted against the bill, however, were all members of the Tsarukian bloc—a self-described opposition party.

Caucasus Women Demand Power, Not Flowers

Giorgi Lomsadze

 

In the South Caucasus, International Women’s Day is still largely about men offering flowers, candies and compliments to their mothers, wives and significant female others. But many women in the region are now saying that they want “rights, not flowers.”

Throughout the post-Soviet part of the world, March 8 has long ranked as a bit of a Soviet Valentine’s Day. In keeping with that tradition, Russia’s Vladimir Putin this year panegyrized women’s beauty and grace, and threw in a poem for good measure. “Woman is with us when we are born; woman is with us in our final hour; woman is the flag we fight for,” the Kremlin boss rhapsodized, borrowing lines by the 19th-century Russian symbolist poet Konstantin Balmont.
Caucasus leaders avoided poetry, but their governments did have other offerings.

Armenian Women Today: Realities and Challenges

Mary Matosian 

Ani Jilozian

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March 8, a day to celebrate the achievements of women all across the world, is here. The United Nations (U.N.) recently declared this year’s theme as “Planet 50-50 by 2030: Step It Up for Gender Equality.” As we celebrate this day and the women and girls in our lives, we must at the same time recognize and be more vocal about the rampant sexism and male domination that sets the foundation for gender inequality and discrimination in our homeland.

Shifting the Armenian National Narrative on Women

Rupen Janbazian

 

Throughout Armenian history, women have held various roles in the national reality—from Armenian queens and princesses ruling in the medieval period, to female participation in the national liberation struggle of the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries. Women have been instrumental in the many successes and accomplishments of the Armenian people; after all, they represent about half of the population. So, why wouldn’t they be credited with an equal share of the recognition and praise that men receive?

The Treatment of Women in the Armenian Genocide: New Document Discovered in Paris Library

During their studies in the Nubarian Library of Paris, Turkish historian Umit Kurt and journalist Alev Er have discovered a document on the Armenian Genocide, hitherto unpublished, whose author is the well-known female writer Zabel Essayan. Her 11-page document tells the details of what happened with Armenian women in and after 1915. Zabel Essayan submitted the document to Boghos Nubar Pasha, chairman of the Armenian National Delegation, according to an article published on August 21, 2014 in the Istanbul-based Armenian  “Agos” periodical, which has introduced some extracts of the document.(*)

Nigoghos Sarafian's "The Princess"

Jennifer Manoukian

The following is a translation of the first chapter of a novel by Nigoghos Sarafian entitled "The Princess." Originally written in Western Armenian, the novel was published in 1934 in Paris. 

Between the wars, Paris replaced Constantinople as the center of Western Armenian intellectual life. After the fall of the Ottoman Empire, France served as one of the largest havens for Armenians and its capital provided exiled Armenian writers and intellectuals, in particular, with a space to revive Armenian literary culture. This literary culture had been all but decimated in 1915 by the Armenian genocide, during which the intellectual leadership of the Ottoman Armenian community was almost entirely eliminated. Those writers who went on to initiate the literary revival in Paris in the 1920s and 1930s were of a younger generation that had experienced the genocide and its aftermath as young men. They had been educated in the Armenian schools of Constantinople during the Allied occupation between 1918 and 1922 by the few surviving writers of the old guard, before both teachers and students were forced to flee the advancing nationalist forces that would eventually claim Constantinople and establish the Republic of Turkey in 1923. 

Women's Inactivity

Srpouhi Dussap

Translated by Jennifer Manoukian

The following is a translation of an article by Srpouhi Dussap, published in August 1882.

Srpouhi Dussap (née Vahanian) was the first Armenian woman novelist and the first Armenian writer—male or female—to address the social struggles particular to Armenian women. Born in 1842 in Constantinople, Dussap came of age during a period of cultural reawakening for Armenians in the Ottoman Empire, during which women began to carve out a place for themselves in the public sphere. One of these pioneering women was Dussap’s mother, Nazli Vahan, a staunch advocate for women’s education and the founder of charitable and educational organizations to help Armenian girls.

"Cosmopolitan" in Armenia: How to Sell Sex and Beauty and Not to Die in the Attempt

Vartan Matiossian

 

If Armenian bankers have their own connection to the world through "Forbes Armenia," why young women would not have one of their own? In March, the popular magazine “Cosmopolitan” launched "Cosmopolitan Armenia," which according to a recent report of RFE/RL appears to have become the best-selling glossy publication in Armenia less than seven months after its launch. The international magazine is currently printed in 36 languages and distributed in more than 100 countries.