“Women are different”: Celebration of LGBT-inclusive diversity as Armenia’s Feminist Platform marks International Women’s Day in Yerevan

“Women are different” - this was the main slogan Armenia’s Feminist Platform group chose to mark International Women’s Day.

The invitation to join the march was for everyone regardless of age, marital status, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, whether local or foreigner, from village or city, to “celebrate different ways of being a woman”.

Not every day you see such a public celebration of diversity - for real (!) - in Armenia capital Yerevan, especially inclusive of LGBT people.

Posters during march read: “women are different”, “lesbian”, “bisexual”, “transgender”, “scientist”, “virgin”, “sex worker”, “woman living with HIV”, “cleaner”, “entrepreneur”, “mother”, “single mother”, “model”, “soldier”, “not married”, “footballer / weightlifter”, “woman with disability” [agree with @Mushegh1 re original Armenian term used on poster “հաշմանդամ”] and more…

Big respects to organisers and participants.

Video below via Epress.am, pictures - via PINK Armenia.

And yes, love this #LoveWins and some other T-shirts spotted during the march.

I noticed one with “We are unstoppable” too.

Of course, as Epress.am reports, not everyone were happy to see such march in the heart of Yerevan:

Most passersby reacted positively to the march and showed interest in what they heard and read. Some people, however, mostly young males, were visibly aggravated by the march and even stopped to inform the marchers that such public actions “are shameful and ugly phenomena.” 

“One might think that women’s rights in this country are totally violated. Who says women have no rights? Sure they do, but that doesn’t mean I should take posters and start protecting people’s rights,” Epress.am reporters overheard one of the young men saying to a female marcher. “These people have the same rights as anyone else. They have the right to freedom of assembly. Besides, the law might provide for equal rights between men and women, but it’s on paper only,” the girl replied. 

The young man was not convinced and proceeded to complain that the marchers were “advocating homosexuality, and that’s not normal.” “I don’t care what they do among themselves, but let them not take to the streets and preach it. They have no right to a family,” he said, adding that “it’s like allowing people to marry animals if they want to.”

Երթին անցորդների մի մասը հետաքրքրությամբ էր վերաբերվում, սակայն կային նաև դժգոհողներ՝ հիմնականում երիտասարդ տղամարդիկ։ «Ապե գիտես չէ, սրանցից մեկին մատով կպնես, կտանեն բերդում կփակեն», – ընկերոջը դիմեց մոտ 25 տարեկան երիտասարդը՝ տեսնելով երթի մասնակից կանանց։ Մեկ այլ երիտասարդ մոտեցավ երկու աղջիկների և հայտարարեց, որ նման հանրային ակցիաներն «ամոթ և տգեղ երևույթ» են․ «Կարա տպավորություն ստեղծվի, որ կնանիքի իրավունքները էս երկրում լրիվ ոտնահարված են»։ Նրա և աղջիկների միջև երկխոսություն ծավալվեց․ - Ով չի ընդունում, որ էս երկրում կինը իրավունք չունի։ Հա, կինը իրավունք ունի, բայց էդ չի նշանակում, որ ես պետք ա պլակատներով հելնեմ ու մարդկանց իրավունքները պաշտպանեմ։ - Բայց բոլորը իրավունքներ ունեն, ինչպես և նրանք իրավունք ունեն ազատ հավաքվելու։ Բացի դա, գուցե, փաստաթղթերով, օրենքով ամրագրված է, որ կնոջ և տղամարդու իրավունքները հավասար են, բայց դա միայն թղթի վրա է։ - Դե հա, բայց ես էստեղ տեսա նաև, որ քարոզում են նույնասեռականությունը, էդ նորմալ չի։ Դե հա, իրենք իրար հետ ինչ ուզում են թող անեն, մենակ թե դուրս չգան, մի տեղ պետք ա փակեն իրանց, կամ եթե դուրս էլ են գալիս, թող չքարոզեն, իրանք իրավունք չունեն ընտանիք պահելու։ - Բայց ինչպես ես իրավունք ունեմ ընտանիք կազմելու, էնպես էլ երկու հոգի, որոնք նույն սեռից են, բայց իրար հարգում են ու սիրում, փորձեն այլ ճանապարհով երեխա ունանալ։ - Դե հիմա, քուրս, քո ասածից դուրս ա գալիս, որ էն մարդը, որը որ կենդանու հետ ա, պետք ա թույլ տանք, որ, ըստ օրենքի, կենդանու հետ ամուսնանա։ Աղջիկները կրկին չհամաձայնեցին, իսկ զրույցի վերջում երիտասարդն ասաց․ «Էն կինը, որը իրա տղամարդուն հնազանդ չի, տղամարդ չի կարող ունենալ իր գլխին։ Մնում ա փողոցում»։

Intro: Armenian Feminist blog

Armenian Feminist blog was created by a group of feminists to raise awareness about women’s rights, gender equality and gender identity.

Its main aim is to reach out to the general public in Armenia, including the most remote areas, by making available important feminist texts in Armenian language.

Even with the vast information flow of the 21st century, there are still certain groups in Armenian society, which remain on the margins. Most often these are women who are cut off from the media and alternative modes of obtaining information about their rights, opportunities, etc.

Of course, it will be the most difficult to reach out to such groups, since if they are cut off from the alternative modes of obtaining information, then they would hardly read blogs.

The good news is that the authors of this blog started getting feedback and contributors from women in Armenian villages too. There is hope, afterwards. And this is a very encouraging sign, indeed.

This situation makes women more vulnerable to sustaining abusive relationships, dysfunctional family relations, abuse of their economic and political rights, etc. Even if these women have access to the media, the lack of coverage on topics that are considered taboo or irrelevant make these women subject to isolation, frustration, lack of acknowledgement. The general attitude of keeping quiet about taboo topics, which make people feel uncomfortable  contributes to the general attitude that there are no problems in society at all.

Along with translations, they make original postings and interviews too.

And the subjects of their posts are quite diverse: from Fem manifesto to domestic violence to problems facing by people with disabilities to the ways of dealing with menstruation among some transgender men.

I personally know the main creators behind this blog. Great bunch of people.

And if you wish to support their efforts, you may donate here.

Armenia: Rare display of diversity and unity on Human Rights Day in Yerevan

Day started with reports that Armenia human rights ombudsman office calls for a... "day of silence" on Human Rights Day. ["ՀՀ մարդու իրավունքների պաշտպանի գրասենյակը դեկտեմբերի 10-ը հայտարարել է Լռության օր:"] Very telling of the ombudsman. Over the last year he either kept silence on human rights abuses or - worse - effectively became part of it, by siding with neo-nazi and homophobia. Instead, activists did what they should do on Human Rights Day - act, speak out, protest for human rights.

This year, human rights march in Yerevan was a rare display of diversity and unity. Organised by opposition Armenian National Congress, today's march was unique in a way it was able to unite people of various political, social and ethnic backgrounds, including anarchists, LGBT activists, feminists, with a wide rights agenda.

There were no attacks towards bearers of rainbow flag, like during anti-Putin demo a week ago, even police was behaving pretty civilised. [see P.S. towards the end] It was like a dream come true, even if for a moment. But this is a picture of Armenia I want to see more and more often, and eventually as a matter of routine.

"Everyone is different, everyone is equal" - as per reports, activists were chanting this slogan during the march too. Guys, you rock!!

@Sevak_change: Էսօր #մարդու #իրավունք-ների #երթ-ի ժամանակ մարդիկ ի թիվս այլ լոզունգների բղավում էին «ԲՈԼՈՐՍ ՏԱՐԲԵՐ, ԲՈԼՈՐՍ ՀԱՎԱՍԱՐ»:

Ընտիր էր: Միասնական, սոլիդար: Շատ լավ անցավ:

*pictures - via ourmine

I love this video by epress.am. Pay attention to feminist statement towards the beginning of the  video; also what people chanting when passing by Russian embassy; and in general the sense of diversity and unity. Awesome.



And another cool video with rainbow flag, feminist symbolism and "Secular Armenia" poster.



P.S. After this post was published, I was told that there was small incident after the march when woman war veteran tried shouting at activist Lala Aslikyan to put down rainbow flag. But the incident did not get escalated to any significant effect.

Anuk Beluga: Georgian artist's "painting activism"

Re-introducing Georgian artist, feminist, activist Anuk Beluga. Selected works below via her blog. You may find more of her exciting works by Google-ing her name.

Last year I posted about Anuk Beluga's activist video "Painting activism", tackling the issues of gender identity, homophobia, religion, freedom:  "F*ck gender", "Down with the Patriarch": activist video from Georgia

Relevant and current, as ever.

Queering Yerevan: “Meeting with remarkable women”

Guitar Boy "Love in the Desert"



"Love in the Desert" by Nancy Agabian, Ann Perich and Dan Day. Originally released in "Life History of a Star," Infected Films soundtrack. Produced by Jon Mattox & Guitar Boy. Recorded at Red Room Studios. Copyright 1999 Ampus Music/BMI.

*via Queering Yerevan

Two or Three Things She Knows About Shushanik



"Two or Three Things She Knows About Shushanik" (2005). A video by Tina Bastajian on the translation of Shushanik Kurghinian's (1876-1927) poetry into English (by Shushan Avagyan).

*Thanks to Lara for the link to this video. Reminds me of my Quote of the Moment:

"Do not love me as if I were a flower! I want to live a worthy life, as an atom in a mass of troubles, as a child of street mobs."
Shushanik Kurghinian

Bekhsoos: "A personal queer look at the Armenian Genocide"

A queer Arab magazine Bekhsoos posted a correspondence between two gay Armenian Lebanese women sharing their very personal outlook at the Armenian Genocide:

Dear Sarag,

When I first realized I was queer, it wasn’t anything shocking for me as I was always the minority of some other minority.

My first cause ever was the Armenian genocide and I held on to it like someone holds on to their dear life. The idea that another group wanted to erase something very essential in my being and eradicate it was enough for me to want to resist.

It’s not easy to know that someone wants you to no longer exist.

So when I look around now and I think of the homophobia and the people who want to eradicate us because for them we are a disease, it’s not something new. When I think of all the gendercide and how a lot of our societies break women and burry their existence in petty beliefs, it’s not something new.

I am a queer Armenian Lebanese woman; a half-breed to add to that and this is the essence of my survival. For 95 years our people have been screaming for justice and we will keep on shouting and screaming even when the dearest feminists shout back but who cars about this now? How is it relevant to our cause?

I want to tell you how relevant it is. It is relevant because it is my cause and I am a feminist and it’s a human cause.

It is relevant because its Darfur and Gaza, it is relevant because when we got here we were thrown in camps and orphanages and built our lives from rubbles, it is relevant because women were raped and killed and children sold, it is relevant because justice has not been restored. And you know, when justice is not restored the whole order of your world crumbles. You ask me why I still want them to utter words or recognition? Because I want to be in peace, I want to believe in the good order of the universe, I want to know that the good prevails that there is hope. This is why I fight as a feminist, this is why I fight as a queer, it is why I choose these battles where small victories fuel me with hope

and I think of bigger ones.

Imagine you had 5 more years, only five years to prove that you’ve been raped and beaten, your land stolen. You had five years and you show humanity proof and ask for justice to be made and you know that once those five years go by, humanity’s corrupt system will erase your trauma from its history and move on. You are silenced and mute and your rapist still wandering out there. What would you do? We have 5 more years and then it’s the centenary and after that according to international laws our cause is a lost one. Wonderful example to give to states like Israel, practicing apartheid.

Love,

Shant

___________________

Dear Shant,

You already know, I relate to everything said in your e-mail.

I have always been a part of a minority, ever since I was born.

As I discovered more and more about myself, I became a minority of a minority and it has always been a struggle.

A struggle mainly for my rights. For my rights as an Armenian living in Lebanon, as a Woman, and as a Queer.

A struggle for belonging.. I was born in Lebanon but let’s face it, do I really belong here? It doesn’t really feel like it since I have always been pointed out as The Armenian among the Lebanese. It doesn’t really feel like it since el 3arabeh taba3 el arman mkassar, since we have a different culture and different traditions.

The next question would be. Do I belong in Armenia? Here… This breaks my heart. I don’t even belong in Armenia, because I am only a tourist there. A tourist that doesn’t even speak the same language as the Armenians there.

I have heard so much about Armenians since I was in school by my teachers, my parents, and my grandmothers. I have heard so many stories about my own family, about my own grandfather and my great grandfather and grandmother.

What do I do with all that? Get over it? Let it go?

It’s impossible…

It has become a part of me. A part of my core being.

It is in the blood.

What I find messed up is how countries like The United States or the European union use the Genocide as some joker card against Turkey. They don’t care about the recognition, they hold on to that card so that they can have political stances and gains. The U.S. gets to have army bases and fly into Iraq from over Turkey and the E.U. uses it to stop Turkey from getting in its sphere. And our history relies on their twisted politics.

We fight every day for our rights as queers. We want justice, we want acknowledgement.

We get frustrated and irritated. We go insane when we hear about all the queers and transgendered people that have been murdered.

All this blood spilled… Who could really get over it? Who could really accept it in the first place?

Hate, denial of our existence and their desire to annihilate us…

It’s something none of us should shut up about.

The Armenian cause is so close to all the other causes we believe in and fight for.

You don’t have to necessarily be an Armenian to feel this… You just have to be human.

And there is a big difference between human and “human”.

Love,

Sarag

Maral Bavakan: Queer/Armenian, Split Identity

*via IANYAN

"[...] I have been meeting gay Armenians both in Armenia and in the US and telling myself that my parents cannot use the excuse of my assimilation to American culture as the reason for my rejection of heterosexuality. But it always comes down to that. When I moved out my parents could not understand why I chose to do so even though I felt like I was going mad living at home and leading such a double life. I still live a double life, but there is less anxiety over trying to maintain a lie, a shameful secret, who I have chosen to be, who I have become in this mixture of immigration from Armenia to the United States, from heteronormativity to queerland, from proper, passive woman to activist, feminist, artist. Because I cannot exist in a bubble, I claim an identity as a queer Armenian woman, but those are also secondary.

I would rather not have to be face to face with a system that creates categories to separate people. I cannot chose where I was born and the impact the earth and air of that place has had on me, nor can I chose the effect that living in a female body has had on my spirit and mind, but I should not have to constantly prove how I am woman, or Armenian, or American, or queer, or straight, or artist, or activist, or spiritual. And there are so many of us, immigrants, exiles, who do not fit in a box or live our lives in a linear fashion. I believe we are the ones who can guard the future against decay, standing against its winds, with our very lives, resisting."

Maral Bavakan
Maral is a passionate artist/writer who is in the throes of creating a world in which she and others like herself can live in peace and abundance. When she is in love she believes that this is more and more possible. She is currently attempting to find a room of her own in which to write and complete a memoir/poetry book. Check out her blog at http://www.maralbavakan.blogspot.com


*/emphasis mine/

Armenian in Brooklyn (new blog by gay Armenian woman)

I'd like to introduce what seems to me an exciting new blog by gay Armenian woman: Armenian in Brooklyn.

I am an immigrant from Yerevan living in Brooklyn for the past 13 years. This is a blog about seemingly contradictory identities that I will weave into something new. Perhaps I can make another world possible for someone who may feel like their struggle corresponds with mine.

In her first two entries, she touches upon complex and sensitive issues of identity, of being Armenian and gay woman, and relevant issues.

All I know is that if there is room to practice being Armenian by being homophobic and sexist and racist, then there must be room to practice being Armenian and being queer, being feminist, being pro-Palestine, being conscious of the different oppressions that afflict our common world all at the same time. At the end of the day, when I trace back my roots to where I come from and I end up in the lands of the Caucasus mountains, in Van, in Tbilisi, in Yerevan, I know that I can never ‘lose’ this history/memory. Who I am and where I come from has made me. Queer.

Welcome to blogosphere, Maral!

Women protests in Turkey to mark 8 March

Women Protesters "Will Not Leave the Streets"
Bianet

Housewives, students, sex workers, journalists, politicians, transsexuals, teachers, homosexuals, unemployed were yesterday united in a march along Istiklal street, the pedestrian precinct in Beyoğlu, central Istanbul.

Women’s Day had been marked by protests and marches during the day, but yesterday women also walked under the slogan “We will not leave the streets.” More...

*source of pictures - Bianet

Thousands of Women Marked 8 March in Kadıköy
Bianet

Around 6,000 women walked through Kadkköy, a district on the Asian side of Istanbul, and congregated at Kadıköy square yesterday (8 March) to mark International Women’s Day.

The 8 March Women’s Platform carried placards and shouted slogans, saying “We will resist the patriarchal capitalist system. We insist, we are decided.” More...

Finding Zabel Yesayan (documentary)

Date: 7 March 2009
Time: 5 - 6 pm
Location: Tumanyan Muppet Theater
Street: 4 Sayat Nova
Town/City: Yerevan, Armenia

The Women's Resource Center and Utopiana will present the screening of the documentary film "Finding Zabel Yesayan" by Talin Suciyan and Lara Aharonian. The 40 min documentary depicts the life of the writer after her move to Soviet Armenia.

By Invitation only, places limited

A History of Armenian Women's Writing 1880-1922 (new book)

Thanks to the reader of my blog AW, I received the info on this new book by Victoria Rowe "A History of Armenian Women's Writing 1880-1922". Seems very interesting. It's now available to pre-order via Amazon, with the release date (paperback) indicated as 4 March 2009.

Below are details via Amazon and Google Book. A preview of 2003 edition of (as far as I understand) the same book (or her PhD thesis) is available on Google Book.

Product Description (Amazon)
This classic, path-breaking volume restores the pioneering generation of 19th and 20th century Armenian women writers to their rightful place in the histories of modern Armenian and Ottoman literatures. The author reconstructs the biographies and bibliographies and analyzes the texts of six Armenian women writers and contextualizes their works in the intellectual and cultural milieus of the late Ottoman and Russian Empires.

(Google Book) The volume focuses on six Armenian women writers-Srpouhi Dussap, Sibyl, Mariam Khatisian, Marie Beylerian, Shushanik Kurghinian and Zabel Yesayian and these authors' novels, short stories, poems and essays. The study contends that Western and Eastern Armenian women writers, while not displaying a uniformity of opinion and vision, nevertheless found inspiration in the activism, writings and arguments of one another and form a literary genealogy of women's writing in Armenian.The study has several objectives. For general readers and those interested primarily in the historical account it provides a chronological description of the formative period of modern Armenian women's writing beginning in 1880 with the publication of a series of articles on women's education and employment by Srpouhi Dussap and concludes with the physical dislocations and psychological traumas of the Armenian Genocide in 1915 and the fall of the first independent Republic of Armenia in 1921.On another level the book concentrates on disentangling the contemporaneous intellectual debates about Armenian women's proper sphere. The author argues that the role of the Armenian woman was central to debates about national identity, education, the family and society by Armenian writers and women writers sought to participate in and guide this discourse through literary texts.

About the Author (Amazon)
Victoria Rowe specializes in Armenian literary history and gender studies. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Toronto, Canada upon completion of her doctoral thesis: The New Armenian Woman : Armenian Women's Writing in the Ottoman Empire, 1880-1915. Her articles on Armenian literary history and gender have appeared in numerous academic journals. She is the editor of translations of the works of Shushanik Kurghinian and Zabel Yesayian and has translated Inga Nalbandian's Your Brother s Blood Cries Out, (Gomidas Institute, 2007). She has taught Armenian literature at universities in Canada and Japan and is currently co-editor of Journal of Armenian History and Literature.

Russian "definition of feminism"... as per Cosmopolitan poll

Via GVO, Anna’s Out of Town News writes about online poll on "Who is a feminist?" by Russian Cosmopolitan magazine. Not only the choices for answers are outrageous and bizarre, but also the results of that so called poll itself.

The question reads: “Who is a feminist?” And here are the only choices for answers:

-A woman who doesn’t wear bras — 8.7%

-A woman who has bad luck with men — 58.49%

-A lesbian — 6.81%

-Condoleezza Rice — 26.01%

Feminist – first openly feminist magazine of modern Armenia

Published by the Women’s Resource Centre:

“The word feminism is generally not understood in our society. What’s more, the questions raised by the feminist movement are seen as foreign and destructive to the Armenian culture, and the way people perceive feminism is far from what the actual movement represents.

In order to comprehend, recognise and grasp feminist ideas, it is first and foremost necessary to gain a multi-perspective understanding of those principles.

Drawn to this cause, the Women’s Resource Centre has initiated the publication of the first openly feminist magazine of modern Armenia, which will offer the opportunity to discuss and analyze the past, present and future of the feminist movement both in Armenia and in the world. Today there are many magazines that are “for” and “about women” that offer various remedies to become beautiful, charming, captivating, loved, successful, etc. The goal of Feminist is to pay particular attention to the woman, mostly to her psychological, social, economical and political issues, as well as to create a forum where women can express their desires, thoughts, and frustrations.

The first issue of Feminist magazine includes interviews with women from Armenia and Diaspora, and foreign women about their views on the roles of Armenian women. In this regard, Azeri activist Rena Tahirova discusses women’s roles in peace processes. Hoping to run this first attempt into tradition, we are also including information about women who have contributed to Armenia’s social, political and cultural life at various epochs, and in this context we are publishing Zabel Yesayan’s letter to Avetik Isahakian from 1934. In the future issues, we are going to publish excerpts from other prominent Armenian writers as well.

Dear reader, we hope that our efforts in Feminist will help change the various gender stereotypes that exist in the Armenian society.

In solidarity,

Women’s Resource Centre”

In solidarity,

Unzipped: Gay Armenia

Fighting for Muslim women's rights: International Congress on Islamic Feminism

"Some of the world's leading Islamic feminists have been gathered in Barcelona for the third International Congress on Islamic Feminism, to discuss the issues women face in the Muslim world." More...

http://www.feminismeislamic.org

AFP: Taboo-free Turkish women writers strive to achieve equality

FRANKFURT (AFP - news report and photos) — "Of course Turkish women are stronger than men," says Perihan Magden with a laugh. Like her, many Turkish women writers provoke the wrath of officials with uncompromising works.

"I'm the national bitch anyway in Turkey. I think they just want me to shut up," she told AFP at the Frankfurt Book Fair.

Silence obviously does not sit well however with the small woman in her late forties, who was dressed simply in black and had tied her hair up in a quick knot. Asked about freedom of expression, persecution of Armenians and the situation of the Kurdish minority, she launches into animated discourse underscored by lots of gesturing. She also quickly forgets to speak about her book "Two Girls" that has been translated into German, which describes the tumultuous love affairs of two Turkish adolescents.

In Turkey, Magden is as well known for her novels as for her commentary in leftist media. In late 2005, she took up the defence of an imprisoned conscientious objector and was taken to court by the army as a result. Booed by the public during her trial, she was nonetheless acquitted, though several legal procedures are still ongoing. Magden now has trouble hiding lassitude in the face of what she said is chronic harassment. The former communist militant, "I would even say I was Soviet," would like to send her daughter to study in the United States "because in Turkey it can be very claustrophobic."

While Magden has been attacked for her views on military service, novelist Elif Shafak drew unwanted attention for comments made by figures in her books on what Armenians charge is genocide by the Ottoman Empire, a highly disputed subject in Turkey.

Armenia has campaigned for the the recognition of the mass killings of Armenians during World War I as genocide. Turkey rejects the genocide label and argues that 300,000-500,000 Armenians and at least as many Turks died in civil strife when Armenians took up arms for independence in eastern Anatolia and sided with invading Russian troops.

Shafak was prosecuted under Turkish law that prohibits "defamation" of the state, but was also cleared of the charges. The academic who was born in France now wants to turn the page. "I am too often assimilated" with the issue, she said in an interview published Thursday by the German magazine Stern. On the other hand, Shafak remains a staunch feminist. "We don't say enough about the history of women. History is always written by men. Religion was written by men," she said.

Another Turkish writer, Fethiye Cetin also takes aim at taboos, raising a fuss in the process.

In her novel "My Grandmother's Book", a best seller in Turkey according to the publisher, the human rights activist searches for Armenian and Christian roots that had long been hidden from her by her own family.

Cetin, also a lawyer who represents the family of Hrant Dink, a journalist of Armenian origin killed last year, tells the story of how her grandmother escaped the early 20th century slaughter. Invited to the stand sponsored by Germany's Green party, she insisted: "You cannot bury the past. It always rises back to the surface!"

Iranian authorities urged to halt threats to “cyber-feminists”

Reporters Without Borders has called on the authorities to halt a crackdown against women’s rights publications after three women were jailed for six months in March this year and on 2 May, Parvin Ardalan, editor of feminist website “Change for Equality” was handed down a two-year suspended sentence.

“The Internet is the only way for these feminists to demand their rights. They have become an easy target and are suffering real harassment,” the worldwide press freedom organisation said. “The websites they contribute to are regularly blocked. We urge the authorities to halt this systematic repression of cyber-feminists”.

Ardalan, 36, was sentenced on 2 May to a two-year suspended sentence for “illegal assembly and refusing to obey police orders with the intention of harming national security”. Legal proceedings against her date back to 4 March 2007. She was tried for taking part in a demonstration in Tehran’s Hafte Tir Square on 12 June 2006 calling for reform of laws that discriminate against women in Iran. She was in March awarded the 2007 Olaf Palme prize for her commitment to advancing women’s rights in Iran but was denied the right to leave the country to receive it.

Three feminist activists were each sentenced to six months in prison and a suspended sentence of six strokes of the whip for “disturbing public order”. Nasrin Afzali, Nahid Jafari and Marzieh Mortazi took part in a demonstration on 4 March 2007 in protest at the trial of five women for their part in the June 2006 demonstration, including Parvin Ardalan. They contribute regularly to websites “Change for Equality” and “Feminist School”.

Elsewhere, the first sports website for women (http://www.shirzanan.com) as well as feminist websites “Change for Equality” (http://www.wechange.info), “Feminist school” (http://www.feministschool.com), “Canon Zeman Irani” (http://irwomen.net) and “Meydaan” (http://www.meydaan.com) are inaccessible. In addition the news website Fararu (http://www.fararu.com) was blocked from 19 to 24 April.

Iran is on Reporters Without Borders’ Internet Enemies list and is the Middle East’s most repressive country towards bloggers. More than ten of them were arrested in 2007 in connection with articles posted online. Iran is in 166th position on Reporters Without Borders’ world press freedom index, which monitors a total of 169 countries.

"Gender Trouble" - The Exhibition

As mentioned in my previous post, the exhibition of feminist art “Gender Trouble” opened on 7 April in Armenia’s capital Yerevan to coincide with the “Motherhood and Beauty Day” - “the second official holiday dedicated to women” (after 8 March) . It is not surprising therefore that one of the main messages of this exhibition, according to Shushan Harutyunyan, local journalist and good friend of mine, was that the real meaning of 8 March (International Women’s Day) has been erased from people’s memories. Instead, we keep reminded daily on a society level of the notion of women as “the fair sex” or “weaker sex”…


S.H.: “I liked the exhibition, it was rather creative exhibition. Mainly, video art was displayed there. Artists’ works were controversial. They presented with the different approaches to the subject matter. As a result, their work varied, from depicting the process of plastic surgery to grandmother at boxing training. Perceptions are subjective, of course.”






All photos from the exhibition – by Shushan Harutyunyan. Many thanks, Shushan!

Yerevan, Armenia: "Gender Trouble" exhibition

Day: Monday, April 7, 2008
Time: 7:00pm
Location: "Academia" Gallery, Baghramyan 24, Yerevan, Armenia

Description:

...Is it possible to talk about feminist art in the context of Armenia when the majority of women artists who take part in such thematic shows and who really employ feminist strategies in their works are not associated with feminist movements outside the scope of their art? It is indisputable fact that feminist orientations must be recognized as program and ideology which then have to be codified in art forms. Today we have the state of growing self-awareness about the incompleteness, uncertainly but also femininity (as a socio-cultural phenomenon) of the representational works. At the same time, there is the state of growing understanding of the notion of the aesthetical - when the feminine is able to identify, form and defend itself against the background of the Power and the hardening shapes of the predictability of this Power. Without this it is impossible to either form art strategies, or conceptualize and describe these strategies from the position of gender theory. It may sound paradoxical, but in spite of the absence of consistency and clear positions in feminist issues in Armenia art context, the topic itself remains open. Feminism is not uninteresting for Armenian artists and this is much better than the silence...
Susanna Gyulamiryan "Gender Trouble"

"The name "Gender Trouble" is taken from the title of the book by American philosopher Judith Butler ("Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity" 1990). Judith Butler can be defined as a post-structuralist thinker. Feminism is one of the major subjects of her works."

*event descriptions and photo - via Facebook