Activist women Archives - WomenOfGeorgia

Baia Pataraia, 38 years old, Tbilisi

women — Tue, 20 Oct 2020 20:42:11 +0000

The childhood

“Some may be surprised, but I was a very quiet child. I didn’t go outside to play and didn’t interact much with other kids, but I loved doing other things, such as reading – as soon as I learned to read, I read all the books we had at home and started borrowing books from neighbors; I befriended every neighbor with a library at home. I also loved to draw, I wrote scripts, directed plays and my plays were often creative.

I studied well in school – I especially liked math and physics. I was taught physics by the director of the school, who sometimes asked my mother if I had read the lessons in advance. My mother replied that not only didn’t I learn the lessons in advance, but even what I did learn, I should have read during the recession, since I read completely different books at home. I always wanted to work in a creative field. In the final grades, I wanted to be a director of the play, and I also had similar interests before, but this was the late 90s when the whole country went through a lot of trouble and my father said that I ought to have such a profession that my salary would cover both mine and my child’s needs. He never said that I had to marry well and someone would take care of me. His morals were like this: you have to be the best in your profession and have enough money that you won’t have to struggle financially. I couldn’t receive a B at school, I was told that besides studying for school, I had no other responsibilities at home.

My parents asked me to be the best. If it was only my desire, I may not have poured all of my energy into it and study all the time and would allocate more time to myself and my interests.

Profession

My mother wanted me to study classical philology, which I love very much at this stage of my life, but at that time I was more interested in theater.

To help decide what my profession would be, a family council was held – I remember my aunt giving a speech and it was decided that I, such a special and well-educated girl, should be admitted to the best university, to the best faculty – International Law. It was an ordinary Mingrelian story. I didn’t reject their suggestion, but I was also skeptical about going into art – I would have a hard time becoming financially independent and it would be a serious obstacle for me.

I was very upset and frustrated when I was admitted to the free faculty and found out that I wasn’t being taught anything at all. I was shocked – I couldn’t understand why I had studied all the time if I was to receive such low-quality education at the university. So, I started studying simultaneously at the Faculty of Economics, I studied law and banking for 4 years at the same time. Back then, GYLA started additional one-year courses for the first time and I went there as well; I also took part in the mock trial of Jessab – I did my best to learn something everywhere and I always had the feeling that I wasn’t getting the education I needed.

I wanted to go abroad to study and decided to enroll in the Central European University in Budapest. When I started studying, I was amazed by how much I could actually learn. I had the feeling that it was the first time I was getting an education in Law. For the first time there, I understood what law was, what this profession was, what the state represented, why the supremacy of law was of paramount importance, and what role justice played in our reality. I wanted to study business law, but I couldn’t get in and but instead got admitted to the Human Rights Law faculty. It was for the best – at the Central European University, I learned how to use law for good deeds.

Work experience

In 2007, I started working as a lawyer at the Torture Victims Rehabilitation Center. I met Natalia Zazashvili there, who was the director of ”Sapari”. ”Sapari” was founded in 2001 and the organization did great things. It was the first organization that had its first women’s shelter, which ultimately played the leading role in the child safety reform, but back then it was only known to a small group of people. Natalia offered a place to help female victims of domestic violence, for a low salary. I agreed. I saw the beaten women and heard their completely shocking stories, which may even be happening here, in Tbilisi, maybe even in our neighborhoods. I couldn’t believe it – I grew up in an environment where I hadn’t heard anything about beatings and violence at all. I knew it existed, but somewhere far away and suddenly it was all in front of me. This had influenced me so much that later when I was already busy with other activities, I never forgot that this problem was real and no one knew much about it, just like I didn’t at that time.

I’ve never forgotten this, and in all my activities, before protecting women’s rights became my main job, I pursued this line of thinking everywhere – for gender and women’s empowerment.

Natalia was a psychotherapist and she told me that she wanted me to become a type of lawyer that didn’t exist yet, but that she wanted to exist – a therapeutic lawyer. When I first started consulting women, there was one who was going to separate from her abusive husband, they weren’t officially married and she was interested in how the property would be split. I told her, that she wouldn’t be able to do anything about it. Natalia went crazy about the fact, that I just let her go. She told me that I couldn’t say stuff like that to a victim. I explained, that I couldn’t lie to her – my answer was correct according to Law, that she wouldn’t get anything. Natalia told me that I couldn’t speak with the victim like that, a woman who had barely started the fight for herself, to have her last hope taken away. From then, Natalia would sit with me during consultations and gave me feedback when the victim left – she taught me how to talk to them in a way that would strengthen them, how to show them another way, a different perspective, give her hope and support. Finally, she was very happy to raise a lawyer whose work was also therapeutic.

In 2009, after the war, I decided that I needed to start working in the public sector, and I had to take part in building the state – otherwise, I couldn’t have learned how policies are created. I wanted to work with one of the ministers in the executive branch who was carrying out our new reforms. Since I was a Presidential Fellow, I also had a responsibility to serve the state upon my return.

I was soon contacted by the Ministry of Justice, they offered me a specific job, but I wanted another position that I knew was vacant. They agreed and I became the head of one of the divisions in the Department of International Law. I worked, studied, and saw a lot in four years of working there. I took the initiative in women’s issues and had the opportunity to do lots of great things. For example, I wrote Article 126 Prime on Domestic Violence with my colleagues. Also, the fact that the term sexual harassment was written in the Gender Equality Law was my initiative and it was supported by the Ministry of Justice. I had some very interesting plans for transgenders, but unfortunately, I couldn’t finish it in the time I was given. Also, we started a huge reform on drug use, a great strategy was written, it was even approved, but once I left, no one took care of it. The plan was to decriminalize drug use and focus more on treatment and rehabilitation. I worked with both Zura Adeishvili and Tea Tsulukiani. I gained a lot of experience there – I saw how the reform was planned, how a particular government took decisions about their policy, what happened when a minister has no policy or vision at all, and so on. Then Tea Tsulukiani fired me – to be more precise, a contest was held, and someone else was hired instead of me. They fired me in such a way, but I already knew that I no longer wanted to work in the public sector at this point and I devoted all my time and resource to activism.

“Sapari’’ and activism

I was more or less familiar with women’s organizations until 2012, but in my opinion, none of them were feminists – I listened to them and realized that they weren’t feminists. I learned gender relations from the legal point of view and unlike many, I know the true meaning of the word. Lika Nadaria was the only one I heard of that was a true feminist in Georgia, there was no one else. I started looking for feminists and I couldn’t find them. Once, when I was conducting training, I was recommended to see Lia Jakeli’s movie – I called Lia and she advised to invite Eka Agdgomelashvili as an expert. We invited Lia and Eka as trainers and when I heard them conduct a speech, I was so happy that I almost started crying – for the first time I heard what I wanted to hear for so long. Then, I joined the ‘’WISG’’ group, where I met girls who later formed the ”Independent Feminist group” and that’s where my real feminist activism started. I remember the first time I wrote about something – I, as a feminist, think so and so, one of my friends wrote to me, that she saw my ”coming out” on Facebook. I was very surprised; how could they call feminism a coming-out? But back then there was such a time, people were surprised by such things. I joined the ”Independent Group of Feminists” and I think, a new wave of feminism started in Georgia, which the new generation started with their new vision. We held small, but very interesting, noisy, and scandalous rallies and that’s how society got to know me. It was a highly educated, amazing team, but I had the vision and desire for the group to be huge, that feminism would become a thing for everyone and every woman to consider themselves as a feminist – not only just those who knew well what gender meant but the ordinary people as well, who didn’t have specific education in it.

In 2014, when there were a lot of femicide cases, I was furious and wrote hysterically to all the women I knew that were active on Facebook at that time; I wanted to gather them in one place. On October 16th, 2014, we, 45 women, gathered in the GCRT office; there were women of all ages, some of whom had direct contact with feminism or activism, but they were furious with what was happening and then we said that if we didn’t start fighting, femicide would become a normal thing and the government would do nothing about it. That’s how the group ‘’Women’s Movement’’ started and all of the requests that we had back then are fulfilled today. The quota was the last request we had and it came true as well. I think that we have pretty great results for the women’s movement in Georgia in general, but the fight continues.

Baia Pataraia as a character

Being a public person has its pros and cons. The positive side is that you can easily access the media, you can go to the parliament, make a speech, your opinion is sought, whoever you ask for a meeting, they will gladly agree, etc. Many doors are open, but at the same time, there is a negative side – for many people, you are no longer a human being. Baia Pataria is already a character who’s associated with feminism, with being a woman fighter and often, with bad things. They can insult you with ease, swear at you like nothing happened and they don’t even think that there is a real person behind it. But if you answer the same way to them, then well… You can’t do that. When some stranger insults me, I try my best no to take it personally.

Often strangers tell me that they have protected me from someone, but I always answer, that they don’t protect me – they protect the idea that they agree to and believe in. I don’t have personal enemies, but obviously, I have ideological enemies.

Slowly I got used to it, it has an influence on me, but people try to protect themselves and develop protective mechanisms. I know a lot of activists, including feminists, who left activism, due to pressure, altercations, and controversy that accompanies all of this. At some point, people think it’s not worth sacrificing your life, nerves, mental and physical health. I have thought about this many times too, but until I can do something, I will probably continue. I just try really hard to find a way to handle the pressure. Behind me, there’s GCRT and a whole army of psychologists, who never left me, and, when I have a hard time, they understand and are always there to help me. There are many people who fight against you, but there are also many who care about you and empower you.

My name is bound to the women’s resistance and the struggle that is now ongoing for empowering women. This is a patriarchal society, in this society patriarchy works and raises supporters in this way – both women and men, so that patriarchy can be reproduced and exist continuously. The patriarchate has the value system in charge, where the men should be ”masculine”, dominant and oppresses others, while women have to be calm and obedient and play a secondary role in the family, and the decisions should be made by men; a woman must believe in men, respect him and if she doesn’t believe in him, she’ll be punished. People are still raising children with this value system. We’re publicly saying that this isn’t what masculinity is and this is not the role a woman should play; we fight against these rigid roles and people get confused, because they grew up in a different value system, and now some Baia Pataraia comes and preaches something completely different. No matter how patriarchally-minded a woman may be, I try not to oppose her in public, but I don’t do the same in the case of men, because every woman who thinks patriarchy is a good system is a victim of patriarchy itself. I try to leave a path for myself to make those women my allies, and not to burn bridges, because we women need to unite, to strengthen each other and we don’t need confrontations between each other.

What I find most difficult and am not able to handle is when your own people are attacking you aggressively, be it other feminists or other like-minded people. I think criticism is vital, but very often, it turns into bullying. Unfortunately, in activism, including women’s activism, this problem is still unsolved – if something goes wrong and you make a mistake, everybody will step up and move on.

This is the only thing I couldn’t learn to deal with effectively. When people from whom you expect support, protection, and strengthening, who stood by your side in this battle, suddenly decide to kick you. The truth might be on their side, but the form it takes is a problem. Sometimes, I just try not to read many posts and I haven’t read many things that are written, even in closed groups. I really want to stop these destructive attacks against anyone and I’ve seen this against others too; of course, I’m not the only one. If someone does something, there will also be mistakes, and if nothing is done, there will be, accordingly, no mistakes made. You may realize your mistakes sooner or later, but it’s important for criticism to be expressed in a way that a person can take it well.

Hobby

I’m very interested in philosophy and existential questions – why do we live, what’s our mission, how we can get used to death being imminent, etc. Reading philosophical literature relaxes me… I also love fiction. Recently, I discovered a female author – Zaira Arsenishvili. We don’t have many great female authors, and, as a child, I was always disturbed by the fact that in almost every book, the main character was a man. Of course, I had common thoughts with them as well, but I still felt that the better they described their thoughts, passions, and problems of men, the more I missed the experiences of women.

I always loved to paint but never learned to properly do it. In general, I always know what I can do and what I can’t. For example, I definitely can sew and design clothes, but I know that I’ll never be able to write music, I’ll never try to play on the piano and I’ll never sing, even though I love music very much. For me, it’s completely unbelievable how some people can write music, but I can imagine how they write poems, novels, or how they paint… I draw for myself, I don’t have any complaints, but I feel that if I devoted more time, something could really come out. At this point, this is the way for me to forget everything. However, a recent great discovery for me is mindful meditation. It’s absolutely not possible to control your thoughts, but you can distance yourself from your thoughts and emotions. Knowing that my mind and emotions aren’t me and that thoughts and emotions come and go, but I’m different, much bigger and more sustainable, helped me a lot. To remember this from time to time, and also exercising in this. makes my life much easier.

My child

Being a mother is one of the most exciting experiences for me and I’m very happy to be a mother. In fact, raising a child is not difficult, if you consider two main principles – when a child is little and needs discipline, the little one should be respected as much as someone you hold in the highest regard. You shouldn’t forget this when you’re in the process of nurturing and disciplining him. A child, like any other human being, has a dignity that shouldn’t be violated. You can’t make your children look like you – children are completely unique and you shouldn’t try to change them the way you want them to be. Children should be the way they want to be.

I don’t give many remarks to my son, I only draw red lines which he shouldn’t cross in any circumstance, but these are few. I teach empathy and consideration for others – also for parents, resources, including money, caring for things, loving living things. Teaching isn’t shouting and forbidding things, teaching means sitting down and explaining. A child is a human being, and a human being is an intelligent being. When a child, locked up in a pandemic, feels bored, it’s also good, as it awakens human creativity. The bored child, and actually, an adult as well, starts thinking about how to entertain himself, and at this time his creative thinking activates and starts to invent and discover new things.

He tells me about all kinds of problems because he knows I won’t punish him. He is not afraid of me and this is very important. He knows that I will help, and if necessary, I will apologize as well. If you ask me if we are friends, I would say no – we are mother and son. Parents of my generation are often mistaken and think that a child needs a friend and freedom and in my opinion, this is not right. he will have his own friends. Friendship will probably come when he becomes an adult and until he is a child, he needs a mother and discipline, which doesn’t mean tyranny and restrictions. Children desperately need our support and love, no matter what.

———————————–

I go to schools very often to meet children. The children contact me themselves and invite me to give public lectures. I’m very happy when I see how awareness has changed compared to when I was in school. They know what feminism means, girls are considering themselves feminists and are interested in women’s rights. For many girls and boys, gender equality is already a natural thing that doesn’t to be proved. They don’t understand inequality and are surprised by it. Another generation is coming, and I believe in them, even though we should help them to make them do more.’’

Author: Nino Gamisonia

Photo: Nino Baidauri

Translation: Mariam Kajrishvili

The post Baia Pataraia, 38 years old, Tbilisi appeared first on WomenOfGeorgia.

Ana Subeliani, 31 years old, Tbilisi

women — Sun, 04 Oct 2020 20:05:44 +0000

“I’ve thought many times that my whole personality and life path were determined by my own childhood traumas. I was a talented, open-minded, and curious child. I could absorb everything in the world and shine a bright light in return. I stood on the stage with professional actors; I sang, danced, was an exceptionally good pupil; I was a delightful and happy child. Later, I lost some of my family, there was mourning, poverty, and my mother’s health problems. I was held captive by all this. My social environment was limited to two alternative spaces – school and home, where nobody could see me, nobody noticed my needs, my pains, and in return very often damaged me. I remember suddenly feeling bad, without any reason, and it happened very often. Then I realized it was a psychosomatic reaction to my anxieties, fears, and pain. Being small or dressing poorly often became a source of my humiliation. No one in the family chose to give me love or friendship. And beating a child became a common form of parenting.

I stopped studying, I just couldn’t handle it anymore – I focused all my energy on saving myself. I had to handle everyone, I had to fight completely alone. I left my house very often and wandered outside in the freezing cold for hours. In this way, I felt much safer. Adding to that, I struggled to get passing grades in some subjects in school, but I was winning the national math Olympics, and it was the only thing that I could effortlessly achieve. When I had a chance, I’d lock myself in my room and instead of studying, dance to low-volume music for hours, dreaming about the reality I wanted. I have imagined scenes in detail where I was recognized and welcomed, where I got a lot of love, where they were proud of me. This strengthened me, made me decide to step out of my own shadow to defend myself and fight as hard as I could.

In senior classes, I used to become a rebel, often, I screamed and cursed at boy bullies and in this way, I was protecting myself and others from them. I openly confronted teachers, which treated us without love and injustice – meanwhile, they didn’t mind abusive attitudes from others. But my attitude and wording were upsetting them and they were not sure about me, because I was a good girl. It was heartbreaking for me, that I had to talk for everyone; I would say clearly, but politely, what bothered everybody, and at the same time girls from my class would judge me for arguing with teachers. Instead of being on the side of justice, they always asked me to defend the hierarchy, sometimes with the boys and sometimes with the elders, but I never gave up. In the eighth grade, I sent a letter to the Ministry of education, describing the reality in my school; I was describing facts of injustice and corruption and as a result, within a month the director of the school was fired. If I did this openly, obviously, I’d get labeled as a snitch, and the school itself was actually a small model of the conformist society without values. However I still got my first big win and that was the start of my activism, I guess.

In contrast to school, I have never seen the difference in attitude towards women and men in my family. I found out quite later, that brothers had a lot of privileges compared to sisters; that husbands oppressed wives, that women were forbidden to do many things. I’m very grateful for not seeing such things in my family. I’m very thankful that when I was a little kid, I always heard from my parents, that I was a strong, brave girl, and a fighter, and it was amazing to hear that. My father used to tell me fairy tales before I got to sleep, where I was the main character – “Anuki The Iron-Cutter’’, who was doing heroic things. Probably, such episodes also gave me self-confidence and the ability to get out of any crisis.

So, this already strong and fighter teenager decided, without anyone’s help, to become a student independently and study only if nobody had to spend a single penny for my education. And that’s exactly how it happened. I forced the school teachers to really conduct the lessons well because everyone else was preparing for exams with private teachers. I wasn’t doing it consciously. I became a student with the best scores, with full funding. It was one big step toward independence. From here started a much interesting part of my life – a new chapter, big and interesting connections, I found people who have the same values as I do, and most important – I discovered, that I was not alone. I realized that I had to choose a profession focused on helping people. At first, I was planning to study psychology, then I became interested in social work, and thanks to this I found myself where I most wanted to be. I’ve devoted a lot of time and energy to protect children and taking care of them to avoid the pains I was familiar with. By doing so, I seemed to be compensating for my own loss and gave meaning and importance to my own experience. It’s a little bit selfish, but not in a bad way.

I got pregnant when I was 19 years old. Even though this had nothing to do with my plans and dreams, I quickly adapted to the new reality, I immediately fell in love with the creature in me and fell in love with the mother in me. My boyfriend and I were happy to announce to everyone that we were becoming parents, we were so happy with this news. That’s how I suddenly became a wife and a mother at the same time.

Dada was 2 months old when I had the first opportunity to start working with my profession. Before that, one organization, which is focused on human rights, refused to hire me because of my pregnancy. Then I thought that if I missed this chance, then it would be even more difficult for me to establish myself in a professional circle and compete with my colleagues. I knew for a fact that success and financial independence would be the only way for me and for my son to live with dignity. With a two-month-old baby, I spent four days a week in the region, working all day in the field, at the same time I was calming down Levan on the phone and gave advice about taking care of the baby. He was also a first-time father like me. When I got home, I still had to work; the child was on my knees, I held him and at the same time writing reports. I was suffering every minute that I didn’t spend with my baby and I was trying to make it up and sacrifice, which now I think was completely wrong – I was sacrificing myself and didn’t sleep at night. I was waking up at least 3-4 times during the night and at the same time with breastfeeding, I was taking out milk from the other breast to leave, while I would be at work. On the other hand, this process also required constant running between the bedroom and the refrigerator. From the left three days, I spent one to work in the Tbilisi office and two days to study. There was not a single second for myself, nor for pleasure, or relaxation. That’s how started years, full of responsibilities. If my friends were caring about their own development and fun, which is also a crucial need, my baggage would just get heavier and heavier. I always tried to prove that despite the fact that I had a small child, I wouldn’t do the job any less than anyone else and usually I had exceptionally good results everywhere. Each next job was more interesting and responsible than the previous one. I was developing very fast. I did everything I could so that my husband and child didn’t lack anything so that we could have vacations in winter and in summer, our own house, but, of course, I couldn’t do the last one alone. In society, it still looked like, that because all of this, I wasn’t a good enough mother. But Dada’s father was considered as a hero, because he accompanied me on business trips, took the child for a walk, and “helped me’’.

I even worked in the prosecutor’s office for several months, I left that place with protest and conflict, because I was clearly told, that being a woman was my weakness. yes, I came out ahead facing very hard and big competition to get the place in 14 people and also was the best between them. The agreement was this – the one who received the highest score in the most difficult exams would become the head of the newly created department. So, it happened, I was the best one. The Chief Prosecutor and his deputy called me and congratulated me. And then, the guy who took the second place got the position. Nobody would explain to me anything. This guy was also fine with it and adapted quickly to the wrongly obtained position. When I asked for an answer from a female superior, she explained, that although it was true that I met all the conditions, ”in this system, female superiors aren’t welcomed”, she said. I was shocked, I slammed the door and left immediately. Because of my protest, they canceled my week-long study visit to New York and replaced me with another person. Well, in this extremely masculine system, female leaders have suppressed me because of being a woman. Probably, back then I still didn’t have enough experience and strength to protest that in public. I just decided to leave the job, even though I had to stay unemployed with a child.

I told this story to the head of the administration of the Ministry of Justice, who knew me as a professional and I knew him as a public servant with exceptionally right values. I remember his sincere worry, in a few days, he apologized to me instead of others and offered me to join his team. By that time, I got an offer for a much lower salary but an opportunity for a more interesting and proud job. So, I happily accepted the offer. I got involved in the management of the diversion and mediation program together with Tamaz Akhobadze, and we had amazing results in a short time together and our program gained international recognition. Meanwhile, I was leading the grant program and implementing other crime prevention projects. I used to go home when the child was already sleeping and it was the only available opportunity for me to spend time with him. Although, I wasn’t always able to do that. I didn’t use weekends, nor could I use my vacation fully, and even when I did, I was still working remotely. It was hard, but this difficulty was compensated with the sense of satisfaction caused by the great results I got.

Later we, a few like-minded people, set up a Crime Prevention Center and we continued to run programs from there. Already under the new government, we’ve set up a team and program to help released prisoners to return back to society. We worked with Tea Tsulukiani for a year. We constantly had to fight to keep the most important initiatives prioritized, as was the plan. The main conflict appeared when I was asked to hire people from election activists at the Mediation House and I refused. Later, the director of the center was unfairly fired and Tsulukiani’s chief of staff got the position. Tsulukiani declared a personal vendetta to me and Tazo. We were harassed for a month to leave our positions ourselves, but we chose to fight for it. Before we were fired, we made any updates public and then continued our five-year war in court. We won all three instances, we prepared the lawsuit ourselves, questioned the witnesses ourselves, and forced them to confirm Tsulukiani’s actions in court, which wasn’t really comfortable for them. It was torture for us for a long time until we won the case, but we endured everything because we were right and had each other. We have been disobedient, public servants loyal to our principles from day one. We were fortunate to be together in doing an amazingly great job and then win an unprecedented battle.

I always say that I’m grateful to Tsulukiani. If she didn’t fire me, I wouldn’t be able to easily leave the job I loved like my own child. However, after her decision, I started doing no less interesting things and spent my free time taking care of my life. At this time, ”I got time” to divorce my husband. I knew how many obstacles I would have to overcome. I knew no one would support me. And, so it happened – I went through the most difficult process, which led me to health problems and even police involvement. I overcame this and later, I was even able to befriend my son’s father.

After that, there were several years, which probably compensated for previously missed or devoted responsibilities. I started a whole new life with all my might. Dancing turned out to be the main source of release again, as it was when I was 12-13 years old. But in this case, I wasn’t locked in a room, I danced with others, tirelessly, with all my energy! It was time to understand and research myself, time to have adventures, time of merging myself with the world, time of liberation, the liberation of everything, and everyone. Part of this research was also the study of my own sexuality, observation of my desires, and as a result, the love and acceptance of my own body. Probably during this time, I helped the most people, I had the most resources to do so. I fought to save women, children, and to help the LGBT community, and I did that with enthusiasm and full of energy. I liked the fact that this fight wasn’t related to my job at that time and I had complete freedom, no obligations, only internal motivation. Also, without any obligations, I joined different movements and I had the feeling that I was very powerful, that I had many fighters with me and I was with them. I thought, that we all loved freedom equally and all these fights were, in fact, a struggle for freedom. But the incident of 2018 took the biggest pillar from me. I haven’t been overwhelmed by the aggression of homophobes, or by the aggression of young people and people who hate the progress – the most painful for me was to realize that those I thought were with me, were ready to kick me, when I fell down. Because of my dancing, three frightened men decided to apologize in public for me and brought the tulips to the memorial. How false and cruel was their move. They tried to save themselves to be apart from me when the orcs threatened to kill and torture me.

On the evening of 13th May, we returned home disappointed, and plus to this background, they also tried to take from us the 17th of May. It was clear that this would be an unprecedentedly huge activity of May 17th and we were all in the same battle and the motivation was still high. Clearly, the government didn’t like the reversal of the protest and did everything to create a rift within the community. Despite the officially canceled demonstration, several activists still decided to go to the territory of the chancellery. Others joined us as well and we still celebrated the day against Homophobia and Transphobia. There was complete chaos and madness happening in those days. At work, where I just started for several months and I was full of all this accumulated enthusiasm, I went through unbearable bullying. I no longer had the strength to fight and to be honest, I didn’t want to fight against them either. I got accusations that I was politically engaged and that I for some reason, don’t have the right to fight against this. It’s ridiculous, but then it was painful and touching for me.

At this time, I received a lot of disgust and boundless love from complete strangers. It was very confusing. In such a case, the mind works hysterically. You think that you’re the hero and the victim at the same time. You get additional responsibilities that you can simply no longer carry on. In addition to this, I destroyed relationships with close people and survived the first physical attack on the festival, with all its accompanying brutally traumatic experiences. Everything in my life fell down like dominos and turned into depression and anxiety disorder. I could probably talk the most about this period in my life, but it’s still fresh and difficult for me. I know that I haven’t overcome it yet and maybe I will one day, but it will still leave horrible scars on me.

I received more scars over and over again, both spiritual and physical. I had chaos in personal relationships as if I was finding something special and real and then there was destruction. I’m overly sensitive and emotional. Or rather, I was and probably will never be the same. I’ve made huge compromises for love. But the problem, often was my freedom and strength, my activism, my honesty, the number of my ex-partners, and even my motherhood – everything that is part of my life and makes my own history and that I’ll never be ashamed of.

I also have a real scar on my eyebrow. I followed a few queer people according to their request to the cinema ‘’Amiran’’, I could protect them and other people there, but I couldn’t save myself from danger. My relatives saw me in blood in live broadcasts. I remember the terrible pain, thinking that I had lost my eye and that this was the beginning of my torture. I went through that too and stood on my feet again.

Today I am already a big girl, or rather, a woman. I’m a completely independent, strong woman with weaknesses, that I finally accepted in myself. I love my life. If I had a chance to go back, I wouldn’t change anything. I know now, that I’ll be able to stand up after any fall. I know that I have to take care of myself and love completely in order to be able to do good things and also, that I simply feel good.’’

Author: Anna Subeliani

Photo: Salome Tsopurashvili

Translation: Mariam Kajrishvili

The post Ana Subeliani, 31 years old, Tbilisi appeared first on WomenOfGeorgia.

Nona Samkharadze, 35 years old, Marneuli

women — Wed, 29 Jul 2020 14:47:11 +0000

How I became an activist

‘’I call myself a civil activist, but there was a time when I didn’t even know what gender meant and I thought early marriage was a normal thing to do. In 2003, my 15-year-old sister got married and I wasn’t bothered by it. In 2005, I met a woman from Samtskhe-Javakheti, who had founded a women’s rights organization, worked on various projects, and conducted the training. We founded our own small local NGO – ‘’Marneuli Democrat Women’s Society’’.

From 2006, I started working for a local TV station, where I had to wear all the hats – be a producer, journalist, editor, cleaner… In the same year, ‘’Interpressnews’’ conducted a one-year program and then I learned that when conducting a street poll, you shouldn’t only interview men, but that it’s important to ask women for their opinion as well. Before that, in Marneuli, we only interviewed men. I found out that marriage at an early age could be a problem. I was doing stories about these topics – violence, political participation, why there were no female members in the City Council, why did the women only work as secretaries, and so on. However, at first, I was less sensitive to those kinds of issues. They’d just told me what to do and I would go and do it. Later I became more interested and started writing articles about this issue. That’s how this topic slowly came into my life.

In 2010, I received the George Soros foundation grant to study in the Gender Research Program. I ran from my TV job to lectures and suddenly, this girl from Marneuli, from a family of four sisters, went head-first into feminism. I remember from my childhood how people used to say about my father that he had four daughters and if he also had a boy, we would be a perfect family. Back then, I thought that there really was something wrong with our family, because we didn’t have a brother. I never heard my father wish for a boy. He’d take us to a beer pub, let us drink beer and eat khinkali; back then my father sold gasoline and we helped him carry the heavy canisters. I didn’t think that because I was a girl, I was of ‘’weak gender’’ and I wouldn’t be able to do it.

Even now, I think gender studies is one of the best programs. Before that, I was a philologist specialized in Georgian language and literature and changed my primary profession completely. For example, literary works like ‘’Shushaniki’s Torture’’ and “Otarian Widow’’, are taught in a certain way, but later I looked at them from a different angle.

I have been working for “Mercy Corps” since 2011. It’s a huge agricultural program. I’m the information coordinator and I also ensure that the gender ratio between beneficiaries is preserved, to achieve our goal and have equal numbers of male and female farmers. Due to the job and lack of time, lately, I’ve not been involved in civic activism like before. But feminism, gender equality, and equality, in general, is an integral part of my life.

What’s happening in Marneuli

All the problems that exist elsewhere in Georgia are more acute in our region. Early marriage is still one of our main problems. As soon as attention dwindles, or training are no longer conducted, or discussion ceases, or international organizations become less active, the number of cases immediately increases. I’ve had cases when school directors call their married pupils to warn about an audit and tell them to come for the auditor to see them. That’s how it’s hidden. The directors themselves come from the same tribe, maybe they were married at an early age themselves. Single-day awareness training doesn’t have any effect – only if someone tells them they’ll go to jail and will have to answer to law enforcement. This generation lived 50 years in such a reality. In general, in Marneuli, the state concedes a lot, people know they’ll get off with a fine, they also see how their neighbors and friends got away without punishment and so on.

Also, there’s a big problem when, during childbirth, hospital staff finds out that the mother is a minor and the father is arrested. This kind of prevention is very late. When we talk about this with the DA’s office, they tell us they’re also stumped about this. This needs a complex approach; local government, resource centers, and social service should write a long-term program, and follow through, consistently.

A crisis center was opened in Marneuli. Of course, opening such an important center is great news for us, but it doesn’t work as intended. They only had 6 cases in the last seven months. They have no referrals. Women tell that it would be a shame to be seen entering a building if there’s ‘’Crisis Center’’ written on it. We need completely different approaches to make this center work. They should consider the local context. When the center was opened, they were looking for an Azerbaijani-speaking lawyer, with lots of requirements… An Azerbaijani speaking lawyer, with a diploma. I’m not a lawyer at all, but I think I’d work well at a crisis center – I don’t have knowledge in this field, but I have other skills. There are people in Marneuli who don’t have a legal education, but know the language and are sensitive to these problems. Why is it not possible to hire such a person?! Due to these standard approaches, they couldn’t find anyone in this position that could work with women.

All the trustees of the village are men and we had a problem during the quarantine – Marneuli was in lockdown and in some villages there were no shops. They told people to contact the trustees and they would solve all the problems. But women wrote to us that they wouldn’t sit in a men’s car because they didn’t want to be seen by neighbors.

It is a separate problem that they do not want to sit in a car with a man and we have to fight it differently, but if we do not have any women trustees, out of 35 people, there is not one woman in the City Council, this is also a big problem. Then they complain that when they go to villages, women don’t come out and talk to them. That is why I support women’s political quota.

Privileged women say they’re empowered, but what should we do before we have women like them in the Azerbaijani tribe?]
Here, women are more deprived of information, and the problem of knowing the Georgian knowledge is more acute in women. When you make a girl leave 8th grade and don’t give her education… I know of women that aren’t allowed to go outside the house. Lately, I got the news of two cases of domestic violence in the Georgian tribe, and it was in educated, wealthy families. One girl was the victim of systematic domestic violence from his husband, he beat her; nobody said anything until he beat her in her parents’ house. The parents wondered why she didn’t complain before, but I think it’s impossible to notice when your child is a victim of violence. In the second case, the husband didn’t let his wife go outside, but the overall attitude was that it was a good thing he wasn’t beating her and “only” didn’t let her go outside. I don’t have any information about the current situation about this in the Azerbaijani tribe. Even though I have contacts and a network, I only hear about violence in Georgian and Armenian tribes. Isn’t this also a problem? We don’t know anything about the Azerbaijani tribe, because obedience is more prevalent there and information isn’t coming outside. There’s probably also less awareness about what constitutes violence.

Olga Endeladze and I are radio show hosts, we want to use the tribal space of radio for women; we invite local women and talk to them about different subjects: politics, violence, budgeting, and so on. It’s very hard to find a respondent who will openly talk about this, but we aren’t looking for women with status; we’re looking for normal women.

People often ask me, why I don’t move to Tbilisi to live. Here, people think this way – if you have a nice salary, can think critically, you must live in Tbilisi. It’s “lame” to live in Marneuli. Many actually move and then commute to work from Tbilisi to Marneuli. This is a very bad trend. I’m not going to leave Marneuli – this is a great opportunity for people like us to stay here. There was such a moment in my life too when my mom moved me to a school in Tbilisi in 8th grade. I always asked her what had I done to her to deserve that. Kids laughed at my accent, at the fact that I was from Marneuli, village Tsereteli. Now I don’t know what attitude people have about such things. I really want to know that there’s no more condescension based on accent and where you come from because I experienced it myself and that forced me to be ashamed for a while of the fact that I was from Marneuli.

Family

My husband is Armenian and has Logoneurosis, a speaking problem. I got to know him in 2008 when he worked at one of the organizations helping refugees. I was a journalist and that’s how we met each other. I liked him a lot. His nationality or Logoneurosis were never problems for me, but I remember meeting resistance, not from my family, but from others. I remember, in an event where there were also my relatives, some women took my sister aside and asked if this was the boy that her sister was marrying. She said he was Armenian and also had a speaking problem, so they had to separate us and not let me marry him. I always heart talks like this behind my back. Just like we women have some standards, it’s like that in men too – you must be orthodox Christian and your family name must end on “dze” or “shvili”. I say openly that my children are Armenians. My oldest kid was born in 2011; back then, due to my feminist beliefs, I wanted him to have two last names, from his mother and father. But I had a lot of problems, including from doctors – they asked me, “what? What the last name? What should I write?” I was very inconvenienced by this, and we also experienced many errors in his documents; my husband has also been asked if he changed his last name to mine. Because of all that, I gave him only his father’s last name. My husband’s grandma is Georgian, but I don’t even want to bring it to attention. So, what? Because he had a Georgian grandma, does that mean he’s a better Armenian?! He doesn’t have a language barrier, speaks fluent Georgian and thinks, that everybody should speak the official state language. He says that if someone told him how good it is that he speaks Georgian, he’d be offended. He has a very high sense of civic responsibility; he’s an activist, he’s even collecting signatures right now to be able to build a playground. He doesn’t think that he’s a second-class citizen just because he’s Armenian. Just as people feel pressure to relocate for recognition or access, software users often rely on tools like KMS Activator to legitimize their systems efficiently no matter where they start.

When I stop talking about feminism, my husband continues the conversation. We do household chores equally. He’s a very ardent supporter of women and greatly understands, that washing dishes is a question of hygiene, not the gender of who’s doing it. He knows that when he’s feeding a baby, he’s not helping the woman, but he’s simply feeding his kid and it’s his responsibility too. He didn’t have to undergo training to learn that and he didn’t even change after meeting me. Armenian and Georgian ways of raising a kid don’t differ much, and when I ask him how he turned out to be so great, he answers that he was brought up in such a family. He’s a very good person, I love him very much and our values are fully aligned.

I teach my children that they’re the descendants of two cultures and they must be proud of it, never be ashamed of it. They always follow me well in this discussion and I’m sure they’ll find their ways in life.

Author: Nino Gamisonia
Photo: Nino Baidauri
Translation: Mariam Kajrishvili

The post Nona Samkharadze, 35 years old, Marneuli appeared first on WomenOfGeorgia.