ANNOTATION TO THE ARTICLES OF REGIONAL ANTHOLOGY ON GENDER STUDIES 

The collection of articles proposed to the readers has been designed and developed in the frames of the “Gender Studies Development in Newly Independent States” (GSD) Program being implemented during 2003 through 2006 in 8 countries of post-soviet space. The program is supported by the Network Women’s Program of the Open Society Institute and coordinated by the Institute of Social and Gender Policy (Moscow). The “GSD in NIS” Program included organisation of the First International Contest of research projects on gender issues. The researchers from Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan participated in the contest. The contest finalists were awarded grants to conduct a one-year field research during a year with the consultative assistance of international experts. The collection incorporates the best research based articles from NIS recommended by International Experts’ Council.

 

Thus the readers are offered the most fresh research material, showing no easy and simple process of transformation of gender relations in the post-soviet states. Undoubtedly, the situations differ significantly in different countries in the region depending on cultural specifics, political orientation, and level of economic development of each country. The fact that all countries have recently been a one state with common ideological space also implies certain interpretation of gender issues, deeply affected by their national specifics. Seven decades could in no way past without leaving deep traces of the soviet gender politics, its egalitarian rhetoric, support of women’s employment and equal access to education (still simultaneously implying a double burden of “working moms” at production and in the households and “natural” men’s leadership in public sphere). Now the question arises in each new national state formed on the territory of the former Soviet Union on how to deal with that soviet past and what shapes the future should have. The scholars, whose papers are collected into the Anthology collection, are trying to answer these questions.

 

Despite the fact that every researcher set individually his or her goal with regards of his or her research priorities, many articles have the common focus and it is not by occasion. The collection raised crosscutting issues, such as transformation of family relations and matrimonial strategies, economic behavior of women and men and gender stereotypes, new identities and the role of local community.

 

Almost all authors indicate that re-comprehension of soviet experience in each country brought to two consequences: on the one hand, gender egalitarian policy was accepted as something imposed, alien to national traditions. On the other hand, new states are striving to become full and respected members of the international community, and accordingly they readily ratify all international agreements on elimination of gender discrimination. The lack of such discrimination is deliberately associated with the “advanced”, “civilized” image of the state, and political legitimacy in the international arena. Therefore none of the Newly Independent States officially rejected gender equality policy. Moreover, economic transformations and social shock related to them, dramatic decrease of living standards of broad masses of population served additional catalysts to stimulate labor and moreover, entrepreneurship activities among women. However, neo-traditional ideology with its appellation to natural and religious prescriptions of women is developing parallel to transformation processes. The authors of the articles write about formation of identities, values and life strategies of both sexes in this contradictory social reality.

 

The Anthology is unique as it covers the most acute scenarios of developing gender relations in post-soviet Central Asia, South Caucasus and Moldova. Special value is added by the fact that the filed research is produced by local authors on the ground that are in the deep context of national cultures who, in comparison to foreign scholars undoubtedly understand all senses and codes on the ground. Parallelism of the research topics produced by different national teams gives an opportunity to compare specificity of gender relations in different post-soviet states and accordingly creates grounds for cross-cultural analysis. In the situation of dire lack of support for scientific research in general, gender studies inclusive, the Anthology collection in a way compensates the acute shortage of information about quickly changing political, economic and ideological processes influencing gender relations on post-soviet space. The collection may serve the basis for university faculty to develop lectures on gender transformations in the region. Simultaneously this publication has significant political value in the struggle of neo-traditionalistic tendencies and human rights ideology.

 

The article describes current status of gender relations in Azerbaijan. Special attention is given to the role of mehele (local community) which on a daily basis regulates gender behaviors. The article describes a contradictory character of the current gender ideology: on the one hand, certain increase in traditionalism which in particular manifests by widely spread practice of early marriages. On the other hand influence of consumerist capitalistic ideology and classic patterns of a middle class family life is emerging from that ideology. In the terms of national culture these patterns develop a new pattern - to be “a real hanum”, in other words, an economically well secured hostess, partially released from house keeping chores. There is also a class of professionally oriented and socially active women independently developing their life strategies, struggling with traditional barriers and discrimination in the capitalistic labor market. The article deals with another eye catching and highly popular these days phenomenon of marriages to foreigners. The latter is a broadly exercised matrimonial strategy among elite class of Azerbaijani society. In general, the article offers lively and contradictory picture of transforming gender relations in modern Azerbaijan. The most authentic parts are the fragments of interviews with young Azeri women, critically reflecting on peculiarities of their social status.

 

The authors give social and juridical analysis of domestic violence issues in Uzbekistan. They analyze measures for legal protection from domestic violence through a thorough study of the legislature of the Republic of Uzbekistan. The authors provide their thoughts and give recommendations on how to improve current legislation. Through deep sociological analyses which looks at the roots of mass spread domestic violence the authors come up to a conclusion that one of its causes lies in the perception: domestic violence is treated as a private “family” issue and not as a legally recognized crime. Low social status of women within certain classes of Uzbek society (both economic and symbolic) makes them extremely vulnerable in daily life, especially after marriage. Therefore, despite the fact that a married woman like any other citizen is theoretically protected from violence by the law, in the majority of cases she ignores legal opportunities of solving her domestic issues and prefers not to apply to law enforcement. Similarly she avoids of public opinion in mahalla (local community) as it is a shame for a woman to wash dirty laundry in public and at the end of the day she will be blamed for all the troubles in her family. The article authors propose that certain legal tools should be developed which take into consideration national specificity of the issue. The article successfully combines profound analysis of family conflicts causes with detailed and carefully thought recommendations for improvement of the situation. These recommendations can be applied to other national judicial systems as well.

 

The article is written on the basis of the Ferghana valley traditional culture analysis. In the wide empiric paper the author describes local ritual systems and their influence on the formation of traditional roles of women and men. Conducted analysis helps to define construction of gender systems and expose basic national gender codes. The author uses inclusive observation method to collect the research data, focus group and in-depth interviews. Main focus is given to wedding rituals, including practices of bride search, engagement, preparation for the wedding ceremony, the actual ceremony itself and post-nuptial events following the ceremony. The article is written in the frames of cross-cultural Uzbek-Tajik research project and compares the data collected in the result of research works conducted in Tajik part of the Ferghana Valley. The article looks at the role of authoritative women, including biotin (women mullas). The author also analyzes the correlation of local customs and rituals with the religious law (Shariyat). The unique anthropological data presents the interlace of customs, religion and modern practices in the daily life of Tajik people. Due to the skilled professional use of the qualitative research methods the author has managed to explore and expose deep stratum of national gender ideology and show how it affects the lives of real people. 

 

The article is the part of the joint project aimed to study marriage customs and rites in the Ferghana Valley. The article states that all customs and rites are directed to establish a model of gender relations, roles and hierarchy in the new family match the values of the society based on traditional patriarchal principles. There is interdependence between marriage rites and gender hierarchy within the traditional Uzbek family. The author looks at the trends of rev of reviving such forms of traditional marriages as polygamy, early and kinship marriages, interprets the meaning of mutual exchange of gifts in the context of gender relations formation. Special value presents the analysis of the legal aspect of property rights in the marriage and after divorce. Archaization and strengthening of patriarchal family values are developing simultaneously with   the process of democratic reforms, attempts to establish the rule of law and civil society. It witnesses of the complicated character of relations between official legal and oral (unwritten) traditional norms in marriage and family and stresses the significance of gender relations study in the context of “national” and “global” values polarization. It is important to note that the Ferghana valley is considered a bulwark of religious conservatism and is hardly accessible for scholars. The fact that the author is very well acquainted with the cultural context gives a reader the luxury to penetrate into the world usually impermeable for an alien observer and to understand the motivations of people who exercise traditionalistic way of life.

 

The article looks at the matrimonial strategies as relations between the subjects of marriage, which include such periods of marriage behavior as acquaintance of future bride and groom, defining each party norms and expectations from marriage, criteria for the marriage partners selection, informal pre-marital relationship of the couple, matchmaking, public showing of the bride, bride money, religious rituals and wedding ceremony. The author focuses on social-economic status of partners’ families, their involvement in the processes of interactions, level of solidarity inside the community, character of additional nuptial practices, specificity and changes in the urban areas, configurations in the marriage market. The author skillfully utilizes and combines various research methods (in-depth qualitative interviews, quantitative polls, statistical data analysis and analysis of other empirical data) in the enormous target groups of women and men between 45 – 55 years old whose marriages were arranged during 1970 though 80^th.. 

Simultaneously she embraces the target group of 18-30 years old youths who are in their way to plan or realize marriage strategies for the last decade. This absolutely original and authentic research project doesn’t have any analogy in the history of gender studies in Kyrgyzstan. Combination of qualitative methods with statistical data analysis helps the author to make a number of very important observations about contemporary trends in conjugal relations in the country.

 

The article analyses the influence of religion upon gender-roles ideology and includes comparative analysis of different confessions gender settings: Orthodox Georgians (ethnic majority), Armenians-Gregorian and Muslim Azerbaijani people. The author does not use a dogmatic take but looks at the issues from the point of view of its influence on the daily life of ordinary people. Empiric data is based on in-depth interviews of urban and rural respondents. The author raises the question of how the religious component of ideology affects gender inequality and how the above inequality reflects on religious practices and rituals. Special focus is made on religious education of boys and girls, institute of god-parents and its analogues in Muslim religion (Kirva), influence of religion on marriage and divorce, in particular on choice of marital partner, influence of religious norms on daily life of women and men. The researcher resumes that despite widely practiced gender stereotypes, youth; especially young women observe and exercise religious customs and norms in modern Georgia. Comparison of gender ideology among representatives of different confessions helps the author to make conclusions about the tendencies of forming female and male identities in multi-national, multi-cultural Georgia, the topic, which is more than ever actual in the current political situation.

The article focuses on female representatives of the Muslim community in Georgia who, according to different sources constitute from 8 to 10 % of overall population. The research bases on the data collected of standard questionnaires among 150 respondents of both sexes. The author analyzes gender hierarchy in Georgian Muslim families, distribution of family duties, decision making mechanisms, and diverse visions of religious and secular upbringing of youth, family planning. The issues of state social support to urban and rural families are also covered. The questionnaires revealed that though in theory the major part of the respondents support women’s public, political and religious activism, however in reality the overwhelming majority of respondents continue to think in traditional patriarchal way and look at women’s role as of a good mother and housekeeper. That role is much more important for a woman than making professional career.

In general, values of modern Muslim families are much closer to modernistic parsonian model (when the husband is a breadwinner and the wife is a housekeeper, still without an accent to hierarchy and domination of one over another), rather than to traditionalistic model with full subordination of the woman. Muslim enclaves were rarely in the focus of research interest. Therefore the collected data presents special interest as it helps to chatter many myths, in particular the myth that gender relations in the studied group of population have deeply conservative character. 

The article presents a sample of a classic quantitative research conducted on the basis of representational selection. The author was interested in diverse public opinion on family relationships, values and gender roles of women and men. According to the data collected in the result of the research, a family as a social institute has not radically changed during the last decade: in particular traditional distribution of family chore between husband and wife, attitudes to the family as a social institute, upbringing of children stay as priority values. Double standards are observed in regards to sexual freedom of women and men. Despite the fact that the economic status of the husband and wife in the family has become mostly non-traditional when the majority of men (58%) are not able to fulfill the function of family bread-winner, still 75%   respondents continue to think traditionally that the main family bread-winner should be the man. They stress that this function cannot be canceled, and the duty can not be handled to another member of a family. This statement most probably rests on the fact that average women’s salary is still much lower than men’s. Therefore it is harder for a working woman to fulfill the “non-traditional” function of economic donor than for a man. The method of factor analysis used instead of counting simple correlations allows the author to analyze a huge volume of data which makes the research impressive and reliable.

 

The article focuses on the problems of women’s entrepreneurship development in Georgia. While collecting the empirical data the author utilized various research methodological approaches (statistical analysis, in-depth interviews, focus groups, mass media monitoring). The article describes and classifies the obstacles, types of business that women-entrepreneurs prefer to run and inside motives and reasons that make Georgian women to start small business. The author separately reviews the ways that kind of activities influences family relations.

 A new type social-psychological image of “a typical Georgian woman-entrepreneur” emerges which as a public response forms a stereotype in people’s mentality in accepting these Georgian women-entrepreneurs. Special attention is given to the description of social-economic context of women’s entrepreneurship development. A valuable assessment of the scale, dissemination and locality of hidden tendencies as compared to the Russian Federation data is resented in the article. The author is highly competent in data collection and analysis. The reader gets an opportunity to get acquainted with gender aspects of business culture of Georgia. That aspect has been slipping out of the sociologists’ attention before.

 

The authors conducted qualitative and quantitative sociological analysis of reproductive behavior transformation in South Kazakhstan. Matrimonial couples were the target groups of interviews which allowed the researchers to look at the studied issues with not only women’s but with men’s eyes. The authors analyze gender issues women and men face while exercising their reproductive rights, the factors affecting the reproductive behavior in the families, inside/ family and outside values. Special focus is made on distribution of gender roles in a family, parental practices and influence of traditions. The authors revealed that the birth rate increase of the past couple of years happened in the result of the fact that 30-40 year old women re-activated their reproductive role throughout Kazakhstan. During the tough times of “perestroyka” in the 90-es, they didn’t dare to give birth and postponed it to “better times”. Te hardships of dramatic social economic situation and transition to market economy resulted in the transformation of matrimonial and reproductive norms among youth of South Kazakhstan. Gradual shift from the traditional norms of large to the medium and small size families is taking place.

 Combination of sociological with the demographic analysis helps the authors to confidently forecast certain significant tendencies of the reproductive behavior in transforming Kazakhstan.

It is a comparative survey of gender norms traditional to Moldovan culture in folklore and contemporary stereotypes identified in the result of the sociological research based on semi-structured interviews methodology. The author operates with the notion of “mentality” which in her interpretation means awareness of personal existence as a basis of group and individual identity. The main locus of preserving national culture, as stated in the article turns out to be the rural culture, as Moldova for a long time has been and still is currently an agrarian country which was urbanized only in the first and second generations. Currently people from remote villages still exercise certain “unwritten” behavioral norms trying to structure the internal life of the society and strengthen community in the frames of order and peaceful cohabitation. However, traditional cultural codes gender codes inclusive might be easily changed under the life conditions as they are not confirmed by the acting system of sanctions and encouragements. Special attention in the article is given to the institute of marriage and the meanings that women and men prescribe to it on personal and social levels. Sudden briefing of analysis chosen by the author, turns the text into a very attractive cultural research.

 

The article analyses the phenomenon of gender stratification at educational institutions, hidden educational schedule, equal access opportunities to education for girls and boys. Main focus is given to the analysis of ideas about gender equality and its specifics among school teachers and the level of their susceptibility to traditional gender stereotypes. Methodologically it is a comparative cross-cultural research based on formalized interviews on the basis of skillfully elaborated questionnaire. The research demonstrates the domination of traditional gender stereotypes condition teachers’ consent to the necessity of gender differentiated education for girls and boys and inculcation of characteristic features needed to “correspond to their gender”. At the same time, in most cases teachers are not aware of the fact that together with translating knowledge during the teaching process they simultaneously translate their gender stereotypical ideas which set certain norms of “appropriate” to one’s gender conduct.

 The author offers practical recommendations on the ways to decreasing the influence of sexist stereotypes in education. The enormous quantitative data of the research present interest not only for academic community but also for practitioners, teachers and managers of secondary education system.

The article looks at the issues of gender inequality in academia and the factors affecting the open and hidden norms of gender relations among students and faculty. The author through opinion poll of students and lecturers describes and investigates gender “atmosphere” in higher educational institutions of modern Georgia, defines dominating view and gender stereotypes (the lecturers are interviewed by the focus-group method). The article states that the majority of the interviewed male teachers and students have sufficiently outdated, gender insensitive, sexist views. At the same time the existence of gender inequality is ignored by both students and teachers, who tend to consider unequal status and poor representation of women as a natural difference between sexes. The only potential way-out of the current situation is seen in further development of gender education. “Double standards” towards male (i.e. to belonging to the elite gender) students is characteristic not only for Georgia. Therefore the research data presents original and challenging material for comparison of situations in other post-soviet countries.

 

The article looks at the distribution of gender roles in spousal relations in contemporary Kyrgyzstan. The analysis is a combination of quantitative polls and a series of in-depth interviews. The survey allows the author to make an observation that nowadays in Kyrgyzstan there is a certain imbalance in how a family is characterized which depend on the level of its urbanization. Priorities of rural family look like much more of the traditional distribution of family duties and domination of mono-carrier gender contract. The urban family respondents on the contrary, showed a tendency to egalitarian distribution of gender roles and dual-carrier gender contract. Collected data gives an opportunity to identify the following types of contracts in the modern family of Kyrgyzstan: mono-career (which can have some modifications in some families where a woman is a bread-winner and a jobless husband takes over duties of housekeeping) and dual-career. Current economic situation has created a “migration contract”: a remote family where a wife is either a housekeeper or is employed in her home country , or otherwise she migrates with her spouse trying to sustain and preserve the family. Each family develops its own sustainability/survival strategy and modifies the marital contract with regards to the family resources. The panorama picture described by the author helps the reader to make judgments on the contradictory tendencies in gender relations development in Kyrgyzstan: the presented fragments of interviews incorporate incredibly wide spectrum of behavior patterns, combining pragmatism with normative representations, egalitarian tendencies with patriarchal rhetoric, skepticism towards traditional gender roles with new national identity.  

 

The author introduces a definition of “discourse formation” terminology to define and analyze how a systemic description is formed on who should be considered a “real man” and a “real woman”, how is becomes a norm, how the representations of “successful masculinity” and “successful femininity” are constructed and accepted; who and how creates a borderline between “normal” and “abnormal” goals, strivings, features of a character, ways of conduct, career and family relations between women and men. The author studies the norms of male and female identities in the frame of self-perception as a successful person (male/female), identifies what these notions mean for a woman and for a man in modern Armenia. The author uses small quantitative poll conducted with standard questionnaire, focus-groups with youth of both sexes (separately with girls and boys) and in-depth interviews with people who correspond to the commonly accepted definition of “successfulness”: business man and political leaders. The author also specially focuses on the analysis of business sphere though gender lens. As a summary the author makes profound generalizations related to the factors of men’s and women’s identity formations in modern Armenia. The article is fascinating, reader friendly and highly professional. 

 

The article is based on the quantitative research with representational selection. Based on the collected data the author resumes that family relations in Tajikistan have significantly transformed during the post-soviet period: previously suppressed family functions are strengthened, new functions are formed. Huge economic hardships (Tajikistan is one of the poorest countries in the world) lead to the decrease of birth rate. Still that tendency founds its in strong confrontation with national traditions, customs, and mentality of people. The author stresses that mass media widely propagates the patriarchal model of the family with traditional distribution of social roles for women and men. This strategy makes it impossible to implement of policy of equal rights and opportunities for women and men. The family burden for women in Tajik families, where housekeeping is considered to be the only women’s duty, has already been a huge social issue for many years. Nowadays, with the crisis of social infrastructure that burden has significantly increased. The research shows economic slump and social tension in the society lead to the increase of violence against women, including domestic violence. The research has all-embracing feature, covering both economic strategies of women and men, as well as the issue of mass labor migration, responsibility for children’s upbringing, and powerful hierarchy in extended families.