Defeating Gender Inequality

Disruptive Fridays #33

With Maya Talakhadze (Director, Regional Development Hub – Caucasus, GE),  Ekaterine Khositashvili (Researcher, GE), Rasha Khayat (Writer, DE). Moderated by Elena Veljanovska (Disruption Network Lab, DE)

Live & online chat: https://www.disruptionlab.org/fridays

Gender inequality is a pressing issue in Georgia. The country is characterised by widespread inequalities affecting all aspects of collective and private life. Feminist thinking is not influential and being a feminist is still frowned upon, as traditional notions on the nature and gendered roles are up until now very common among the population. Despite the portrayal of gender equality in policy papers and media, affirmative content of legislations, the reality is different and discrimination against women often manifests itself in the form of femicide.

In partnership with the Regional Development Hub – Caucasus, the Disruption Network Lab is implementing a new project: “Defeating Gender Inequality”. Following the previous projects Hate News vs Free Speech (2020) and Facing Disinformation it aims to strengthen civil society cooperation, this time to further gender equality and female participation in each aspect of life.

The Georgian Equality index is in a steep decline. According to 2020 data, Georgia ranks 74th out of 153 countries in the Gender Equality Index, compared to 54th place in 2006. Despite the governmental efforts and measures, in the time of the pandemic, there is a growing number of restraining orders for domestic violence against women in 2021, with the numbers tripled compared to 2015. The situation is even more extreme for transgender, lesbian and queer women. The economic or political involvement of these women is an impossible task, in this case their visibility, health, and often, their lives are at stake.

In addition to that, women face problems with political and social participation, as well as economic independence due to patriarchal understanding of women’s role in society and public life. Georgia ranks 61st in terms of economic participation and 94th with political participation. Majority of the population believes that men make better political decisions. Only three of the 64 mayoral candidates nominated by the leading party in last year's election were women. Female candidates are underrepresented in party lists.

In the Georgian labour market, women are overrepresented in low-paying, low-skilled positions, regardless of their professional and academic qualifications, and salaries of women are lagging behind those of men. Sexual harassment is part of women’s daily routine, with the law on sexual harassment being ineffective in practice. The economic inequality is additionally reinforced by the tradition, where statistically, the main recipient of the inheritance is a man in the family and the women are left without any material support. In the family planning, males are still the preferred sex of the child for parents, with approximately 25,000 girls not being born as a result of selective abortions between 1990 and 2010. Additionally, the redistribution of family matters and unpaid care work falls entirely on women in almost every family.

Thus, prioritizing women empowerment is crucial in all aspects of private and public life, and working towards gender-equal environment is responsibility of each member of civil society. Especially in a context where feminist movements are being demonized, it is crucial to find alternative ways to raise awareness and political consciousness around these topics. Different methods from research to advocacy, from literature to movie making, civil society should be supported in their efforts to raise their voice.

In the course of August – December 2022, Maya Talakhadze and Ekaterine Khositashvili from RDH – Caucasus worked on researching current public information about all these aspects. In this edition we will speak about their findings and results, as well as how these results can be used in the future when creating new policies. Parallel to the research, they organised literature readings and movie screening by Georgian female authors. By using the subversive potential of art, they give voice and presence to these authors who are helping in the aim to empower women through an intersectional approach, create a more diverse environment, raise different types of issues, and include people from different social groups. The third speaker Rasha Khayat from Germany will present her particular way of fighting for gender equality through her work as a feminist writer, educator, translator, and someone behind the podcast Fempire – a space where female writers talk about their female writer heroes. She will additionally address the challenges of being a woman of colour and a writer in a male dominated world, but also the necessity to further address these issues in order to create better chances for other girls and women.

Speakers

Maya Talakhadze (Director, Regional Development Hub – Caucasus, GE)
Maya Talakhadze is Co-Founder and a director of Regional Development Hub - Caucasus. With the legal background, Maya has many years of experience in working in public, private and civil society organizations of different fields in Georgia and outside. She has worked on media environment and development in Georgia. For several years, she also worked as a researcher at the Institute for Development of Freedom of Information.

Ekaterine Khositashvili (Researcher, GE)
Ekaterine Khositashvili currently holds the position of researcher at the RDH – Caucasus. Prior to this, in 2018-2022, Khositashvili was working for the Permanent Mission of Georgia to the United Nations Office and other international organizations in Geneva, where she was in charge of human rights and gender equality, health, intellectual property and sectoral cooperation, covering the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the UN Human Rights Council, World Health Organization, and UN specialized agencies. Prior to that, she worked for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Georgia with a focus on the US and EU integration. She received her MA with honours in International Economics (2010) and BA in Business Administration (2008) from Tbilisi State University. She also participated in a one-year training course in International Relations and European Integration organized by the Estonian School of Diplomacy and an executive training course for junior diplomats organized by the Diplomatic Academy of Vienna.

Rasha Khayat (Writer, DE)
Rasha Khayat grew up in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia and has been living in Germany from the age of 11. She writes novels and essays, hosts the feminist podcast Fempire – Women who Write. Her first novel „Weil wir längst woanders sind“ („Because we’re elsewhere now“) won her a number of accolades and was translated into multiple languages. She also translates and teaches creative writing. She writes for newspapers such as Die Zeit.

Literature: https://www.dumont-buchverlag.de/autor/rasha-khayat/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fempire_podcast/
Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/de/podcast/fempire/id1603387233

Elena Veljanovska (Disruption Network Lab, DE)
Elena Veljanovska is a curator and senior project manager at the Disruption Network Lab and Deputy Board Member of the Disruption Network Lab e. V.. From 2012 to 2019 she was the executive director and programme curator at Kontrapunkt Skopje, where with Iskra Geshoska she co-developed the Festival for Critical Culture - CRIC (founded in 2016). In 2006 she co-founded Line I+M Platform for New Media Art and Technology, where she was the artistic director until 2010. Veljanovska has worked as a curator and cultural manager with numerous organisations and individuals. From 2012 to 2014 she was actively involved in the development of the association of the independent cultural scene JADRO, in North Macedonia. In 2006 she graduates at the Art History and Archaeology Faculty in Skopje, N. Macedonia. Since 2014 she is based in Berlin.

This Disruptive Friday is part of the project Defeating Gender Inequality, funded by the German Federal Foreign Office (Auswärtiges Amt) as part of the the programme Expanding Cooperation with Civil Society in the Eastern Partnership Countries and Russia.