Photo: © 2015, Peace Dialogue, Armine Zakaryan, “Young Women See a New Role in Society as Members of the Military”
Fifty-eight male and female active community members ranging from 16 – 30 took part in four workshops in the communities of Stepanavan and Alaverdi in the Lori region of Armenia from April 7 to April 10, 2015. The workshops were implemented by representatives of Peace Dialogue NGO, with support from the British organization, International Alert.
The goal of the workshops was to change public perception and awareness about stereotypes of social roles with a focus on understanding the importance of equal opportunities for both sexes. The workshops helped the participants understand the concept of having a social role and where our perceptions about the social roles of men and women come from. In this context, the workshops were constructed to lead the participants on an exploration of how much the participants understood of these roles and their perceptions of what it means to be civically engaged and how that affects political decision-making.
In the workshops it became clear that the participants have quite vivid stereotypical perceptions about the roles and images of men and women. Their perceptions did not prevent them from trying to analyse and understand where these perceptions came from. The participants did a lot of thinking and talking about the fact that sometimes many of their perceptions might be imposed by society even though those perceptions did not always coincide with the individual’s own perceptions.
The discussions on the topics of gender roles and civic engagement led to some very interesting patterns. The first one of these was that almost half of the male participants highlighted the image of a caring father who spends a lot of time at home with his family and children. The picture was absolutely different for the female participants. Almost none of the female participants chose the role of caring mother or wife, a choice which a few years ago would have been very typical for them to have. The young women mostly gave priority to the role of a military woman, describing their motivation as patriotism.
The organizers believe that these perceptions have their reasons and offer these preliminary explanations. The poor social and economic conditions in Armenia over the past twenty years have forced many young men to go abroad in search of work to be able to support their families. As a result, many young men lack the care and attention from their father and these young men were in a way expressing their desire for a different life experience for their children. They appear to understand a lot and many do not want to be like their parents and have their own perceptions about the image of a “real father”.
The dream of young girls to serve in the military which was expressed by participants in all four groups could be the consequence of two distinct factors. First of all, such a preference can be considered a component in the process of women’s “liberation.” It can be presumed that the pressures imposed by the patriarchal society, the forced rules of conduct and standards that are the result of all of this seems to no longer be acceptable to them. The women spoke about not wanting to be weak and vulnerable anymore, that may be the reason why they are trying to take up social roles that were seen as unusual or unacceptable but strong. With military training as a woman or a man you can protect yourself and others. However, we can assume that the results of this part of the liberation process are not fully and properly comprehended by female representatives of the society yet.
The other factor that could be at work here is that from another perspective, this expressed choice by women to serve in the military can be seen as a direct result of state propaganda about the need for everyone to be concerned about security all the time. This could be the result of military culture being made superior to everything else in society.
Interestingly, neither the male nor the female participants valued the role of being a citizen. Being actively engaged in civic activities and therefore being involved in the decision making processes seemed to mean very little to most of them.
The recurring nature of the themes of men looking to have more time and focus on the caring side of parenting and of women serving in the military both represent possible paradigms shifts in the traditional cultural landscape that we know of today in Armenia and may present a fascinating new avenue for exploration. These four little workshops may have helped the organization uncover major role expectation changes in what some have seen as a culture frozen in time.
