The dreaded word - feminism

I hate to begin a blog with something as controversial and to many people off putting as the word feminism - so please treat my efforts at this blog without too much judgement - feminism is a powerful and descriptive word - its very many conotations should not sway you one way or the other.

After the last couple of comments on this blog I felt that maybe I had to cover the position of women in Georgia a bit more carefully. It is a topic that is one of the most diffiuclt to cover - in fact I think this is probably the most difficult blog I've ever written - as it involves opinions and impressions and ideas that I am still grappling with and that I in absolutely no way at all claim to be an expert on. These are only the small glinches of stories and histories that I have come across in my very limited time on the planet - and in my even more limited time in Georgia. Okay - here goes..

My biggest intellectual dilemma for the past 6 months - and one that I don't believe I've even vaguely come close to resolving is how one stands up for a belief in feminism - which under my definition focuses on an acceptance of the dviersity of the world - within the category of 'woman', 'man' but also between and across cultures and through ethnic groupings or sexual orientation labels, while simultaneouly aspiring to a belief in the prevention of subordination, based on any of those same categories. The comments by my dear American friend and discussions over how I should have behaved this weekend have started me pondering. Sorry - hope it doesn't get too boring.

It is hard to walk this fine line between the two elements that make up my idea of what being a feminist is. At one extreme it can say that diversity of any kind is natural and good - me as a british woman has no right to lay any kind of judgement on the way in which Georgian society works. What to me may seem like powerlessness - i.e. in the case of my last blog, is only powerlessness because I have allowed it to be - because I am not a Georgian woman and so do not understand the cultural perception and understanding of power. To say that I am uncomfortable with the relationship between men and women in Georgia is to be a cultural imperialist who has brought her own ideas, much like the colonial powers of eras past - and has assumed their validity over and beyond the culture in which they are framed. To do this is to ignore my own very particular culture which is prevalent even and especially as I am declaring 'universal truths'. My own culture has thus played a heavy hand in my discomfort at Georgia's gender roles. This idea of culture being relevant - and the acceptance of diversity above all else is outlined well in my dear American friend's criticism of my behaviour.

She highlights the very real importance of not immediately leaping to the conclusion that the British or American idea that women being allowed to speak their mind is the only way for women to have power. A fact that is definately true. Power comes in many forms - and changes and adapts over situations - what can be power in one situation might be transformed to powerlessness in another situation or for another person. There is a chance that for me - having to sit and talk to someone I strongly didn't want to for several hours just because he insisted that I should and the cultural pressures around me insisted that my polite refusals were unacceptable did not necesarily have to mean powerlessness. I indeed might have got out of the situation in a way other than speaking my mind - I could have used my 'power'- the guiles and graces of female charm to finish the evening early and get out of the situation. Admitedly I have to say that after 2 days of using my 'charms and guiles' to ward the man off I felt clean out of 'power' to remove myself from the situation in any other way - but as my friend hinted - yes there are other forms of power available to me. Yes - quite possibly as my American friend also says there is a danger in not conforming to the rules of the culture in which you live - and this is true on every level. Yes - this guy almsot definately had a knife, yes this guy was mad at me for having avoided him the whole weekend, yes there was a danger. But for me, not conforming to certain rules or standards within British culture presents a danger just as me not conforming to the expectations of Georgian society presents a danger also. The line about how great the danger is and whether you agree or disagree about what that rule is does not change that fact. I am in a priviledged position in Britian where it is seldom that I have to cross those socially accepted norms - so it is perhaps more difficult for me to see - but it still exists.

(( Or does it? Would love comments on whether you think it does - we pride ourselves in Britain of being accepting of different social rules on having foundations of equality and tolerance - but does it make a difference if in Georgia a woman can get threatened with a knife for not sitting with a guy - while in Britain a black guy can get killed on the streets of Liverpool just for having a white girlfriend? A social rule or sense of conformity was broken in both cases - 'punishment' or 'retribution' was perpetrated -

- Does the frequency of the indidences matter?

- The severity of the punishment?

- Or is it more to do the social acceptance of it? - Me - as a girl - was more at fault for not sensing that this guy was drunk and irrational - and in part I should just have 'handled' the situation better -- an attack or threat against me would have been wrong - and perceived of as wrong by most of georgian society - but it wouldn't have been unexpected and so a certain sense of social tolerance would have been extended to it? Whereas Britain as a whole would see the attack against Anthony Walker as unspeakably wrong? I think this last view has the onomous conotations of cultural superiority - when it comes down to it - how tolerant can Britain actually claim to be? It's rules for social conformity might be different - but are they any better? ))

The other element of feminism that is so important for me is vigilance to subordination - and it is this element that Grijsz seemed to be writing about in his first comment to my last post - "I wouldn't sit just because a young macho wants me to do so. No, you should act in the opposite, everybody in Georgia is a individual and does whatever wants. Sitting down to that Guy let it seem, as he had power on you.". Part of my reply was a defense for myself for sitting down - "power's a difficult thing - violence or the underlying threat of it can be strongly persuasive" and part of me felt justly chided for not having stood up for what I believe is a fairer way for men to treat women - yes - I allowed him to have power over me - against my better judgement by sitting down - and yes I was strongly swayed by the social pressure to conform and the fear in my host sisters voice as she told me to go and sit with him.

The element of feminism that is aware of how power roles play out would see in this situation - exactly as Grjsz mentioned - a power play going on. I was subordinated to that guy's will - and he realised that he had power over me. Feminism (or atleast the feminism that I subscribe to) argues that to a large extent power relations have become enshrined through the state and through society and isntitutions to leave certain people with less power than others - this is not only prevalent in many relationships between men and women in many societies - but is at play in any relationship between dichotomies (that for the most part have been constructed arbitrarily) - white, non-white, rich, poor, the upper class, the lower class.

This can happen on the level of individual interactions as well of course - so quite rightly when Grjsz mentions me giving up my power - he is in part right - I was subordinated. However, what is so difficult to fight is all the other elements that play into that interaction between individuals. Centuries of constructing the idea of who a Georgian man is - every year of this guy's life as he watched TV, or his family, or his beighbours and saw what women's position and what man's position was, all the books he's ever read, all the heroes and conceptions of who a man should be, of what is acceptable and what is not, of how one should use violence and when. So into this interaction we see all too clearly the clashing of ideologies - my own cultural ideas about who or what a man should be, who or what a woman should be, my own stereotypes, expectations of how people behave - could all of this baggage have been undone simply by me saying "I will not sit down next to you" - arguably it might have begun the process of changing ideologies and constructions -- but it might also have as my American friend said been number one dangerous and number two largely me expressing my belief that my own culture is superior to his. And so I have come full circle. Universalism and yet cultural diversity - how do we reconcile the two?

To me the only vague answer I can give to this riddle is through discussions and debates I have had or read with Georgian women and 'feminists'. In my blog I spoke about my own discomfort at the Georgian gender roles and particularly ideas about Georgian masculinity that were being played out this weekend - but I tried very much to pose it as a personal discomfort. I could not speak on behalf of Georgian women - only on my own behalf - as a westerner - who equally feels there is patriachy in my own society - along with racism, classism and any number of other forms of subordination - but who found this particular form of subordination and powerlessness within the context of Georgia personally difficult. It was a culture shock that left me with as much of a distinct idea of my own culture as that of the culture of the Caucasus or Lake Sioni.

What makes me feel confident in the belief that ideas and conceptions of women in Georgia have to change is not my own discomfort at this situation but comes from the women that I have spoken to here. The women who speak to criticise certain aspects of their own 'culture' or 'tradition' - not in order to say that Georgian culture and women's rights are incompatible but in order to say that culture is an ever changing and adapting ideology - it is never static - and that we as the humans living within it make and create and form it. But also that there are elements of power playing in to culture too - ideas get enshrined and enforced largely by those who gain from the power relations in some way. Some georgian women see a need for a change in attitudes about women and about men in Georgia - I can't tell you it is all women by any means - or even most of them - but that sense that changes are needed is there.

As I research the role of women IDP's (internally displaced persons) here - and the possibility for social transformation that might have been opened up for women in Georgia as they face a situation of post conflict but also the deeply socially and culturally challenging process of transition I find myself hoping ever more strongly for a social reconsideration of gender roles. Yes - part of this is rooted in my own beliefs from back in the UK that feminism has a point when it says we must fight against subordination of any kind - but most of it is rooted in what women from Georgia also tell me - that it is unfair because they work three jobs in order to put food on the table while their husband drinks away the money, is unemployed and won't look after the children or the house because it is beneath him. That a 'real man' here will not ever marry a woman who is not a virgin - but can sleep with as many 'bitches' as he wants to.

That the power a woman has left to her - although power in its 'charm, beguilment and subtilty' is not much of a choice but all that is left - it is a way of surviving. It too is so undervalued by the cultural elements in which many live - an incredibly 'powerful' woman (or man for that matter) - honed in the arts of 'charm, diplomacy and subtility' will rarely have their leadership skills recognised - nor will their ability to make decisions, be key political figures or lead large organisations be assured. This skill and that power will not lead women into the peace negotiations in Abkhazia nor will it ensure they reach the top jobs in local government because the 'culture' and the state itself does not value it as power - in fact it has often led to the stereotype that women are sly and manipulative - when often this is just the only power they have left open to them.

So how do I end this rant about women in Georgia? and women everywhere? aband people everywhere? Hss it brought me any closer to working out if I was wrong to walk rudely away from that guy on Sunday night?

Not really.

At the time it seemed like it was absolutely the only thing that I could do - but perhaps this discussion has made me realise that there is never only just one option available to us.

If anyone has any thoughts - please comment on this - it is all much appreciated.