“be beautiful on March 8”
On March 8, Armenians were celebrating the international women’s day. The way this national holiday (yes, this means that offices are officially closed for this day) is celebrated is by men offering flowers or candy to women and wishing them a nice and beautiful day. They wish the women lots of beauty and having their dreams come true. In this case, the dreams would usually refer to getting married or having kids. March 8 is just the beginning of a one month bonanza of women’s month. What does this mean generally? It means that women are wined and dined by their husbands who are mostly busy with “other business” during the rest of the year. This means that women go to the hair dressers more often (believe it or not this is possible seeing that they normally go to the hairdresser at least once a week). This means that florists make a killing in sales.
What it doesn’t mean is celebrating the fact that women only decades ago weren’t allowed to vote and were considered second rate citizens, if at all. They never remember names like Zabel Yessayan, Srpuhi Dussap and Shushanik Kurkhinyan who fought hard to get young girls access to education and opportunity to travel and be an individual capable of taking their own decisions. These names are part of our heritage, but it is rare that we talk or study their lives and struggles in schools. Pretty soon they will be forgotten and an important part of our heritage would be lost.
Women all over the world are still suffering. I am not only talking about the Islamic countries. Even in places like France and the USA where feminism has come a long way, let alone in Armenia, many injustices still take place based on the individual’s gender.
When interviewing new staff I discovered that it was normal to have the father or husband be present and answer for the female candidate which was here for a job interview. It was accepted to give an answer like, well I have to ask y husband and see if he lets me work until 7:00 p.m.
Anyhow, I will keep it short. We as humans have a long way to go. When we talk about human rights, it does not simply apply to one part of the society.
On another note, today is just a beautiful sunny day out on the streets of Yerevan. I just feel like sitting out in one of the cafes already open at the Opera square and sipping on some cold drink – Kotayk maybe… definitely not Jermuk (as most of you might have heard or read by now about the warnings that this product contains more, much more toxins than it is allowed)… and of course working on my laptop!
What it doesn’t mean is celebrating the fact that women only decades ago weren’t allowed to vote and were considered second rate citizens, if at all. They never remember names like Zabel Yessayan, Srpuhi Dussap and Shushanik Kurkhinyan who fought hard to get young girls access to education and opportunity to travel and be an individual capable of taking their own decisions. These names are part of our heritage, but it is rare that we talk or study their lives and struggles in schools. Pretty soon they will be forgotten and an important part of our heritage would be lost.
Women all over the world are still suffering. I am not only talking about the Islamic countries. Even in places like France and the USA where feminism has come a long way, let alone in Armenia, many injustices still take place based on the individual’s gender.
When interviewing new staff I discovered that it was normal to have the father or husband be present and answer for the female candidate which was here for a job interview. It was accepted to give an answer like, well I have to ask y husband and see if he lets me work until 7:00 p.m.
Anyhow, I will keep it short. We as humans have a long way to go. When we talk about human rights, it does not simply apply to one part of the society.
On another note, today is just a beautiful sunny day out on the streets of Yerevan. I just feel like sitting out in one of the cafes already open at the Opera square and sipping on some cold drink – Kotayk maybe… definitely not Jermuk (as most of you might have heard or read by now about the warnings that this product contains more, much more toxins than it is allowed)… and of course working on my laptop!
posted by Raffi N at 3:21 PM
3 Comments:
Excellent post Raffi, and it goes so much along the lines of the discussions we are having at the Armenian Blog Review related to March 8th!!!
I am very sorry to ask but who are Zabel Yessayan, Srpuhi Dussap and Shushanik Kurkhinyan ? I have no idea who these women are.
The thing about "not being to vote a decade ago", err, vote where ? Vote in soviet Armenia was a sham, most people ignored it and for a good reason. I am not sure about now, from the reports it looks like peoples vote is being basically bought for a few thousand drams, if that. I may be wrong here, this is mostly from what I read online.
And March the 8th being the international women day ? Again, I never understood whats the significance of march the 8th, what exactly happened there ? did someone just pull it out of a hat and said ok, here is the day, go ahead and celebrate it? Nothing against it, mind you, just what are they celebrating and why ?
Not only florists make a killing, but restaurants too. A friend and I decided to get something to eat at night, went to Tifosi for pizza, there were no tables available. Decided to go to Cactus, which was completely packed, but they had one small table available. It cost 5000 drams (roughly $14) JUST TO SIT DOWN AT THE TABLE.
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