Or, it contradicts to our “national psychology”
On March 27 of current year, the annual progress report of the European Neighborhood Program was published, which evaluates the changes in Armenia for 2013. The criticism, mainly, is fair, particularly with respect to this year’s presidential elections. In several issues, for instances, in terms of providing pluralism in broadcast media, probably, it would worth to record some progress.
However, the matter here is about the point of the report, which contains praising words. So, it states that Armenia has tried to implement some of the EU recommendations, particularly pertaining to the equal rights for men and women. The matter is about apparently distressed law on “Equal rights and opportunities for men and women”, which was enacted on May 20, last year, when with “distinct steps” we were moving towards initialing the EU Association Agreement.
In the fall, however, when it turned out that we are moving towards completely different direction, the groups “imbued with national spirit” began to protest against the law. At the National Assembly, the Minister of Labor and Social Affairs Artem Asatryan proposed to amend the law and to remove the terrifying word “gender”, to substitute the phrase “gender relations” with a phrase “equal rights and equal opportunities for women and men”. But, this amendments did not pass, the MPs got the chance to shine with “national populism” and the issue was postponed for a year.
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Let’s leave aside the fantastic assumption or perhaps the speculation that the law in question opens the way for gay marriages and gay parades. (In fact, there is no tradition in Armenia first to read the text and then begin discussing it, anyway, at least those who are interested may read here, http.//www.parliament.am/legislation.php?sel=show&ID=4761&lang=arm).
The point here is about the original goal of the law – equal rights and opportunities for both sexes. Is this idea acceptable in our society? To answer this question, I will quote a comment from Aravot.am website, which was made just on the occasion of this law. A user introducing himself as “Arman” wrote, “The people who think that men and women can be equal. Hey, are you crazy? How can such a thing be? God says the wife, be submissive to your husband as the husband is submissive to Lord. And to the husbands, love your wives. So, in fact, you are more intelligent than God… God created a man to rule over the world. But not a woman. Like Jesus is the head of the Church, so is the husband the head of the wife. Now, you want to behead women but not to protect their rights. This law is ungodliness.” Due to this free interpretation of the Bible, the reader “fundamentally” denies the notion of equal rights of sexes. I do not know whether social polls were conducted in Armenia on this issue, but without it, it is clear that the majority of husbands in our country are taking themselves higher of their wives, therefore, they do not think that they and their wives have equal rights. And how the wives are treating the same issue.
Maybe the user introduced as “Hayuhi” will bring clarity in the section of comments of the same aravot.am website, who expressed at the discussion on entirely different topic. She offers checking “all women traveling back and forth to Turkey by bus on pregnancy test and if it turns out that they have become pregnant in Turkey, to make an artificial abortion, and then enter Armenia, otherwise illegally born generations originated from a Turk gone to Turkey in 1991 have become more in Armenia.” In this case, of course, it’s hard to argue that most of the Armenians think like that. There is not even 100 percent confidence that the comment writer is a woman.
But, I think that the type of thinking, when a person’s, in this case, a woman’s rights are subordinated to “solving the national problems”, is fairly characteristic. Maybe our citizens do not even want their rights to be respected. They just want to live a good life. Like, in the countries where the human rights are respected.
Aram ABRAHAMYAN
