Well, I was born and grew up in this province, Aragatsotn,
in the Talin region in the village of Katnaghbyur.
(Applause)
When I was a schoolgirl, I was very tall compared to my classmates.
Let me give you an idea:
errr ... rrr ... errr
In our school various competitions were held during physical education class.
One of them is stuck in my memory.
A red line on the floor and a strong rope,
that was all that was needed to organize the competition.
The two competitors on opposite sides of the red line
holding the ends of the rope
were waiting until the whistle sounded,
when they pulled with all their strength
until the comparatively weak participant crossed the red line.
The competition was held in groups for girls and for boys.
First the girls competed, then the boys.
I don't know whether it was an expression of patriarchal culture or a sports law.
Probably, it was a sports law.
When competing with the girls, I won every one.
You remember errr ... rrr ... errr ?
Yeghish was the winner in the boys' group.
Yeghish was the same way in the boys group as I - errr ... rrr ... errr
Then, I noticed the meaningful look
of our physical education teacher towards me.
I understood immediately what he wanted.
He wanted me to compete with the boys.
And I competed with the boys breaking the sports law.
This one: Ararat.
This one: Armen.
I beat them.
You see, don't you?
We didn't have many boys in our class: Vahan, David, and Samvel.
And little by little I started to blush.
When competing with Yeghish, I didn't pull the rope with all my strength,
and I was the one to cross the red line.
Why did I blush and not pull the rope with all my strength
when competing with Yeghish?
Because suddenly I woke up to the fact that if I continued like this -
you understand I had got rather far -
but if I continued like this,
I would not fit the image of a beautiful, tender and lovely woman.
At that time, I was very small, only 10 or 11 years old.
But my environment had already taught me to take into account the stereotypes,
and I didn't dare object to the popular stereotyping
that men are strong and women are weak.
I was embarrassed by my physical strength and adjusted to social expectations.
I always spoke in such a way
that what I said fitted the stereotypes and social expectations.
What are they?
How do they impact the steps we take, our activities, our behaviour,
and consequently our quality of life.
Stereotypes are conventional concepts formed by society
that provide ready solutions and answers for various situations.
Probably, when they were formed,
they had their objective reasons and met with the requirements of the time.
But as time goes on, and life's requirements have changed,
quite naturally these stereotypes
will be outdated and inadequate for the time
and simply harm us.
Now, let me give you an example.
In ancient times,
when man was responsible for food and the safety of their families
to provide all this,
he did hard physical work,
went to war,
cultivated wheat fields with a yoked ox.
At that time, it was natural and logical
that the men were free
from house chores and care of the children.
Today, most of our men,
let's not say every man, but most of them,
rarely or almost never deal with physical work,
and continue to think in terms of this stereotyping,
that household chores or childcare are not for them.
These are all exclusively women's responsibilities.
In many cases, a woman in the family works,
cares for the family's material expenses,
but irrespective of this, nobody helps her with the household chores or childcare.
She has all this to do by herself.
I am a photojournalist by profession.
I don't want to address the peculiarities of my profession in detail,
but there is something that happens to me very often.
With my backpack on my shoulders,
by bus, minibus, taxi, on foot,
with the help of maps, asking people,
I go and find the heroes of my articles.
It's unbelievable, but my simple backpack has a magical quality.
It makes me younger by about 10 to 15 years.
I don't think I look young for my age;
on the contrary, I look just entirely my age.
But just because of having a backpack and doing the work of photojournalist,
I must be rather young.
The fact, that the girl with a backpack can be married, moreover, have a child,
simply sounds like a fantasy story.
Then the first question that arises is:
Why have you come here?
Before starting my job, I need to work with my heroes
telling them that everything is fine in my family,
there is food in the refrigerator,
my kids won't be left at kindergarten, I am a good housewife, a good wife,
and a good mother.
Society has certain expectations of women.
It's very hard for women not to give up at some time in their life.
It's accepted that, for women, there is both work and family.
Fortunately, there are many cases where women don't give in.
They don't concede at any time in their life,
and they're none the worse for not doing.
On the contrary, such women have everything:
a good job, a family, children, and numerous other possibilities.
Again, due to my job,
very often I deal with women and listen to their stories;
that is my favourite part of my job.
One common thing that I notice is
that, in the case of major issues,
what they think is of less value.
They don't take decisions.
They subjugate themselves
to their mother, father, other members of the family,
husband, husband's parents.
And, indeed, I'm not talking about trivial, secondary issues.
Completely the opposite.
Education, choice of profession,
marriage to this or that person,
number of children, gender of children, health issues,
important key issues,
women leave the decisions to others.
And to the questions: "Why didn’t you do as you wanted?"
"Why didn't you insist on your decision?"
most women, almost 10 out of 10, answer:
"Nobody asked me."
Can you imagine she had a decision to make,
but not having been as much as asked, she has conceded?
Because we must be led, need it or not -
being a stereotype: "You are a woman, you must be modest and obedient."
Social values are created
by different institutions.
Today I'll address two of them:
community and media.
And, by the way, these two institutions have very pronounced differences.
The community expectations of women are as follows:
a women should be educated in limited professions,
marry in time,
have children, bring them up,
and if she can also take up a profession
that doesn't interfere with peace in the family,
if it can be worked in, then it just excels expectations.
Media expectations teach women
to have screen beauty from childhood:
long legs, neat waist, abundant breast,
lined lips, lined eye brows, long eyelashes,
sleek long hair,
sleek long nails, long is very important here,
accentuating clothes,
and high heels - so high, that walking becomes impossible.
In other words, to be a woman
whose only purpose is to be desirable to men.
They become victims of this stereotype at different ages
and according to their level of education.
They spend most their time and large amounts money
on beauty salons and plastic surgery,
to fit defined standards.
The victims of this stereotyping
include women from various social layers.
And, by the way, these women will be loved, men will marry them,
they will have children,
they will be respected as the mother of their children.
They will be given expensive gifts:
A car? - Here you are.
Money? - As much as you want.
You want to work? You want to go out of the home? -
I will set up a business for you.
But don’t think and don't make decisions;
limit yourself to wishes - I make the decisions.
Dear women and girls, decision is the most important.
Let's concede everything,
keeping for ourselves our own conscious decision.
Society will deprive us of our ability to dream and make decisions,
and that is because we expected of it.
Let's concede all material things:
perfume, cars, money, shoes, diamonds, fur coats.
Let's concede all these things
and keep for us the most important: our own conscious decision.
(Applause)