Members of an unveiled club at the Bukhara district Women’s Division (Soviet Uzbekistan, 1928).
The social role of an Uzbek woman is frequently defined within the context of patriarchal values and is considered secondary and inferior to that of men. Major media outlets censored and produced under the government authority, propagate a traditional female ideal – a good mother and wife contained within the private domestic sphere and guided primarily by family values, rather than career ambitions in the professional sphere. While such view of women does widely reflect reality in Uzbekistan, it becomes too easy to be blinded by it and overlook some important localized activist efforts on the part of women. Women’s activism in Uzbekistan does take place and it has been driven by individual female activists’ work, as well as collective women’s protests organized for different reasons at different points in history of independent Uzbekistan.
I want to start examining the issue by putting the role of Uzbek women into historical perspective and looking at how female identity in the society was shaped in the context of the Soviet ideology, the transition to a post-Communist Uzbek society, and changes in religious attitudes under different governments in the past decades. Soviet government provided public space for women in Women’s division of the Communist Party to exist on equal conditions with men, not only as workers, but also as political actors; it would be interesting to study if the Soviet legal platform for gender equality did in fact influence social processes in Uzbekistan and if it played any role in reshaping women’s identities. Moving on to more recent Uzbek history, I would like to look at how widespread departures of Uzbek men to neighboring countries (Russia, Kazakhstan) as guest workers, has encouraged women to take new roles both in family and in the public sphere.
Then I would like to look at specific examples of women’s activism and examine the paradox between the mainstream perception of women’s inferiority or harmlessness and consequent opportunity for women to speak out under lesser risk of an instant violent response from the government. Further, I’ll explore issues that are the most resonant in the female community or the kinds of issues that encourage women to go out and seek justice.
I plan to collect information from books, research papers, Uzbek news-websites outside of the government control and, possibly, interviews.
The following is the list of sources including but not limited to what I plan to use for my research paper:
“The New Woman of Uzbekistan” Islam, Modernity, and Unveiling Communism by Marianne Kamp
“Post-Soviet Women Encountering Transition” Nation Building, Economic Survival, and Civic Activism” by Kathleen Kuehnast and Carol Nechemias
“Gender and Identity Construction” Women in Central Asia, the Caucasus and Turkey edited by Feride Acar and Gunes-Ayata
Individual female activists
Nadejda Atayeva, blogger, head of Association for Human Rights in Central Asia
Her blog
http://nadejda-atayeva.blogspot.com/2012/12/blog-post.html
Interview on Uzbek refugees in exile
http://www.russian.rfi.fr/tsentralnaya-aziya/20100527-kak-zashchitit-pra…
Mutabar Tajibaeva, human rights defender, journalist
Her activity including speaking out against child labor, reporting on violations of women’s rights, and organized public campaigns and consequent prosecution
http://blogs.state.gov/stories/2009/03/10/mutabar-tadjibayeva-they-can-n…
Gulbakhor Turayeva, human rights activist and medical doctor
Speaking out against forced sterilization of women in densely populated rural regions and consequent prosecution
http://www.foxnews.com/story/2010/03/02/activists-claim-uzbekistan-order…
Collective protests
A group of women in Tashkent protest against police persecution in a hunger strike (end of February, beginning of March of 2013)
http://www.uznews.net/news_single.php?lng=en&cid=3&nid=22309
Bloody Friday in Andijon (May 13, 2005)
“We went to demonstrate because [the authorities] have raised the fees for gas and electricity, and to demand increase in pensions and salaries a bit,” she says. “We demonstrated to demand a dignified life”
http://www.rferl.org/content/article/1058951.html
Protest against unfulfilled promises from the government officials about providing spots for trade in the market (September 10, 2004)
More than 100 women blocked the transportation movement on a street next to the market where they were promised workplaces
http://www.centrasia.ru/newsA.php?st=1094990460
As for my workplan, I want to spend the first week on establishing the historical context of women’s activism with the help of the first three books listed, I will also possibly interview my grandmother as she had a rather vivid experience of taking advantage of new work and social opportunities that came with the collapse of the USSR. I want to dedicate the second week to further research on individual female activists as well as collective women’s protests. I’m planning to spend the third week on further research on specific issues affecting women and the extent to which different issues are voiced in the community. I will spend the fourth week on putting all the findings together to complete the paper.