Meaningless to Spend Money on Educating Armenian Women: Sociologist

The 21st century requires women to be equal to men in strength and ability, said sociologist Aharon Adibekyan, speaking in the Armenian capital today about the 21st century Armenian woman.

Adibekyan said that his research has showen that Armenians are “bearers of Aryan culture and men have a dominant role in our society.”

“We were studying whether a woman’s role can change after transitioning from a totalitarian system. The role of women in our country didn’t change after independence. Though more than half of voters are women, there was a modest number of women in the majoritarian [single-mandate] constituencies. Only Hranush Hakobyan had the opportunity of winning in the elections, being an exceptional figure, when a woman can overcome gender issues,” he said.

Money spent on women’s education is an unnecessary expense, Adibekyan continued, since a large portion of the unemployed are highly educated women.

According to the sociologist, women are actively engaged in neither politics nor business. He said that only 18% of owners of businesses registered in Armenia are women — not to mention that a portion of these women are owners in name only, since their husbands, who are members of parliament and cannot own businesses, register their businesses in their wives’ names.

Adibekyan believes that women’s lower role in society is due to the fact that they don’t value themselves and are used to answering to men.

“When we say become a director, they have an aversion to being a leader, to the responsibility. We have only two female ministers. Among village mayors there are only a few women. There are relatively more [women] In the judiciary since women accept bribes less,” he said.

In the sociologist’s opinion, women are more conservative, explaining that 40% of Armenian men but only 30% of Armenian women place importance on having sexual experience before marriage.

“We’re not as liberal as we could’ve been at our level of democracy. But if we become a European country, we will disappear faster than we are disappearing. If we remain [an] Asiatic [country], we will remain backward and emigration [from the country] will increase,” he said, expressing hope that “the public will find the golden middle.”

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