In a recent issue of the Armenian Weekly (Nov. 27, 2010) there is a photo of President Serge Sarkisian surrounded by a score of well-dressed, intelligent Armenian women celebrating the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Relief Society (ARS). In my mind I juxtaposed this photo with the photo of Zaruhi Petrosyan, a young mother of an infant child, whose life at just 20 years was cut short by the brutal beatings she sustained at the hands of her husband. I wondered if Zaruhi could ever have been part of such a celebration assuming that she could have entertained such a thought. I wondered how often—if ever—Armenian women and men seriously thought about the violence routinely inflicted on the Zaruhis of Armenia. And if they did, were they able to comprehend the full extent of the physical and psychological agony that these women, often on a daily basis, had to endure? Would they have assumed such beatings were justified? Or that such physical and psychological violence was more the exception rather than the rule? Might they have believed these women deserved to be given a slap or two and, if necessary, a beating because they were complainers? Or that women who defy their husband’s demands, whatever those demands might be and however they might be expressed, should be punished? And finally, would this litany of “justifications” have been sufficient to assuage any feelings of remorse they may have had for Zaruhi before they retreated to the “comfort” of their own lives?
The reality is that domestic violence is only one form of ugly, unacceptable behavior practiced by a subset of men against women that permeates Armenian society. Statistical and anecdotal data have been compiled to indicate that violence in all its brutal, demeaning, and insidious permutations is routinely inflicted by husbands on their spouses. It is unfortunate that Armenian society has institutionalized this type of behavior as a part of married life. A corollary is that public discussion of domestic and psychological violence is not only taboo, but most government officials and clergy deny its existence.
There is an Armenian folk saying that compares a woman to wool: “The more you beat her the softer she will become.” This saying was not created out of whole cloth, but spawned from society’s expectation that a “good” wife should be subservient to her husband and a beating now and then would encourage her to become the dutiful wife that he deserves and she should aspire to be. And then there is the euphemistic reference to the physical bruises a wife may sustain: “A husband’s beating is like a prick from a rose’s thorn.”
Data compiled by various organizations such as Amnesty International, the National Statistical Service of Armenia (NSS), agencies of the United Nations, Sociometer, and the Centre for Women’s Rights confirm that violence against women is the norm and is endemic especially in the very traditional rural areas of Armenia. A study by Aharon Adibekyan’s Sociometer of 1,200 women living in Yerevan and 8 (surrounding) towns and 8 villages indicated that 75 percent of the women were victims of domestic violence. Director Adibekyan added, it is unfortunate that “…many seem to feel that humiliating a woman is a casual thing, because thinking that violence is an indispensable part of family life is formed since childhood.”
A 2001 survey by the NSS found that 1 out of 3 women and 4 out of 10 men believed that wife beating is sometimes justified. This is borne out by a later 2006 report prepared by the Aguirrre Division of JBS International, Inc. for the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) that concluded, “Armenians and Azeris show a high tolerance for wife beating with 30 – 60 percent of the people believing that it is sometimes justified.”
However, ethno-sociologist Mihran Galstyan claims these findings are an exaggeration. His study encompassing 1,626 settlements throughout Armenia indicated that only 6.3 percent of women believed they were exposed to family violence. That begs the obvious question. These settlements were primarily in rural areas where traditional values dominate. Did these women understand what constitutes domestic violence? Does a slap or two or the back of her husband’s hand qualify as domestic violence? Or a beating that she may innocently believe is deserving? Would she view confinement or other forms of deprivation for something she did or failed to do as a form of abuse? If a woman is brought-up in a household where her father routinely strikes or demeans her mother, why would experiencing similar treatment as a married woman be viewed as abuse? When does physical or psychological abuse reach some critical stage to be accepted as domestic violence by the abused and by society? Under these circumstances, it is not at all surprising for data such as Galstyan’s to be so skewed as to be unreliable in reporting the full extent of domestic violence.
There are too many Zaruhis in Armenia who endure beatings, sexual abuse, social and economic deprivation, or psychological violence in their marriage because they are bound by the social mores that extol the woman as child-bearer and mother, but require her to “respect” her husband and his family. She is the one who is expected to protect the integrity of the family and in doing so must stoically endure the vagaries associated with married life. It would be the truly atypical woman who has the courage to not only question the societal values that imprison her physically and spiritually, but who would rebel by attempting to seek relief from what may be properly described as marital bondage. For her to think of leaving his home (not their home) to seek refuge, assuming that option existed, might normally occur only when her situation became intolerable. And if circumstances should force her to return, how long and how brutal would her punishment be?
According to Dashnak member of parliament, Artsvik Minasyan, “…there is no gender equality in our society, and in many spheres women have been stripped of the possibility of realizing their rights.” Dafina Gercheva, the United Nations resident coordinator in Armenia, remarked that “without an appropriate legal framework it will be difficult to protect women’s rights.”
During a 2007 visit by Thomas Hammarberg, the Council of Europe’s Commissioner for Human Rights, his delegation noted that “…a certain embarrassment when the issue of violence against women, including domestic violence, was raised. Some officials declared that this wide-spread European problem was nonexistent in the country because of strong family traditions in Armenian society. Others recognized its existence but considered it part of the private and family sphere where the state should not intervene.” Given this hands off policy by the government and the observation by Amnesty International UK’s Kate Allen that “the preservation of the family unit comes at the expense of women’s rights, their safety, and even their lives” is a sufficiently damning indictment of the government’s lack of commitment to improving the position of women in Armenian society and in effectively attacking violence in all its permutations.
It is not necessary to read the graphic anecdotal records of women who had the courage to unburden themselves of the violence they suffered at the hands of their husbands to understand the scope and the depravity of domestic abuse. Many of these women were stripped of their self-worth and their dignity as mothers, wives, and human beings. Any Armenian man or women who claims there is need for additional proof that domestic violence exists either prefers to accept this behavior as normal or is ashamed to admit that this type of violence is being visited on the daughters of Armenia by its sons.
Zaruhi Petrosyan was martyred by a set of values that have no place in Armenia or in any other country. Because domestic violence is a global issue does not absolve Armenia from implementing solutions that liberate women from archaic traditions that jeopardize their physical and spiritual well-being and inhibits their ability to develop as productive and respected members of society.
There is no easy path that can be taken in confronting this problem. To change societal values spans generations. Having said that, the time is long overdue for appropriate action to be taken by the Armenian government and the Armenian Apostolic Church. The prestige and expertise of certain key organizations such as the Armenian Relief Society and the Armenian Revolutionary Federation demands that they join in attacking this blight infecting Armenian society. To offer excuses would be embarrassing and not in keeping with their historic missions.
Have we so easily forgotten the heroic role women have had throughout Armenian history? They were fedeyee as well as mothers and care-givers. They were the shepherds of their families and as repositories of our heritage, imparted that knowledge to our children. The tragic life and death of Zaruhi Petrosyan was no aberration. It is unconscionable for any woman and shear hypocrisy for any man to believe that they share no responsibility in her tragic death.
If we are all Hrant Dink, is there any reason we are not all Zaruhi Petrosyan?
Michael Mensoian
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This article article was brutally painful for me as I would suspect it was for every Armenian who read it. How could a country which adopted Christianity 1700 + years ago condone such abuse against its wives and mothers? How could a nation where higher education is prized by large numbers of men and women tolorate this shameful condition? As a nation, we must put at least as much energy into eradicating this condition as we do about condeming the Turk for martrying our mother, wives, and daughters during the genocide.
This straight forward, honest approach to the problem/frequency of domestic abuse in Armenian is much appreciated. I hate to read about it, I hate to believe that it exists and I want to blame it on sociological issues that arose from years of foreign domination. But the truth is, as Mensoian points out in our own folkloric sayings, that domestic abuse exists and is tolerated in some segments of our culture. As awful as this is, I have to admit how encouraged I feel that Armenians are now talking about the problem in a very public way. I see this as a product of our infant independence and democracy, however flawed it may be, and the impact that ‘independence’ has on individuals within a society. At least people are thinking about long-held and previously unexamined mores. Bringing it out into the court of public discourse is the first step toward a more enlightened understanding of gender relations. There are many things to criticize about politics and society in Armenia today, but this discourse is a positive sign in my eyes. Of course, when people are starving and freezing, it is hard for them to sit around discussing ‘ideas.’ That’s why diasporan support of aid organizations in Armenia is so crucial. Our brothers and sisters in Armenia can’t focus on growing the nation when they are worried about feeding and providing shelter for their children.
I also agree with Mensoian regarding the need to hear from the government and the Church on this issue. Both should feel a mandate to take a leadership role, but are leaving their people hanging…
I agree with the article and the posters and I thank them for their comments. If we cannot apply our intelligence and spirituality to this problem then we have far deeper problems than I can imagine.
Love that caring article like these are making an appearance!
Yet not long ago, we (in the Us, Canada and all other western coutries) also suffered blind sterotypes, lack of legal right for women… the problems are similar in every patriarchal country.
Isn’t gendered violence a problem which plagues every single patriarchal society out there? (if it is dubbed a “problem” at all..)
Why put so much blame on Armenia when all the surrounding countries are stoning women to death for minor actions?
Either way, I guess we really care obout our homeland, so we will be very critical!
On my end of the criticism stick,
There is one big problem I see: even with legal change/reform the police and the population have to be ready to APPLY and enforce these laws. However, sterotypes are pervasive. In the USA and Canada, the feminists of the 1970’s 80’s did a lot of work ‘on the field’ – cultural criticism, do-it-yourself magazines, women’s rights clinics and more to liberate people’s minds from entrenched sterotypes causing oppostion to change.
In armenia, one of those stereotypes is the impossibility of seeing women as free agents of nationalism (choosing how to represent and serve their nation) if not as mothers or wives. it is also related to the binding concept of Purity. As in so many other nations who see adulterous women as deserving to be killed. we are not the only ones!
I think one of the big problems in every country adopting pre-made recipe of women’s right and women’s emancipation needs is lacking some of that “base-work” and otherwise will always attract that kind of criticism that womens emancipation is western and thus anti-nationalist.
Strange,rather baffling to note from above posts that nearly all-except Anahit,perhpas- are those that on other issues such as ,say ¨Corruption¨in Armenia are as a rule always ready to confirm and conclude that it should be eliminated,from the roots? one would ask.Pretending that these do not happen in other ¨civilized¨countries.
Indeed, I would not like to see our sissters,daughters and mothers subjected to abuse and mal treatment ,let alone cruelties. After all in the past -centuries ago we have had queens that were respected,appreciated and adored(even now) by us all.But this is not to say even at those times some (who knows) Armenian ISHKHANS or valiant warriors have not treated the other sex not so gently or with respect. There must have been,that ´s for sure, probably less so in rural area traditional ffamilies/clans.
However, if it is of any interest,mind you I am not say consolation, far to the West of Europe,also in those like the Balkans, women have been known to be cruelly delt with .
The machos in modern day Spain are probably as much cruel or worse than those in Mejico or other s.American countries. Adibekian ,my friend in Yerevan-nesxt time I see him I shall talk about this also-usually I discuss nat´l affairs with him to find out what the mindset of those who are in politics are functioning or …whatever.
Yeah for your info latest data on Women killed by beatings in Spain , last year or the year before were more than a half dozen. They are,especially in Provinces very tougly handled by their macho husbands.
We don´t want that to happen in Yerevan,indeed not. But as above explained we Armenians sitting pretty in our comfortable homes in the capitals or important towns of the Western hemisphere are less inforemd about what happens in rural areas.Except what we see on T.V. or read in media.
International establishments as those above mentioned are doing a good job,which is to be encouraged and especially promoted in RA.
Please sign this petition and urge others to do so as well for the prosecution of the responsible parties in this murder. http://apps.facebook.com/petitions/3/demand-for-the-prosecution-of-yanis-sarkisov-and-the-arrest-and-prosecution-of-lilia-sarkisov-in-the/
I can’t write a detailed letter at this moment but as I read the article, I could not go to sleep without a comment. We, in the Diaspora should connect with established Women’s
rights groups such as the ARS, train people and collect funds for that purpose. Once or twice a year, on set dates send e-mails and ask for donations. It’s worth a try.
Turning to the church, as is suggested in this article-are you kidding me? the church codifies women’s submission and legitimizes violence against us!!!!
Long ago, I turned from this, and toward a Goddess-oriented spirituality of our ancestors due to the oppression I witnessed in our communities ROA,
leb, US and elsewhere.Yes, patriarchal violence is global, but it isn’t natural.
What good has come from this corrupt male-dominated church? teaching us to be sheeps, turn the other cheek and accept our lot in life like animals led to slaughter!
i’d rather be a Witch who lives on my feet, fights back and dies on my feet than a christian of “the Church” who lives on my knees!
and society-our society-is to blame for not teaching us to fight back!
We get no justice from the patriarchal men’s church and the men’s state: only sympathy is from men strong enough to not base their masculinity on the backs of women.
I hope every man who does this (and their female collaborators-biggest traitors!) get poisoned or hexed and sent to their graves to send a message
You in the Diaspora should stay the hell away from Armenia with your brainwashed liberal ideals and misplaced pretend chivilry. It’s not that women that get beaten to death, there are plenty of men that meet the same end, but I don’t see any “diaspora activists” turning their attention to it and making a big deal out of it. Armenia doesn’t need any “women first, women only” policies that the West has pushed on its citizens. And don’t forget, the woman was beaten by her mother in law and her husband, but somehow everone is turning this into a women = victim, men = oppressor deal, which it isn’t. And now we have self-proposed “experts”, otherwise called spine-less males and feminist females pushing western propaganda onto Armenia.
We don’t need it. All we need from diaspora is moetary and military support, our culture suffers from far less problems than the West, so before you “diasporans” push your “western” ideals onto us, make sure the West really is more “clean” than Armenia, but chances are, if you look at your drug-infested, single-mom, bastard kid generation, trash talking, sex-obsessed, cheating, lazy, spineless, women-first culture, you’d realize that the only reason you’re pushing “Western propaganda” onto Armenia is either a) because you’re too stupid to realize what you’re doing, b) You’re being funded by Armenian’s enemies to destroy us from within. Either way, stay the hell away.
Partner violence (male->female, and female->male) is a much larger problem in the US than in Armenia, yet somehow these “brainacs” chose to portary Armenia as a “backward” country that’s far behind the west. Well, if having actual respect for women is backward, then US is far far far ahead of Armenai, since US women don’t even respect themselves, yet alone know what respect is.
Actually there is nothing any more that can suprise us. Hypocrisy , this is the main word that can describe the humanity but especially my native country. As everywhere also in Armenia we can notice the degradation and decadence of the humanity. Unfortunately educated (attention: education does not mean to read many books) generations are not existing, there is only a little part of population. Once upon a time there was Respect, Love and Traditions. Now there are money, ego and arrogance.
I appreciate that Mr. Michael Mensoian took the time to write this piece but there are a few things about it that I found troubling. Though it stresses the importance of a continued effort to address the issue of domestic violence in Armenia, and also attempts to keep us informed of the reality of the situation by presenting data compiled by various organizations, it fails to acknowledge the complexity of the issue, and to broach it with the sensitivity that it warrants.
I am all for ‘telling it like it is’, colloquialisms, speaking in plain terms and getting to the ugly heart of the matter, but I found Mr. Mensoian’s choice of wording, in some instances, to be unfortunate. Careless use of terms or expressions such as “beatings” or “a slap or two” can (re)inflict, through language, a kind of violence onto readers. Also, his misguided attempt to gain insight into the psyche of those who have suffered abuse, as well as into the thoughts of the Armenian public at large on the matter through his series of reflective questions, was inappropriate and riddled with assumptions and generalizations.
We might also want to question Mr. Mensoian’s — and perhaps even our need — to turn Zarouhi into a ‘poster child’ of sorts, to use her haunting image as the face of violence in Armenia, and to give her the title of ‘martyr’. When Mensoian begins to speak of “the Zaruhi’s of Armenia” there is quite a bit of slippage that occurs between the actual Zaruhi, others like her who have suffered abuse, and Eastern-Armenian women in general.
Zaruhi has become a part of our collective consciousness. She gave a name and a face to a problem that had yet to be openly addressed, and was more than often ignored. But we might want to draw a distinction between giving her a voice posthumously, and speaking for her. By continuing to use her as the face of violence in Armenia, are we ‘elevating’ her to the status of martyrdom to counter the senselessness of her death and appease our own feelings of guilt and helplessness (a sense of guilt that is inherent in Mensoian’s title)? Does this not, in a way, create the adverse effect of continuing to victimize her?
While Mr. Mensoian is eager to state “I am Zaruhi”, when does he ask: “what might Zaruhi have wanted?” By moving from an empathetic stance to trying to step into someone else’s shoes, are we losing perspective?
This piece was written for all the right reasons but fails to ask key questions along the veins of ‘what has happened since her death?’ ‘Has the uproar in the Diaspora mobilized organizations in Armenia?’ ‘What are the resources and options available to those who suffer from domestic abuse, as well as other types of violence, in Armenia?’ ‘How can we, as diasporans, best support women’s organizations in Armenia?’
And instead of asking “When does physical or psychological abuse reach some critical stage to be accepted as domestic violence by the abused and by society?”, how about framing the question in another way: When and how will violence and abuse of any sort, and of any “stage” or “degree”, be deemed unacceptable by all members of Armenian society?
Excellent article. We Armenians should make a donation to build a Shelter Home so that these
women can find a safe haven. The government, church, ARF, ARS and anyother organization should get involved to solve this problem. Let’s get moving so that another woman is not found
in the same predicament.
This is a massage for the comment of Levon: shame on you Levon! Take a note that Armenia cannot resist even 1 year without the money that are transfering from abroad (diaspora) to Armenia! Armenia has not economy, has not agriculture, has not production and resourses, but strangely there is a big numbers of budget “eaters” and trade. So the question is: from where are these money in Armenia??? In fact there is not even one family in Armenia that will not have somebody at diaspora in order to work and send money to Armenia! And please remember that the same diaspora send money to restruct roads and churchs, struggling to not forget the genocide. Remember that every armenian out of Armenia thinks much more about Armenia that inside Armenia. This is only for defence of diaspora that thinks also about you. Never pronounce anything that can hurt our diaspora, diaspora feeds Armenia!
‘ Levon’ is NOT Armenian, He’s a TROLL, Please, refrain yourself from responding to his ‘NONSENSE.’
If women think that the men in power are going to change anything regarding their rights or the way they are treated by the men in society, they are being naive or apathetic. After having lived in Armenia for quite some time, I noticed that women do not have a sense of feminism or sisterhood in Armenia. Which leads to the big question. When these women like Zaruhi are being abused, where are their “sisters”? Why do they not come to her aid? Are they just afraid they would have to sacrifice their tranquil existence if they got involved and defended women like Zaruhi? If they are not willing to sacrifice their own peace, then they will not be able to gain the rights they long for. They will not change society in Armenia. The women of Armenia must unite in solidarity to protect their sex from abuses by the opposite. Only when they educate themselves and their sisters and stand up for themselves will things change. And brothers like me will be there to lend a hand.