Media, Gender, and National Identity in Almaty, Kazakhstan Inquiry Journal

Central Asia’s history has been shaped by its strategic position at the intersection of two great axes of civilization. One axis points southwest, toward the sophisticated urban culture of Iran. The other axis points northeast, to what has been called Turan—the nomadic world of the Inner Asian steppe, where pastoralists belonging to myriad Turkic and Mongolian clans created a succession of powerful empires. This nomadic world, and the worldview that emerged from it, still echo strongly in Kazakh musical traditions. Soviet women almost immediately received the right to divorce, the right to carry their name after marriage, the right to abortion, and the right to have custody of their children after divorce. Meanwhile, in Austria, the law granting a woman the right to keep her name after marriage was adopted only in 1995.

  • But I have a little knowledge about Kazakhstan’s cultural ties with China .
  • The intent is that the tea should never get cold, and the passing of the empty cup by a guest or a family member to the woman pouring tea serves as a way to keep them interacting, a way of showing respect.
  • A woman built her life strategies in accordance with social norms.
  • One-third of lending provided by the Bank was directed to women and 750 projects worth 51.9 billion tenge (US$155 million) were financed.

Kazakhs also still largely adhere to an old custom of care for the elderly. The youngest son in Kazakh families is expected to stay at home until his parents die. He may take a wife and have a family of his own, but he is expected to care for his parents into their old age. Some couples have only one or two children, while other families have eight or nine. Men exercise most of the symbolic authority in both Kazakh and non-Kazakh households. But there are many very strong women and powerful matriarchs who wield all practical control.

“The Breath of the Government on My Back”

It is also important to note that content and statistical analysis of media only inform us about gender roles but don’t determine how humans feel about and express their gender identity. That is to say that the data gathered on Kazakh gender roles through my research may either challenge or support how Kazakh people actually understand and perform their gender roles but does not definitively identify gender roles in Almaty. The visuals we encounter every day present us with messages that convey cultural norms and values; billboards, magazines, books, television, and social media provide information about culture https://montalbanrizalph.com/2023/01/27/mail-order-brides-old-practice-still-seen-as-new-chance-for-a-better-life-for-some-relationships/ and gender, which are mutually informative.

They accompany themselves on the dombyra, a two-stringed, long-necked lute. Ulzhan Baibosynova learned this bastau from Bidas Rustembekov, a well-known zhyrau who lives in the vicinity of Qyzylorda in central Kazakhstan. Bidas Rustembekov learned it from his father, Rustembek-zhyrau, who learned it from his own father, Zhienbai-zhyrau, the composer of the bastau. After the Soviets came to power in Turkmenistan, the struggle was just against wearing a borik. The final knell sounded in the 1970s, when collective farmers began to receive passports. One had to be photographed without a headdress for a passport photo. The desire for a passport was stronger than the urge to cover one’s head.

International Women’s Day march in Almaty, Kazakhstan, March 8, 2021. Assemgul Temirkhanova, 37, is a national golden grappling champion in Kazakhstan challenging gender stereotypes in sports and beyond. Temirkhanova studied Librarian and Information Sciences in the USA, and for many years has been working as a leading librarian at Nazarbayev University in Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan. Nevertheless, persistent gender imbalances remain, particularly for wages and access to employment and career opportunities. In 2022, the gender wage gap in 2022 was 21.7 per cent in favor of men. I’m all about slow traveling & enjoying the world together with my family.

Kazakhstan Women royalty-free images

The families meet before the wedding, http://www.peelcareer.ca/mail-order-brides-pricing-how-much-does-it-cost-to-find-and-buy-a-foreign-wife/ and exchange gifts and dowries. The most notable example of suppression of political opposition has been the case of Akezhan Kazhageldin, who was Nazarbayev’s prime minister from 1994 to 1997. In 1999 Kazhageldin was banned from running in the 1999 presidential elections. He and his wife were charged with tax evasion and arrested in September 1999 at the Moscow airport after arriving from London. Sharp criticism by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe over how the arrest was set up and carried out allowed Kazhageldin to return to London. The end result was that he was still not registered for the October election, and Nazarbayev won easily, with more than 80 percent of the vote.

A very structured and uniform educational system exists in Kazakhstan. All ethnicities, whether urban or rural, study a similar curriculum. Thus, students throughout the country share the same education. In 1986 the Soviet Union and the world got a glimpse of how intact Kazakh nationalism remained. Riots broke out on 16 December in reaction to the Russian Gennady Kolbin being named head of the Kazakh Communist Party machine. Kazakhstan had been changed by the Soviet Union; its people looked and acted differently and its language had partially been neglected, but the Kazakh people were still proud of their history and their heritage.

These latter items include the performance of oral poetry—zhyraulik—whose performers, called zhyrau, sing in a raspy, guttural vocal style that evokes the legendary and magical world of epic heroes. They also recall lyrical songs performed in the style of troubadours known as sal or seri.

Despite the difficulties, women’s departments in Kazakhstan took into account the socio-economic and cultural specifics of Kazakhstan. Much of the credit for this goes to the women in charge of these departments. At the local level, they became supportive bodies for women, places they could come in search of justice. It was not a question of how well they managed the main task—to get all the women of Kazakhstan to accept the Soviet power—or how successful they were in eliminating illiteracy, or how many child care centers appeared in the late 1920s. The women’s departments of Kazakhstan did an excellent job in their basic mission of conveying the basic ideas of the Bolsheviks—that is, the ideology of the Communist Party—to every single woman. Among the countries of Central Asia, Kazakhstan is a leader in progress on gender equality. Kazakhstan improved its overall ranking and jumped 15 positions to 65th place in the Global Gender Gap Index 2022, a report designed to measure gender equality among 146 countries.

President Kassym Jomart Tokayev has repeatedly publicly acknowledged the importance of eliminating discrimination against women and the need to boost women’s rights. And while there have been some positive developments in recent months, such as the October abolition of the list of prohibited occupations for women, other longstanding, pressing women’s rights issues remain unaddressed.

The IV Eurasian Women’s Summit was held in Astana in November 2015. During the IV Eurasian Women’s Summit, EBRD launched Women in Business programme. Under the programme, EBRD allocates multi-million loans to women-led SME’s and assists them with accessing finance and business advice. The EBRD signed the first credit line under the programme in September 2016, providing 3.72 billion tenge (approximately US$20 million) to Bank CenterCredit for on-lending to women-led SMEs. Women are increasingly holding high-ranking political and government positions. In December 2009 Kazakhstan adopted the law “On the state guarantees of equal rights and equal opportunities for men and women”, which stipulates equal access of men and women to civil service.

a fantastic read https://asian-date.net/central-asia/kazakhstan-women

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