Women’s rights and the power of stories: What we learned at Tbilisi’s ZEG storytelling festival

From the stage of the ZEG Storytelling Festival, an annual international event held in Tbilisi, Georgia, from 19 to 21 June, women’s voices rang out loud and clear. The festival featured renowned writers, artists, journalists, and thinkers from around the world to share stories that matter on women’s rights and gender equality. Under the theme “Women at the Centre of the Story”, and with the support of UN Women and the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, over 1000 festival participants heard stories of women who initiate change, fight for justice and equality, achieve success and support each other. Here are key insights from this year’s ZEG storytelling festival.

Women are outside power, leaving half the story invisible

Women’s lives are not secondary, yet they still rarely occupy the centre of the story. Too often, the media portrays them as victims, symbols or supporting characters, leaving half of history invisible.

At the ZEG Storytelling Festival, Eliza Anyangwe, Editor-in-Chief of “Fuller,” a global online newsroom, and co-founder of “The Gender Beat,” a collaborative project to promote gender-sensitive journalism, and Luba Kassova, journalist, researcher and co-founder of AKAS, spoke about the women whose voices are still missing from the news. They explored what storytelling would look like if women were at the centre of power, and if the media presented them as experts and opinion leaders.

Kassova noted that social norms continue to keep women outside global power, and that this is visible in every sphere. Anyangwe focused on the importance of care and compassion in journalism. “If we want change, we need to make people understand that discrimination against women is not only their problem, but a problem for society as a whole,” she added.

Culture still resists women who make decisions for themselves

A culture that remains largely masculine assigns women only the roles of inspirations, victims or beauties, and does not welcome their independent decision-making. Nevertheless, many women refuse to accept those roles. Writer and podcaster Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah, pianist Tamriko Kordzaia, journalist and media executive Rachel Corp, and comedian, storyteller and femicide advocate Rosemary de la Cruz Suazo spoke to the audience about precisely such women.

Sekyiamah focused on how women’s lives change when they place their own desires and well-being at the centre of their decisions. Kordzaia shared her personal story on how unacceptable it was for society years ago to have a child without a husband. Corp spoke about changing perceptions in media management. “Women leaders are successful not because they behave like men, but because they have a different kind of leadership,” she noted.

Rosemary de la Cruz Suazo’s story was particularly moving. She shared how her mother was a victim of femicide and what difficulties she and her family went through after this tragedy. “Every murdered woman has a family. Dozens of people carry the consequences of this tragedy, yet they do not appear in the statistics. Give us a name - people affected by femicide,” Suazo noted.

One courageous voice can change the system

How the system and legislation change when courageous women break the silence - journalist Nadia Beard spoke about this on the ZEG Storytelling Festival stage with one of those women, Zelda Perkins. Perkins is Harvey Weinstein’s former assistant and the first woman to publicly break a non-disclosure agreement, encouraging others to speak out about their own experiences. Her courage cost her many years of her career and life, yet ultimately her voice contributed to legislative change in three countries. 

“Always preserve your dignity, listen to your heart and intuition. Your inner voice usually tells you the truth, even when the people around you do not agree with you,” was Perkins’ message.

“I knew a lot about the Harvey Weinstein case and the #MeToo movement, but Zelda Perkins’s talk was still very interesting for me, because it focused on the longer-term impact of the Weinstein case - the change of the laws. From this perspective, changing a violent environment of impunity is achieved not only by exposing it, but by translating the lessons learned into real action,” noted one of the listeners, Niniko Robakidze.

Society rests on care work, yet it is still undervalued

Care work is often viewed as secondary and treated as only women’s responsibility. In reality, the healthy functioning of any society rests precisely on it. 

This issue was explored in a discussion featuring Alison Ekberg, public health adviser at the World Health Organization; Seema Jilani, assistant professor of pediatric hospital medicine; chef Tekuna Gachechiladze; and journalist Shelley Thakral.

“To see reality better, we need to count care work and remember: before a person contributes to the economy, someone has to raise them, teach them and feed them,” noted Ekberg.

Jilani focused on gender stereotypes and double standards women continue to face. “Some of my colleagues returned to patients seven days after giving birth only so that no one would think they had fallen behind in their work. The system uses this experience against women,” she added. Gachechiladze described similar pressures in the culinary profession. “In our work, we always have to make a choice: to be good mothers or good chefs. This is exactly why many women chefs disappear from this industry altogether,” she noted.

The speakers left the audience with an important question for reflection: what would change if care work, provided by women, were recognized not as charity or instinct, but as valuable work?

Digital technologies are increasingly used to silence and control women

How digital technologies are used to silence, control and even punish women - lawyer Carrie Goldberg spoke about this issue with Julie Posetti, researcher at the International Center for Journalists, and shared the legal practice she created precisely to protect these women. She told impressive stories about how she confronted the world’s most powerful men and corporations.

“I believe that one person, even with the help of just one lawyer, can change how a multibillion-dollar product works. My message to women is to never stop standing up. The most important form of resistance is still standing up and continuing the fight,” she noted.

Her messages resonated strongly with the audience. “As a woman journalist, I am interested in the stories and experiences that women tell about themselves and about other women. I often write on women’s issues, and recently I have been learning more about how the online space is used against women and girls,” noted participant Elene Zakashvili.

UN Women’s cooperation with the ZEG Storytelling Festival aims to raise awareness of gender equality and women’s rights through the power of storytelling. The partnership is part of the project “Women’s Leadership for Democracy in Georgia,” implemented by UN Women with the support of the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation.