Barbare Jorjadze Cabinet Opened to Support Feminist Studies

Symbolically, on the 8th of March, as the world celebrated International Women’s Day, a study room named after renowned 19th century Georgian public figure Barbare Jorjadze was opened at the National Library of Georgia.

Barbare Jorjadze is considered one of the first Georgian feminists and women’s rights activists. Sadly, the Georgian publicist and writer is better known as the author of a famous cookbook, rather than the first woman to voice issues of inequality between men and women in Georgian society.

The idea of creating a room named after her came as a recognition of all the 19th century women in Georgia who expressed and shared their feminist ideas and visions in a public discourse.

“Gender equality is the key to achieving social and economic progress,” said Shombi Sharp, Deputy Head of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) in Georgia. She emphasized the importance of the role of women in social development and the need to address gender equality and balance issues in today’s globalized world.

“We have great pleasure in recognizing Barbare Jorjardze, who can be considered the first Georgian feminist, and in being able to appreciate the strength of her vision and ability to set forward the issues and challenges of women and gender equality,” Sharp said.

“The 8th of March is International Women’s Day. It is a historic sign that feminism as a solidarity movement suceeded. The ideas of feminism are not unknown in Georgia; on the contrary, it was with Barbare Jorjadze’s enormous efforts that women in Georgia got their right to vote,” said Dimitri Tskitishvili, Foreign Affairs Department Deputy and Member of the Gender Equality Council at the Parliament of Georgia.

The Barbare Jorjadze Cabinet is now open to those interested in exploring and researching gender equality and feminist issues. A digitized library of the Georgian female writer and scholar’s works, and publications from the 19th and 20th century, will be available.

“We hope that many feminism activists, students and researchers working on women’s issues will make use of the Barbare Jorjadze Cabinet,” said Nana Pantsulaia, Director of the Women’s Fund.

The project was carried out at the initiative of the Feminist Group and members Lela Gaprindashvili, Ida Bakhturidze and Tamta Melashvili, in collaboration with the Georgian National Library and with the support of the Women’s Fund of Georgia, UNDP, and the Government of Sweden under the UN Joint Program for Gender Equality. The design of the room was made by a feminist Georgian artist, Anuk Beluga.

Nino Gugunishvili