Promoting IDPs' and Women's Voices in Post-Conflict Georgia

unique opportunities exist for them to mobilize around causes related to their IDP and gender identity.Their efforts to exercise agency in this way shows the resilience of these women and men.Shifting Gender Roles and Family StructureThe body of research on men and women in conflict and displacement suggests that gender plays animportant role in structuring their experiences of displacement, with implications for their participationin public life as IDPs. On a related note, psychosocial issues affect men and women in different ways“due to different identities, needs, roles, and norms.” 257 An expert on the issue adds, “of course theneeds were different...I would say that both men [and] women were vulnerable…in their own way.” 258For many men and women, a significant challenge in their lives as IDPs has revolved around shifts ingender roles. In prewar Georgia, “gender roles were clearly delineated,” as men lead the family’ssocioeconomic activities while women ran the household. 259 Experiences of war and displacement havecaused IDP women to increasingly become the primary breadwinners of their households. 260 This trendruns across Georgian society, but may be more pronounced among IDP communities.Shifts in gender roles have adversely affected many male IDPs, resulting in many men’s lack ofengagement in society. In the aftermath of displacement, many IDP men lost not only their homes, butalso their livelihoods and roles as traditional heads of households, suffering also from the loss of statusin and outside the home. Protracted unemployment upended the identities of many affected IDP men. Ageneral sense of “hopelessness among men” exists within IDP communities, as do increased incidencesof depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. 261 These psychological factors have impeded many IDPmen’s capacity to work and participate in communities as they had done before displacement. MaleIDPs are reluctant to assume the low-skill jobs, and traditionally held by women, that are most availableto them. Men in this situation may suffer from identity crises and feelings of shame and guilt for notfulfilling their traditional breadwinner roles. 262 Many express feelings of humiliation over having todepend on others.According to a UN Women staff member, men need positive role modelsdemonstrating IDP men’s shifting responsibilities within the household and across Georgian society in apositive light, encouraging a greater sense of self-worth that could promote their public participation. 263257 Peter Kabachnik, Magda Grabowska, Joanna Regulska, Beth Mitchneck, and Olga V. Mayorova , “Traumatic Masculinities:The Gendered Geographies of Georgian IDPs from Abkhazia,” May 2011, 1.258 Manana Gabashvili (Deputy Dean, School of Social Sciences, GIPA), Personal Interview, 2 Feb 2012.259 Thomas Buck, Alice Morton, Susan Allen Nan, and Feride Zurikashvili, “Aftermath: Effects of Conflict on Internally DisplacedWomen in Georgia,” United States Agency for International Development Working Paper No. 310, Sept 2000, 5.260 Tina Gewis, Personal Interview.261 Manana Gabashvili, Personal Interview.262 Lela Tsiskarishvili, “Effects of Chronic Trauma on Internally Displaced Persons,” The Georgian Center for Psychosocial andMedical Rehabilitation of torture victims – GCRT,” Living in Displacement Conference. Tucson, Arizona. March 2011.263 Tamar Sabedashvili (Gender Advisor for Georgia, UN Women), Personal Interview, 27 Jan 2012.55