Unshaming the future in my coffee cup

Lara Aharonian / TEDxYerevan - YouTube

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1S8eibZvUPg

This talk was given at a local TEDx event, produced independently of the TED Conferences. Shame, Amot is often the first word we learn as a child growing up in a patriarchal Armenian family. And if we happen to be born girls, shame becomes inseparable with every decision we make throughout our life. Shame, a tool imposed on women, has been used for the survival and preservation of the nation. Lara, will take us on an honest journey by revisiting the inherited shame from our grandmothers; silenced survivors of the genocide.

She will discuss how shame has affected her and the society she lives in by sharing stories of sexuality, violence against women and the process of silencing. She will demonstrate why an unshaming process is necessary to liberate ourselves from collective denial in order to thrive as individuals.

Feminist activist, Woman human rights defender, Lara was born in Beirut in 1972 and immigrated to Montreal, Canada during the Lebanese civil war in 1990s where she studied Psycho-education and Comparative feminist Literature. She has been living in Armenia for the past 11 years. She founded the Women’s Resource Center in Yerevan in 2003 with her feminist friends to empower women in the region and challenge the patriarchal norms in the Armenian society. In 2008, she created the first crisis center for survivors of sexual assault in Armenia to break the silence and shame around violence against women. Until today, with other activists, she advocates for the rights of women experiencing domestic violence and support them in finding justice. Since 2007, she also works with women living in the conflict region of Nagorno-Karabakh to include them in the peace processes. She is one of the directors of the documentary film “Finding Zabel Yesayan” on the life and work of the Armenian female writer and social activist of the early 20th century. She presently lives in Yerevan with her partner Raffi and their four children. You can read more about her experiences in Armenia on her personal blog “Motherhood, Repatriation and other fictions” at

www.larajan.blogspot.com