GENDER RHETORIC IN POLICY AND NATIONAL DISCOURSES IN KAZAKHSTAN

Abstract

Gender policy is known to be an important part of the nation-building processes of countries all around the world, and Kazakhstan is no exception. Overview of the history of gender in Central Asia in the pre-Soviet period and during the Soviet Union showed that it was Soviet authorities who introduced the first gender policy to the Kazakh steppe. With the arrival of the Soviet power, Kazakh and Central Asian women became objects of a national and political agenda, and such an approach survives up to the present. Present study is an attempt to analyze state-level discourse on gender through state policy documents, track the changes in discourse with regard to political context, and identify its images and concepts. Analysis of state-level discourse is finished with the discussion of “spaces of silence”, certain spots that are “absent” in discourse on gender. At the same time, this research looks at alternative discourses on gender on the example of female activists of Kazakhstan, who “fill in” the silences in official state discourse and find their own place and position on the grounds of their civic and human rights. Special attention is given to the protests of mothers of multiple children, rallies of women against the increase of retirement age and peaceful assemblies for women’s rights. The main contribution of this work is the discussion of how women activists use the existing gender policies and discourses as strategic recourses to achieve their goals and raise different questions of interest to different groups.