ქალები აუნაზღაურებად და ანაზღაურებად შრომაში

The main objective of the research is to study social and cultural aspects of relationship between unpaid and paid labour and recreation of women from feminist perspective. The data was gathered using anthropological research methods: primarily in-depth interviews and observation, in two mountainous settlements of Georgia - Kazbegi and Mestia. The discourse analysis of the data suggests that cultural and economic factors are entwined and inseparable when understanding gender subordination. By comparing women working in their own guesthouses and women and men occupied in service sector, we can see that the place where the work is conducted and association of the work with traditional female occupation plays crucial role in recognizing the activities as work.
The work of women in their own family guesthouses is not considered and recognized as “real job”, which means that these women have to struggle for getting more leisure time and for participating in decision-making about their income. On the other hand, the work done by women outside of the house brings them recognition of their work as labour and more independence from their families to distribute their own money. However, the latter is on average almost 10 times less paid than the first one. Association of women`s work with private sphere is the factor explaining this relationship. Despite the fact, that this relationship is seen as historically and naturally determined by respondents is highly controversial and reveals number of conflicts in the verbal accounts of participants of the study. The perspective of women and men differs and so does self-perception of women and perception of women by society. There is a easily identifiable dominant narrative that women are trying to articulate, however, when imaginary society “enters” the dialogue as a dominant discourse about the proper traditional role of a woman, the respondents protest, hide, agree - briefly, engage in complex relationship with the narrative.