An Unplanned Pregnancy in the Republic of Georgia
How reproductive taboos deny equality to women
This is a story about how, in the year 2005, I became a Georgian woman, ever-so-briefly, before rejecting that role utterly. I did not become a Georgian woman literally. No one can trade their birthright conclusively for another one or entirely embrace a new identity.
I became a Georgian woman figuratively, in the sense that I changed my identity. I became a Georgian woman in the sense that I fell in love, with a person named Giorgi, as well as with his country.
When my new identity came into conflict with my most deeply held values, I left Georgia behind, relegating the country I loved to a chapter of my past, rather than a horizon for my future.
If I had to characterize in broad strokes the central imperative of the culture in which Giorgi and I defined ourselves in relation to each other, I would put it like this: women must submit to the fate men dole out to them. There is no right to appeal, and there are no grounds for objection, particularly if this fate is doled out by the men who have a special claim on one’s life: by husbands, fathers, and sons.
Here, I tell the story of how I reached this apparently dramatic and even hyperbolic conclusion. Stereotypes must be avoided, but…
