In strong patriarchal societies, the violence against women is taken as a social norm and there is distorted understanding on women’s role in the society limiting her potential capacity only to household chores. Therefore, scenes of violence and discriminatory approach towards women is widely applied in TV, especially through TV series in pursue of high ratings and commercial interest. Fully understanding the impact and influence of TV over population, Women’s Solidarity Fund (WSF) tackled one of the most popular TV series from the Armenian TV Chanel to to identify violent and discriminatory scenes against women. WSF made a short video with some statistics and broadcasted it in the crowded city center of Erevan alongside with disseminating leaflets and information booklets, as well as petition to stop the TV series with 700 signatures collected.

Shortly after the video shooting in the city centre, the monitored TV series with violence scenes was closed down with the message of the TV series’ authors that they did not mean to discriminate and humiliate women. Follow-up actions were held by young women within 16 days of activism against gender violence through social media and in other countries in Georgia and Turkey.

Women activists advocating for gender equality are not provided space through TV and radio channels, as there is public misunderstanding that they are spreading evil, immoral European values. This practice was innovative approach to attract public’s attention on one of the burning issues. 

The success ofthe action waswidely reportedby the mediaand social networks. For example,in a few days,the video onYoutubehas been viewed15,000 timesand more than 300mediamade the coverof this initiative.

This practice has been identified in the framework of the CSO WINS project (Capacity-building in the Southern Mediterranean to Open policy dialogue and monitoring for Women IN Society), with the support of the European Union’s Neighbourhood Civil Society Facility.