central position in regulating social relations, which
subsequently empowered women in subtle ways.
Moreover, expectations of womanhood in Azerbai-
jan were subject to the conflicting demands of the
socialist state’s egalitarianism, including gender
equality, and the patriarchal and authoritarian fea-
tures of the ethnic Azeri culture. This led to an
ambiguous and complex gender system that varied
in its degree of male bias and adherence to tradi-
tions according to urban/rural divide, as in the
example of Baku, the cosmopolitan and European-
ized capital city, and the surrounding villages.
A particularly crucial gain for women was the
state’s promotion of female education, which is at a
level above all other Muslim countries. Consequ-
ently, higher education for daughters is valorized,
increasing their chances of marriage, even among
the lower strata of society. In the area of school
curriculum, some gender differentiation is main-
tained in the way boys are offered practical skills
in building, carpentry, and electrical work and
encouraged to take up outdoor sports, whilst girls
are offered domestic skills and almost never taught
swimming, though in science and mathematics girls
are equally encouraged. At the same time there is a
strong emphasis on the gender division of domestic
labor, highlighting women’s servicing role in the
home. Whilst femininity is closely associated with
domesticity, masculinity is associated with avoid-
ance of domestic chores (washing and cleaning in
particular). However, these cultural norms are
mostly adhered to depending on practical impera-
tives. For example, in the urban households with
only sons, given that most women were employed
outside, the males had to participate in housework.
The strong stereotyping of gender roles in the
home begins early with children in the immediate
family. In the case of families with both sons and
daughters the brother-sister relationship contrib-
utes to socializing children into appropriate gender
roles. Otherwise a similar process may take place
within the extended family between male and
female cousins. The extended family is still a very
important institution in conducting social relations
in Azeri society, and the primary locus of socializa-
tion for the children. For girls this is further rein-
forced by the notion that women are the custodians
of Azeri custom and tradition, to be passed on
through the female line (Heyat 2002, Tohidi 1998).
In the past, gender segregation, in tandem with
sexual division of labor and maintenance of codes
of sexual propriety, was manifested outside the home
through restriction of public places such as tea
houses and cafes to males (even at restaurants women
only attended in the company of family members).208 gender socialization
In the post-Soviet era much of this has changed in
Baku, the center of the oil industry and the largest
city in the Muslim Caucasus, though not much in
small towns and other regions. The media, heavily
influenced by the West, via Turkish and Russian tel-
evision broadcasts, have projected images of femi-
ninity that orient women toward consumerism,
following of Western fashions, and generally the
cult of the “beautiful.” At the same time, for a small
sector of women of the new rich and those with
knowledge of Western languages new opportunities
in employment and travel abroad have opened the
way to greater autonomy and eventually alterations
in gender roles and relations. Thus for the middle-
class professional families today, the daughters’
attainment of higher education and career develop-
ment are of major consideration in their upbringing.
Generally, for the vast majority of the girls in the
region socialization still takes place within the kin
group, with mothers and grandmothers as the pri-
mary agents. In Azerbaijan, as in other former Soviet
republics where primary and secondary education
are compulsory, schools are also important sites of
socialization for children and young teens. In the
Soviet era, the pioneer and Komsomol groups were
further sites of socialization as they regularly organ-
ized extra-curricular activities. For the girls, values,
beliefs, and attitudes that govern their process of
socialization concern notions of domesticity, mother-
hood, and sexual propriety, with “good” marriage
as the primary goal. Nonetheless, in the post-Soviet
era in the Caucasus, as in Turkey, perceptions of
women’s role and function in the home and in soci-
ety, and cultural norms governing their code of con-
duct are undergoing significant changes according
to region, class, status, and economic position.Bibliography
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