“If there is no justice, there will be no peace,” “Fire to the oligarchy,” “Battle to the end” — phrases that have become symbols of protest in recent months and are heard loudly every day on the streets of Tbilisi and other cities, belong to women.
Physical violence, swearing, arrest, stripping, threats of rape — these are the attitudes that are used as weapons of political battle against women.
Even the events of recent days reveal how large-scale the campaign against women is, involving both law enforcement officers and politicians, as well as unidentified individuals behind fake accounts on social media. A few days ago, when a female activist, Tako Kuratishvili was arrested at a protest rally with a poster, part of the public could not hide their surprise and anger: what did the police have to do with a woman holding a paper with the inscription “Antsukhelidze is immortal”?! And why did they treat other women rudely while arresting her?! Another part, behind fake and real accounts, tried to instill the idea that women deserved this. They cited unfeminine, “unsuitable for women” behavior on their part as arguments.
The words with which trolls and Georgian Dream supporters criticized the detained women were mostly sexist — “crazy,” “are these women?”, “how are girls behaving?!,” and many other recurring message boxes aimed to justify the violence by the police and make it seem as if the activists deserved it because they “didn’t behave like women.” At the same time, news appeared on the propaganda website of Imedi that Kuratashvili was accused of disobeying the police and blocking the road, and that the reason was not a poster dedicated to the national hero of Georgia, Giorgi Antsukhelidze.
Tamar Kuratishvili’s arrest
Photo: Levan Zazadze
A similar pattern played out when a politician Elene Khoshtaria was arrested. The footage shows that she did not physically resist the police when the phrase “hold her now and arrest her” was heard. She was roughly led to a MIA car. After her arrest, Khoshtaria spoke about degrading treatment, physical violence, and forced undressing. Several detainees have already reported on similar practices. “Dirty woman” — these are the words that were used to discredit Khoshtaria and you could find them in the comments of the information spread by Aprili Media, as well as many other media outlets. She was also accused of behavior “not suitable for a woman.” The MIA statement emphasized that Khoshtaria refused to go through the procedures established by law and was found to be in possession of an “illegal substance,” while at the same time, the agency talked about releasing the footage taken in the detention center, if he agreed. Khoshtaria’s discrediting took on a campaign look. This is confirmed by the comment of one of the leaders of the Georgian Dream, Tea Tsulukiani, who, speaking about the issues of the investigative commission, said that “Khoshtaria, at that time, was leading the beginning of the destruction of the Georgian army in broad daylight,” thus ironically responding to his forced undressing. According to Khoshtaria, this is also compounded by the fact that propaganda channels have been asking why she is not demanding the release of the footage of the incident, which is exactly what the MIA spoke about in its very first statement.
“I have to demand that the footage of my forced and violent undressing be made public. As if it was not enough in itself, now I have to watch the world watch it,” — this is how Khoshtaria responded to this fact.
Nata Uridia / Aprili Media
These stories are simple examples of gender propaganda and campaigns to discredit women. In both cases, the goal is to shape public opinion so that the crimes committed against these women are easily acceptable to the masses. It is important to know that gender-based violence takes many forms — it can be violence and intimidation against both women and men participating in the protests, but it can also be the spread of sensitive and manipulative information or even fake news and rumors that deliberately harm women. This is gender disinformation, which is actively used today.
► For more information: Gender Disinformation as a Weapon — How They Try to Expel Women from Politics
As Georgia’s fifth president, Salome Zurabishvili, who herself has become the target of gender-based attacks on multiple occasions, said during her speech at a rally, the true measure of the power of the ongoing protest is one woman’s voice: “Fire to the oligarchy!” When the protest has a female voice, the main target of the attack is also a woman.
In this article, we will discuss how women are fighting not only within the framework of the ongoing protests today, but also how the Georgian Dream’s anti-gender and hate campaign took root and how they made women the main target.
Upon entering the political arena, Georgian Dream positioned itself in a completely different way and created a superficial impression that human rights and equality were a priority for them. Meetings were held, campaigns were planned with NGOs, they worked on women’s rights at various times, adopted anti-discrimination or quota laws, and condemned violence in public statements, but the real picture was problematic, including in relation to women’s rights, especially when it came to the LGBTQ+ community.
Tamar Kintsurashvili, Director of the Media Development Foundation, says that years ago, Georgian Dream had a more liberal positioning on gender, however, with the change in foreign policy rhetoric, the use of populist themes for political purposes has become more explicit.
“Georgian Dream has always been against queers, and the Georgian Dream is consistent in discriminating against the queer community. The issue related to women causes misunderstanding, because for years they were considered champions in resolving women’s issues, and now they have turned their backs on women, otherwise they have always been hostile towards the LGBT community. Although the policy they declared on the issue of women was different, the Georgian Dream elite itself did not live by this policy,” explains the director of Sapari, women’s rights activist Baia Pataraia.
The fact is that politicians who were responsible for eliminating discrimination and combating disinformation were themselves enablers. For example, many phrases uttered by Georgian Dream politicians over the years show how insensitive they were to issues of sexism and discrimination, how often they used hate speech, even when working on these issues. Aprili Media distances itself from discriminatory and sexist statements uttered by politicians. Our goal is not to replicate them, but to show how those in power behaved. Observing these phrases also shows us how their rhetoric changed over the years and became more offensive and humiliating:
- 2016, Kakha Kaladze: “We are dealing with gossip. This is like when women gossip.”
- 2019, Gia Volski: “Why does she resort not only to the highest level of rudeness, but also to rhetoric that is absolutely inappropriate and disgraceful for a woman?”
- 2019, Vano Zardiashvili: “It would look very bad on my part to compete with a woman, a representative of the weaker sex.”
- 2022, Irakli Kobakhidze: “You lost a woman’s face and wiped your mouth. You have a mouth like Saakashvili. You have become like your leader in everything.”
- 2024, Beka Odisharia: “*uck you, a herd of un*ucked maids. This is a un*ucked women syndrome, un*ucked…”
- 2025, Tea Tsulukiani: “After seeing some Tsitlidzes, ungrateful and incompetent politician Kordzaias, beautiful Tinikos, loser Salomes (this time I’m talking about the MP) and such wonders, no man (i.e. male) will want to support women in politics anymore, nor will they want quotas.”
Hate speech: Hate speech refers to all forms of expression that spread, incite, promote or justify racial hatred, xenophobia, anti-Semitism or other forms of hatred based on intolerance, including nationalism, ethnocentrism, discrimination and hostility towards minorities or migrants.
Misogyny: Misogyny, also known as misogyny, is an extreme form of sexism that has existed for centuries. It encompasses the marginalization, discrimination, humiliation, violation of rights, sexual objectification, and violence against women.
Gender Misinformation: Gender misinformation focuses on the intersection of gender and misinformation, where women, non-binary people, and the LGBTQIA+ community are disproportionately targeted by false and inaccurate information. Gender misinformation is harmful in many ways. It not only poses a personal threat to women who are publicly active, but also threatens democracy by disenfranchising women and reducing their participation in public processes.
Slut-shaming: refers to the criticism of people, usually women and girls, because their behavior, appearance, or dress does not conform to socially established gender norms and ideas about sexuality. Slut-shaming also often refers to blaming a victim of sexual violence, in whole or in part, for provoking the violence through their behavior or dress. Slut-shaming is used to shame and stigmatize women.
Hate speech and gender disinformation have been studied by Georgian NGOs for years. Looking at these studies, we can say that as the Georgian Dream’s policies became more and more anti-Western, and the anti-gender campaign also grew. For example:
- According to MDF’s 2016 pre-election survey, representatives of the ruling coalition, Georgian Dream, ranked first in terms of the number of homophobic statements.
- A 2017 study by the same organization noted that 10 parties most often incited hate speech, the absolute majority of which were pro-Russian and far-right, with Georgian Dream also among the top ten.
- Similar trends persisted in the 2018 and 2019 surveys, but this time, along with the Georgian Dream and pro-Russian parties, opposition parties were also on the list.
In the MDF and Sapari 2020 pre-election monitoring, which examined sexism and gender stereotypes, we read that female politicians were targeted for attacks both because of their political affiliation and actions, as well as their gender identity. It is also noted that in most cases, sexist hate speech and stereotyping against female politicians were not used by political parties, and the vast majority of such violations were detected by pages, public groups and individual Facebook accounts related to and associated with them. Now this situation has radically changed.
At that time, the study showed that, according to the typology of violations, in five out of six categories, discrediting accounts of government opponents were in the lead. In the sexism/misogyny category, the number of violations was dominated by accounts related to anti-liberal groups. Most often, female politicians were insulted based on moral criteria, followed by mockery/insults based on mental abilities and physical characteristics with almost equal frequency. In quantitative terms, there were slightly fewer reproaches based on gender stereotypes.
“Gender disinformation is always directed against a specific woman by spreading disinformation. This is not a general phenomenon, it has its specific targets, whom it attacks, and when the state does this, its goal is to silence this woman, or if it cannot silence her, to tarnish her reputation and weaken her positions in politics and public life.”
“Disinformation against women is usually based on widespread stereotypes, for example, that women are dishonest humans, women are stupid, women are unqualified and disloyal. Disinformation tries to reinforce these stereotypes in order to minimize the influence of women,” explains Baia Pataraia.
► For more information: Quiz: Can You Spot Gender Disinformation?
The fact that the situation has changed over the years is also evidenced by a report prepared in collaboration with WECF and MDF in 2023, where we read that, along with growing populism, the manipulation of public opinion on gender and LGBTQIA+ issues has become not only a rights problem in recent years, but also a political challenge. It is also noted that discriminatory statements related to politics were mostly directed against female politicians. In addition, statements related to politics regarding the LGBTQIA+ community, along with their discriminatory content, were anti-Western in nature and established the idea that the West is “influencing” us with propaganda about homosexuality and fighting traditional identity. We would like to remind you that LGBTQIA+ propaganda does not exist, just as there is no scientific evidence that the so-called propaganda changes orientation or gender identity.
Another MDF study from 2023, which examined the spread of gender disinformation, states that in the majority of cases identified as homophobic and gender identity-based, the target was the West; while fake news directed against Ukraine was largely homophobic. In connection with the internal socio-political process in Georgia, the targets were politicians, people associated with them, journalists and civil activists, against whom, in addition to the spread of disinformation and rumors, deliberate discrediting campaigns were also conducted.
“Examples of slut-shaming and morally-based attacks against Georgian female politicians and individuals associated with politicians were identified. Cases were identified when individual journalists were referred to as lesbians or gays, including using sexist, offensive language, in connection with their professional or public and political activities,” the study reads.
Tamar Kintsurashvili explains that the target of gender misinformation can be not only the woman being attacked, but also other women.
“The purpose of criticizing them based on moral criteria is that these women achieved their success in politics only through relationships with men, and not by demonstrating their own abilities. In a patriarchal society, this may have some impact, and this is calculated. Gender disinformation may not affect the targets as much as it discourages other people from entering politics. If such dirty methods are used and affect people’s private lives, others will refrain from participating in public life. People have families, relatives, and they don’t want to cause them pain because of their decision,” says Kintsurashvili.
► For more information: Quiz: Recall Examples of Gender Disinformation in Politics
In addition, in the 2023 study, we read that feminism was presented as a phenomenon imposed from the West, which was oriented towards the oppression of men and the destruction of families, and was established for selfish motives. The issue of feminism was manipulatively linked to European integration, in particular, to the granting of EU candidate status.
“Gender stereotypes perpetuated the idea that women are hysterical, sexually unsatisfied, that the behavior of female politicians is unbalanced, that women cannot be trusted and that matters should be handled by men, and that a Georgian woman’s place is in the family. In order to discredit the President of Georgia, opposition women, human rights defenders, and participants in protest rallies, anonymous government officials, and in some cases, pages associated with the conservative movement, often used visual manipulation and distributed them in a sponsored manner,” the study reads.
The spread of rumors, manipulation of gender issues, and disinformation about women increased particularly during the 2024 election period and culminated in the protests that followed. A study prepared by the Women’s Foundation on gender and identity-based disinformation in the media during the 2024 election period notes that gender disinformation played a significant role in far-right media, and since March has increased significantly in government narratives and was one of the main directions of the election campaign.
► For more information: How an Election Campaign Built on Hate, Homophobia, and Conspiracy Theories Works
Nata Uridia / Aprili Media
The study authors note that due to the misogyny and homophobia embedded in society, women and LGBTQ+ people are “easy” targets for the state. This is also a well-tried political tool that the Georgian Dream party has used before in the pre-election period, when in 2017 the constitution defined marriage as the union of a man and a woman.
The anti-gender campaign, fueled by hatred for years, has not remained limited to social media and, as the scale of the protests has grown, has moved to the streets. The Center for Social Justice explains that the persecution and sexism of women involved in peaceful protests has taken severe forms and, beyond repressive practices in the police, indicates the strengthening of a misogynistic culture.
An example of this was the degrading treatment of detained female journalist Mzia Amaghlobeli, who is accused of assaulting a police officer for slapping Irakli Dgebuadze.
“After being arrested under criminal law, she was mistreated by the head of Batumi Police, Irakli Dgebuadze, in the yard and in the building of the police station. Before being taken into the police station, in the yard, Irakli Dgebuadze repeatedly verbally abused her and threatened to initiate criminal proceedings against her. Dgebuadze tried to physically assault her several times in the station. Other police officers were able to restrain Irakli Dgebuadze and remove him from the room. When one of them entered the room, he spat in Mzia Amaghlobeli’s face. Also, in accordance with his order, Mzia Amaghlobeli was not given the opportunity to drink water and satisfy other basic needs for a certain period of time. Mzia Amaghlobeli periodically requested to contact her lawyers, however, her request was ignored,” the GYLA stated.
Mzia Amaghlobeli has since become the target of repeated attacks as a woman, both when Georgian Dream leaders demanded her to repent and apologize for her mistakes, and when disinformation campaigns were spreading on social media, referring to her and her colleague, Eter Turadze, as an LGBT couple in order to discredit her.
“It is worth noting that gender disinformation is only one method of consolidating and gaining power. During our observation period (March-November), violence against activists and politicians by the police and criminal groups mobilized by the government, accompanying rallies, became the most common method, and disinformation was the main means of justifying this illegitimate power,” we read in the Women’s Fund’s research.
Unidentified law enforcement officers, who treated the protesters with particular aggression, abused them both at the rally and in the cars after their arrest, and were also aggressive towards women. In many cases, in public and partly behind closed doors, they cursed and threatened female activists and used insulting, derogatory, and sexist phrases.
► For more information: The Main Voice in this Protest is Woman’s” — Why and How Law Enforcement Officers Are Battling Women
In an interview with Aprili Media, women participating in the protest talked about how the police treated them aggressively and humiliatingly.
“Authoritarian political systems are characterized by an instinct to suppress women’s resistance. Threats of sexual violence, humiliation, and violation of dignity by the police are an integral part of this process – it is not just a demonstration of power, but an attempt to expel women from public space,” the Center for Social Justice states.
We cannot ignore the Georgian Dream’s anti-gender campaign without discussing their battle not only with gender issues, but also with the word gender. In parallel with attacking women and queer people, spreading false information about them, and manipulating irrational fears in society, both before and after the elections, Georgian Dream argued to the people that it was necessary to fight gender. This was accompanied by homophobic, transphobic, and anti-Western motives, as well as manipulative talk about the fact that there are only two genders and all others were imposed by Europe.
Baia Pataraia explains that the initial stage of the fight against gender can be considered the period when the word “gender” was removed from the position of Advisor to the Prime Minister on Human Rights and Gender Equality. According to her, after that, “gender” was not included in the concept of economic empowerment and now this word has been removed from the legislation, which, in turn, is no longer in line with the international obligations that Georgia has undertaken and the conventions to which it is a signatory, including the Istanbul Convention, which directly addresses gender-based violence.
“This is a copied trend that is observed in countries where more ultra-right, conservative governments have come to power, which have been associated with the anti-gender movement for years, talk a lot and have an open anti-gender policy. In our country, Georgian Dream did not have an anti-gender policy, and now what this means for people is confusing, that is, they have come into conflict with themselves. But if we look at the bigger picture, what kind of power the Georgian Dream is, we will see this logic there.
In general, the party has become a carrier of an ideology that, supposedly in the name of traditions, is deeply patriarchal and oriented towards the vertical, hierarchy, where only men are considered decision-makers and the bosses of everything. This is clearly part of this logic, but if we remember what the Georgian Dream was like a few years ago, it is inconsistent with it. That is why people do not understand why they abolished the quotas that they themselves adopted, and no one else did; why they abolish gender, which they themselves introduced. It causes a little confusion, but the point is that Bidzina Ivanishvili is now showing his true face to the public, and this true face is the face of a dictatorship that does not need any human rights and absolutely does not need to protect the rights of any group,” says Pataraia.
Myth Detector has studied the rights-restricting initiatives initiated in the Georgian Parliament between 2021 and 2023 that concerned the LGBTQ+ community and gender. The document shows how these initiatives reached the Georgian Dream from far-right groups.
“Before the ruling party, the following subjects appeared as the authors of similar legislative initiatives: Kremlin-backed parties/organizations (Alt-Info/Conservative Movement; National Congress of Slavic Peoples of Georgia and Anti-Fascist Coalition of Multinational Georgia); anti-liberal groups (Demographic Development Fund (Zviad Tomaradze), Hall of Leaders of the All-Georgian Family; In the Name of God – God is Our Truth); individual members of parliament of various party affiliations (Soso Jachvliani, a member of the Georgian Dream, and Emzar Kvitsiani, a member of the Patriots Alliance),” writes the myth detector.
For example, in 2019, Emzar Kvitsiani initiated legislative amendments demanding the removal of the terms “sexual orientation” and “gender identity and expression” from the anti-discrimination law. At that time, the Human Rights Committee considered the draft law initiated by Kvitsiani to be a restriction of human rights and stated in its rejection conclusion that “if the initiative is implemented, the Georgian legislation will no longer ensure the equal enjoyment of the rights established by the Georgian legislation for any natural or legal person.”
The situation has changed. In 2025, the Georgian Dream is trying to prove that the artificial term “gender” was deliberately introduced into Georgian legislation “for a certain period of time, under foreign influence, and this was a kind of reflection of global processes taking place in the world.” On April 1, along with many other laws restricting the rights of the media, NGOs, and human rights, the Georgian Dream removed the term “gender” from the legislation at the third reading.
Nata Uridia / Aprili Media
Observing the developments and changes in the political course of the Georgian Dream over the years reveals that the anti-gender campaign and gender disinformation were used to control the masses and manipulate sensitive issues. In the process, in exchange for gaining votes from the electorate, the Georgian Dream caused great harm to everyone, especially women and queers.
“Gender misinformation deals with very intimate issues, people are more vulnerable and emotional when it comes to our identity and the fear of losing our identity and act irrationally. It is an emotional topic and it is easier to manipulate our emotions and moods than other topics,” explains Tamar Kintsurashvili.
In a 2025 study by Sapari, Baia Pataraia examined the impact of gender misinformation on female politicians. Respondents to the study unanimously agree that disinformation always has a purpose. They cite the goals as discrediting female politicians, silencing them, exerting psychological influence on them, and expelling them from politics.
According to the journalist respondents of this study, gender disinformation is an attempt to exclude female politicians from the political field. Female politician respondents believe that this is a kind of neutralization attempt by the opponent at the moment when the politician is speaking and they want to silence her, however, if the female politician is strong, they may not be able to silence her and therefore, for the opponent, “the main thing is to destroy you as a credible speaker in the eyes of the listener and audience.”
According to the study, gender disinformation is systemic and is often used by the state to exclude women from the opposition wing from the political space. According to the observations of the respondents, the government, in addition to hired trolls and bots, who consciously and in a coordinated manner spread gender disinformation about female politicians, uses politicians from its own team (parliamentarians, city hall and municipality employees, etc.) to spread such disinformation. The study revealed that the government began such coordinated actions in 2016.
“First of all, the direct harm of disinformation is the creation of problems for women. Often, they even have health problems if they are victims of an attack for a very long time and if they suffer from this situation a lot. After all, a woman has a family to support her, and often the family is also a victim of an attack, so that somehow the family can put pressure on the woman and advise her to quit and leave politics. The third is the damage to the reputation of the woman herself. Usually, women have a very handsome and good reputation, and they try to damage this by spreading these lies and rumors. Often, these rumors also concern a woman’s personal life, because she is vulnerable in her personal life. Society easily believes rumors about a woman’s personal life.
“Some people simply believe this because it is difficult to catch up with state propaganda and neutralize it. It is very difficult, often impossible, to reach all the people to whom this rumor and disinformation has reached and explain to everyone that it was a lie, so the damage is unequivocal,” explains Baia Pataraia.
The study revealed that a systematic approach to combating gender misinformation is through education. The study participants believe that gender misinformation works effectively due to the existence of gender stereotypes, and the solution is to combat gender stereotypes.
“In general, in any kind of battle, if the state is fighting you, it is very difficult to defend yourself, because it has unlimited resources and you are very small. Propaganda and some kind of disinformation are everywhere and spread, but, as a rule, the state is the one who fights disinformation and achieves some results. With us, it is the opposite – the state creates disinformation and propaganda, and fighting against it, when such large structures are involved, is comparable to the battle of David and Goliath,” says Pataraia.
The Center for Social Justice explains that autocracies like the Georgian Dream are hostile to women’s activism because it challenges the status quo, the greed of the regime, and the consolidation of power in the hands of ruling elites. Such regimes restrict the freedoms of speech and assembly, which are crucial tools for activism, while women activists who fight for justice, gender equality, human rights, and political change in general are often targeted with intimidation, imprisonment, censorship, and violence.
“That is why we can say that under authoritarianism, the female body becomes not only a biological but also a political battlefield. Sexual threats, physical violence, and degrading treatment are aimed not only at punishing specific women activists, but also at sowing fear in society as a whole. This mechanism follows the fundamental logic of patriarchy, that a woman’s body must remain under control, her agency must be weakened, and her voice must be lost,” the Center for Social Justice states.
In a series of videos produced by Sapari, activists discuss how women are often attacked in public with sexist hate speech, disparaging their appearance, emotions, and intelligence. In this video, Samira Ismailova and Magda Mamukashvili talk about how they deal with gender misinformation, which is often systematically encouraged.
This material was prepared in collaboration with Sapari.