But despite some reluctance, the pair feel that feminist ideas are naturally taking root in Armenia, particularly following the country’s Velvet Revolution in 2018.

“Our society is changing so fast. Nowadays, young women are moving away from their families to live on their own, to travel, and to learn foreign languages, more so than men,” says Ghazaryan. “A lot of my female friends live on their own, but most of my male friends live with their parents. Women want more; they are braver.”

But Ghazaryan and Khachatryan soon found that it was not only women suffering under Armenia’s strict gender roles. Starting from a well-known phrase, “men don’t cry”, the two embarked on a series of interviews with men on the challenges and pressures that they faced, asking them in particular about the last time they cried. Among the interviewees, one mutual friend opened up on the abuse he faced as a teenager for having long hair.

“I always knew it was hard to be a woman in Armenia, but after the interviews, we realised how hard it is to be a guy. There is a lot of pressure if you don’t conform to masculine standards,” says Khachatryan. “When I leave Armenia, I see how guys abroad can wear something pink or they walk in a different way, but Armenia is a very masculine society and there is more pressure to conform.”

But resistance remains — even in the most surprising of places. For Ghazaryan, this episode was an occasion to have an open conversation with her own father, discovering a side of him that she had not expected. As the two of them were busy working in the garden, Ghazaryan took the chance to record their conversation and ask about his perception of a man’s role in the society. “I know my father and he is not patriarchal at all, but when we started talking about this stuff, the ideas that he shared with me were very patriarchal. I knew he was just repeating things that he had heard before,” she says.