The High Value of the New Uzbekistan: The Global Ascent of Uzbek Women in Art and Beyond

Uzbekistan today stands at a decisive stage in its historical development — a period marked by rapid transformation, renewal, and the elevation of human dignity as a national priority. Within this dynamic process, women of Uzbekistan have become the defining force shaping the most inspiring chapters of the nation’s progress. They are not only the pillars of families and communities but also the driving agents of innovation, knowledge, and creativity. Through their remarkable achievements in science, technology, economy, culture, and sports, Uzbek women are capturing the attention of the world.

The status of women in Uzbekistan today goes far beyond symbolic respect. It is reinforced through tangible policies and initiatives that promote gender equality, remove structural barriers, and create strong platforms for personal and professional growth. This article explores the key directions of this rapid evolution, focusing on the mechanisms that empower women and the extraordinary accomplishments that have gained international recognition. Uzbek women are defining a new trend — one where intelligence, perseverance, and creativity merge to shape a globally admired identity.

The cornerstone of Uzbek women’s success lies in education. The country has made significant strides in ensuring that girls receive quality education and are encouraged to pursue modern and in-demand professions. In recent years, admission quotas for higher education have increased substantially, alongside the introduction of special grants and scholarships for female students. As a result, women now constitute more than half of all university students — a figure that symbolizes not merely numerical progress but a long-term investment in the nation’s intellectual capital.

Beyond traditional fields, young Uzbek women are making impressive strides in STEM — Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics. They are entering disciplines such as IT, artificial intelligence, robotics, and engineering, supported by newly established IT parks and specialized training centers across the regions. Many of these women have earned recognition at international competitions and conferences, reinforcing Uzbekistan’s growing presence on the global technological map.

The rising number of women earning Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) and Doctor of Science (DSc) degrees also signifies a powerful intellectual awakening. Uzbek female researchers are contributing meaningful innovations across fields like ecology, medicine, economics, and the humanities. Their discoveries enhance not only national academic prestige but also global scientific collaboration.

Economic independence and entrepreneurial spirit represent another defining dimension of Uzbek women’s global ascent. The government’s ongoing support for female entrepreneurship — through grants, preferential loans, and training programs — has enabled thousands of women to start their own businesses and achieve financial autonomy. Over the past few years, the number of women entrepreneurs in Uzbekistan has nearly doubled, with their enterprises thriving in both traditional and emerging sectors.

Female-led businesses are now reaching international markets, proudly showcasing the “Made in Uzbekistan” label. From textile production to handicrafts, from food industries to technology-driven services, Uzbek women are redefining the standards of excellence and creativity. Their achievements are not only contributing to economic growth but also shaping a more inclusive and sustainable model of national development.

Uzbek women are also becoming global ambassadors of culture and art. Designers, performers, dancers, and visual artists from Uzbekistan are earning recognition at international festivals, exhibitions, and creative platforms. They skillfully blend national traditions with modern aesthetics, giving a fresh and distinctive identity to Uzbek art on the world stage.

In sports, Uzbek female athletes continue to bring pride to the nation by winning gold, silver, and bronze medals at the Olympic Games, World Championships, and Asian tournaments. Their accomplishments in boxing, judo, weightlifting, and rhythmic gymnastics are powerful symbols of resilience, confidence, and determination. These victories serve as a source of inspiration for the younger generation, particularly for young girls who now believe that their dreams have no boundaries.

In conclusion, the women of Uzbekistan today embody intelligence, creativity, and perseverance that transcend national borders. Their dynamic participation in education, science, entrepreneurship, culture, and sports exemplifies the nation’s human-centered development strategy and its commitment to equality and empowerment. Every achievement of an Uzbek woman represents a collective triumph — a reflection of a society that believes in the power of opportunity and the worth of every individual. Uzbek women are not only shaping the New Uzbekistan but also redefining what it means to be successful in the modern world. Through their strength and creativity, they are giving birth to a new form of art — the art of ambition, progress, and excellence — a legacy that will inspire generations to come.

Mashhura Ochilova was born on August 14, 2001, in Sherobod district, Surxondaryo region, Uzbekistan.

She is a graduate of the Faculty of Philology at Samarkand State Institute of Foreign Languages, majoring in Korean and English philology.

Mashhura is an educator of Korean and English languages and a regional-stage participant of the prestigious Zulfiya State Prize competition.

She is the author of more than twenty international scholarly articles and has actively participated in academic presentations and conferences held in countries such as Qatar, Egypt, Turkey, Azerbaijan, and the United States. Her research papers have been translated into English and Turkish and published in international journals indexed on the Google Scholar platform.

Fluent in Korean and English, and proficient in Russian and Turkish, she demonstrates strong multilingual competence. Currently, she serves as the Director of the Yumyong Academy Online Learning Center, where she teaches nearly 200 students in Korean and English languages, contributing to cross-cultural education and linguistic development.

The Enigies of Benin,

The Enogie of Evboesi,

Ogiefo Festus, That First of His Name.

Koh, Baba. Lamogun.

Plain how those sons crashed!

Against Elegbe?!!! How they crashed…

They can not know they can not

Do how they crashed. Ah, crash!

In the tele-vision they crashed,

And for change, and it occurs —

It harries without a tinge abode

Catered to fear, to any endear

Which may seal the fate of man

And wring him upon shores spelt

About momentums and securities,

Magnanimities however still

As cold steel watches and waits

To the coming seasons uncease

Slashing down the tomfoolery

To upraise the forest voices

Unanimously, unctuous, uncouth

As that crash! The heart beats

And the voice hears vodoo spells

Wailing to repel and return in form

The ruckus trucking the sacred,

That capital that’s chopping herds

And droves to sacrilege thereat

Wisdom wills umpteenth, wars

With eyes and animus minstrels

Sung at the bottom line,

Sung far as sands obliterate

The waters to form the continents —

Which holds the planets if not

The sacred fields of order

Wherein magnetism morphs

Polymorphic gravity — heat, light;

Co-planar forces forcing the hand

To hope to touch the feet

And wear a feat of hope from

The sundials trolling misery.

It can not be said unsaid,

As is the modicum of tantamount

Tunes thinning the tireless herd,

That its self spits fire and roars —

That bull that bullish, scrapes off

Tarrifs and sprouts plantations,

That bows to win ineluctably,

That modifies geographies at once

Inspired out of those telemetries.

Hearts ease. The Gods recommend

From the heights of Pergammus

With wine and rest and visual

Ventricles stretched about arouse,

Stun stings stint stow strength.

  Books

I’m jealous of my books

Sitting over there

So smugly on their shelves

Complete, closed

Finished years ago.

Almost all their authors

Have moved on

Untouchable now

And all I have left

Are these reminders

Lined up side by side

Shoulder to shoulder

Settled in

Knowing their place

In my small world

And that bigger

Outside world where

People know them

Glad to see them

Hold them, read them

Sometimes I dust them

Tend to them as their keeper

Their clumsy, quiet keeper

Who has discovered

His place and is now

Jealous of theirs.

         Cold War

These days it’s easy to miss

and even reminisce fondly

about the Cold War –

the coldness of it,

the threats of it,

the simple sides –

one world power

vs. the only other.

Back then it seemed

like there were only two,

and the rest,

the non-world power countries

sat back waiting, watching,

anticipating outcomes.

We imagined spies

and checkpoints,

missiles pointing

this way and that.

We listened to speeches,

the good guys and the bad,

understood the easy equation

of mutual destruction,

measured the future

in terms of numbers

and then sizes of weapons.

Those were simpler times,

checkers instead of chess,

a simple plot scheme,

cowboys and Indians,

just children at play

as opposed to today.

           Haiku

It’s hard to get a haiku

to happen.

First of all, we must

adjust our thinking,

get big ideas in small spaces

a small upstairs room

instead of crowded

street scenes,

more Dickinson

than Whitman.

Then we get to count

three lines

and words viewed

in their pieces –

syllable count

oh, syllable count.

We get to see them

in a different light

broken down

into the parts we rarely

remember.

And the haiku needs

an image to play on

and a speaker we trust

to lead us through

the lines, the words

and the brief moment

we give over

to its take of the small

world we share.

2 poems (***)

***

Dead as a broken moon

Sober as a leaf of a proud tree

Flimsy like pearls of dew in the wind

Tired like evaporated moisture

Free as the yolk in a broken egg

Quiet as a dead man in an evening cemetery

I drink the silence of calm before the execution

***

V. Burich

Wanting love is like lying on the tram tracks

Water is jealous of the density of air in a smoky apartment

You smoke a lot and you’re addicted

I’m addicted to you and your night breath

I’m addicted to your airy body

You’re bending over with a roll-your-own cigarette in your mouth like a sexy snake

Let’s go drink the air of a park frozen in winter time

You won’t come and will continue to smoke alone

I’m also lonely but I don’t smoke

You will die of lung cancer, but I have already died of love for you

We say goodbye lying on two parallel tram tracks

We don’t even say goodbye we just resign ourselves to sleep

The Great Buster Keaton

They called him Buster before he could walk,
a name bestowed mid-flight.

The small body airborne… tumbling across a tent floor,
Thud!
Landing against a wall.
Splat!

The crowd gasps.
His father grins.
His mother braces
for the next throw.

Little Buster learned the language of flight and fall,
of prat and pathos,
his bruises spelling destiny in slapstick form.

Even before the tiny tyke could talk
he knew the music of collapse,
how a tumble, timed just right,
could make the audiences roar.

A suitcase handle sewn into his shirt
so he could be caught — whoosh! — or hurled,
or lifted once more toward the lights.

Tossed and tossed again.

No wings held him aloft – only force.
Applied gently, they said.
He knew how to land without getting hurt, they said.

Whack! — the floor met his shoulder.
Clunk! — the chair gave way.

No one blinked
as he sailed through the air with the greatest of ease.
Whoosh! Crash! Oof!

Poor little beggar.
If he wept, he saved it for the wings.

Every gesture a theorem,
every stumble a lesson in physics.
He mapped the universe in pratfalls,
angles, arcs, impossible collisions.

The film sets became his instruments.
He built cathedrals of collapse,
stood ghostly-serene at their altars of debris.

The house closed around him — Boom! —
but he did not move.

The General thundered beneath him,
Chuff-chuff! Hiss! Steam! Screech!

He rode its spine through fire and wreckage,
choreographing peril with the calm of a monk.

If the world was falling apart,
he would stand at its center – unblinking,
his hat flat as a crushed box.

He rose through skylights,
swung from cranes,
rode locomotives like comets through smoke —
Bang! Clang! Crash!

When sound arrived it struck him mute.

The clatter of words drowned the music of motion.
The studios – deaf to grace –
bound him in contracts and broke his heart.

Yet film remembers what men forget.
Decades later — click-whirr-flicker —
there he was, forever falling,
forever rising,
forever young,
the universe collapsing in perfect rhythm
around that impassive, ghostly face.

They said he was reckless.
They didn’t see the math —
the quiet calculus of momentum and grace,
the prayers murmured in angles.

The man was broken.
His body a grieving testimony
to fractured bones and battered necks.
Crack. Pop. Groan.

Fame has no loyalty.
The applause faded.
The wife who once adored him
bled him dry.

He gave her laughter;
she returned silence.

Yet his sons, God bless them,
saw the angel in their father’s battered frame,
the kindness behind the mask,
the gentleness no camera could steal.

It is said he lost a forefinger to a clothes wringer.
Whirrrr! Snap! 
Gashed his head with a brick that boomeranged —
Thunk! 
And was once sucked from an upstairs window
by a passing cyclone — Whoooosh! —
carried floating through the air,
and set down, unhurt,
in the middle of a street a few blocks away.

That face — oh, that face —
the stillest face in motion pictures,
an angel carved from exhaustion and grace.

Eyes like cloud light before a storm,
mouth a straight horizon line
against which the world could crash.

He did not flinch.
He never would.

In the twilight reels of his life,
Buster walked once more into the light,
a man stitched together by falls,
patched with laughter,
tempered in silence.

The world had turned to color and chatter,
but he remained black-and-white and eternal.
A ghostly flicker of silver
drifting upward through the hum of the projector.

Samuel Beckett once said he had
“the perfect face for the condition of being.”
And it was true.
His face a canvas
where absurdity met grace,
silence met survival.

Click.
Whirr.
Flicker.

And there, amid the hiss of the film, the shimmer of dust —
a single line escaped him,
soft as breath:

“I think I have had the happiest and luckiest of lives.”

He smiled — almost —
and vanished
into light.

By Kandy Fontaine (Alex S. Johnson)

In 2019, I underwent a four-hour neuropsychological evaluation with Dr. Kimberly Lanni at Kaiser Permanente. She was never authorized to treat me as a therapist, yet the consequences of that single session have followed me for years. Not because of the evaluation itself, but because of what came after: a fabricated designation in my patient chart labeling me as a safety threat, a misdiagnosis that contradicts multiple other evaluations, and a pattern of conduct that raises serious ethical concerns—including her published autism research at the UC Davis MIND Institute.

I am a transfemme author, editor, and founder of Nocturnicorn Books, a literary imprint that has published 40 books and platformed icons like David J. Haskins, Jarboe, Caitlín R. Kiernan, Ron Whitehead, and Poppy Z. Brite. My editorial persona, Kandy Fontaine, is a glam voltage source for transgressive, queer, and mythic literature. I’ve built an archive that centers the haunted, the silenced, and the divine. And yet, despite this legacy, I am still forced to fear for my safety every time I walk into a Kaiser facility.

The Origin: One Evaluation, Lifelong Fallout

Dr. Lanni’s role was strictly limited to conducting a neuropsychological test—not therapy, not ongoing care, and certainly not long-term behavioral profiling. Yet she issued a clinical judgment that I had Dependent Personality Disorder and Severe Somatic Symptoms Disorder—labels that have since been contradicted by other licensed professionals who found no evidence of either condition.

Worse, she appears to have fabricated documentation that resulted in my chart being flagged with a safety threat notice. This designation is not visible to me—but it is visible to Kaiser security personnel, who are automatically alerted whenever I arrive for care. I’ve never made threats. I’ve never acted violently. I’ve never endangered staff or patients. Yet my presence triggers a silent alarm.

The Surreal Reality of Being Flagged Without Cause

The safety threat label has turned routine medical visits into psychological minefields. I’ve been:

• Silently profiled at check-in
• Monitored by security without explanation or justification
• Forced to relive the trauma of being falsely labeled—again and again

There was no incident. No confrontation. No behavioral justification. Just one evaluation—and years of fallout.

I recently filed a fresh grievance with Kaiser, demanding that the safety threat designation be removed. It continues to cause emotional distress, disrupt my access to care, and undermine my safety as a patient.

Allegations of Professional Misconduct

My experience with Dr. Lanni raises serious concerns about her professional conduct:

• Misdiagnosis: Her conclusions were not supported by the evaluation or by subsequent assessments from other professionals
• Fabrication: The safety threat label appears to be based on false or exaggerated documentation
• Retaliation: I believe this label was applied in response to my questioning of her diagnosis and filing of grievances
• Defamation: The label has damaged my reputation within Kaiser’s system and may have influenced other providers’ perceptions of me

Autism Research and Documented Use of Restraint

Dr. Lanni’s published work includes contributions to autism studies at the UC Davis MIND Institute, including the Autism Phenome Project (APP) and GAIN (Girls with Autism – Imaging of Neurodevelopment). These studies involved:

• Simulated MRI environments to acclimate children to scanning procedures
• Use of mock MRI machines that replicate the noise and physical setup of real scans
• Participants as young as 2–6 years old, many with autism or intellectual disabilities

In her own publications, Dr. Lanni and her co-authors explicitly describe the use of restraint to keep children still during these procedures. The term “restrained” appears in the context of preparing children for imaging sessions, often in combination with exposure to loud, repetitive MRI-like noise.

While these methods may have been approved by institutional review boards, their ethical implications are profound—especially when applied to nonverbal, sensory-sensitive, or developmentally disabled children. The use of restraint, even in a research setting, demands rigorous trauma-informed safeguards, transparent consent protocols, and ongoing ethical scrutiny.

In my published critique, Spit Takes, I analyze the language and framing of these studies. The research often pathologizes neurodivergent traits and risks reinforcing harmful stereotypes. The documented use of restraint—on children who may not have had the capacity to consent—raises urgent questions about power, consent, and the ethics of data collection in autism research.

The Emotional Toll

This isn’t just a bureaucratic error. It’s a form of psychological violence. It undermines my ability to access care, damages my reputation within the system, and retraumatizes me every time I seek help.

I’ve documented my experience publicly, including on Reddit, where my posts have received thousands of views. I’ve spoken out not just for myself, but for others who may have been similarly harmed.

Call for Investigation and Justice

I am not a threat. I am a patient. I am a survivor. And I deserve care without fear.

I call on Kaiser Permanente to launch a full investigation into the safety threat designation placed on my chart, and to remove it immediately. I call on UC Davis to reexamine the ethics of its autism research protocols, especially those involving restraint and sensory exposure in vulnerable children.

I call for justice—for myself, and for anyone else who has been harmed by institutional misconduct disguised as care.

War

Smile not exist

Happiness is stopped

Hungry stomach

Hungry soul

Enough

Tired from the bodies

That are afraid of their shadows

I would like to have a man who speaks truth

Who act

Who believes

In power of love

Words

Silence is not the answer

When Sun rise

Moon is a light that

Give birth

To our dreams

Action

We can only trust

When the reality

appears

We don’t need

so small minds

We are here

to believe

In our thoughts

And in our principles

When the miracle

is happening

Only Flour

Can give the solution

To a hungry mouth

Eva Petropoulou Lianou is an official candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize, nominated by four organisations in 2024. She’s an international poet and the President of the Global Federation of Leadership and High Intelligence. She’s the founder of Poetry Unites People.