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- Convenor:
-
Siegfried Gruber
(University of Graz)
- Chair:
-
Karl Kaser
(University of Graz)
- Discussant:
-
Carolin Leutloff-Grandits
(University of Graz)
- Stream:
- Gender and sexuality, media and the visual arts
- Location:
- A201
- Sessions:
- Tuesday 23 June, -, Wednesday 24 June, -
Time zone: Europe/Zagreb
Short Abstract:
Inequalities between men and women and between older and younger generations are obviously an effect of a more distant past and patriarchal behaviour is a life style which is based on gender and generational inequality. Can we link historical patriarchal features to contemporary behaviour?
Long Abstract:
During the last years there has been an increasing interest in the analysis of inequalities between and within societies. One major aspect in such research concerns the inequalities between men and women in terms of income, education, life expectancy, familial life, participation in political life and the work force. Another inequality concerns power relations between the older and the younger generation. Generally the trend during the last decades was towards increasing equality between both sexes, but scholars have also pointed to "patriarchal backlashes" e.g. after the collapse of Communist regimes. Research also shows that differences between major regions of the world exist and that these differences are obviously not an effect of the immediate past, but rooted in a more distant past. Patriarchal behaviour is one kind of life style which is based on gender and generational inequality. Balkan patriarchy attracted quite some interest of researchers because of its assumed historical depth and strength - the Balkan area was seen as the most patriarchal within Europe.
This panel invites therefore papers which analyse historical patriarchy apart from a simple dichotomous model (East-West, traditional-modern) and papers which focus on modern features of patriarchal behaviour. Especially invited are papers which link historical patriarchal features to contemporary behaviour, either as historical heritage or as opposing trends.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Tuesday 23 June, 2015, -Paper short abstract:
The Greek minority of Istanbul has a rich cultural heritage of the Byzantine, Ottoman, Greek and Turkish culture for which the patriarchy is a major cultural element. The aim of this work is to analyse “the patriarchal order” in this community which ensures a certain unity and cultural continuity.
Paper long abstract:
The Greek population in Istanbul, a natural consequence of the Byzantine past of the city, acquired the status of an ethnic minority by the Treaty of Lausanne signed in 1923. This population had and continues to have an identity, which is influenced by his historical heritage, his structure, the Christian orthodox religion, the solid relations with the Patriarchate and the family structures. Despite its decreasing number, the community tries to keep a certain unity. One of the major elements that guaranties this unity is the institution of marriage together with the patriarchal order. For certain societies or communities, as the Greek orthodox community of Istanbul, the patriarchal system either is a part of the culture either is considered as a cultural heritage to preserve and transmit from one generation to another. The study of marriage inside this community, the women's roles as a spouse, the women's place in social and economical life and the women's participation in the continuity of patriarchy allows to understand the patriarchal system and the unequal distribution of gender roles. Despite the fact that patriarchy presents disadvantages for women, is still a living part of the cultural tradition of the Greek Orthodox community.
Paper short abstract:
The notion of ‘patriarchy’ has pervaded the scholarly descriptions of peasant families in preindustrial Europe. We propose an index of patriarchy as tool for comparing power relations in historical families, and argue that ‘patriarchy’ can be meaningfully measured in quantitative terms.
Paper long abstract:
The notion of 'patriarchy' has pervaded the scholarly descriptions of peasant families in preindustrial Europe. In using the term, however, scholars have referred to many different elements (e.g. the dominance of patrilineal descent, domination of men over women and of the older generation over the younger generation). Combinations of these elements have been used in a manner that generally does not allow researchers to measure comparatively the 'intensity' of patriarchy across time and space. In this paper, we propose an index of patriarchy as tool for comparing power relations in historical families, and argue that 'patriarchy' can be meaningfully measured in quantitative terms. We provide a list of numerical variables easily derived from census microdata that can be used for measurement purposes. To illustrate how these comparative studies can be conducted, we use information from census and census-like materials for a sample of over one million individuals from historical Europe from the Atlantic Ocean to the Ural Mountains. For all available datasets from the Mosaic Project (www.censusmosaic.org) and the North Atlantic Population Project (https://www.nappdata.org/napp/), we compute a list of well-specified variables and based on these variables an index of patriarchy is calculated. The index allows us to identify regions with different degrees of patriarchy within one country and a map of patriarchy within Europe.
Paper short abstract:
Among the highlanders of Northern Albania we can still witness a very specific social institute of sworn virgins – women who left their expected role of wives and mothers and lead a manlike mode of life. Men started treating such a girl as a member of their community with equal social status.
Paper long abstract:
Among the highlanders of Northern Albania we can still witness a very specific social institute of sworn virgins (Alb. virgjëresh|ë-a) - women who left their expected role of wives and mothers and lead a manlike mode of life. As a rule, the reason for such a decision could not be explained by women's sexual preferences or disappointment in life, but by the sense of duty towards their own family.
When the family lacked a male heir, one of the adult female daughters could make a decision to become a sworn virgin, i.e. she willingly refused to marry and have children remaining chaste. We can speak of several reasons and factors for that:
- Young ladies chose such a fate to represent their families in local councils and remote administrative centers, where various economic, legal, and political problems were discussed by men.
- A girl could become a sworn virgin to avoid the unwished marriage.
- This decision was a way to keep the face in situation when a marriageable girl was not proposed and there was a chance to become an old maid. The newly-obtained high social status of a sworn virgin allowed such girls to enter councils of a quarter, a village or a region.
Having become a sworn virgin, a girl drastically changed her mode of life and behaviour: she could wear men's clothes and weapons (a gun, a rifle or a dagger), devote her time to male work and abandon all female duties.
Paper short abstract:
This paper will analyse the political cartoons, video jokes and internet satire about the public figure of the first Croatian female president Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović as a sign of concomitant "normalization" and repatriarchalization of Croatian society.
Paper long abstract:
This paper will analyse the political cartoons, video jokes and internet satire as an important discursive resource in construing the public figure of the first Croatian female president Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović. Despite the fact that in the recent past several woman politicians in Croatia have held important political roles, a plenty of news related cartoons, video jokes and "stupid clips" at the expense of the female president and her husband could be interpreted as a signal of puzzled laughter that unfolds a) the end of an era marked by authoritative macho politicians b) the triumph of matrifocal and polite but tight and restrictive political agenda c) the anxiety provoked by feminized high politics and ever growing conservative, patriarchal and homophobic public sphere. In contrast to the time of authoritarian rule when the "strong irony" and social criticism of political photomontage of the satirical weekly Feral Tribune flourished but was often banned by the court (1993-1999), the recent culturalization of political differences and ideological worldviews is further endorsed by internet-created humour and video art experimentation by numerous anonymous authors and digital citizens.
Paper short abstract:
To fight retraditionalization in Croatia, older female intellectuals and artists are being interviewed, in order for their emancipated lives to become examples for younger women. What is the best way to use collected women’s heritage to sustain the utopia of better future lives for women?
Paper long abstract:
In the light of neo-patriarchy in Croatia, the fact that younger generations of women are unaware of the struggles of older women for equality with men, it is important to collect women's life stories, especially intellectuals and artists, who have been educated and wanted more from their lives than domestic and nurturing roles traditionally assigned to them. It is for this purpose that interviews with intellectual women and women artists are being recorded, mostly outsiders who didn't quite 'fit' into the societal norms, including socialist. They tell their life stories, explain their choices and their relationship to the dominating patriarchal culture. The goal is to make their stories exemplary for younger women, their lives becoming new possibilities that can be 'used' in younger women's lives (C. Heilbrun).
Is the idea of 'knowledge and experience transfer' from older generations to the young a utopia, or does it have grounds in reality? And what are the possibilities to get younger generations of women, but also men, to hear them, acknowledge them, and consider them valuable or important? Stored in an archive, women's stories will stay on the margins, just for a small academic circle to study. Should the interviews be made into a documentary film, a book, a series of public lectures and/or workshops? In other words, how to use women's heritage and experiences from women's history to sustain the utopia of better and fuller future lives for women, free from the bounds of the once again dominant patriarchal model in Croatia?