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Series Editors
Dr Robert Fisher Lisa Howard
Dr Ken Monteith
Advisory Board
2014
‘All Equally Real’:
Edited by
Inter-Disciplinary Press
Oxford, United Kingdom
© Inter-Disciplinary Press 2014
http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/publishing/id-press/
ISBN: 978-1-84888-312-3
First published in the United Kingdom in eBook format in 2014. First Edition.
Table of Contents
Introduction ix
Anna Pilińska
Anna Pilińska
The present volume is an inspiring collection of research papers presented
during the third edition of the ‘Femininities and Masculinities’ held in Prague, in
2013. While the title of the conference – despite the plurals it employs – may
sound somewhat limiting, it encompasses larger, non-binary realms. In truly
interdisciplinary spirit, the authors of the chapters demonstrate that gender
identities are anything but monolithic concepts. Behind ‘femininities’ and
‘masculinities’ lay an entire spectrum of possibilities.
Gender identities cannot be avoided or escaped, even though at times they
might be transparent or ignored as seemingly irrelevant. While there is a certain
resistance to being labeled in contemporary discourses on sexuality – as
manifested, for instance, in the notion of ‘pomosexuality,’ i.e. postmodern
sexuality which refuses to be identified and described on the basis of gender
identity and sexual preference – gender identities influence how we interpret the
world and how we function within it. On a daily basis, we exist amongst patterns,
models, and behaviours, as well as among people who virtually demand to be
labeled as one thing or another, because, to them, this forms the basis of a stable
identity. This comes from subscribing to certain premises, or by identifying
themselves with/positioning themselves against others on their quest for self-
knowledge. Identities inevitably differ due to factors such as ethnicity, sexuality,
political environment, rigidity of social norms in a given cultural context, the
number of genders recognised within a given culture, a variety of other identities
which may serve as points of reference, canons of beauty, preconceived notions of
gender roles, or stereotypes functioning within a given community. All these
factors are inextricably linked with one another.
Conferences such as ‘Femininities and Masculinities’ remind researchers that
there is more to be discovered outside of their own respective fields of study, even
though working in gender studies is what constitutes the common denominator for
all of them. The richness and variety of topics is a reminder that every single
project explores gender on a micro-scale almost, and they also clearly show that
there is still so much to be done in so many walks of life. As various cultural
perspectives and realities are given voice, we are shocked into awareness that
privileges we might have been taking for granted are unobtainable elsewhere. As
the curtain of one’s own cultural context is lifted, this privilege is – even if for a
moment – no longer invisible.
The following volume is divided into three sections, each focused on a different
perspective of gender identities. In Part One, chapters are dedicated to literary and
filmic representations of femininities and masculinities. In her chapter titled ‘The
Portrait of Three Women, by Woody Allen,’ Ana Paula Bianconcini Anjos focuses
on female protagonists in motion pictures directed by Woody Allen, particularly in
x Introduction
__________________________________________________________________
the film Vicky Cristina Barcelona. Anjos discusses the different types of
femininities and masculinities presented in the film, using in her analysis the
concept of the male gaze and paying attention to factors such as the protagonists’
ethnicity and social class. The use of Laura Mulvey’s essay on male gaze links this
chapter with “‘You Force Me into a Corner and You Trap Me”: The Crisis of
Hegemonic Masculinity in Steve McQueen’s Shame (2011)’ by Barbara Braid.
Referring to Mulvey’s canonical text as well as to Connell’s discussion of
hegemonic masculinity, the author explores the dangerous dynamics between the
two protagonists of the movie, analysing how female presence acts as an unsettling
force in the life of the male protagonist, ultimately calling the concept of
hegemonic masculinity into question. In the chapter titled ‘Problematic (Male)
Homosociality: Youth, Marriage and “Adulthood”’ Frank G. Karioris also
discusses a motion picture: Seth MacFarlane’s Ted. The film serves as an
illustration of the homosociality-versus-adulthood dilemma, for which the
theoretical framework is provided in the form of Kimmel’s Guyland and
Bourdieu’s Bachelor’s Ball. Elaine Pigeon’s ‘Too Good to Be True: Virtue
Rewarded in Cinderella’ is an analysis of several versions of Cinderella, linking
them with such texts as a ninth-century Chinese tale ‘The Golden Carp,’
Shakespeare’s King Lear, and Pamela by Samuel Richardson. Drawing a detailed
characteristic of the fairy tale’s eponymous character, Pigeon traces a pattern in the
depiction of Cinderella-based protagonists in various renditions of the storyline. In
‘Femininity and Masculinity in Gail Carriger’s Soulless and Changeless: Victorian
Society Redefined,’ Aleksandra Tryniecka discusses gender identities in
steampunk fiction, demonstrating how the balance of power between male and
female characters is negotiated and shifted within the context of the fictional
worlds of Carriger’s two novels. Anna Pilińska discusses female characters in
Bobbie Ann Mason’s short fiction, in the chapter ‘Nurturing or Neutering? Women
in Bobbie Ann Mason’s Shiloh & Other Stories.’ Contrasting Mason’s depiction of
women from the American South with the notion of ‘the Southern Lady,’ Pilińska
focuses on various aspects of femininity embodied by Mason’s protagonists, and
points to the inevitable impact their choices and decisions ultimately have on male
characters. Miriam Wallraven in ‘Gender in War, Gender at War? Femininities and
Masculinities in Contemporary British War Novels’ chooses a very specific
context of contemporary war prose, offering alternative answers for questions
posed mostly by sociologists. Sociological findings, Wallraven argues, are
reflected, expanded, and challenged in fictional accounts of war. Yomna Saber’s
‘“I Bear Two Women upon My Back”: Intersectionalist Hybridity in the Poetry of
Audre Lorde’ discusses the phenomena of intersectionality and hybridity, both
linked to Third-Wave feminism. Audre Lorde, as a black, non-heteronormative
woman, actively resists dominant, hegemonic discourses through her artistic
creations. Finally, Kārlis Vērdiņš and Jānis Ozoliņš offer a queer-oriented
contribution to this part. In the chapter titled ‘Unreal People: Queer Narratives in
Anna Pilińska xi
__________________________________________________________________
Contemporary Latvian Short Fiction,’ the authors discuss the appearance of queer
themes in Latvian fiction across a few generations of writers, pointing to how non-
normative characters would receive similar treatment in postmodern Russian
literature.
The common thread running through the second section of this volume is the
performance of gender identities across art forms and canons. It opens with Alexa
Athelstan’s piece on ‘Orientating Queer Femininities: Theorising the Impact of
Positionalities on the Performative Embodiment of Queer Feminine Subjectivities.’
The author presents results of her research on performing queer femininity.
Athelstan, parting from the theories of Pierre Bourdieu, Judith Butler, and Sarah
Ahmed, analyses how gender identity is conceived and projected using various
points of reference, focusing especially on the issue of positionality. In ‘Croatian
Tales of Long Ago: Ivana Brlić-Mažuranić’s Covert Autobiography,’ Vivijana
Radman presents the silhouette of a canonical Croatian author of fairy tales and
children’s books. This strategic choice of genre allowed Brlić-Mažuranić to
express her creativity despite the constrictions imposed on her by societal
understanding of gender roles – there is, Radman argues, a hidden emancipatory
agenda behind her literary world of fairy tales. The chapter titled ‘Crafting a
Semiosphere of Femininity: Women Impersonators on the Parsi Stage’ by
Harmony Siganporia offers insights into the lived reality of female impersonators
in late-nineteenth-century Parsi theatre, and how the modern Indian woman of the
nationalist imagination was an entity crafted in full upon the body of male
performers, despite the presence and availability of female actors for the stage.
Performance is also the core of the chapter titled ‘Subversive Bodies: Anti-
Aesthetic Gender Images in Contemporary Flamenco’ by Idit Suslik. The author
demonstrates how very specific and highly codified gender roles are inextricable
from this particular form of artistic expression, and how, at the same time,
contemporary flamenco artists attempt to alter or distort the notion of physical,
bodily ‘beauty’ in flamenco performance while mastering and showing their skills
as dancers. From the fusion of flamenco with contemporary dance techniques, a
new, subversive body emerges. Ladislav Zikmund-Lender’s ‘Cruising for a
Bruising: Heterosexual Male-Artists Creating Queer Art’ is a presentation of Czech
heterosexual artists from different domains producing queer – or queered – art. The
creations Zikmund-Lender discusses were not conceived with a queer reading in
mind, but were eventually interpreted as queer by their audiences.
The focus of the chapters within the volume’s last section is ‘the personal.’ In
two chapters, authors draw on personal experiences to address a more general
issue. In ‘Mrs. Private Property,’ Hande Çayır describes her struggles and concerns
connected with the change of surname, providing the cultural context for this
particular practice. Çayır’s research evolved into a multimedia project, as she made
a documentary film encapsulating the experience and process of changing one’s
last name in the Turkish socio-political context. Gemma Anne Yarwood’s initial
xii Introduction
__________________________________________________________________
research into parenting in the UK resulted in an additional, very personal project on
the relationship between the researcher and the researched, which is the focus of
the chapter titled ‘Embodying Womanhood?: Doing Pregnancy, Doing Research.’
As a pregnant researcher, the author was involuntarily involved in particular
discourse practices, but her discomfort seemed irrelevant to her interlocutors, as
her pregnancy experience was now a common denominator between her and her
participants. Conversely, fatherhood is problematised in ‘Contemporary Maternity:
Independent Reproduction with Assisted Technology’ by Carla Almeida, Carla
Valesini, and Jonia Valesini. In this chapter, the authors present results of research
focusing on assisted reproduction in Latin America. The figure of a biological
father is thus absent from the onset of the procedure. The authors signal that the
growing popularity of assisted reproduction is not without impact on gender
dynamics: the family as an institution, and the notion of motherhood as a much
more individualistic project. Family relations are also the focus of three other
chapters, by Sabrina Zerar, Tahir Latifi, and Elife Krasniqi. Zerar’s ‘The
Representation of Ideal Femininities and Masculinities in Kabyle Folklore’
revolves around codified gender relations within the Kabyle community, and the
author analyses Kabyle-Algerian folklore as a potential source of representation for
myriad gender identities. In ‘Gender and Family Relations: The Question of Social
Security in Kosovo,’ Latifi presents the outcome of a research project conducted in
Kosovo, exploring changes in family and gender relations, and the importance of
applied legal solutions in this very specific geopolitical context. The author
emphasises the power of customary law over public laws, and elaborates on the
condition of patriarchy in this postwar reality. Krasniqi’s chapter, ‘Women in
Search for Social Security: Hostages of Family, Tradition and State,’ is in dialogue
with Latifi’s findings. Discussing the same temporal and spatial reality of postwar
Kosovo, Krasniqi focuses on the condition of women as a marginalised and
dependent group. In the chapter titled ‘Civil Society Discourses of Kemalist
Women’s Organisations in Turkey: Engendering Civil Society?’ Asuman Özgür
Keysan focuses on two women’s organisations functioning in Turkey in order to
demonstrate how female voices are commonly marginalised within the confines of
what is termed ‘civil society,’ and analyses whether the actions of the discussed
groups perpetuate, contribute to, or constitute a challenge to patriarchal discourse.
Cemile Gizem Dincer’s ‘Women’s Conscientious Objection: Is It Enough to Be
Side Simply (Not to Battle) on the Side of Peace?’ presents a peculiar perspective
on women’s entanglement and involvement in militaristic discourse, by discussing
the phenomenon of female conscientious objectors in Turkey. War discourse and
national discourse, Dincer argues, cannot exist without women, for they are the
subordinate subjects against whom the remaining elements of the puzzle can
identify themselves as dominant and powerful. ‘Being Muslim, Diasporic and
Male: The Emergency of the “Perfect Muslim” in the European Context’ by
Valentina Fedele contributes to a newly-emerging discourse on Muslim
Anna Pilińska xiii
__________________________________________________________________
masculinities, focusing specifically on the Muslim diaspora in Europe, and with a
particular emphasis on the role of religion in the construction and performance of
gender identities. Bih-Er Chou’s ‘Femininity under Globalisation: Doing Gender in
Transnational Space’ investigates the representations of female gender identities in
the globalised world. While gender identities of women from lower social strata
have generally received more attention since they are considered to be the ones
most impacted by globalisation, Chou offers an analysis of the other end of the
feminine spectrum, within the context of Taiwan and China. Sofia Aboim and
Pedro Vasconcelos discuss constructions of diasporic gender identities and power
struggles of immigrant men in Lisbon, in ‘Displacement and Subalternity:
Masculinities, Racialisation and the Feminisation of Other.’ The authors mention
factors such as the immigrants’ country of origin, ethnicity, or stereotypes
functioning within the binary male-female division, while describing the subjects
of their study attempting to participate in the category of hegemonic masculinity.
In ‘The Construction of Sexuality Knowledge in Human Sexuality Textbooks,’
Monika Stelzl and Brittany Stairs focus on how the contents of several twenty-
first-century textbooks on human sexuality are constructed on the basis of
biological determinism, disregarding the social, political, and cultural factors in
shaping sexuality. The authors argue that the audience of these textbooks does not
receive a complete and exhaustive picture of what human sexuality is, but they
may treat it as such, associating a textbook with the voice of authority.
The following volume is a result of an extremely fruitful, inspiring, eye-
opening, and horizon-expanding event. The chapters cover an impressive range of
subjects, from fictional representations of gender, through political and social
contexts, to very personal experience. The multiplicity of perspectives and
approaches to gender identities demonstrates how vital these are in our everyday
lives. Femininities and masculinities are not abstract, fictional concepts floating
around in a vacuum. They are both personal and political, permeating and shaping
our lived reality in numerous ways.
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