Abstract
Gender studies started out in Greece in the 1990s thanks to the work of female scholars with a background in history and anthropology, and who had been involved with feminism during the 1980s. At the same time, historical studies broadened their field and thus gender history became part of the discipline. European Union programmes in the 2000s, in which many universities participated, encouraged research on certain topics and periods. Departments with scientific readiness collaborated in offering special interdepartmental under- and postgraduate curricula, generally in social sciences and particularly in history. This was an important development for a country with a patriarchal mentality and with strong resistance to feminist agendas. It was an asset which acknowledged the role of women in the past and, at the same time, highlighted their role in modern academic and intellectual life. These programmes also included the organization of events and/or conferences and the diffusion of research results. The volume presented here derives from one such event.
One of the many activities developed by Greek gender historians has been the emergence of the group ‘Historians for the Research in Women’s and Gender History’, the Greek section of the International Federation for Research in Women’s History. The group is responsible for the recording of the Greek Bibliography of Women’s and Gender Historiography, which is constantly being enriched and updated. The ample bibliographical documentation on the topics discussed in the volume derives from this source and highlights its importance in a country where bibliographical reviews are not common.
The experienced women historians participating in the volume are among the first in Greece to have contributed to the diffusion of feminist ideas by publishing in academic journals in the 1980s. Since then they have continued to work in the field while taking notice of international theoretical developments. Younger researchers also take part opening up new topics and approaches. This combination is the apt outcome of the development of gender studies in Greek universities.
The analytical category of gender had so far been considered in the social sciences, but not in history. Therefore the book fills a considerable gap in the study of late 19th and early 20th century Greece.
In detail, three of the chapters (Katerina Dalakoura, ‘Gender and Education in Contemporary Greek Historiography’, Leda Papastefanaki, ‘Between the History of Industry and the History of Labour: The Viewpoint of Gender in Greek Historiography’, and Demetra Samiou, ‘Aspects of Gendered Citizenship in Greece: Women, the State and Political Rights during the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries’) touch upon the most elaborated research fields, such as education, labour, legal and political rights, offering a review of studies in their respective areas. The trajectory of Greek legislation gives us an unequivocal example of gender discrimination and hierarchy in Greek society: the acknowledgement of equality between men and women, as well as the granting of voting rights to the latter, have been repeatedly retracted in the Parliament by all political parties until the mid-20th century. All three authors draw attention to the minimal place occupied by the debate on the participation of women in their respective fields. Similar observations are offered by Demetra Vassiliadou (‘When Family History Met Gender History’) in terms of family history. Furthermore, the authors approach their topics with a renewed point of view, using theory in order to analyse and interpret new data. They determine research gaps and propose new directions for the future. They challenge approaches taking for granted the absence of women from education or labour and overlooking their financial contribution to the family income. Their common ascertainment, that the sources used are not the appropriate ones to highlight female contribution in family needs or labour, as women are either absent or inadequately recorded in sources such as censuses or voting lists, is of great importance. Maria Preka’s case study ‘Women Teachers (Arsakeiades), 1880–1913: Explicit and Implicit Family Trails’ is an example of the use and interpretation of new archival sources, according to which women teachers sought employment even though this specific role had not been ‘socially assigned’ to them.
The following chapters are also case studies, highlighting new topics, some of which recently emerged in Western bibliography, denoting the importance of similar enquiries for Greek research. They confront stereotypes by bringing to the fore women of various national and religious groups, who claimed their place in the public sphere and broadened the role that limited them to domestic and maternal duties, using education as their main tool. Armenian women’s activities, for example, were vanguard in such a process (Efi Canner, ‘Communal Interaction, Women’s Collective Interventions and Feminist Movements in the Ottoman, Greek and Turkish Territories from the Mid-Nineteenth Century to the Interwar Period’).
The body and its significations through art or sports are examined by Glafki Gotsi (‘The Male Nude in Greek Art of the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries: Questions of Αesthetics, Sexuality and Power’) and Eleni Fournaraki (‘Constructing the “Hellenic Worthy” Body: Gender and Class Meanings of Physical Exercise and National Identity on the Occasion of the 1896 Athens Olympics’). Neoclassicism together with the use of patriarchal symbols is an aesthetic conveyor acceptable to an exceptionally puritan society. Artists who turn to realism devise techniques in order to balance the lack of idealization and to keep alive the symbols of male supremacy. Women, having been excluded from the major nude life-drawing courses in the School of Fine Arts till the early 20th century, bring discernible changes in the rendering of male nudity and express their own sexual desire. The same ideological construction, claiming Hellenism’s continuity from ancient to modern times, is governing sports during the late 19th century. It calls on ancient Greek prototypes in order to valorize the physical training of the male body and to exclude women from joining athletic competitions. In the critical moment of the revival of the Olympic Games in 1896, however, the female intelligentsia asserted the participation of women, calling upon a different ancient Greek tradition, that of running among women during festivals dedicated to female deities. The ultimate goal of broadening the role of women within the nation is nevertheless addressed to women of the upper classes, whose elegant appearance would secure the necessary aesthetic effect for the sports event.
All the aforementioned works shed new light on women’s main role as mothers, both within Greece as well as in Ottoman areas, to raise worthy citizens for the nation, despite their consideration as lower class citizens before the law. The essays investigate the unknown or neglected female participation in historical processes through a variety of roles by making use of new kinds of sources, such as private correspondence, family and associations archives. It offers a kaleidoscopic view of women’s actions in education, journalism, charity, labour, art, sport, and in achieving voting rights.
At the turn of the 1950s one can witness a change in public discourse regarding trials of women’s murderers and their coverage by the press. The killing of women is interpreted historically, as the result of the sudden break with the rural past, its mores and regulations, and men’s difficult integration into the new urban milieu. Modernity would thus be a ‘cause’ of individual psychopathology. The killing of women by violent men is not consistent with the Europeanization of Greece (Efi Avdela, ‘Men Who Kill: Undesirable Masculinities and the Contradictions of Europeanization in Post-war Greece’).
Two final chapters consider two different eras in Western culture. Androniki Dialeti focuses on earlier centuries in Western Europe (‘The Knight, the Priest and the Patriarch: Aspects of Masculinity in Medieval and Early Modern Europe’) and shows how hierarchy and discrimination do not operate only between the sexes but also among men. Men are affected by social class and age and are transformed in time along with historical circumstances. Men’s condition changes drastically from feudalism to capitalism, and varies enormously in different parts of Europe. The interaction of space and sexual identity, as the study of metropolises demonstrates (Yannis Yannitsiotis, ‘The History of Sexuality through the Analytical Tool of Space’), fosters a redefinition of public and private spheres. This is evident in particular if we consider specific sexual behaviours such as homosexuality and prostitution. Of course, homosexuality and prostitution take up different connotations in history and their social meaning varies depending on the regulations imposed on sexuality. They must be seen in relation to the emergence of the nuclear family as the norm of acceptable sexuality and to the development of modern lifestyles based on leisure and consumption.
A basic query concerning the editors of the book, as well as many of the contributors, is the extent to which the results of their research on the analytical category of gender are incorporated into contemporary Greek historiography; that is, to what extent broader groups of historians, working in different domains, accept them. It has been a common find that gender debates demonstrate low penetration in historiographical approaches, given the overall conservative and patriarchal mentality still prevalent both in society and in scientific circles.
Capitalizing on scientific and research availability, the book meets the needs of different audiences: it offers extensive Greek and international bibliographical documentation and a critical review of historical writing on education, labour and family; it traces research gaps, highlights new types of archives and uses them according to new theoretical approaches. By questioning the steadiness of the phenomena they study − especially that of ranking based on gender − the essays themselves are neither static nor self-centred but are willing to inspire and guide future research through their suggestions. They converse among themselves as documents of a collaboration which, despite the varying and often remote topics, is governed by a common denominator, their research interest in gender history.