What is gender?
Location: AgC133.1 (lower floor).
Programme of the workshop:
Friday (9 October), at 15.00–16.30: the Session I
15:00-15:35 Anita Hemmilä (University of Jyväskylä): Between the two genders
15:35-16:10 Lili-Ann Wolf (Åbo Akademi, Vasa, Finland): Nature and education: Wollstonecraft polemic against Rousseau
Saturday (10 October), at 9.00–11.00: The Session II
9:00-9:35 Mari Kervinen (University of Joensuu, Finland): Motherhood in gender construction in sub-Saharan Africa
9:35-10:10 Heidi Kurvinen (University of Oulu, Finland): The concept of gender in an oral historical study
10:10-10:45 Saara Tuomaala (University of Helsinki): Girls and Gender - Girls` studies as an approach to historicizing Girlhood
Instructions:
* There is 30 min. for each paper in the following way:
1) About 20 min. for presentation and about 10 min. for the discussion
2) In the middle of the session, there is a short pause for some 10 minutes
3) There will be held a final discussion together of some 15 minutes after each session
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Approved participants in alphaphetical order
Hemmilä, Anita: Between the two genders
The possibility of a gender identity between female and male genders is seldom considered. Yet, exploring phenomena under the label trans-gender or intermediate gender might bring a fresh insight into the discussion over gender determinism. Children with intersex characteristics (i.e., hermaphrodites), though rare, have always been born, while being able to change sex through surgical procedures is recent. Intersex infants are usually operated on to make them one gender or another. As adults, some of them wish they had been left alone because the way they were born reflects their psyche. Some people (e.g., “she-males”) have decided to be medically modified in order to occupy the in-between space of the two genders. In the past, and to some extent today, the intermediate gender was/is a cultural possibility for spiritual reasons. Amongst indigenous North American peoples, two-spirits (formerly known as “berdache”), i.e., persons possessing both masculine and feminine spirits, were once well integrated into their communities. The imposition of Christianity, with its Old Testament prohibition of trans-gender dress or symbology was a major reason for the disappearance of this gender identity. More recently, a new tolerance has become evident in Western societies. Signs of it can also be found in Finland, where a transgender person can become the “queen of votes” in a local election, or a Lutheran minister can decide to change his sex, and be largely supported to do so by both the general public and some high ranking members of the church.
Kervinen, Mari: Motherhood in gender construction in sub-Saharan Africa
Within the question What is gender and why does it exist? I would like to discuss the connection of motherhood to gender construction in Africa. Especially in the times of HIV/AIDS, sexual behaviour and thus also gender construction through sexual and reproductive behaviour have come to the centre of academic debate. In most of the studies it is agreed that parenthood has a huge meaning in most of the African cultures to the social stance and personal identity and studies from different parts of sub-Saharan Africa have presented the value of the children to the social status of the parents. Becoming a mother is seen to be more important than for example chastity and the concepts of parenthood and sexuality in Africa are seen in many studies very polarised to Western world. In my presentation I will concentrate on motherhood and female gender construction in Africa. I will ask how gender construction is viewed in Europe and in Africa, what differences there are in the academic discussion and is the status of motherhood somehow connected to those? Is fertility in Africa not only the value of humanness, but proof of womanhood, something that completes the female journey to complete genderness and is thus the finale state of the gender of woman? I would like to approach the subject by combining the academic (feminist) discussions of motherhood in Western countries and in Africa within my own ongoing project of norms of sexual behaviour in northern Namibia.
Kurvinen, Heidi: The concept of gender in an oral historical study
In this presentation, I ask what happens when a dialectical and a dichotomous view of gender collide in an oral historical study. I will claim that this contradiction can be used as a fruitful ground to open new perspectives to analyse the category of gender in a historical study. My presentation is based on oral historical material gathered from journalists who worked in the 1960s and 1970s Finland. The speech is inspired by the notion that, in interview situations, there is a clear gap between the informants and myself as a feminist researcher. It seems that we do not speak the same language. As a researcher, I see gendered power relations as fluid, multiple and constantly in process. My informants, on the other hand, share quite a structural view of gender and power that is based on the familiar talk on gender equality. The oral historical material used in this presentation is twofold. It consists of writings gathered through a specific writing invitation during the year 2008 and interviews of previous journalists which I have conducted during the years of 2008 and 2009.
Saara Tuomaala: Girls and Gender - Girls` studies as an approach to historicizing Girlhood
In this paper I will consider the cross-disciplinary girls` studies as an approach to historicize the gendering and gendered processes and structures of girlhood. The inquiry of the dialogue between the dimensions gendered and gendering in age-bound gender dimensions in culture offers a meaningful and highly important field for cross-disciplinary girls` studies, also for historical analysis between different time periods, societies and classes. Girls` history, including the history of education, connects the gendered youth as a varying institution in a specific age-order and transitional life-phase to the discourses of experiential and embodied age in past societies. Simultaneously, historical research opens means for understanding girlhoods in the present. In relation to the broader field of gender history, girls` and women’s` oral histories and autobiographies are exposing the indispensable dimension of feminine experiences and agencies in politically situated positions and structurally framed resources.
In the cross-disciplinary girls` studies there is an aim to develop an understanding of girls` experiences as identities and subjectivities which are not coherent, stable and unchanging, but rather culturally structured which employ a variety of localized strategies. In this approach to understand and represent girls` experiences and the very material conditions that shape them researchers of girlhood are argue that girls, in the present and the past, negotiate their gendered identities through specific discourses of femininity and other categories of social difference .
Wolff, Lili-Ann: Nature and education: Wollstonecraft polemic against Rousseau
This study in philosophy of education focuses on Mary Wollstonecraft’s view of nature and education. I will contrast her thoughts on these issues with those of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, while I have studied his views in depth in a previous work. Rousseau and Wollstonecraft were both anxious about the modern movement in their century. When facing social progresses they showed similar contradictions between enthusiasm and rejection that many contemporary persons experience. There are though many contextual and conceptual differences between the two. Wollstonecraft did not reject utilization of nature as eagerly as Rousseau. She joined Voltaire and others who put Rousseau to scorn for an exaggerated nature outlook. On the contrary, she had a strong aesthetical relation to nature that she wanted to transfer to children and like Rousseau she was critical against such an Enlightenment movement that emphasized scientific and technological advancements at any price. She found such a development both materialistic and hedonistic. In her opinion, increasing commercialism endangered the individuals’ sympathy for other people. She did, however, not only worry about the sympathy for humans, but also for animals. Wollstonecraft has not been celebrated and disputed to the same extent as Rousseau; her life was short and a lot of her potential opinions did therefore never get a chance to persist. Nevertheless, she showed perspectives on nature and education that disagreed with most males of her time and her ideas are well worth attention as historical contributions in contemporary educational discourses.
Last update 5.10.2009.
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