Articles for DWF
Reviews for DWF
Articles for DWF
From "natural" history to "cultural" history - Woman
in Anthropological Research, 1975, Year I, n. 1, pp. 11-25
The anthropological concept of "culture" has meant a revolution in the study of man. It has moved the emphasis from man's "nature" to his collective and cumulative "products" Before the birth of cultural anthropology man's history was a "natural" history. From antiquity, throughout the Middle Ages, up to the Renaissance and beyond, it was cosmobiology, that vital link between sky and earth, between gods and men, which rendered the universe intelligible.
The history of woman, too, was a "natural" history - her own rhythms binding her tightly to the cosmic cycles. With the Age of Enlightenment, the cosmobiological vision gave way to an organic, scientific view of the universe, closely linking the physical to the moral and psychological, a science thus still more radically tying the history of woman to her "nature". Only with the discovery of the concept of "culture", embracing a global vision of reality, does it become possible to identify the true history of woman.
Read
the abstracts of the whole issue
go up
An Anthropologist's Observations, 1975, Year I, n. 1, pp. 145-150
In the subsequent anthropological notes a different interpretation of the same phenomena is proposed. The social and cultural meaning of pregnancy and motherhood must be inserted in the psychoanalytical and psychiatric explanations in active form; i.e. as it has been interpreted by different human groups.
It needs to be pointed out that in every culture the physical defects of the child are attributed to the mother's faults and/or cravings, a fact which could explain women's fear of damaging the child during childbirth. It must also be brought to the reader's attention that pregnant women are inclined to experience a relationship with the transcendental world and with the "power" of the dead and of the "other world". This experience does not belong to her imagination since this is the way it is classified by every culture.
Read
the abstracts of the whole issue
go up
Power of the Word and Woman's Silence, 1976, Year I, n. 2, pp. 9-20
The giving of women, according to C. Lévi-Strauss's theories in Elementary Kinship Structures, not only makes possible real communication between groups, with the formation of alliances, but also makes clear the symbolic basis of nature where woman is taken by means of language - with language as a guarantee. Indeed, anything "done" is done because of the potency of the words that are exchanged, by their ability to bring about action. The clearest example of the word's power to create is the presence in every culture of the myth of creation - the Logos. Foremost among these myths are the Old and New Testaments.
Woman is thus excluded from the effective use of the word: woman's word would be too powerful; she would end by making what is significant identical with what is signified, and would be as much creative as is the Goddess of Creation. Much of woman's social inferiority flows from this, for power - any kind of power - is based, first and foremost, on the use of the powerful word.
Read
the abstracts of the whole issue
go up
An Anthropologist's Observations, 1976, Year I, n. 2, pp. 175-178
Ida Magli, the anthropologist, approaches Pasini's text from the standpoint of her discipline, and starting off from the image of woman in our present culture - an image which constantly links woman with nature, and makes her responsible for life and for death - Magli asserts that the resistances to contraception are due to the desire to retain this cultural image of woman, and that this image of woman is confirmed when it is a question of abortion.
Read
the abstracts of the whole issue
go up
Reviews for DWF
FAUCHERY Pierre, La destinée féminine dans le roman européen
du dixhuitième siècle, Paris, Armand Colin, 1972
rev. by Ida Magli, Y. I, 1975, n. 2, pp. 202-205