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DWF. Donna Woman Femme
Rivista internazionale di studi antropologici storici e sociali sulla donna
Roma, Bulzoni
1975 Year I, n. 1
Presentation,
pp. 7-9
MAGLI Ida
From "natural" history to "cultural"
history - Woman in Anthropological Research, pp. 11-25
MORSELLI DAVOLI Graziella
The Woman as a knowing subject, pp. 27-35
BUTTAFUOCO Annarita
Time regained. Reflections on the profession of women
historians, pp. 37-47
CONTI ODORISIO Ginevra
Woman's Subjection, pp. 49-63
FERRO Filippo Maria
Woman - Sanity and insanity - Reflections on the History
of Psychiatric Ideology, pp. 65-76
MORREALE Maria Teresa
Malina, or the "female condition", pp.
77-89
GASBARRO Nicola
Feminine Film Signs: Women as Metalanguage, pp.
91-109
CAPOMAZZA Tilde (edited by)
Columbian women: present and future, pp. 111-135
BRIA Pietro
Notes on Psychoanalysis of Maternity, pp. 137-145
MAGLI Ida
An Anthropologist's Observations, pp. 145-150
BUTTAFUOCO Annarita (edited by)
On whether women should be allowed to the Study
of Arts and Sciences; academical discourses by various living authors concerning
the education of women (most of them pronounced by the authors themselves) to
the Accademia de' Ricovrati in Padua; 16 June 1723, pp. 151-177
The scientific and political programme of the
journal is presented, its aim being a critical re-vision of woman's image as
it has been produced in all fields by a male-dominated culture. The methodological
and theoretical tools produced by such a male-oriented culture, and graciously
granted to women in their emancipatory process, will be used to dismantle that
image.
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MAGLI Ida, From "natural" history to "cultural" history
- Woman in Anthropological Research, 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.
MORSELLI DAVOLI Graziella, The Woman as a knowing subject, pp. 27-35
A science in which the woman is the knowing
subject is a distinct part of the epistemology. Its individuation within the
general knowledge may be explained either in social terms (but in then gives
origin to sciences relevant only in specific historical and social framework),
only the hypothesis of the multiple logics. It is necessary to carry out a statistical
and descriptive survey and a formal analysis of the feminine scientific thought
in its specificity, in order to highlight its structural constants and insure
their translability into theory.
The formulation of a theory of science with the
woman as epistemic subject is both a political act (because from the consciousness
of their "logical universe" women can derive the power necessary to
affect the transformation of the society) and a preparation to a "radical
and fundamental" philosophical synthesis: first of all because the methodology
itself will have to be an original one; and secondly because, by exploring the
thought back up to the origins of every diversity, it may be able to reset the
relationship subject-object in knowledge and to contribute, through the epistemic
consciousness of the "living" feminine subject, to the establishment
of a future human science, beyond the "masculine" science itself.
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BUTTAFUOCO Annarita, Time regained. Reflections on the profession of women
historians, pp. 37-47
The author analyses the role of women historians.
She believes that the discipline of history is going through a period of crisis.
This crisis is due to the discovery of a new history which is mythical, repetitive
and primitive; by a new economics and by the discovery of a long "duration".
Women who wish to deal with history as a discipline must examine a total history
which is no longer partial as it has been up to the present.
They must refute the existing cultural immobilism
and accept the discontinuous: in one word, they must expose themselves to history.
Most significantly, the woman historian must give back to history a history
of women - i.e., a history where women are active participants and subjects
as opposed to passive objects, which are merely acted upon.
In this manner history will no longer be conceived as it has been up to today;
i.e. "his-story" or history of man, it will become history of all
humankind.
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CONTI ODORISIO Ginevra, Woman's Subjection, pp. 49-63
Woman's subjection was carefully examined in the eighteenth century by S.H.N. Linguet, an interesting and original essayist. He sought to analyse the phenomenon, and to explain how this subjection had come to be reinforced down the ages. His polemical attack on Montesquieu reveals how differently the two writers evaluate the public and private roles of women in an all-pervasive patriarchal society.
These differences are important, given that Montiesquieu's
thought has profoundly influenced legislation in all western countries. Because
they took different political positions, they envisaged different solutions
for the emancipation of women. In Montesquieu's liberalism, this would be achieved
through the gradual assimilation of women to masculine patterns. In Linguet's
authoritarian democracy, on the other hand, patriarchal society and feminine
freedom are seen as utterly incompatible and the need for a change in society
recognised.
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FERRO Filippo Maria, Woman - Sanity and insanity - Reflections on the History
of Psychiatric Ideology, pp. 65-76
It is from cultural history that the history of woman's oppression may be reconstructed. Some aspects of that oppression in the development of psychiatric ideology are here examined. The examples span western thought, from classical antiquity to the modern era. They have been chosen at random, but always with the aim of stimulating a critical re-thinking of psychiatry's attitude to woman.
The possibility of a different approach to women
in psychiatric ideology is gaining ground inside the "New psychiatry"
movement, partly through the revision of psycho-analytic theories, and partly
through the political confrontation proposed by the so-called "antipsychiatry"
movement.
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MORREALE Maria Teresa, Malina, or the "female condition", pp.
77-89
Malina, a novel by the Austrian authoress Ingeborg Bachmann, who died in Rome in October 1973, expresses the extreme malaise of a woman unable to achieve a satisfying relationship both with the reality surrounding her and with the two men with whom, in different ways, she shares her life. M.T. Morreale's study aims to underline the close connection between the female protagonist of Ingeborg Bachmann's novel and the general condition of isolation in which a woman, however emancipated and free she may be, finds herself forced to live today.
Malina, an autobiographical novel, accurate and
telling in form and expression, sets up a close link between its central character
and the authoress. The latter, whose life was that of an intellectual, a writer
and at once a woman, a life both intense and full of suffering, gives her novel
an existential dimension involving all women aware of the "female condition"
as a discriminating element, as well as those who are gradually becoming aware
of it. And since the woman is not an entity detached from the species, the theme
of I. Bachmann's novel concerns all humanity.
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GASBARRO Nicola, Feminine Film Signs: Women as Metalanguage, pp. 91-109
In both film and women in western culture there exists a fundamental contradiction: both are respectively "values" and "signs" of these "values". Film is a "value" with respect to the contents which it transmits; it is a "sign" with regards to the "codes of communication" which it uses. More over, the same use of codes is a "value" anthropologically speaking.
Women in a patriarchal society such as ours even
while having own "values" are often "signs" of masculine
values. In film this "semiotic exploitation" of women is brought to
an extreme thanks to the metalinguistic artefact. Film metalanguage uses the
"woman sign" to give it new meanings which superimpose the usual ones.
Even when women seem to express their own values, they really are transmitting
male contents. It is necessary for women to liberate themselves from metalanguage.
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CAPOMAZZA Tilde (edited by), Columbian women: present and future, pp.
111-135
Colombian Women, as women from many other which forces them to devote their entire life to the home and family. In addition to this form of discrimination common to other cultures, Colombian women are highly discriminated against at the economic, legal and political levels. Consequently, they find it difficult to enter into productive processes within a framework characterical by an extremely unstable and insecure labour market devoid of guarantees for both men and women.
But even when the privilege of a certain type of education enables her to aspire to an employment activity, two principal problems arise: 1) psychological conflicts typical of changes in norms and 2) objective difficulties stemming from a society still lacking in social services. The study was carried out by a group of researches of CIAS (Centro de Investigacion y Accion Social) of Bogotà.
Tilde Capomazza translated the text and combined
and integrated it with a series of historical, anthropological and primarily
socio-political observations with the objective of rendering the notes more
understandable to non-Colombian readers. In particular, the condition of women
is analysed within a socio-political framework and within the political decisions
of the power élite.
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BRIA Pietro, Notes on Psychoanalysis of Maternity, pp. 137-145
In this work the author proposes a first psychoanalytical interpretation of certain behavioural characteristics of women during pregnancy and childbirth. The described behaviour seems to be caused by a form of unconscious aggressiveness manifested by the mother towards the child who is to be born. This aggressiveness is supposedly due to a psychological mechanism for which the pregnant woman identifies herself with an "archetypical maternal image" which drives her to live the dual role of daughter and mother.
The latter conflicting situation is possibly
revealed either in the woman's "dreams" which often revolve around
her own birth, or in her fear of damaging her child during childbirth. These
phenomena are determined by difficulty within the woman's Id to recognise the
child as an entity which is distinct from the mother's body.
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MAGLI Ida, An Anthropologist's Observations, 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.
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BUTTAFUOCO Annarita (edited by), On whether women should be allowed to the
Study of Arts and Sciences; academical discourses by various living authors
concerning the education of women (most of them pronounced by the authors themselves)
to the Accademia de' Ricovrati in Padua; 16 June 1723, pp. 151-177
This text is offered as a source of further research, as well as of a critical re-reading.