DWF
donnawomanfemme
Roma, Editrice coop. UTOPIA, 1986-

Women regained, 1989, n. 10-11

EDITORIAL, Women regained, pp. 5-7

The articles included in this issue were chosen as significant for some questions related to the journal's line of research: whether the point of view established by gender belonging (in the sense of the necessity of belonging to the political gender woman) can be used as interpretive category in the anthropological discipline; if this might further the prospect of isolating the roots of female specificity among the many differences induced by ethnicity, national history, geo-economical situation in each country; if the differences between women, apparently a given in anthropological inquiry, might assume a different meaning when the onlooker's gender belonging is at the roots of the scientific process of knowledge.

MATHIEU Nicole-Claude, Epistemological criticism of sexual problems in the ethno-anthropological discourse, pp. 9-54

Starting point: analysis of the literature centred on and made by women which criticises the ethnoanthropological theory. After a short account of all the studies, mainly joint, on the matter, the problem arises of the passing from a woman anthropology to an anthropology of sexes. It goes on with the examination of man's centrality and its manifestations, the cancellation of women as regards facts and their non integration on the theorical interpretations account. There are examined, in particular, asymmetries in dealing with the objects of speech depending on whether they are men or women, as, for example, the identification of women with nature and biology in the western though and last, the issue of sociological conditions of knowledge is faced according to the sex of the researcher.

ASTUTI Rita, The exploited daughter: lesson on the field, pp. 55-60

Through the account of her experience as a researcher in the Swaziland, Rita Astuti tells of the changes of condition a Swazi woman knows in her lifetime. Playing, in a first instance, the role of daughter, Drs. Astuti experiments the frustrating sensation of feeling as a domestic of her new mother, and the exigency of changing her own condition into that of daughter-in-law and getting her own kitchen. Thanks to this change of condition inside the family, the woman writer realises what happens when a mother looses a marrying daughter or purchases a daughter-in-law.

PELLION Orsetta, Why women of Mererrey don't eat camel. Work, consumption and hierarchy in a Somalian village, pp. 61-80

The economic status of the Somalian woman is the starting point an analysis centred on an unequal distribution of power in society, inequality revealing itself also through consumption and the organization of housework. Women are confined to a clear position of inferiority but the generation hierarchy in force within society affects also the female family structure. This is complicated by the conflictual relationships linked to the existence of polygamy. In this context are analyzed the rules according to which some foods are considered excellent and others forbidden. Men are privileged both as to quality and quantity: women have access to consumption according to their hierarchical rank.

SHEPHERD Gill, Class, gender and homosexuality: Mombasa, a key to understanding sexual options, pp. 81-109

The author traces an outline of Muslim civilization, and particularly of family structure, in order to identify traditional sexual roles. Even though Islam is averse to homosexuality, in Africa, and particularly in Mombasa, the situation is different. Homosexuality is permitted in both men and women if certain social rules are respected: the social and age class of the man or woman who is considered "passive" in the sexual relationship must be lower than that of the "active" partner. The latter, on the other hand, continues to have a "normal" married life and is respected, even in the most orthodox environment.

TABET Paola,The prostitute's teeth. Exchange, negotiation and choice in economical-sexual relations, pp. 110-129

Two schemes are used in order to examine the economical-sexual relations: a sexuality wholly inserted in a conjugal sphere and the rising of a sexual service as a "work in it self" that allows to distinguish the prostitute's work from that of the wife; a remunerated sexual service in which the remuneration can be given either in donativ form or freely established by the woman. According to this last possibility, the negotiation and selection power that the woman finally obtains is read as a potential form of emancipation especially in several African societies where the research has been conducted.

DANDRIEU Chantal, "Au royaume du signe". Appliques sur toiles des Kuba, pp. 130-136

Presentation of the textiles produced by women of the Kuba population's harem, from the center of Zaire. Three plates with samples of these textiles.

AIT SABBAH Fatma, Female sex between order and subversion in the Muslim male subconscious, pp. 137-144

A selection of passages from a text centred on two fundamental discourses of the Muslim world: the erotic discourse intended as the male imaginary on the female body and the religious and legal discourse in which the female body becomes the product of the sacral male power.

BØRRESEN KARI Elisabeth, Patristic acculturation, our (women) forerunners in the Middle Ages and feminist theology, pp. 145-156

The author, a catholic feminist, denounces the traditional androcentric dualism, apparently abandoned by modern theological anthropology, according to which divine resemblance is only reserved to men. She theorizes a feminist theology, inspired by the catholic notion of coherence between Scripture and tradition, and by the idea of the Holy Spirit as undercurrent through all of human history. Accordingly she envisions the possibility of overcoming the fracture between divinity and femininity. In this perspective the references can be the Fathers of the Church (Saint Augustine and others) as to their goals, and various women-thinkers who, starting in the fourth century and then in the Middle Ages, formulated theories concerning the issues here considered.