Gender, Sexuality, and Identity in 20th-Century Costa Rica

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patricia Alvarenga
Keyword(s):  
Costa Rica ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
Subjective Experience ◽  
Gender And Sexuality ◽  
Gender Identities ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Patriarchal Power ◽  
Male Authority ◽  
Feminist Movements

Proposals challenging male authority gained strength in Costa Rica during the 20th century and, especially at the turn of the 21st century, and questioned naturalized sexual and gender identities. The effects of these discursivities are varied. The experience of feminists, of middle-class women outside these discursivities, and of women of the subaltern classes demonstrate the plurality of meanings attributed to gender relations as filtered through subjective experience. The introduction of alternative identity proposals destabilizes the established parameters of sexual and gender identities, but, at the same time, produces new conservative discursivities that limit the potential for change. Two feminist movements, one that reached its peak in the 1920s and a second that arose in the final decades of the 20th century, brought about substantive changes in female identities, revealing the power relations that underlie the discursive representation of patriarchal power as eternal and immutable. An assessment of contemporary feminism based on the experiences of its protagonists shows the movement’s significant gains as well as the challenges and weaknesses it has faced over its history, the most important of which may be how to reach beyond the sphere of well-educated, heterosexual, middle-class women. In conclusion, public discourses that have politicized gender and sexuality in Costa Rica are creatively constituted in the social world, according to what changes appear attainable at different moments of history. Carved out by actors committed to change, these discourses have achieved substantive transformations in institutional structures and subjectivities. However, present experience shows clearly that every affirmation of identity is precarious, and that the gains achieved require the ongoing, active engagement of civil society.

First names and social distinction: Middle-class naming practices in Australia

2017 ◽  
Vol 53 (3) ◽  
pp. 577-591 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jo Lindsay ◽  
Deborah Dempsey
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Social Space ◽  
Qualitative Interviews ◽  
Gender And Sexuality ◽  
Social Distinction ◽  
Social Classification ◽  
Cultural Boundaries ◽  
Personal Brand ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Naming Practices

Naming practices provide a novel way to explore contemporary gender and class processes in Australia. Names are important everyday symbols of social location and signify family history, gender, class, ethnicity and religion. In an individualised society a name is the ultimate personal ‘brand’ and is used to locate children in social space. In this article we draw on qualitative interviews with 41 parents to focus on class and gender distinctions in naming practices. Naming a child was considered to be an important responsibility and names were viewed as central to identity and social classification. Through our exploration of naming preferences and judgements by middle-class parents, contemporary processes of social distinction come to light. Discussion of name choices illustrated parental aspirations and fears and the drawing of symbolic class-, gender- and sexuality-based cultural boundaries in Australia.

scholarly journals Parent-child conversations in three urban middle-class contexts: Mothers and fathers reminisce with their daughters and sons in Costa Rica, Mexico, and Germany

2013 ◽  
Vol 27 (115) ◽  
pp. 49-73 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lisa Schröder ◽  
Heidi Keller ◽  
Astrid Kleis
Keyword(s):  
Costa Rica ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Costa Rican ◽  
Similar Amount ◽  
Mothers And Fathers ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Context Specific ◽  
Middle Class Families ◽  
Parent Child

Abstract. The present study investigated culture- and gender-differences in mother- and father-child reminiscing with 3-year old daughters and sons in urban middle-class families from Costa Rica, Mexico, and Germany. Families of the three contexts were overall similarly elaborative and children contributed a similar amount of memory elaborations. However, context specific use of different elaborative elements related to specifi c elaborative styles. Compared to the Latin American families, conversations in German families were least socially oriented. Across contexts, parents talked more about social aspects with daughters than with sons. Costa Rican mothers and fathers were equally elaborative, whereas German and Mexican mothers were more elaborative than fathers. We found similarities but also specifi cities in parent-child conversations about the past across these contexts with similar educational backgrounds.Resumen. El presente estudio investigó diferencias según cultura y género en las conversaciones sobre el pasado de niños y niñas de 3 años de edad con sus progenitores en contextos urbanos en Costa Rica, México y Alemania. En los tres contextos, el nivel de elaboración general de las conversaciones fue similar y los niños produjeron una cantidad similar de recuerdos. Sin embargo, se encontraron diferencias culturales en algunos aspectos de elaboración. En comparación con las familias latinoamericanas, las conversaciones de las familias alemanas estaban orientadas socialmente en menor medida. En todos los contextos, los progenitores hablaron más acerca de aspectos sociales con las hijas que con los hijos. Padres y madres costarricenses evidenciaron niveles de elaboración similares, mientras que las madres alemanas y mexicanas mostraron niveles de elaboración mayores que los padres. Nuestros hallazgos indican la presencia de similitudes y diferencias en las conversaciones sobre el pasado en familias con niveles educativos similares provenientes de distintos contextos culturales.

scholarly journals ‘El trabajo dignifica’ Twentieth Century Afro-Costa Rican Women and Informal Work in Port Limon, Costa Rica

2019 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 39
Author(s):  
Carmen Hutchinson Miller
Keyword(s):  
Costa Rica ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
Costa Rican ◽  
The Public ◽  
Patriarchal System ◽  
Women Of African Descent ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
And Gender ◽  
And Function

The patriarchal system has convinced most that women’s respectable place and function are exclusively within the private space of the home. When women ‘transgress’ and venture out into the public sphere by choice or by force, the reception is far from welcoming both by individuals and institutions. The analysis seeks to enquire, based on women of African descent history, how this ideology affects their participation in the public sphere. The main objective is to unearth and make visible some of the informal financial activities women were involved in during the 20th century in Port of Limon, Central America, Costa Rica. The information was gathered through interviews, some early 20th-century newspaper research, and other documentation. The analysis is conducted from a historical and gender perspective.

scholarly journals Phenomenon of transgenderism and the modern concept of androgyny: philosophical and cultural analysis

2021 ◽  
pp. 212-221
Author(s):  
Svetlana O. Izrina ◽  
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
Intrinsic Value ◽  
Cultural Analysis ◽  
Modern Concept ◽  
Cultural Issues ◽  
Simone De Beauvoir ◽  
Socially Constructed ◽  
Gender Based ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Feminist Movements

The article deals with the philosophical and cultural issues of the transgenderism phenomenon as seen through the modern concept of androgyny. The 20th century became a turning point for many scientific areas, including the humanities. Due to the activity of feminist movements, there took place a drastic revision of gender-based sociocultural patterns and the ontological status of a woman was changed (starting from Simone de Beauvoir). Moreover, a woman’s intrinsic value and independence from a man were proved and postulated. A distinct concept of gender (socially constructed characteristics of men and women). In the last third of the 20th century, that led to the emergence of an independent interdisciplinary scientific area named «Gender Studies», whose field of interest included studies of social and cultural phenomena using the theory of social sex (gender). Furthermore, the issues of self-identification and gender identity began to occupy a special place. The «transgender revolution» that took place at the beginning of the 21st century mainstreamed the transgender phenomenon again. It became the most striking and widespread form of expressing «other gender». However, it should be noted that any modern variation of the «third sex» is based on the Platonic idea of androgyny, which finds its reflection in modern gender models. Therefore, it is becoming extremely important to consider transgenderism as a phenomenon that forms a separate cultural discourse in the context of the modern idea of androgyny. We make an attempt to identify common metaphysical features of both anthropological phenomena (transgender and androgyne) and to assume their «ontological affinity».

Criss-Cross: Identity and Transformation in Re-reading Billy Elliot

2016 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 536-551
Author(s):  
Jacqui Miller
Keyword(s):  
Identity Formation ◽  
Gender And Sexuality ◽  
Central Character ◽  
Theoretical Frameworks ◽  
Liberal Politics ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Opening Up

Billy Elliot (2000) has been widely recognised as an important British film of the post-Thatcher period. It has been analysed using multiple disciplinary methodologies, but almost always from the theoretical frameworks of class and gender/sexuality. The film has sometimes been used not so much as a focus of analysis itself but as a conduit for exploring issues such as class deprivation or neo-liberal politics and economics. Such studies tend to use the film's perceived shortcomings as a starting point to critique society's wider failings to interrogate constructions of gender and sexuality. This article argues that an examination of the identity formation of some of the film's subsidiary characters shows how fluidity and transformation are key to the film's opening up of a jouissance which is enabled by but goes beyond its central character.

The Right to Dream: Gender, Modernity, and the Problem of Class in Kate O'Brien's Bourgeois Bildungsromane

2019 ◽  
Vol 49 (2) ◽  
pp. 276-289
Author(s):  
Naoise Murphy
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Identity Formation ◽  
Coming Of Age ◽  
Female Identity ◽  
Gender And Sexuality ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Class Status ◽  
The Right ◽  
Aristocratic Culture ◽  
Modern Form

Feminist critics have celebrated Kate O'Brien's pioneering approach to gender and sexuality, yet there has been little exploration of her innovations of the coming-of-age narrative. Creating a modern Irish reworking of the Bildungsroman, O'Brien's heroines represent an idealized model of female identity-formation which stands in sharp contrast to the nationalist state's vision of Irish womanhood. Using Franco Moretti's theory of the Bildungsroman, a framing of the genre as a thoroughly ‘modern’ form of the novel, this article applies a critical Marxist lens to O'Brien's output. This reading brings to light the ways in which the limitations of the Bildungsroman work to constrain O'Brien's subversive politics. Their middle-class status remains an integral part of the identity of her heroines, informing the forms of liberation they seek. Fundamentally, O'Brien's idealization of aristocratic culture, elitist exceptionalism and ‘detachment of spirit’ restricts the emancipatory potential of her vision of Irish womanhood.

Травелоги югославских писательниц первой половины ХХ века: в поисках идентичности

2019 ◽  
Vol 64 (1) ◽  
pp. 27-36
Author(s):  
А. Г. БОДРОВА
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
The Other ◽  
Literary Field ◽  
The Balkans ◽  
Egyptian Women ◽  
Dialogical Philosophy ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Women's Travel ◽  
Gender Boundaries

The paper considers travelogues of Yugoslav female writers Alma Karlin, Jelena Dimitrijević, Isidora Sekulić, Marica Gregorič Stepančič, Marica Strnad, Luiza Pesjak. These texts created in the first half of the 20th century in Serbian, Slovenian and German are on the periphery of the literary field and, with rare exceptions, do not belong to the canon. The most famous of these authors are Sekulić from Serbia and the German-speaking writer Karlin from Slovenia. Recently, the work of Dimitrijević has also become an object of attention of researchers. Other travelogues writers are almost forgotten. Identity problems, especially national ones, are a constant component of the travelogue genre. During a journey, the author directs his attention to “other / alien” peoples and cultures that can be called foreign to the perceiving consciousness. However, when one perceives the “other”, one inevitably turns to one's “own”, one's own identity. The concept of “own - other / alien”, on which the dialogical philosophy is based (M. Buber, G. Marcel, M. Bakhtin, E. Levinas), implies an understanding of the cultural “own” against the background of the “alien” and at the same time culturally “alien” on the background of “own”. Women's travel has a special status in culture. Even in the first half of the 20th century the woman was given space at home. Going on a journey, especially unaccompanied, was at least unusual for a woman. According to Simone de Beauvoir, a woman in society is “different / other”. Therefore, women's travelogues can be defined as the look of the “other” on the “other / alien”. In this paper, particular attention is paid to the interrelationship of gender, national identities and their conditioning with a cultural and historical context. At the beginning of the 20th century in the Balkans, national identity continues actively to develop and the process of women's emancipation is intensifying. Therefore, the combination of gender and national issues for Yugoslavian female travelogues of this period is especially relevant. Dimitrijević's travelogue Seven Seas and Three Oceans demonstrates this relationship most vividly: “We Serbian women are no less patriotic than Egyptian women... Haven't Serbian women most of the merit that the big Yugoslavia originated from small Serbia?” As a result of this study, the specificity of the national and gender identity constructs in the first half of the 20th century in the analyzed texts is revealed. For this period one can note, on the one hand, the preservation of national and gender boundaries, often supported by stereotypes, on the other hand, there are obvious tendencies towards the erosion of the established gender and national constructs, the mobility of models of gender and national identification as well, largely due to the sociohistorical processes of the time.

Novel Relations

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alicia Mireles Christoff
Keyword(s):  
Critical Race Theory ◽  
Object Relations ◽  
George Eliot ◽  
Literary Form ◽  
Gender And Sexuality ◽  
Victorian Novels ◽  
Victorian Fiction ◽  
Gender And Sexuality Studies ◽  
And Gender ◽  
The Impact

This book engages twentieth-century post-Freudian British psychoanalysis in an unprecedented way: as literary theory. Placing the writing of figures like D. W. Winnicott, W. R. Bion, Michael and Enid Balint, Joan Riviere, Paula Heimann, and Betty Joseph in conversation with canonical Victorian fiction, the book reveals just how much object relations can teach us about how and why we read. These thinkers illustrate the ever-shifting impact our relations with others have on the psyche, and help us see how literary figures—characters, narrators, authors, and other readers—shape and structure us too. In the book, novels are charged relational fields. Closely reading novels by George Eliot and Thomas Hardy, the book shows that traditional understandings of Victorian fiction change when we fully recognize the object relations of reading. It is not by chance that British psychoanalysis illuminates underappreciated aspects of Victorian fiction so vibrantly: Victorian novels shaped modern psychoanalytic theories of psyche and relationality—including the eclipsing of empire and race in the construction of subject. Relational reading opens up both Victorian fiction and psychoanalysis to wider political and postcolonial dimensions, while prompting a closer engagement with work in such areas as critical race theory and gender and sexuality studies. The book describes the impact of literary form on readers and on twentieth- and twenty-first-century theories of the subject.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document