Cinderella’s Transformation

Cinderella’s story endures through countless adaptations. In this study, I analyzed the tropes of the patiently suffering heroine, the cruel stepmother, magical help, beauty as female currency, and being chosen by the prince in Cendrillon (Perrault, 1697), Mechanica (Cornwell, 2015), and Cinder (Meyer, 2012). The (re)visions deconstruct binary gender roles through heroines who liberate themselves from their servitude, prioritize independence over marriage, and experience supportive female relationships. The portrayals of the cruel stepmothers disrupt the trope of powerful women as inherently evil, and the storylines critique the injustices of Othering. These (re)visions reflect contemporary discourses that expand expressions of femininity.

Rape and Other Ways of Reading

Approaches to biblical rape often assume what Sharon Marcus calls a “gendered grammar” of rape: Rape is something male subjects do to female objects. Furthermore, this heterosexual relation is treated as the most important dynamic in the text. However, heterosexual rape also occurs as a secondary event in texts that are overwhelmingly about the relationships between women. A feminist theory of biblical sexual violence needs to account for the points of contact between rape stories and stories of female relationships. Hagar and Sarah in Genesis 16 and 21 furnish a key example. Drawing on contemporary literary fiction about relationships between women, this chapter argues that the significance of Hagar and Sarah’s relationship cannot be reduced to the scene of sexual exploitation. Instead, the text presents a complex and entangled account of female relationality and intimacy.

« La lutte des sexes », ou les stéréotypes sur les femmes dans Une vie secrète de Lenormand, La Valse des toréadors d’Anouilh et Capitaine Bada de Vauthier

August Strindberg is considered the herald of modern drama. His protean work, which goes from naturalism to mystical aesthetics, anticipating surrealism and the theater of the absurd, even today defies, as it did in his epoch, by its brutal or cruel aspects. Without any doubt, the origin of a certain mistrust towards the author of Inferno would be his declared misogyny. It could be criticized on this subject for disclosing prejudices against women, which in the form of stereotypes, survive to this day. Nevertheless, many French playwrights are inspired by the infernal conflict between man and woman that the Swede describes with a stripping frenzy. Indeed, by analyzing the plays of the French theater of the first half of the 20th century, we notice that some authors take up the motive of the “struggle of the sexes” that will be reworked or “modernized” in their own way. It is interesting in this regard to study the vehicular discourse of clichés on women, found in the works of writers such as Henri-René Lenormand (A Secret Life), Jean Anouilh (Waltz of the Toreadors) and Jean Vauthier (Captain Bada). While none of these playwrights has ever openly declared their hostility to the so-called weaker sex, their texts provide a valuable reservoir of common ground on male-female relationships, which in most cases have not lost their actuality.

The Female and Male World in Croatian Proverbs

Proverbs as concise textual structures are primarily defined as oral (folk) literary forms in which universal thoughts are expressed on the basis of individual experiences understandable to speakers of the language, i.e., of the social community in which they originated. In relation to, for example, idioms, the use of proverbs in today’s public discourse is much rarer, and proverbs in Croatian are most often recorded in printed form, while online edited lexicographic sources of proverbs are rare. Folk customs, human character and physical features, social and religious values, the relation of human and nature are the most common motives in proverbs. Male-female relationships are also the subject of numerous proverbs. Given the past times when they were created, they can be considered the source of a stereotypical image of the status of women and men in society that exists in human consciousness. Based on proverbs with the component woman, grandmother, mother, daughter, sister, girlfriend, widow, father, son, husband…, this paper will analyze proverbs with the topic of male-female relations, e.g. Ljubav daj ženi, ali tajnu odaj samo majci i sestri. (Give your love to your wife, but reveal the secret only to your mother and sister.), or proverbs referring to an individual feature attributed to a man or a woman, e.g., Kakvo drvo, takav klin, kakav otac takav sin. (Like tree, like wedge; like father, like son.)., Ženi sina kad hoćeš, a kćer kad možeš. (Marry a son when you want and a daughter when you can.). The analysis includes the following: 1. representation of proverbs in other lexicographic (printed and online sources), 2. representation of such proverbs in contemporary public discourse, 3. structural and semantic features of proverbs motivated by male-female relationships. In conclusion, the role of proverbs on the topic of male and female in the contemporary context is discussed – what is their perspective and whether the corpus has replaced traditional recorders and word of mouth today.

Mediated friendship: Online and offline alliances in girls’ everyday lives in Italy

This article engages with the current debate on feminisms and digital media by looking at the tension between individualism and collective action. Drawing on an empirical research project involving girls, carried out in Italy and focusing on female processes of subjectivation in a postfeminist new media context, it will discuss constraints and opportunities shaped by the everyday use of social media. The article places itself in the latest trend of cyberfeminist studies, by analysing friendship relationships developed among girls in and through digital media. It also looks at how the mediated nature of social network sites offers room for the building of alliances among girls, and how this challenges online and offline gender norms. In doing so, the article reflects on the way female relationships change and are reworked in digital culture, thus giving a new meaning to the feminist concept of sisterhood.

The Gender Equality Argument of Nasaruddin Umar

Nasarudin Umar is an Indonesian Muslim scholar who has concerns about the issue of gender relations. He contributes many reflective thoughts, including the book entitled Argumentasi Kesetaraan Gender Perspektif al-Qur'an (Gender equality argument from the perspective of Qur’an). This research is motivated by his intellectual anxiety toward Qur'anic texts that are often used as a tool of legitimacy and justification by patriarchalism. This notion has gender-biased and misogynous thought that places women as the secondactor in ritual and social contexts. In his research, Nasarudin assumes that gender inequality does not come from the character of religion, but it refers to the understanding of religious thought influenced by social construction. Also, he argues that there is still ambiguity of the Qur'an interpretation on whether gender is nature or dynamic nurture (social construction). To understand the authenticity of Qur'anic perspectives, Nasarudin researched the Qur'an verses that discuss male and female relationships by applying thematic analysis (called Tafsir Maudlui) with various approaches such as semantic-linguistic, normative-theological, and socio-historical. The result showed that the Qur'an does not expressly support the two gender paradigmsof either nature or nurture. It only accommodates certain elements within the two theories that are in line with the universal principles of Islam. Generally, the Qur'an recognizes the distinction between men and womenbut the distinction does not benefit one party while marginalizing the other. The distinction is needed precisely to support the harmonious, balanced, safe, full of virtue, and peaceful life.

L’estomac, le chemin du coeur et la transformation du monde

Based on a survey carried out with middle-class, married, practicing and non-practicing Muslim women living in Istanbul, this work is focused on female relational networks, their link to cooking and gender relations. The article argues that the disruptions, modifications and accommodations put in place by women and men in their management of everyday life are reflected through daily food practices. The study emphasises the pivotal role of older women in the changes in male/female relationships. The disruptions do not seem to be based on one’s positional relation to religion, but rather on one’s belonging to age, class, or social status.Résumé : Fondé sur une enquête réalisée avec des femmes de la classe moyenne, mariées, musulmanes pratiquantes et non-pratiquantes et résidant à Istanbul, ce travail s’est intéressé aux réseaux relationnels féminins, à leur lien au culinaire et aux relations de genre. Par le biais des pratiques alimentaires sont ainsi abordés les ruptures, les évolutions et accommodements mis en place par les femmes et les hommes dans leur gestion du quotidien. L’article insiste sur le rôle pivot des aînées dans les changements des rapports homme / femme. Les fractures ne semblent pas fondées sur le positionnement vis-à-vis de la religion, mais bien plutôt sur l’appartenance à une classe d’âge, ou à une classe sociale.

Sex Differences in Intimacy Levels in Best Friendships and Romantic Partnerships

Objectives Close romantic and friendship relationships are crucial for successful survival and reproduction. Both provide emotional support that can have significant effects on an individual’s health and wellbeing, and through this their longer term survival and fitness. Nonetheless, the factors that create and maintain intimacy in close relationships remain unclear. Nor is it entirely clear what differentiates romantic relationships from friendships in these terms. In this paper, we explore which factors most strongly predict intimacy in these two kinds of relationship, and how these differ between the two sexes. Results Aside from best friendships being highly gendered in both sexes, the dynamics of these two types of relationships differ between the sexes. The intimacy of female relationships was influenced by similarity (homophily) in many more factors (notably dependability, kindness, mutual support, sense of humour) than was the case for men. Some factors had opposite effects in the two sexes: gift-giving had a negative effect on women’s friendships and a positive effect on men’s, whereas shared histories had the opposite effect. Conclusion These results confirm and extend previous findings that the dynamics of male and female relationships are very different in ways that may reflect differences in their functions.

Recenzja książki Moniki Malessy‑Drohomireckiej pt. Konwencje, stereotypy, złudzenia. Relacje kobiet i mężczyzn w prozie Josepha Conrada

‘Under Joseph Conrad’s Eyes’: A Review of Monika Malessa-Drohomirecka’s Konwencje, stereotypy, złudzenia. Relacje kobiet i mężczyzn w prozie Josepha Conrada [Conventions, Stereotypes, Delusions: Male-Female Relationships in the Prose of Joseph Conrad] (Universitas, Kraków 2017, 334 pages) The review concerns a Conrad monograph by Monika Malessa-Drohomirecka titled Konwencje, stereotypy, złudzenia. Relacje kobiet i mężczyzn w prozie Josepha Conrada [Conventions, Stereotypes, Delusions: Male-Female Relationships in the Prose of Joseph Conrad], which appeared in print at Universitas as a post-doctoral publication in 2017. As the first full-fledged study on the subject on the Polish market, the book fills a gap in the Conrad studies in Poland in the area that has been well covered in the American and West European Conrad studies. The monograph explores male-female relationships in almost all of Conrad’s oeuvre in the context of his biography, the philosophical and literary trends as well as conventions of his epoch. However, as the review points out, albeit in itself nuanced, Malessa-Drohomirecka’s book seems to lack in in-depth analysis and ‚close reading’ at the expense of scope. Keywords: Joseph Conrad, men and women, relationships

‘A friend who stabs you’: Abjection, violence and the female clique in film

This article establishes a unique subgenre of film (the ‘female clique film’) in which the clique (and its disruption) is central to the film’s plot. It discusses four female clique films – Heathers (1989), The Craft (1996), Jawbreaker (1999) and Mean Girls (2004) – in order to consider their depiction of physical rather than relational aggression: extraordinary and even sociopathic violence occurs both within and outside these female relationships as part of the ritualized identity of the clique. It uses the logic of abjection to analyse the figure of the outsider as well as the female body, showing how social abjection and abject bodies are linked by the clique when they commit both relational and physical aggression against other girls. The article argues that the female clique film must be understood in terms of Alison Yarrow’s ‘bitchification’ – the failures of feminism in the later decades of the twentieth century.