Romanian women's discourses of sexual violence othered ethnicities, gendering spaces

Living Gender after Communism

Volumn , Issue , 2007, Pages 149-168

  Woodcock, Shannon ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 35949002757     PISSN: None     EISSN: None     Source Type: Book    
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References (45)

1. Gender is defined in this work as a series of acts and gestures that are "performative in the sense that the essence or identity that they otherwise purport to express are fabrications manufactured and sustained through corporeal signs and other discursive means." Judith Butler, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (New York: Routledge, 1990), 136.
2. Enikó Magyari-Vincze, ed., Femei şi Bǎrbat, i în Clujul Multietnic, vols. 1-3 [Women and Men in Multiethnic Cluj] (Cluj-Napoca: Editura Fundaţiei Desire, 2001)
3. and Diferenţa care conteaza: Diversitatea social-culturala prin lentila antropologiei feministe [Differences That Matter: Socio-cultural Diversity through the Lens of Feminist Anthropology] (Cluj-Napoca: Editura Fundaţiei Desire, 2002).
4. One exception to these fields and their silences is Lorena Vaetişi's recent postgraduate dissertation that studies how self-identified Roma adolescents perceive themselves as gendered and ethnic subjects in Romanian society (Discursuri identitare şi intersectoralitate: O analiza privind identitatea de gen şi identitatea etnica în cazul femeilor rrome [Analysis Concerning Gendered and Ethnic Identity in the Case of Romani Women], M. A. thesis, Babeş-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, 2004.
5. This research was conducted as part of my Ph. D. studies at the University of Sydney. The design of the survey benefited from surveys conducted by Romanian organizations. See the report of Asociatia pentru Promovarea Femeii din Romania [Association for the Promotion of Women in Romania], a project of the "Centrul de Informare, Educaţie si Consiliere Timişoara pentru femeile si feţele victime ale violenţei domestice şi abuzului sexual" [For the Women and Girl Victims of Domestic Violence], a survey of opinions conducted July 5-7, 2002, financed through the PHARE-ACCESS program (July 2002);
6. Laura Grunberg, "Povestiri din vremea cand am incercat sa fiu o buna Foisoreanca" [Stories from the Time I Tried to Be a Good Neighbor], ANAlize: Revista de Studii Feministe 5, no. 16(1999), http://www.ana saf.ro/romana/index (rom).html;
7. and Tatiana Olteanu, Studiu de opinie privind violenţa asupra femeii in familie, manuscript published online, 1998, http://www.pitesti.ro/ grado/studui-ro.html (accessed August 5, 2002).
8. See Mihail Kogalniceanu, "Dezrobirea Tiganilor, Stergerea privilegiilor boiereşti, emanciparea Tǎranilor" [The Unslaving of the Tigani: The Erasure of Boyar Privileges, and the Emancipation of the Peasants], speech given at the Romanian Academy, April 1, 1891
9. in Scrieri Literare (Bucharest: Editura 100+1, undated);
10. Viorel Achim Tiganii in Istoria României [Tigani in the History of Romania] (Bucharest: Editura Enciclopedica, 1998);
11. and Ian Hancock, The Pariah Syndrome: An Account of Gypsy Slavery and Persecution (Ann Arbor: Karoma, 1988).
12. Lucian Boia, Romania: Borderland of Europe (London: Reaktion Books, 2001), 219.
13. Petre Roman, "Termeni folositi pentru denumirea etniei romilor/tiganilor" [Terminology for the Naming of the Ethnicity of Roma/Tigani], memorandum of the Minister of External Affairs, February 29, 2000.
14. Cristian Ghinea, "Intre noi fie vorba, rromii tot Ţigani sînt" [Just between Us, Rromi Are All Ţigani], Dilema 19, no. 3(2001):3.
15. Homi K. Bhabha, The Location of Culture (London: Routledge, 1994).
16. Alaina Lemon, "Talking Transit and Spectating Transition: The Moscow Metro", in Altering States: Ethnographies of Transition in Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union, ed. Daphne Berdahl, Matti Bunzl, and Martha Lampland (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2000), 14.
17. See the introduction to this collection, and also Adriana Baban, "Women's Sexuality and Reproductive Behaviour in Post-Ceausescu Romania: A Psychological Approach" in Reproducing Gender, ed. Susan Gal and Gail Kligman (Princeton, N. J.: Princeton University Press, 2000), 225-56.
18. Council of Europe, Gender Mainstreaming: Conceptual Frameworks, Methodology and Presentation of Good Practices;
19. Final Report of the Group of Specialists on Mainstreaming (Strasbourg: Council of Europe, 1999).
20. A recent issue of the intellectual newspaper Dilema, no. 530 (May 30-June 5, 2003), http://www.algoritma.ro/dilema/530), for example, chose domestic violence as its theme. The majority of contributors (all women) began their articles by stating that violence in the home was most damaging because it is the natural place of women.
21. Alina Bǎrbulescu, "Violenţa intrafamilialǎ ş i neliniştea justiţiei" [Intrafamilial Violence and the Restlessness of Justice], Dilema, no. 530.
22. Daniel Ciumǎgeanu Mugur, "Vorbele bune" [Good Words], Dilema, no. 530
23. and Stela Serghiuţǎ "Violenţa domesticǎ-în lume ş i în Romǎnia" [Domestic Violence-in the World and in Romania].
24. See the Human Rights Watch International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission report Public Scandals: Sexual Orientation and Criminal Law in Romania (New York: Arta Grafica, 1998). Sexual harassment and violence in public space are not addressed in legislation. Together these factors plot the construction of gendered spaces and places in Romanian society.
25. Grunberg, "Stories from the Time I Tried to Be a Good Neighbor", 16.
26. See Lindsey Rose, "From Atrocity to Data: Historiographies of Rape in Former Yugoslavia and the Gendering of Genocide", Patterns of Prejudice 36, no. 4(2000):59-79.
27. Jane Caputi, The Age of Sex Crime (London: Women's Press, 1987).
28. Denise Roman, Fragmented Identities: Popular Culture, Sex, and Everyday Life in Postcommunist Romania (New York: Lexington Books, 2003), 105.
29. Caputi, The Age of Sex Crime, 47.
30. The most cited 'dangerous' suburbs were, in order of frequency, Ferentari, Rahova, Pantelimon, and Cringaşi. This articulation of "new" (socialist period, post-1970) suburbs and city as dangerous in opposition to the old "authentic" center of Bucharest is in keeping with postcommunist discursive articulation of Ceauşescu's "new city" as corrupt, and the pre-Ceauşescu city as genuine. C. Buica, M. Popescu, and O. Tomescu, "Bucureştiul vazut de Bucureşteni;
31. reprezentari speciale ale spaţiului urban" [Bucharest as Seen by Bucharesteans: Special Representations of Urban Space], Revista de Cercetari Sociale [Journal of Social Research] 13(1995):111-15.
32. I will use the term "sexual harassment" to mean any unwelcome verbal or physical sexual approaches in public spaces, such as the street and on public transport. For more about sexual harassment and its history as a term in postcommunist societies see Krassimira Daskalova, "Women's Problems, Women's Discourses in Bulgaria" (337-69), Malgorzata Fuszara, "New Gender Relations in Poland in the 1990s" (259-85)
33. and Laura Grunberg, "Women's NGOs in Romania" (307-36), in Gal and Kligman, Reproducing Gender.
34. Mihaela Miroiu, "Experienţele Femeilor" [Experiences of Women], in Gen ş i Societate [Gender and Society] (Bucharest: Alternative, 1997), 81.
35. Sorina Neculaescu, "Corpul Femeii-Trofeu al Dominaţiei Masculine" [The Female Body: Trophy of Masculine Domination], ANAlize: Revista de Studii Feministe (September 2000): 15-16.
36. For further information on Roma and the penal system, see Romani Criss si Argentia de monitizoare a presei [Romani Crisis and the Agency for the Monitoring of the Press], Prezentarea romilor in presa româneasca [Representation of Romani People in the Romanian Press], report (February-August 2000).
37. For insight into Romanian police mechanisms of "keeping tabs on" the Roma community, see Tudor Amza, Fenomenul infractional în rindul ţiganilor: Activitaţ i specific Poliţiei Române pentru protenjarea etniei si prevenirea faptelor antisociale [The Infractional Phenomenon amongst the Ţigani: Specific Activities of the Romanian Police for Protection of the Ethnicity and Prevention of Antisocial Factors] (Bucharest: Academie de Politiei Alexandru Ioan Cuza, 1995).
38. Avtah Brah, "The Scent of Memory: Strangers, Our Own and Others", in Hybridity and Its Discontents: Politics, Science Culture, ed. Avtah Brah and Annie E. Coombes (London: Routledge, 2000), 272-90.
39. See Michael Stewart, "Gypsies, the Work Ethic and Hungarian Socialism", in Socialism: Ideals, Ideologies and Local Practice, ed. C. M. Hann (London: Routledge, 1993), 187-203
40. and Shannon Woodcock, How to Be a Real Romanian: Articulations of Ţigani Others and the Construction of Ethno-National Romanian Selves, Ph. D. diss., Sydney University, 2003.
41. Bisniţa is an adaptation of the English word business; bisniţari refers to people who conduct business. See Katherine Verdery, What Was Socialism and What Comes Next? (Princeton, N. J.: Princeton University Press, 1996), 98.
42. Woodcock, How to Be a Real Romanian.
43. For example, 46% of respondents stated that in cases of domestic violence both the victim and the aggressor were responsible for the attack in the survey of the Asociatia pentru Promovarea Femeii din Romania [Association for the Promotion of Women in Romania], a project of the "Centrul de Informare, Educaţie si Consiliere Timişoara pentru femeile si feţele victime ale violenţei domestice ş i abuzului sexual" [For the Women and Girl Victims of Domestic Violence], a survey of opinions conducted July 5-7, 2002, financed through the PHARE-ACCESS program (July 2002).
44. See also the Equal Chances for Women Foundation 1998 Survey of Women Victims of Domestic Violence, http://www.proiectns.org/archives/000050.html.
45. Woodcock, How to Be a Real Romanian.