Études irlandaises 37-2 | 2012 Enjeux féministes et féminins dans la société irlandaise contemporaine Feminist and women's issues in contemporary Irish society Fiona McCann et Nathalie Sebbane (dir.) Édition électronique URL : http://journals.openedition.org/etudesirlandaises/3108 DOI : 10.4000/etudesirlandaises.3108 ISSN : 2259-8863 Éditeur Presses universitaires de Caen Édition imprimée Date de publication : 30 octobre 2012 ISBN : 978-7535-2158-2 ISSN : 0183-973X Référence électronique Fiona McCann et Nathalie Sebbane (dir.), Études irlandaises, 37-2 | 2012, « Enjeux féministes et féminins dans la société irlandaise contemporaine » [En ligne], mis en ligne le 30 octobre 2014, consulté le 16 mars 2020. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/etudesirlandaises/3108 ; DOI : https:// doi.org/10.4000/etudesirlandaises.3108 Ce document a été généré automatiquement le 16 mars 2020. Études irlandaises est mise à disposition selon les termes de la Licence Creative Commons Attribution - Pas d’Utilisation Commerciale - Partage dans les Mêmes Conditions 4.0 International. 1 SOMMAIRE Hommage Catherine Maignant Introduction Fiona McCann et Nathalie Sebbane Études d'histoire et de civilisation Women of Ireland, from economic prosperity to austere times: who cares? Marie-Jeanne Da Col Richert Gender and Electoral Representation in Ireland Claire McGing et Timothy J. White The condition of female laundry workers in Ireland 1922-1996: A case of labour camps on trial Eva Urban Ireland’s criminal conversations Diane Urquhart Art et image Women’s art in Ireland and Poland 1970-2010: Experiencing and Experimenting on the Female Body Valérie Morisson Études littéraires “Nobody Knows What Is in Them until They Are Broke up”: Medbh McGuckian’s Feminist Poetry Shane Alcobia-Murphy Representations of Madness in Irish Society in the Drama of BrianFriel Michelle Kennedy Éilís Ní Dhuibhne : féminisme et stratégies d’indirection Chantal Dessaint-Payard Contemporary Caitlín: Gender and Society in Celtic Tiger Popular Fiction Sorcha Gunne Études irlandaises, 37-2 | 2012 2 Étude critique Critical Study David Wallace Comptes rendus de lecture Book Reviews Happy Hour Alexandra Tauvry Of All Places Alexandra Tauvry Le défilé du serpent Sylvie Mikowski Oscar’s Shadow. Wilde, Homosexuality and Modern Ireland Bertrand Cardin The Oxford History of the Irish Book, Volume IV : the Irish Book in English (1800-1891) Sylvie Mikowski Young John McGahern. Becoming a Novelist Bertrand Cardin J.G.Farrell in his Own Words, Selected Letters and Diaries Elisabeth Delattre W. B. Yeats, the Abbey Theatre, Censorship, and the Irish State: Adding the Half-Pence to the Pence Hélène Lecossois Ireland at the United Nations: Memories of the Early Years A Small State at the Top Table: Memories of Ireland at the Security Council, 1981-82 Christophe Gillissen Irlande Christophe Gillissen Society and Manners in Early Nineteenth-Century Ulster Stiofán Ó Cadhla Études irlandaises, 37-2 | 2012 3 Hommage Catherine Maignant Hommage 1 Bernard Escarbelt n’est plus. Il est parti comme il a vécu, dans la discrétion la plus totale. Lui qui ne voulait jamais « déranger » a disparu sur la pointe des pieds et nous a laissés stupéfaits, bouleversés, presque trahis, quand la nouvelle de son décès a été connue. Lui qui donnait tout aux autres n’a pas voulu nous inquiéter, et il nous laisse orphelins. Professeur à l’université de Lille 3, il fut pendant des années le père de la revue Etudes irlandaises, dont il surveillait l’élaboration et la publication à Lille avec Études irlandaises, 37-2 | 2012 4 rigueur et tendresse. Depuis son départ en retraite, il continuait d’accompagner la nouvelle génération, toujours au service de la revue, à laquelle il croyait si fort et dont il était si fier. Sa bienveillance, son sérieux, son érudition en matière irlandaise, son intelligence du métier d’enseignant–chercheur faisaient de lui un irlandisant de tout premier plan en France et un ambassadeur reconnu des études irlandaises françaises dans maintes terres étrangères, proches ou éloignées. Il était apprécié de tous, pour son immense gentillesse et pour sa compétence, qui faisaient de lui un choix naturel pour les soutenances de thèses, un exercice dans lequel il excellait. Jusqu’au bout il a été impliqué dans la recherche, jusqu’au bout il a publié, jusqu’au bout la traduction l’a passionné. 2 Nous nous souviendrons de son sourire, de son humour, de son attention envers autrui, de sa constance au travail. Il était celui qui jamais ne faillissait et qui, jusqu’à ce jour de la fin octobre 2012 où il s’est éclipsé, répondait toujours présent quand nous avions besoin de lui. Il y a quelques mois, il avait été honoré par le conseil de la revue Etudes irlandaises qui souhaitait lui manifester sa gratitude alors qu’il avait pris la décision de se retirer du comité de direction. Nous savions déjà qu’il allait nous manquer, mais nous ne pouvions pas croire que jamais il ne reviendrait. Et puis, nous le reverrions dans les couloirs de l’université de Lille, dans les colloques partout en France, aux réunions de la SOFEIR. Aujourd’hui l’adieu est définitif et l’heure est à la peine. L’émotion soulevée par sa disparition est à la mesure des qualités qui étaient les siennes. Tout le monde l’aimait et toute la communauté française des études irlandaises est en deuil. Un grand irlandiste est mort, nous le savons, mais c’est l’homme, aussi, surtout, que nous pleurons. AUTEUR CATHERINE MAIGNANT Université Lille 3 Études irlandaises, 37-2 | 2012 5 Introduction Fiona McCann and Nathalie Sebbane “The Blessed Virgin and Cathleen Ní Houlihan were probably the two most dominant female icons in my thinking – the one being religious and the other poetic and romantic”, Edna O’Brien1 “a new language is a kind of scar and heals after a while into a passable imitation of what went before”, Eavan Boland2 1 The decline of second-wave feminism in Western societies, the legacy of neo-liberal capitalism in general and of the Celtic Tiger in particular, and the emergence of a more liberal Irish society thanks to legislative changes decriminalising homosexuality and legalising divorce, along with the transformation of the cultural and media landscape, have given rise over the past few decades to a new discourse that can tentatively be called postfeminist. It is clear, however, that our understanding of this term requires the utmost prudence as the postfeminist movement has a tendency to posit equality between men and women as a given and the feminist struggle as no longer relevant3. Angela McRobbie has highlighted what she calls “the forces that have been at work in recent years to make feminism something unpalatable and non-transmissible, a social movement of which there is little likelihood of it being revived or renewed4” and Rosa Braidotti has pointed out the ways in which “[a]t the end of postmodernism […] new master-narratives have arisen: the inevitability of ‘free’ market economies as the historically dominant form of human progress and biological essentialism, under the cover of genetics, new evolutionary biology and psychology. They help define the salient features in contemporary gender politics and they constitute a disjunction, not a synthesis5”. For McRobbie, “the attribution of apparently post-feminist freedoms to young women most manifest within the culture realm in the form of new visibilities, becomes, in fact, the occasion for the undoing of feminism”, a disavowal which “permits the subtle renewal of gender injustices, while vengeful patriarchal norms are also re-instated6”. However, according to Yvonne Tasker and Diane Negra7, postfeminism is more a series of diffuse attitudes to be found within the media and related to second-wave feminism's attachment to the past than an ideology or a form of activism. Nevertheless, it is not necessarily a backlash or a violent reaction against Études irlandaises, 37-2 | 2012 6 feminism since postfeminism acknowledges the complex relationships between culture, politics and feminism and is in itself “inherently contradictory8”, simultaneously constructing feminism as a thing of the past and pointing out its traces in the present. 2 The fact remains, however, that one of the characteristics of postfeminism is its positing of a gender equality which is far from being experienced by Irish women, whether in relation to employment9, access to certain professions, salaries or political representation10, among other issues. Indeed, one might well wonder to what extent the advent of the discourse of postfeminism, which, as Ging and Tasker and Negra assert, heralds a colossal paradigmatic shift from the political to the cultural11, has usurped a feminist discourse in Ireland which was already tenuous enough12. Moreover, according to Tasker and Negra, “this limited vision of gender equality as both achieved and yet still unsatisfactory underlines the class, race and racial exclusion that define postfeminism and its characteristic assumption that the themes, pleasures, values and lifestyles with which it is associated are universally shared and, perhaps more significant, universally accessible13”. 3 Although the situation has certainly evolved positively since the publication of “Irish Women – Chains or Change” in 1971 by the Irish Women’s Liberation Movement, in which the authors called attention, among other issues, to the fact that Irish women were worse off married since they were considered as their husbands’ chattel, – the election of Mary Robinson marking a watershed in 1990 – and the continued unavailability of abortion for Irish women today serve as a constant reminder of the gender inequalities enshrined at the heart of the Irish constitution. The gradual secularisation of Irish society and the unshackling of Catholic church discourse may have enabled new discursive approaches to the body and sex to emerge14, but as Ann Rossiter documents, approximately 5 000 women from the Republic and a further 1,500 from the North, continue to travel out of the country each year to have abortions they cannot have at home15.