Britt-Marie Thuren Left Hand Left Behind The Changing Gender System of a Barrio in Valencia, Spain Left Hand Left Behind Left eft ehind The Changing Gender System of a Barrio in Valencia, Spain. Britt-Marie Thuren Stockholms Studies in Social Anthropology 1988 Left Hand Left Behind The changing gender system of a barrio in Valencia, Spain. Doctoral dissertation Stockholm Studies in Social Anthropology, 22. © Britt-Marie Thuren 1988 Cover by Juaco LOpez Photos by author unless otherwise indicated. Drawings by Juaco LOpez. Department of Social Anthropology University of Stockholm S-106 91 Stockholm All rights reserved. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without the written permission of the author. ISBN 91-7146-711-4 Produktion Nalkas Boken For1ag For Jaime and Joaquin 1939 politics: "The work of women in the revolution was a supporting mission, not a directive mission, because the latter penains only to men. ( ... ) The most valuable contribution a woman can make to the future is to return to the bosom of the family and avoid discussions in bad taste and the public exhibitions that are not fitting for women." Pilar Primo de Rivera, director of the Women's Section (Secci6n Femenina) of the Falange. Quote from Scanlon in Garcia de Lean 1982. (My translation) 1986 sociology: "That is why I doubt if the Renaissance really existed: the Humanism and the Modernism of the Golden Century shone scarcely in what its great ideologues thought about women. ( ... ) One could even doubt if the Ancien Regime is over, even today. (... ) For many women access to educated reason, the construction of a world to their measure, the freedom to interpret themselves without foreign obediences and all the conquests that the Renaissance symbolizes for men and that never existed for women, are beginning to become possible only now. The Renaissance, with all its promises and discords, begins now." Maria Angeles Duran, director of the Seminar for Women's Studies at the Universidad Autanoma de Madrid, 1986b:30. (My translation.) 1980 Valencian progressivity: "Cross-cutting words, or about communication between progressives: There is only one thing as detestable as the habit of some women to blame hardly­ machista males for the things that the very-machistas have done to them. And it is, you guessed it, the masculine habit of blaming feminist women for what non­ feminist women do." Josep-Vicent Marques, Valencian all-purpose progressive, in the progressive magazine El Viejo Topo, nr 10,1980: 12. (My translation.) CONTENTS Acknowledgements.............................................................. 1 A.PROBLEMS 1. The changing gender system of Benituria......................... 3 2. Changes in Spain..................................................... 11 3. More food and more adultery....................................... 26 4. The tools............................. ... ............. ........ ... ....... 34 B. PEOPLE 5. Dimensions of experience. .......................................... 46 6. Ideal types: from self-sacrifice to self-realization................... 62 7. Real women: from the village to the nudist beach. ............... 77 C. PLACES 8. The barrio as space. ................................................. 103 9. Women's public contexts. .......................................... 107 10. Associations as public fora......................................... 123 11. Creating new female contexts. 137 D.CHANGE 12. Progress as a cultural construction ................................. 149 13. Divided Benituria - a midsummer night example ................. 159 14. Progressivity and gender ........................................... 162 15. The reconstruction of motherhood ................................ 168 E. WORDS 16. From statements to ideas............................................ 177 17. Gender themes....................................................... 185 18. Themes of interaction ............................................... 212 19. Two gender words in context. ..................................... 224 F. PROCESS 20. Conflicts. .. .......................................................... 231 21. Contradictions. ..................................................... 244 22. Conclusions ........................................................... 262 APPENDIXES A. Fieldwork. ............................................................ 272 B. Student assistant interviews ......................................... 278 C. Questionnaire. ........................................................ 283 NOTES ............................................................................ 294 REFERENCES .................................................................... 308 INDEX ............................................................................. 326 1 Acknowledgements How can I thank everyone who has given intellectual stimulus, emotional support and practical help over a period of six years? I would like to mention all my friends and colleagues, and of course my family, not to speak of twenty-five thousand Beniturians. Inevitably, some categories of helpers and supporters have to receive my gratitude collectively. First of all, special thanks to about fifty Beniturians who gave time and energy to very long interviews and to many others who answered my questions in other kinds of situations. Even more special thanks go to the people who have given their permission for long excerpts of their stories to be published. Their real names must remain hidden, but Carmen, Asun, Vicenta, MaryMar, E1vira, Marisa and Paco know who they are and that my gratitude is deep and sincere. If anyone else from Benituria should think that they recognize themselves, they should know that this is coincidence. To all those who introduced me to someone else, to all those who brought me documents and anecdotes, to all those who tried to understand what I was doing and commented on my "conclusions" ... to all the members of the Women's Group and the Neighborhood Association who accepted me into their midst... ty my closest neighbors who got more than their share of my curiosity ... to those who became true friends ... to so many Beniturians, my gratitude is for ever. Jose Armenteros agreed to take a couple of rolls of photographs when I had run out of project money and despaired over my own talents as a photographer. Juaco Lopez did a few drawings for the same reason. Julia Arjona and Carmen Pascual gave me everything they thought I needed. In Valencia but outside Benituria, I would like to mention the Association of Separated Women, the importance of which I hope comes out in the text. Thanks also to Joan B. Llinares for having a very good idea (see Appendix B) and to thirty-four of his students (first year students of psychology at the­ University of Valencia during the course 1982-83), whose efforts considerably broadened my material. Joan F.Mira, Josep-Vicent Marques, the Servei de la 2 Dona, the Federation of Neighborhood Associations of I 'Borta, and many other individuals and institutions provided valuable information. Outside Valencia, there were also many fruitful encounters. There were feminist congresses, courses and groups all over Spain. The anthropological seminar of Esperanza Molina and the sociological one of Jesus Ibanez, both in Madrid, were fora where some of the ideas of this book were first tried out. On the Swedish horizon, there were al~o many contributors. Naturally I take the full responsibility for my arguments, but it is not easy to know the exact origin of each idea. An academic product is a collective product, and there are more co-authors than I can mention. Tomas Gerholm was my advisor at an early stage, and later Ulf Hannerz made his way through mountains of pages with loose ideas as well as several versions of the thesis text. Other colleagues have read and commented for the sake of friendship. My appreciation to Kristina Bohman, Don Kulick and Irene Svensson, and most especially to Eva Evers Rosander. Fieldwork in Valencia was conducted on a grant from the Swedish Research Council for the Humanities and Social Sciences, HSFR. And behind it all is the family, just like in Benituria. My mother and my sister have a strange faith in me, without which I would never even have dared to start out on the road towards a doctorate, and without their practical help there was no way I could have completed it. It is impossible to thank my sons for what they have meant to me. Children do not give on purpose, they just happen to be the greatest wonder in life. I hope they will some day be able to forgive me for not having baked as many cookies as other mothers, and that their daughters, if they get any, will not have to choose between self-mutilation and chronic guilt feelings. For these reasons, this book about women is dedicated to two young men who have had to experience directly the fact that patriarchy is not such a good deal for men, either. Stockholm, November 1988 Britt-Marie Thuren 3 PART A: PROBLEMS Chapter 1. The changing gender system of Benituria. a. Left hand and other kinds of power. This book is about gender: what society does with the biological fact of sex. The biological fact is a rather small thing. Men and women are different from each other but "not as different as day and night, earth and sky, yin and yang, life and death. In fact, from the standpoint of nature, men and women are closer to each other than either is to anything else - for instance mountains, kangaroos or coconut palms." (Rubin