Women in different global contexts

Culture – Gender – Violence

edited by
Jolanta Maćkowicz
Ewa Pająk-Ważna

Kraków 2015

Table of Contents

Introduction

Part 1 Women in various cultures – change of roles over time and space

Contemporary woman – reflections at the beginning of the century (the voice in the discussion) Elżbieta Dubas
University of Łódź, Poland

Introduction

1. Female identity in the context of gender

2. Multidimensional versus one-dimensional aspects of the modern woman’s life

3. Woman’s place in culture and society

4. Between tradition and modernity/late modernity

5. A woman in a biographical context

6. Women and education

Conclusion

Jewish women’s charitable activity in the nineteenth and early twentieth century illustrated with an example of selected organizations operating in Cracow Katarzyna Pabis-Cisowska
Pedagogical University of Cracow, Poland

The social and legal status of women in Italy between the XIX and XXI centuries Sylwia Skuza
Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń

The status of women before Italian Unification

The rights and duties of women in Italy from 1861 (the Unification of Italy) until the end of the XIX century

Women’s rights in Fascist Italy

The legal and social situation of Italian women after World War II

Italian women in the XXI century

The role of a woman in Romani environment – in the past and now Elżbieta Mach
Pedagogical University of Cracow, Poland

The role of women in Ukrainian society Nadia Lutsan
Precarpathian National University by V. Stefanyk Ivano-Frankivsk, Ukraine

Introduction

Problem of gender equality

Problems of women’s movement in Ukraine

Conclusion

Powerful woman... at home The portrait of Italian women in the private sphere based on the observation of everyday’s life Małgorzata Matlak
Jagiellonian University, Poland

Introduction

Methodology of research

Italy – the country of unhappy women?

Peter Pan, ‘Mammoni’ and the deviations of matherhood

Case studies: relations between mothers and their adult children

Case studies: Intimate relationships

Conclusion

Immigration, changing demographics, and women: Challenges to social roles, rights, and status Kazimierz Mazurek, Margret Winzer
University of Lethbridge, Canada

Introduction

Health

Legal contexts

Child-rearing practices

Schooling

Concluding Comments

Gender in the classroom: Polish teachers’ opinions Ewa Pająk-Ważna
Pedagogical University of Cracow, Poland

Introduction

Characteristics of the study population

Gender and school hierarchy – analyses of study results (Poland)

Gender and teachers’ contact with parents – analyses of study results (Poland, N = 177)

Gender and teachers’ opinions on school subjects – analyses of study results (Poland)

Conclusions

The role of women as a crucial factor in developing post-war democracy in Kosovo Bashkim Rrahmani, Majlinda Belegu
University ‘Haxhi Zeka’ Peja-Kosovo

Introduction

After war phases on gender issues development

Legal bases and mechanisms for gender equality

Conclusions

Is there a gender Kuznets Curve for women’s development? Onur Tutulmaz, Peter Victor
York University, Canada

Introduction

Kuznets Curve hypothesis

A Gender Kuznets Curve (GKC) hypothesis

Theoretical discussion

Data and empirical analysis results

Conclusion

Bibliography

Part 2 Women in public and domestic spheres

Towards full participation in public life – generational changes in the lives of Polish women Katarzyna Dormus
Pedagogical University of Cracow, Poland

A contingent of women in the Bilderberg Group Dominika Urszula Popielec
Maria Curie-Sklodowska University, Lublin, Poland

Introduction

The Bilderberg Group – historical outline

Powerful women in politics in the Bilderberg Group

Women of the media, business and science in the Bilderberg Group

Conclusions

Women’s civic engagement and the communitarian personality model Agnieszka Świątek
University of Łodź, Poland

The communitarian personality model

Women’s civic engagement

Women in the communitarian personality model

Women for Nation and the Women’s Section of the National Movement as examples of socially and politically engaged organizations Paweł Łubiński
University of Warmia and Mazury in Olsztyn, Poland

Introduction

Women’s public activity

Women for Nation and the Women’s Section of the National Movement

Examples of civic and socio-political activities

Summary

Social activity of female teachers in rural areas Justyna Miko-Giedyk
The Jan Kochanowski University in Kielce, Poland

Introduction

Developments in social activities of teachers in rural schools

Social and cultural activity of female teachers in rural schools with regard to empirical research

Conclusions

Volunteering as a form of social activity of women in early adulthood (based on the survey conducted among university students in Cracow) Adrian Biela, Ewa Sierankiewicz-Miernik
Pedagogical University of Cracow, Poland

Introduction

Methodological notes

Social and demographic characteristics of the studied women – volunteers

Determinants of undertaking volunteering by the respondents

Place and time of the support provided by volunteers

The subjects and character of volunteering

Conclusion

The biographical dimension of femininity – andragogic references and contexts Monika Sulik
University of Silesia, Poland

Introduction

Research perspective

Teaching perspective

The story of a painting

Autobiographical perspective

The identity of teachers in the midlife transition period Joanna Łukasik
Pedagogical University of Cracow, Poland

The identity of man

The midlife transition period

Methodological assumptions

The identity of women in midlife transition period in the light of studies

Conclusion

Identification of young female inhabitants of Zagłębie with the region Halina Rusek
University of Silesia, Poland

Introduction

Dąbrowa Basin – non-Silesia

Females in the Silesian Province

Female inhabitants of Zagłębie on their region – preliminary study report

Global consumer trends and local models of consumer behavior among women – a study of the Lipiny case Grzegorz Libor, Dorota Nowalska-Kapuścik, Monika Szpoczek-Sało
University of Silesia, Poland

Introduction

Globalization and regionalism in consumerism – determination of (co)dependency

Consumer models among women from Lipiny – research

TYPE ONE – The Polish Mother

TYPE TWO – The Partying Mother

TYPE THREE – The Alcoholic Mother

TYPE FOUR – The Sly Mother

TYPE FIVE – The Freelance Woman

TYPE SIX – Miss Independent

TYPE SEVEN – The Pensioner

TYPE EIGHT – The Working Woman, not afraid of any work

Conclusions

Bibliography

Part 3 Women and violence Legal, social and cultural contexts

Oppression versus liberation Awareness of domestic violence victims’ rights Zofia Szarota
Pedagogical University of Cracow, Poland

Reflection upon the history of human and civil rights

Human and civil rights as women’s rights

Rights of women in the contemporary world

Awareness of women’s rights – victims of domestic violence, results of study

Prevention and therapy: social education

Women in a violence-free society: An educational programme Fernando Barragán Medero
University of La Laguna, Tenerife, Spain

Multiculturality and the culture of women

Patriarchy, gender, and sexuality

Methodology

Problem and goals

Action research as an alternative for educational programmes

The process of selecting the participants

Diagnosis, action plan and implementation

Identifying the needs and planning the actions

The insights of the teaching staff

Development and implementation within the syllabus

Have the objectives of the project been achieved?

Issues arising from new educational approaches: an attempt to explaining the problems and suggesting improvements

Research and education: processes and results

The preparation of the programme and the learning process amongst students

Power, violence and resistance strategies in women’s lives on the example of gender discourses and experiencing violence Katarzyna Gajek
University of Łódź, Poland

Introduction

Gender discourse and power-knowledge

Violence experienced by women

Conclusion

The living space of elderly female victims of intimate partner violence in view of court acts Małgorzata Halicka, Anna Szafranek
University of Białystok, Poland

Introduction

Intimate Partner Violence against older Women

Mind the Gap! Improving Intervention in Intimate Partner Violence Against older Women

Acts and types of violence in court files

Victims of violence

Perpetrators

Courts

Research results and conclusions

Violence against elderly women from the victimological perspective Case study Jolanta Maćkowicz
Pedagogical University of Cracow, Poland

Introduction

Historic and cultural contexts

Victim dependence mechanisms

Victims of domestic violence from the perspective of life course approach

Methods

Analysis of study results

Emotions and behavioral patterns

Breaking the silence

Discussion and summary

The figure of the Indian woman-victim as a pretext for colonialism and imperialism Dorota Kamińska-Jones
Nicolaus Copernicus University, Toruń, Poland

Introduction

Problems and questions of the study

British attitudes towards India and Indian women

The Indian woman – a victim of culture and local men

A victim of religion

The woman as a victim – Liberal and Utilitarian approach

The woman as a victim – the missionaries’ approach

The woman as a victim – the governing officials’ approach

The woman as a victim – the approach of the women reformers and feminists

Conclusion

Honor killing in international law with special reference to situations in Pakistan Muhammad Mumtaz, Muhammad Shahbaz Arif
GC University Faisalabad, Pakistan

Introduction

Major causes of honor killings

Modes of honor killings

Measures taken by international community

Measures taken by Pakistan

Conclusion

Patriarchal culture – the source of violence against women Malwina Misiąg
University of Rzeszów

Introduction

The socialization of women – shaping the bases of oppression

Woman’s imperfection – religious and philosophical justification of female nature’s limitation

Feminist interpretation of female oppression

Conclusion

Masculinities and quality of life: an educational programme promoting a new model of interpersonal relationships within prisons Fernando Barragán Medero, Antonio Llorens de la Cruz
University of La Laguna, Tenerife, Spain

Introduction

Planning of an interventional programme

Methodology

Goals

Implementation of the programme

Results

Conclusions

Women in prison – basic problems in the context of legal regulations and research on social rehabilitation Justyna Kusztal
Jagiellonian University, Poland

Introduction

The conditions of women’s imprisonment

Statistical data on girls’ and women’s imprisonment

Basic problems faced by female prisoners

Imprisoned women’s rights

Bibliography

Summary

Redaction page

Introduction

According to a 50-year-old Chinese saying ‘women hold up half the sky’. Today women make up more than half of the world’s population. References to the Chinese saying can be found, for example, in the publication by Nicholas Kristof and his wife Sheryl WuDunn entitled Half the sky: Turning oppression into -opportunity for women worldwide (2009), who declared the global struggle for women’s equality ‘the paramount moral challenge’ of our era. It is obvious that although the issues of gender equality have been addressed in many documents (including international law documents), girls and women all over the world still suffer from violence, discrimination and limited access to education. Their situation varies depending on world regions, but it seems that there is no country that could be a model example of absolute and actual equality of women and men. Agnieszka Gromkowska-Melosik (2011, p. 11) writes that in contemporary society, analysis of the situation of women should focus on equality rather than inequality as it is the equality that is shaping women’s everyday life, their social experience and identity more and more often. However, issues raised in this work concern various geographical regions and contexts, thus the notion of heterogenity of female sub-population, for example living conditions, as well as the social and cultural capital of women, is becoming more noticeable.

Therefore, we would like to present our readers with a work that addresses the issue of recognition and resolution of problems of women all over the world, regardless of their race, nationality, culture or geographical region. The issues discussed in the work concern cultural aspects, various activities of women, roles of women in various cultures, both today and in the past. Issues related to social and cultural masculinity and femininity models constitute a part of the recent heated social discourse in Poland concerning the gender problem.

This paper groups the above mentioned issues in three sections entitled: Women in various cultures – change of roles over time and space (section 1), Women in public and domestic spheres (section 2) and Women and violence. Legal, social and cultural contexts (section 3). Each section contains ten articles.

The first part deals with the issue of women in various cultures, focusing the reader’s attention on changing roles of women over time and space. In Western societies, women seem to enjoy increasing equality, which could be an optimistic conclusion drawn from the analysis of the beginning of the 21st century (Gromkowska-Melosik 2011, p. 11). How can we evaluate the dynamics of changes of women’s roles, transformations in contemporary world and various cultures? Readers can try to answer this question after reading the articles by Elżbieta Dubas, Sylwia Skuza, Nadia Lutsan, Małgorzata Matlak, Kazimierz Mazurek, Margret Winzer, as well as Bashkim Rrahmani and Majlinda Belegu. Two articles – one by Katarzyna Pabis-Cisowska and one by Elżbieta Mach are devoted to roles of women from ethnic minorities. The first part also contains discussions on broadening the perspective on the view of the role of women in various cultures, focused on the results of research carried out among teachers (Ewa Pająk-Ważna) and the theory formulated by Simon Kuznets (article by Onur Tutulmaz and Peter Victor).

The second part is devoted to the issue of women in public and domestic spheres. Cultural models that regulate relations between women and men, as well as visions of roles to be played by women in public and private life affect e.g. individual life choices and structure of relations in various interpersonal contexts. Texts by: Katarzyna Dormus, Dominika U. Popielec, Agnieszka Świątek and Paweł Łubiński concern mainly civil and political activity of women, as well as changes in those areas taking into consideration historic contexts. There are also texts focusing on the issue of social activity of the specific sub-population of women, i.e. teachers (text by Justyna Miko-Giedyk), students (article by Adrian Biela and Ewa Sierankiewicz-Miernik), as well as female members of one of local communities, whose consumer behavior is the subject of analyses by three authors (Grzegorz Libor, Dorota Nowalska-Kapuścik and Monika Szpoczek-Sało).

While presenting the issues discussed in this section of the paper, it is worth to quote A. Giddens (Giddens 2001, p. 294), who wrote that ‘by freeing themselves from home and family setting, women encountered a closed social environment’. In this way, contemporary women gained the opportunity to create new identities, although the conditions for pursuing specific life models are still unspecified and uncertain. Two authors of the texts in section two raised the issue of identity, referring to individual identity (Joanna Łukasik) and regional identity (Halina Rusek). Various faces of women are presented in the article by Monika Sulik, who used biographic approach to discuss the research, didactic and autobiographical perspective.

The third part of this paper presents women in situation of violence in legal, social and cultural context. Violence against women is a serious social issue in European countries and, in many parts of the world, a part of local culture and traditions. According to the report published by the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA 2014), one third of European women were affected by violence and

[...] the scale of the problem shows that violence against women is not something incidental, but rather a social issue. Therefore, politicians, representatives of civil society and workers of institutions for victims must reconsider the solutions used today so that every form of violence against woman can be prevented, regardless of the place; see: pl.globalvoicesonline.org (Accessed: 14.07.2014).

This section of the work reflects on various aspects of women experiencing violence (mainly as victims), but the readers also have the opportunity to read the text about female perpetrators of violence. Issues raised by authors concern the process of raising awareness of rights in victims of violence, show both the statistical image of the problem and a case study. Problems discussed by the authors (Zofia Szarota, Fernando Barragán Medero, Ka-tarzyna Gajek, Małgorzata Halicka, Anna Szafranek, Jolanta Maćkowicz, Dorota Kamińska-Jones, Muhammad Mumtaz and Muhammad Shahbaz Arif, Malwina Misiąg, Antonio Llorens de la Cruz and Justyna Kusztal) are present in various corners of the world: India, Pakistan, Spanish Tenerife and Poland.

The editors of this volume would like to thank all the Authors, who contributed to this work. We would also like to thank the supervisors: professor Elżbieta Górnikowska-Zwolak from The Cardinal August Hlond University of Education in Myslowice and professor Pella Calogiannakis from the University of Crete in Rethymnon for her valuable comments and suggestions, which helped us make necessary corrections and give this work its final form.

Editors,

Jolanta Maćkowicz and Ewa Pająk-Ważna

Kraków, June 2014

Summary

Many examples presented in this paper present courageous and active women that gave rise to world-changing processes. It is worth to draw from those examples. This work presents an image of women in a specific cultural mosaic, an image that at the same time points to issues that require reconsideration – especially in the area of social perception of women, overcoming stereotypes and legislative changes.

Not reflecting upon one’s own attitude towards the issue of women, especially when having knowledge of global co-dependencies and conditions, could also be a choice. However, the only way to improve the existing situation is to become aware of cause and effect relationships affecting the lives of contemporary women all over the world and education (global education in particular) is of great significance in this regard.

According to Rachel Mayanja1

[...] the whole world recognizes the fact that empowerment of women is the key to development and elimination of property and helps us overcome the obstacles that are still present (http://www.unic.un.org.pl/kobiety_rozwoj_pokoj/konferencja.php).

Therefore, the editors of this volume hope that future papers devoted to the issue of women will be illustrating achievement of those goals more and more often.

1Ms. Rachel Mayanja, the Secretary-General’s Special Adviser on Gender Issues and Advancement of Women since November 2004, is a long-serving career international civil servant with vast experience in normative, policy and operational work of the United Nations including peace-building, peace-keeping and inter-agency collaboration; see more: http://www.un.org/womenwatch/osaginew/oSpecialAdviser.html) (Accessed: 15.06.2014) – editors’ note.

© Copyright by Pedagogical University of Cracow, 2014

© Copyright by Oficyna Wydawnicza „Impuls”, Kraków 2014

Reviews:
Prof. Pella Calogiannakis
Prof. Elżbieta Górnikowska-Zwolak

Electronic publisher:
Andrzej Augustyński

Cover design:
Ewa Beniak-Haremska

ISBN wersji drukowanej: 978-83-7850-685-0

ISBN wesji elektronicznej: 978-83-7850-8842-7

Ofi cyna Wydawnicza „Impuls”
30-619 Kraków, ul. Turniejowa 59/5
tel./fax: (12) 422 41 80, 422 59 47, 506 624 220
www.impulsoficyna.com.pl, e-mail: impuls@impulsoficyna.com.pl
Wydanie I, Kraków 2015