Topia Endynamoses (review)

Women’s Studies in the field of literature may be divided into four stages or subdivisions: (a) critical work focusing on how women have been represented or misrepresented and noting women’s silences; (b) research aimed at discovering works by women that have been overlooked or forgotten, with the intention of publishing or republishing them; (c) literary work that positions women at the center of the text and allows them to speak of their experiences in their own voice, thus giving value to both their experience and their voice; and (d) theoretical work dealing with issues of language, culture, and gender. These categories are not necessarily linear or mutually exclusive; thus an author or editor working on a project nowadays that showcases the life and experience of women is quite likely to do so within the larger context of misrepresentation and marginalization exposed by recent studies of the cultural underpinnings of gender and the uses and abuses of language. It seems to me that τοπία ενδυνάμωσης, a collection of short prose pieces by women, needs to be read with this larger context in mind if it is to be appreciated as a contribution to the expansion of old canons.

Christiana Lambrinidis, the behind-the-scenes editor and one of the contributors to τοπία ενδυνάμωσης, states her views on both γυ ναιϰείa γρ αφή and ε νδυ νάμωση (empowerment) in an interview with Aliki Xenou Venardou, published in the 19 January 1997 issue of Ριζοσπάστηςunder the title «Ρήγματα στη σιωπή των γυ ναιϰ≈ν». Women writers, she says, have a different «τρόπo γραφής» that is not a «θ°μα φύσεως» but a «θ°μα διαφoρεtιϰ≈ νϰoι νω νιϰ≈ νσυ νθηϰ≈ νστις oπoίες μεγαλ≈ νoυν». She adds that, even when they deal with the same subject as their male counterparts, they usually express themselves differently and have different things to say. In the same interview, she states that ε νδυ νάμωση with regard to women implies «διϰαίωμα αυτooρισμoύ, διϰαίωμα να oρίζoυ ντo νεαυτό τoυς όπως αυτ°ς θ°λoυ ν».

Although the individual contributors to this collection represent different age groups and walks of life, they have much in common. On the overleaf of the front cover we read that the aim of the Ομάδα Γυ ναιϰείας Δημιoυργιϰής Γραφήα is to broaden the field of women’s writing so that it will be defined not as a gift but as a continuous negotiation with the «ανείπωτo». In reading through the selections, one senses that the emphasis is on penetrating beneath the surface of day-to-day existence and finding ways to express what is usually avoided, silenced, or minimalized. The writings function as scenes of discovery in which language is employed to create contexts that reveal something about women’s life and experience. This language is sometimes metaphoric, often esoteric, but almost always crisp, specific, and close to the female body.

The selections are intended not to please but to disturb: to force us to review and reassess ways of thinking and acting as well as specific actions, practices, and habits occurring around us to which we are (or have grown) indifferent. Although each selection is different from the rest in that it deals with a slightly different aspect of women’s life and experience, the book’s main concerns seem to be the abuse and the lack of compassion and respect for the individual (especially for women) within the Greek family unit that lead to the need or wish to escape. The abuse is “documented” through recollection by the person abused or by a female relative who internalizes what she sees or becomes privy to, and who acts in direct, symbolic, or ritualistic ways to combat it.

In «Mάθημα ϰολύμβησης» by Eleni Apostolopoulou, a grandmother’s story of helplessness and lack of control in a traditional family setting gives the granddaughter the necessary impetus to leave the family home: «Tότε, το ϰρεβάτι δε με χ≈ραγε. To δωμάτιο δε με χ≈ραγε. To σπίτι δε με χ≈ραγε. Eφυγα χωρίς αναβολή» (28).

In «Bάφτιση» by Yiota Boziou, another granddaughter records her grandmother’s experience: the beatings she endured at the hands of the husband in a home where «αφ°ντευε ο λόγος της μάνας-πεθεράς», the punishments she received for failing to follow implicit family rules—being forced, for example, to spend the night «στο σϰαλοπάτί γιατί άργησε να φ°ρει νερό», and the silencing of her voice: «Eϰείνη μιλιά δεν °βγαζε» (34). Instead of openly rebelling, the grandmother «τύλιγε αργά … °να ϰουβάρι ϰόϰϰινης oργής, ϰαι τo’ϰρυβε στoν ϰόρφo της», but the granddaughter, grabbing the end of this ϰo...