Britt-Marie Thurén

Women, men and persons : managing gender meanings in middle class Madrid

Urban ethnography about gender change Madrid in the 1990s was a lively place. This book presents ethnographic examples and analyses of the way gender meanings were changing. The context is middle class; comparisons are made with an earlier work in a working class area of Valencia. The theoretical focus is on processes of cultural change, using mainly speech in natural situations as the empirical base since talking is one form of doing. The historical and social background is also described. Madrilenian conversations were full of examples from all walks of life and personal situations. The historical moment was one of change from an authoritarian society to a more democratic one. These larger circumstances were often symbolized in terms of gender issues. A common idea in Madrilenian discussions was that women should be or become persons. This use of the concept "person" has little to do with individualism or psychology. It was rather an everyday way of expressing opposition to essentialized and hierarchical categorizations. The phrase meant that a "person" is an active human being who refuses to be categorized by others, whereas a "woman" must look and behave so that her gender is clearly contrasted to that of a "man". And this, it was thought, places women at a disadvantage. But there were also those who thought that a woman can only be a person if she is a "woman" first.