| Abstract | Usporedo s pojavom feminizma kao društvenog pokreta u okviru kojega se žene bore za svoj bolji položaj u društvu odvijala se i pluralizacija tog pojma iznjedrivši tako više teorijskih i kritičkih pristupa pitanju položaja žena kroz čitavu povijest ljudskoga roda, od početaka patrijarhalnog društva do suvremenoga doba. Društvenoj su zajednici feminističke ideje i kretanja, već u začetku njihova pojavljivanja, bili u pravilu vrlo šokantni i nejasni, pa je društvo, posljedično, pokazivalo sklonost mistificiranju feminističkoga pokreta te stvaranju mnogobrojnih i snažnih predrasuda prema feminizmu. Pri pregledu povijesti feminizma (tj. moglo bi se reći i feminizama) uočava se ponajprije šarolikost pridjeva i prefiksa koji se pridaju tome nazivu ali svima su njima naime zajednički univerzalni problemi ženske borbe i pobune: borba protiv muške dominacije, borba protiv stereotipa da su žene prvenstveno majke, domaćice i supruge te da biološki i psihički nisu predodređene ni za što drugo osim za obavljanje onih poslova koji su smatrani tipično ženskima itd. Samosvjesne i emancipirane žene podižu svoj glas i bore se za vlastitu ekonomsku, političku i društvenu neovisnost te na tome putu postupno otkrivaju stvarnost, odnosno istinu o svijetu koji ih okružuje: svijetu čiji hijerarhijski ustroj počiva na kriteriju moći muškaraca.
Kao sukus feminističkih kretanja koja su pokrenula ne samo promjene u društvenom statusu i životu žene, već i potrebu za redefiniranjem ženine misli, svijesti i stavova o sebi i drugima – tj. potrebu podjednako i paralelno duševnog i tjelesnog preporađanja kroz oslobađanje od ranijih naslijeđenih i mitski generiranih stavova i granica – javlja se potraga za ženskom istinom kroz vlastiti iskustveni put. Ovaj će pojam ženske istine biti pokretač ženskim junakinjama prema samospoznaji i njezino otkrivanje omogućiti će pronalaženje izlaza iz privida i iluzorne stvarnosti u kojoj žive. Taj se put u ovoj disertaciji identificirao i analizirao s aspekta fenomenologije percepcije Merleau-Pontya koja će omogućiti fenomenološko otkrivanje ženske istine. Uspomoć Merleau-Pontyeve analize 'cogita' kao utjelovljene egzistencije koristilo se Merleau-Pontyevo odvajanje fenomenologije od njezine transcendentalne idealističke pozadine smještanjem čovjeka u svijet da na taj način spozna sam sebe. Otkrivanje istine o svijetu u kojem se nalaze glavne ženske junakinje romana Pokorna žena i Zelene čarape te njihovo iskustveno putovanje do samospoznaje promatralo se kroz prizmu Merleau-Pontyeva obrtanja idealističkog cogita (onoga Descartesova) iz Mislim, dakle jesam u Jesam, dakle mislim. Redefiniranje uloge svijesti u egzistenciju glavnih junakinja zapravo slijedi fenomenološku novu teoriju istine – transcendentalne istine – gdje pojam bitak u istini omogućava egzistenciji njezinu otvorenost prema svijetu.
Termin feminine mystique produkt je dugogodišnjega istraživanja koje je provodila novinarka Betty Friedan o položaju žena u SAD-u pedesetih i šezdesetih godina prošlog stoljeća. Taj je termin vezan uz općeprihvaćene stereotipe o ženama tadašnjega društva u kojem je sveprisutna muška dominacija. Ti se stereotipi, konkretno, odnose na položaj žena u zajednicama u kojima žive te su iz tih mikroprostora na identičan način preslikani i na makroprostore tj. na cjelokupno zapadnjačko društvo koje na ženu gleda kao na objekt. Žena je bila uvjetovana određenim društvenim pravilima i to obavljajući poslove i zaduženja ovisno o danu u tjednu, godišnjem dobu i svojoj životnoj dobi. Jedini obrasci koje su žene morale poštovati bili su oni koje je nametnuo društveni hijerarhijski vrh, a činili su ga muškarci. Nametnute ideje, uvjerenja i potrebe tog vremena Betty Friedan obuhvaća jedinstvenim imenom feminine mystique.
Koncept istine i fenomen feminine mystique povezuju se na uzročno-posljedičan način tj. dolaze želja i potreba glavnih ženskih junakinja da se riješe 'okova' odgoja i zadanih društvenih okvira ispunjava se samo otkrivanjem istine koja im omogućuje osvješćivanje i daje priliku za promjene na njihovu životnom putu bez obzira na životnu dob u kojoj ih je taj proces zatekao.
Virginia Woolf i njen feministički manifest Vlastita soba; Vjeran Katunarić i njegovo viđenje nejednakosti muškaraca i žena te put emancipacije žena; feministička teorija o spolnom ugovoru Carole Pateman; Simone De Beauvoir i njeno odvajanje matrijarhata i patrijarhata; iz perspektive teorija Judith Butler i njezina razmišljanja o dihotomijama i performativnosti spola i roda te kognitivističko-kulturalno-fenomenološki elementi kao sredstva u otkrivanju ženske istine i potrage za pjesničkim jezikom u romanima Pokorna žena i Zelene čarape, pridonijelo je da se predmet istraživanja ove radnje razjasni. Razjašnjavanje mehanizma (samo)spoznaje vlastite egzistencije na nekoj slučajnoj točki iskustvenoga životnog pravca provelo se analizom dvaju navedenih romana: pronalaženjem zajedničkih točaka kroz srodnost metafora tradicije, mitova, pjesničkog jezika i prostora te kroz fenomen feminine mystique.
Rad se temelji na hipotezi da je ženska istina, koja stoji kao sinonim za ženski problem kojim se bave feminizmi, univerzalna te da se do nje može doći primjenom različitih znanstvenih spoznaja od kognitivističkih (primjenom metafore) u kojima se pojavljuju temeljna epistemološka i ontološka pitanja vezana uz jezik, značenje i čovjekovo razumijevanje; feminističkih radikalnijih teorija koje propituju značenje patrijarhata i dominacije takva društvenog uređenja na položaj žena; poststrukturalističkih i napokon fenomenoloških teorija. Već spomenuto obrtanje dekartovskog Cogito, ergo sum potvrđuje se jedna od definicija percepcije koju nudi Maurice Merleau-Ponty u svojoj Fenomenologiji percepcije ustvrdivši da je ona pristup istini te da je percepcija prezentacija u kojoj smo istodobno prisutni ja i svijet. Na temelju tih postavki analizira se iskustveno putovanje ženskih likova ka samospoznaji, a taj proces samospoznaje predstavlja sinonim za proces otkrivanja istine pri čemu oba procesa, sagledano kroz prizmu fenomenologije percepcije i fenomena tjelesnosti, doživljavaju vrhunac u trenutku kada shvate da um i tijelo čine jedinstvo sa svijetom koji ih okružuje. Istina dobiva predznak ženske istine samo zato što žene, kao glavni protagonisti analiziranih romana, bivaju opisane upravo u onom životnom trenutku (razvod, nemoć, smrt) kada stižu u slijepu ulicu u kojoj ne postoji izlaz osim kroz suočavanje s činjenicama da istina nije onakva kakvu su naslijedili odgojem i kakvom je društvo predstavlja. Feminine mystique i ženska istina zapravo postaju jedno.
Traganje za istinom izvan okvira nametnutih društvenih normi zapravo je traganje za vlastitim identitetom žena čiji identitet je formiran društvenim utjecajem i naslijeđem majki (jedino naslijeđe koje su žene u predmetnim romanima imale).
Otkrivanjem odnosno pronalazak prisutnosti feminine mystique u stvaralaštvu Julie O'Faolain i Irene Vrkljan stvara se ne samo poveznica između tih dviju književnica kao predstavnica ženskih glasova u borbi protiv društvenih stereotipa pedesetih i šezdesetih godina 20. stoljeća, već se dokazuje da je problem borbe protiv feminine mystique univerzalna borba svih žena – bez obzira na njihovo društveno-političko-geografsko okruženje. Društveno-povijesni okviri odrastanja dviju književnica bili su različiti, ali u njihovu pisanom stvaralaštvu rađaju se ženske junakinje s identičnim problemima – žene koje uvjetovane svojim obiteljskim backgroundom u svojim zrelim godinama bivaju suočene s problemom neimanja vlastitog identiteta. Fenomenološkim pristupom glavnoj problematici radnje naglašava se važnost tijela i njegove uloge u samospoznajnom procesu junakinja. Put od pokornosti do samosvijesti zapravo je iskustveno putovanje na kojem ove žene otkrivaju postojanje fenomena feminine mystique. |
| Abstract (english) | Along with the emergence of feminism as a social movement where women are struggling to better their position in society, the pluralisation of this term took place by giving birth to more theoretical and critical approach to the issue of women position throughout history of mankind, from the beginnings of patriarchal society to the modern era. The feminist ideas and movements, from the beginnings of their appearance, were generally very shocking and ambiguous to the social community, so the society, consequently, exhibited a tendency to mystify the feminist movement and to create numerous and strong prejudice against feminism. When examining the history of feminism (it could be said of feminisms) we first notice the variety of adjectives and prefixes attached to that name but in fact their common universal problems of women's struggles and rebellions are: the struggle against male domination, the struggle against the stereotypes that women are primarily mothers, homemakers and wives and biologically and psychologically not destined for anything other than to perform those tasks that are considered typically female, etc. Self-confident and emancipated women raise their voice and fight for their own economic, political and social independence, and on that path they gradually reveal the reality or the truth about the world around them: world whose hierarchical structure is based on the criterion of male power.
As the essence of the feminist movements that launched not only a change in social status and in a woman's life, but also the need to redefine a woman's thoughts, attitudes and awareness of self and others – i.e. the need for equal and parallel mental and physical rebirth through the release from the previous inherited and mythical generated views and limits - there is a woman's quest for truth through their own experiential way. This concept of female truth will be the engine to the female heroines towards women's self-realization and it will enable finding the way out of illusion and the illusory reality in which they live. In this thesis, this path is identified and analyzed in terms of Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology of perception that will allow the phenomenological detection of female truth. With the help of Merleau-Ponty's analysis of 'cogito' as embodied existence, we used Merleau-Ponty's separation of phenomenology from its transcendental idealist background by placing a man in the world that way I perceived myself. Discovering the truth about the world where the main female characters in the novels The Obedient Wife and Zelene čarape and their experiential journey to self-realization was viewed through the prism of Merleau-Ponty rotation of idealist cogito (the one of Descartes) from I think, therefore I am in I am, therefore I think. Redefining the role of consciousness in existence of the main female characters actually follows a new phenomenological theory of truth - transcendent truth - where the notion of being in the truth allows to existence its openness towards the world.
The term feminine mystique is the product of years of research carried out by journalist Betty Friedan on the position of women in the U.S. in the fifties and sixties. This is a term associated with the generally accepted stereotypes about women of the society in which the male dominance was omnipresent. These stereotypes, in particular, concerning the status of women in the communities where they live, and from these microspaces were identically mapped on the macrospaces or on the entire western society where the woman considers an object. The woman was conditioned by certain social rules, performing duties and responsibilities depending on the day of the week, season and her age. The only forms/patterns that are required to be respected by the women were those imposed by the top of social hierarchy, and it consisted of men. Imposed ideas, beliefs and needs of the time Betty Friedan includes in a unique name Feminine Mystique.
The concept of truth and the phenomenon of feminine mystique are connected in the way of cause and effect - they come from desires and needs of the main female protagonists to be freed form the 'chains' of education and given social framework to be completed only by discovering the truth that allows them to become aware of and it gives them an opportunity to change their way of life regardless of their age.
Virginia Woolf and her feminist manifesto A Room of One's Own; Vjeran Katunarić and his perception of inequality between men and women, and the path of emancipation of women; feminist theories of Carole Pateman’s sexual contract; Simone de Beauvoir and her separation of matriarchy and patriarchy, from the perspective of the theory of Judith Butler and her reflections on dichotomies and performativity of gender and sex and cognitivistic-cultural-phenomenological elements as means of discovering the female truth and the quest for poetic language in the novels The Obedient Wife and Zelene čarape, contributed to clarify the subject of research of this thesis. Clarification of the mechanism of (self-) realization of proper existence at some random point in experiential life path was conducted by an analysis of these two novels: finding common points through the metaphor of kinship traditions, myths, poetic language and space and through the phenomenon of feminine mystique.
This thesis is based on the hypothesis that the female truth, which stands as a synonym for the female issue concerned by feminism, is universal and that it can be reached by applying different scientific knowledge - from the cognitive (using metaphors) in which appear fundamental epistemological and ontological issues related to language, meaning and man's understanding; radical feminist theories which question the meaning of patriarchy and the domination of such a social system on the status of women, and finally the poststructuralist phenomenological theories. Already mentioned reversal of Cartesian Cogito, ergo sum confirms one of the definitions of perception offered by Maurice Merleau-Ponty in his Phenomenology of Perception claiming that it is the access to the truth and that the perception is a presentation in which are simultaneously present me and the world. Based on these assumptions we empirically analyze the experiental journey of female characters toward self-realization, and this process of self-realization is a synonym for the process of discovering the truth where both processes, seen through the prism of the phenomenology of perception and bodily phenomena, reaches its peak when they realize that the mind and body constitute a unity with the world around them. Truth gets the sign of female truth, only because women, as the main protagonists of the novels analyzed, are described at the very moment of life (divorce, disability, death) when they reach an impasse in which there is no way out except through confrontation with the facts that the truth is not the one they had inherited by education or the one it had been presented by the society. Feminine mystique and female truth actually become one.
The search for truth beyond social norms actually imposed the quest for identity of women whose social identity is formed and influenced by maternal inheritance (the only legacy that the women from the novels had).
The discovery or invention of the presence of feminine mystique int he work of Julia O'Faolain and Irena Vrkljan creates not only a link between these two writers as representative of female voices in the fight against social stereotypes of fifties and sixties of the 20th century, but it proves that the problem oft he struggle against feminine mystique is a universal struggle of all women - regardless of their socio-political and geographical environment. The socio-historical framework of growing up of two writers were different, but in their works are born female heroines with identical problems – women who are conditioned by their family backgrounds are faced with the problem of not having their own identity in their mature years. Phenomenological approach of the main problems of the plot emphasizes the importance of the body and its role in the process of self-awareness of heroines. The path from obedience to self-awareness actually is experiential journey in which these women reveal the existence of the phenomenon of feminine mystique. |
