Représentation mythique du monde et domination masculine chez les Pomaques grecs

Abstract

Mythical Representation of the World and Male Domination among the Pomaks of Greece. The present article is a paradigmatic case-study which breaks with the structuralist approach to the System of mythico-ritual oppositions. Instead it systematically shows, perhaps for the first time, that this mythical representation of the world which informs ail practices helps found, legitimize and reproduce the relations of domination and exploitation between the genders. Because they are catalogued on the side of fertility, the inside, all that is curved and low, Pomak women perform all of the domestic tasks, the bulk of productive tasks and, among these, the dirtiest, most monotonous and in a general fashion, the hardest jobs. The contribution of mythical taxonomy to male domination is all the greater because it appears to be relatively independent from the relations of domination it founds. Indeed, it is necessary for certain oppositions to be socially neutral (such as that between wet and dry) in order for the sexual division of labor to appear to be bound up with the very nature of each of the genders and in order for the legitimizing function of the myth System as a whole to remain occulted. But the capacity of this System to establish the ideological conditions necessary to maintain the relations of power between the sexes also stems from the fact that, because it underpins these practices, it tends to produce a continual stream of proofs of its veracity. In a sort of vicious circle, it is legitimized by the practices which it in turn legitimizes. The sexual division of labor founded by this mythical thinking tends to develop, in both genders, capacities and incapacities which produce the illusion of the natural and justified character of these oppositions. Each gender therefore contributes, through its behavior, to the reproduction of the symbolic relations of power between the sexes and ultimately of the social order itself. Following the same line of reasoning, the multitude of prohibitions restricting women's liberty multiplies the opportunities to violate them. Like faked evidence, these violations are constant proof of women's evil nature and justify the System of taboos as a whole. By confining women to a circumscribed space, by excluding them from schools and movie houses, and by separating them from money, the mythical taxonomy is at the origin of their total dependence on men. It deprives them of the intellectual tools and the material means for liberating themselves. Unlike the structuralist approach, this analysis shows how women contrive to circumvent the position they occupy in the mythical representation of the world. Society's receptivity to the outside is reflected by the transfer of the content of certain mythical oppositions and an increased devaluation of women, such that relations of domination tend to be reproduced through changes which at the same time create the conditions in which those who are dominated may become aware of their exploitation.