Family and Work

New Patterns for Village Women in Athens

Datos Bibliográficos

ID5836622
AutoresSusan Buck Sutton (autor de correspondencia)
Año1986
Volumen4
Número1
Páginas33-49
Fecha de publicación1986-05-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessNo
TipoARTICLE
RevistaJournal of modern Greek studies (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0738-1727 • E-ISSN: 1086-3265
EditorialProject MUSE (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1353/mgs.2010.0064
OpenAlexW2119782864
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas5
Referencias citadas9

Recent inquiries into the position of Greek village women have revealed surprising complexities. The low levels of community power and restrictions on public appearances so obviously experienced by these women contrast with unexpectedly strong roles in familial decision-making, religious activities, and farming (Friedl, Position; Forbes; Macrakis and Allen). Such findings have rendered simpler assumptions concerning Greek women's roles obsolete and called for closer scrutiny of how their activities relate to the various circumstances in which they find themselves. This essay attempts such an investigation by exploring what happens to female work roles as village women move into Athens. The conclusion is reached that the economic structures found in that city, especially those which place much work in a non-familial setting, reverse major aspects of the village pattern. In this reversal, the manner in which migrant women advance the familial economy changes significantly. While village women generally labor beside their husbands throughout their lives, migrant women do not. Instead, they make major financial contributions to their families through their dowries and thereafter serve largely in supportive roles for spouses and children. Indeed, while generally working for wages before marriage, migrant women then devote themselves more exclusively to house, child and spouse care than do their rural counterparts. In such respects these Greek migrants are not unlike many middle class women throughout the world. During the last 150 years the housewife role has gained importance in those nations where work has become capitalized and industrialized. This situation creates a tension between home and job that encourages restriction of female activity to the former, a process sometimes called marginalization because women come to occupy a more peripheral economic position than before (Rohrlich-Leavitt, Conclusions 620). Although varying in their data base, theoretical orientation, and comprehensive

Gender, Labor, and Family Dynamics · Housing, Finance, and Neoliberalism · Migration, Ethnicity, and Economy