Rada Ivekovics & Julie Mostov (eds.) (2002) From Gender to Nation.(Recent Books)(Book Review)

Rada Ivekovics & Julie Mostov (eds.) (2002) From Gender to Nation. Ravenna: Longo Editore Ravenna, 2002, 224 pp. ISBN No: 88-8063-341-4.

Although there is an extensive literature on nationalism, there is very little discussion regarding the relations between gender and nationalism. Most of the texts on nationalism ignore women and do not regard gender as a relevant issue in relation to the study of nationalism. In this respect, it could be said that women and gender remain invisible in terms of definitions for nationhood and in discussions of state and nationalism.

Since the mid-1980's feminist scholars have sought to remedy this neglect by demonstrating that gender is central to the project of national identity. Feminist research has steadily revealed that men and women participate differently in the national project. Scholars began analyzing both men's and women's relationship with reference to nation building and attempted to explore how the national community was imagined and legitimated according to the gendered metaphors of reproduction and the ways that nationalist politics have been structured with reference to gender.

From Gender to Nation, edited by Rada Ivekovic and Julie Mostov, is a very important work elaborating the gendered nature of nationalism. It is an important study composed of many intelligent articles that make a contribution to feminist knowledge and theory regarding how women in different cultural contexts have engaged with nationalism. The editors of the book argue that nationalism and gender are historically interrelated and if patriarchy is maintained through nation building, the problem of patriarchy cannot be solved without undermining the constitution of the nation. In other words, maintaining the patriarchy is not only the willful activity of (some) men but also the fruit of a larger system of hierarchies which uses the subordination of women to men as its cornerstone. In this respect, a gender sensitive analysis of the mechanism of nation and state building is also an analysis of the mechanism of patriarchy.

The essays in the volume consider the importance of nationalism and gender in the context of post-1989 transitions in the former Soviet Union and Yugoslavia and in the context of post-partition India. The texts offer different critiques of the naturalization and essentialization of the nation and woman and analyse the uses of sexualized/gendered imagery in defining the space of the nation and sexualized/ gendered metaphors of state fatherhood and motherhood in defining the distribution of power within that space. The various case studies offer many ...