The phase of searching for gender

 

As pointed out earlier, women were not wholly invisible in folklore studies. The early collectors and classifiers of folklore, as well as ethnographers who described folk life, made the first cautious observations of women vis-a-vis tradition. They noted that women were sometimes the maintainers of habits and traditions which men seldom performed, like for example ritual laments, lyric songs, and wedding songs. Unfortunately, these observations did not greatly influence the analysis and interpretation of folklore, and in any case masculine traditions dominated the field of study: it was taken for granted that these represented the legitimate focus of interest and should be collected and studied[158].

Women’s folklore and its study were often marginalised, a process which is analysed by Senni Timonen in an interesting manner in her dissertation on Kalevala-metre folk lyric[159]. She points out that all early researchers from Elias Lönnrot and H. G. Porthan on considered Kalevala-metre lyric as a female genre, even though it was also performed by men. According to Timonen, the link between lyric and femaleness was constructed on the basis of the subjective and poetic expression of emotions characteristic of folk lyric, especially when the poem depicted emotions of suffering and sorrow. Having come to be regarded as essentially feminine, poetry which manifested feelings was marginalised as an object of collection and study[160]. 

The tendency to marginalise traditions considered feminine emerges clearly when we consider the general attitudes toward gendered traditions as manifested in their social use. For instance, the Kalevala, compiled by Elias Lönnrot from epic folk poetry[161], which was regarded as masculine, was raised to the status of national epic in Finland and was put to use as a symbol of a young nation trying to gain its independence. In contrast, the second important compilation by Lönnrot, the Kanteletar, which is a collection of lyric folk poetry considered as feminine, almost fell into oblivion in a society given over to the masculine ideology of nationalism[162].

Subsequently, the female characters represented in folklore and especially in the Kalevala were examined and interpreted at the turn of the twentieth century in a nationalist light[163]. The new nation was in its early stages and sought to create for itself a heroic past, and at the same time to produce good models of citizenship for the future. For this the female characters of the Kalevala were esteemed, for example as mothers fulfilling their reproductive duties and raising new generations for the newborn nation state. Also, many women’s civil societies were founded, some of them aimed at female emancipation and the improvement of women’s status in society, while others emphasised the value of educating agrarian women as competent citizens for the new state[164]. An association aiming to discuss female characters in “the spirit of Kalevala”, Kalevalaisten naisten liitto (the Kalevala Women’s Association) was founded later, in 1935. The organisers of the association were upper-class women who took part in public discussions about women’s roles and status in society[165].

Elsa Enäjärvi-Haavio (1901–51) acted as a chairperson of the Kalevala Women’s Association for a short period, but she is principally remembered as the first woman in Finland to attain a doctoral degree in folkloristics, in 1932. In addition she was appointed as docent in the University of Helsinki in 1947, and is thus regarded as a pioneer in gender studies in folkloristics. In fact she was important not only as a female academic who functioned in the then male sphere of the university, but also because of her achievements in the field of folklore research, for she was the first to take women’s folklore seriously. Although her research methodology reflected the then prevalent “historic geographical method” (or “the Finnish method”)[166], the themes and subjects she brought into her field of research were radically new in folkloristics: the study of children’s games, various ways of performing folklore and folk poetry, lyrical folk poetry and the legend songs sung by women. On the other hand her topics come close to those studied by early American female scholars, defined by Claire Farrer as “subjects limited to natural phenomena, games, or things associated with home”[167], but on the other hand they addressed women’s public spheres and culture as well.

It is thus evident that Enäjärvi-Haavio would have gone on to greater achievements as a pioneer in women’s studies if cancer had not cut short her life and career. After her, the field of gender studies in folkloristics remained relatively quiet for more than twenty years.