A critique of age perspective

 

The postmodern critique points not only to the process making of black people “the other”, but directs researchers to analyse sensitively the making of the marginalised “other” through various processes[212]. Similarly, there are critics of age perspective as well; in particular Sinikka Vakimo has criticised especially “the age paradigm” in the study of culture in her dissertation[213], where she examined the cultural concepts of old women and their everyday practices. By “age paradigm” she refers to conventions of research practices according to which old people and especially old women are continuously considered as the other: they are regarded as deteriorating and living in the past. Moreover our disciplines construct old people as mechanical containers or carriers of old folklore that goes back to their childhood or, if we are lucky, even further back in history, rather than as people producing their own, independent and creative culture and traditions.

Thus old women are objects of the double standard of ageing, viz., a multiple marginalisation and being ignored both on the level of everyday life and in the world of research. Vakimo argues, after interpreting various cultural texts (such as the Kalevala, sexual anecdotes, newspapers, TV-adverts) that modern cultural representations tend to “grannify” (mummotella) old women in order to create a humourous climate of expression by depicting old women as ridiculous, useless, good-for-nothing persons, who are old-fashioned and unable to use modern technology[214]. Such views approach those associated with the old woman, the traditional midwife and granny, in Russia and Russian Karelian culture[215], suggesting that cultural attitudes linked to the otherness of the character are about the same.

In part the critique of the age paradigm promulgated by Vakimo fits with gender studies in general, because it has so far ignored the meanings of age when theorising and studying aspects of gender and gender orders, even though it has recently been sensitive to other aspects of “difference” like sexuality, class, ethnicity etc. On the other hand, age- and gender-sensitive research has a relatively long tradition in Finnish folkloristics, but only when discussing youth culture. Often this gender-specific youth research has adopted anthropological field methods and approaches and observed the “unknown” culture and interpreted it from the perspective of girls, and in the context of gender orders of (post)modern consumer culture. The examination of the practice of calling a girl a whore in contemporary school culture by Helena Saarikoski[216] well illustrates this direction. It achieved great publicity in Finland as the first analysis of social and cultural conditions where girls are compelled to grow up as women. Young girls have to learn to fulfil the demands of womanhood, and hence to fight against the reputation of the archetypical “bad woman”. The ways of controlling girls’ behaviour were various: verbal bullying, gossipping, stamping of special clothes or ways of dancing as a mark of the whore etc. As research material Saarikoski collected descriptions and letters written by schoolgirls or adult women who had experienced bullying in their youth, and interviews of mainly contemporary girls. The stories told to her were impressive, not to say shocking (Saarikoski 2001, see forthcoming).

Postmodern consumer culture is also the frame of interpretation of Anna Anttila’s exploration[217] of the public sexualisation of girls’ bodies and its impact on girls’ experiences and attitudes towards sexuality. She has in addition investigated the dating culture of young girls and their plays of foretelling the future[218]. Furthermore, changing children’s traditions and the meanings of girls’ clapping games are analysed by Ulla Lipponen[219]. The themes of collective youth culture, of dating and courting and constructing gender identity, are tackled by Kirsti Salmi-Niklander in her dissertation[220]. She explored the working-class youth in a small industrial community and focused on the interplay between orality and literacy through analysis of handwritten newspapers produced by local youth[221].

Aspects of the whole course of life and ethnicity is the focus of Airi Markkanen’s (2003) dissertation[222], where she analyses the construction of the life course of gypsy women in eastern Finland in the nineteenth century. The women discussed and interviewed lived in a patriarchal minority culture and as a marginalised group in Finland, yet Markkanen interpreted the women’s narratives as illustrating a sense of strength and self-esteem rather than feelings of being subordinated. Women interviewed felt that the everyday life in a Romany family and the caring of children and other family members and relatives was managed by adult women, and for this reason they felt a sense of continuity and safety[223].