Sara Tiro and Emina Skrijelj received a grant funded by the European Union and the Goethe-Institut for literary research on the topic "To be a woman is to perform", and spent the last 11 days in Amsterdam at the Atria kennisinstituut voor emancipatie en vrouwengeschiedenis, where they researched this gender oriented topic in detail.
Emina Škrijelj and Sara Tiro
What inspired you to choose the topic "To be a woman is to perform," and what questions did you aim to address in your research?
Sara:
We noticed that every woman around us acts differently based on the group of people she is talking to. Not to mention that everything a woman does gets criticised, therefore she needs to be careful, put on a mask to avoid such comments. She needs to “perform”.
We aimed to address why are women always nit picked? Why can’t they just be themselves? Why does every accomplishment need to be so hard to achieve? Why do they have to choose when to be feminine and when to be masculine?
Archive material
Can you elaborate on the specific literature or case studies you found in Amsterdam?
Emina: We found a book called “Rebel women” written by Rosalind Miles. The book is about women who paved the way in order for us to have it easier. For example there was this one chapter about women in science, our first thought was “why aren’t these women more famous?” and upon finishing the chapter our second thought was “performance became second nature to these women”. Since they were scientists in the 19th and 20th century they had to find loopholes in order to learn and explore. They realised that they can’t just be scientist like men were. They had to be mothers, wives and scientists, or have a man who supported their ambitions. Some even dressed like men to be taken seriously. Some were denied education despite being highly intelligent. None of them had a chance to avoid fulfilling the role society expected them to. As humans we all know it all comes down to money. These women were not financially stable and were forced to do it all.
Emina Škrijelj
Performance is an art of movement, so how did you shape the meaning of ‘performance’ in you essays?
Sara:
Upon reading about women’s lives and their passions we discovered that for us, performance is not just stepping on the stage singing, dancing or acting it is all of the above and much more. Women need to grow into the role of being a woman, which has certain standards and expectations. They never stop performing, whether we are 5, 16, 25 or 65 we all put on the lipstick in the same way our mothers taught us. In the same sense we act in the world. In our essays we wrote about women performing for themselves, the men, the public. It was the way Marilyn talked and looked at people that made everybody swoon. It is the way women made art (sewing dresses, painting, writing novels, etc) that made other women feel inspired. It is the way they protested that set our standards so high. And the way they learned, fought through life, broke stereotypes that inspired us to look at performance through a different lense.
What were some of the most surprising insights or challenges you encountered?
Emina: Since the topic is so wide, the biggest challenge was where to begin and when to stop. We could’ve stayed at Atria for a month straight since we were so inspired by the lives these women led. The beginning was the hardest, so we chose to start with our favourite girl and the woman who had the performance of a lifetime Marilyn Monroe.
The most surprising insight was how hard it was being a woman at the time, but at the same time how beautiful it was, and is being a woman. The hard part was being housebound, not being able to work, how much is our existance reduced to being a mother, how much we still have to fight. But the beauty part… after looking through “The Gracious” magazine we realised that more than a 100 years ago these women were just like us. They liked fashion and make-up. We noticed that sisterhood always existed and that is why women persevered for so long.
How did your experiences in Amsterdam inform your perspective on women’s status in society, both historically and contemporary?
Sara:
We realised that even though a lot of the things are not the same as they were 70 years ago, most of it is still there more than a 100 years later. We know that women had no right to vote, to get an education or to earn a living but they also had to fill in the shoes that were waiting for them at the doorstep as soon as they are born. Now, in most countries women can do all the things they couldn’t before, we gained our basic rights. But, the shoes we are expected to fill are still waiting at our doorstep and we need to put them on anytime we leave the house. The expectation of being a perfect housewife did not change. Nor did the ads whose main target are women. We are still being advertised beauty products by exploiting our insecurities. We saw this in the “Companion” magazine that was issued in 1955. Commercials like “To get smoother skin use this cream” or “Having issues with annoying friz? Try this shampoo” are the same in 1955 and 2024. It seems like society still thinks that women only care about their looks, and they push the narrative that we should care about our looks that much.
Sara Tiro
What activities or interactions during your stay in Amsterdam had the most impact on your research, and why?
Emina: One of our walks through Amsterdam actually inspired one of the essays. Walking through the Red District we came to a conclusion that the women behind the window shops were the ultimate performers. They were strictly told and thought to put on a show. It didn’t matter what time of the day it was, they were there, calling and seducing strangers in order to “conclude buisness”. We got curious and did a little bit of research on the history of prostitution, and later came to a conclusion that nothing changed in that profession, ever.
Another thing that impacted us was the fact that most of the people on the street were not interested customers, but tourists. The women are being put behind the glass door to perform for us as if we are in the circus. And that is what inspired the essay “Prostitution, crime or satisfaction?”
Find the publication “To be a woman is to perform” on the official website of ATRIA as well as academia.edu.
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