Game of gender: rethinking archetype theory in light of case studies on intercultural comunication in educational space

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State Biotechnological University

GAME OF GENDER: RETHINKING ARCHETYPE THEORY IN LIGHT OF CASE STUDIES ON INTERCULTURAL COMUNICATION IN EDUCATIONAL SPACE

Garnyk Liudmyla Petrivna PhD (Political Science), Postdoctoral Student,

Master of Psychology, Expert of International Relations Department,

Snihurova Irina Ivanivna philologist, teacher of Ukrainian language and

philological disciplines, candidate of UNESCO and Social Protection Department

Kharkiv

Abstract

communication gender stereotype competence

Article provides observe of classical theories of gender and archetypal analysis, as like as author's attempt to apply Jungian classical theory for discovering reasons and preconditions for forming different gender stereotypes and preconceptions relevant to competence level, empathy and level of pedagogical skills within scope of cross-cultural communication discourse. In the article is also discussed Edward W. Said's concept of “Orientalism” and oriental discourse formation on base of colonial and postcolonial narratives and issues related with gender and coherent with them archetypes. Philosophic anthropological analysis and psychological methodics that were used in research, allow us to discover in historical perspective trends and triggers for changing traditional stereotypes on distribution of gender roles in Western and Middle Eastern societies.

Usually notions of gender and sex in traditional societies fix normative imagination and stereotypes coherent with social roles and hierarchy, jobs and allowed forms of religious, political, economical and social activity and taboos for male and female. Social and gender roles on practice are flexible and in the most cases depended on conflicts and related with them inevitable social changes. Numerous psychological theories based on multiplicity of worldviews and cultural backgrounds, that is why they try from different viewpoints to describe why people who belong to traditional societies in different ways recognize their gender and social identity. Thus, concept of gender identity and caused by it changes in social roles performance we have proposed to study as social and psychological categories without focusing on just biological background of this issue. We also used in our research main ideas of Gilbert Durand's “Imaginer” as theoretical framework for interpretation dynamics of archetypes changing in traditional societies and postmodern communities of Middle East and Europe.

Keywords: gender roles, “Imaginer”, traditional societies, social perception, pedagogical skills, cross-cultural studies.

Анотація

Гарник Людмила Петрівна кандидат політичних наук, економіст - міжнародник, перекладач, магістр психології, Почесний професор і дослідник Міжнародного інституту миру та релігій (Іран), докторант, експерт відділу міжнародних зв'язків, Державний біотехнологічний університет (Україна), м. Харків

Снігурова Ірина Іванівна філолог, викладач української мови та філологічних дисциплін, здобувач кафедри ЮНЕСКО та соціального захисту, Державний біотехнологічний університет (Україна), м. Харків

ГРА ГЕНДЕРУ: ПЕРЕОСМИСЛЕННЯ ТЕОРІЇ АРХЕТИПУ В СВІТЛІ КЕЙСІВ МІЖКУЛЬТУРНОЇ КОМУНІКАЦІЇ В ОСВІТНЬОМУ ПРОСТОРІ

У статті представлено огляд класичних теорій гендеру й архетипного аналізу, а також авторські спроби залучити юнгіанську класичну теорію для виявлення причин і передумов формування гендерних стереотипів та упереджень щодо компетентності, емпатії та рівня педагогічної майстерності у розрізі дискурсу міжкультурного спілкування. У статті також обговорюється концепція “Орієнталізму” Едварда В. Саїда та формування східного дискурсу на основі колоніальних і постколоніальних студій, питань із проблематики гендеру, а також пов'язаними з ним архетипами. Філософсько-антропологічний аналіз і психологічна методологія, які були використані в дослідженні, дозволяють нам виявити в історичній перспективі тенденції та тригери, які призводять до зміни традиційних стереотипів щодо розподілу гендерних ролей у західних та східних суспільствах.

Зазвичай уявлення про гендер і стать у традиційних суспільствах фіксують нормативну уяву та стереотипи, узгоджені із соціальними ролями й ієрархією, професіями та незабороненими формами релігійної, політичної, соціально - економічної діяльності й табу для чоловіків і жінок. Соціальні та гендерні ролі на практиці є гнучкими й у більшості випадків залежать від конфліктів і пов'язаних із ними неминучих соціальних змін. Численні психологічні теорії несуть у собі відбиток різноманіття світоглядів і культурних традицій, через що вони намагаються з різних точок зору визначити, чому люди, які належать до традиційних суспільств, мають різне ставлення до питання визначення статі й соціальної ідентичності. Тому концепцію тендерної ідентичності та спричинену нею зміну соціальних ролей ми вбачаємо за доцільне розглядати як соціально - психологічні категорії, не зосереджуючись лише на біологічному аспекті зазначеного питання. У нашому дослідженні було використано основні елементи ідеї «Імаджинер» Жільбера Дюрана як теоретичну основу для інтерпретації динаміки зміни архетипів у традиційних суспільствах і постмодерних спільнотах Близького Сходу та Європи.

Ключові слова: гендерні ролі, «Імаджинер», традиційні суспільства, соціальне сприйняття, педагогічна майстерність, міжкультурні дослідження.

Formulation of the problem

Social perception, its gender aspects and their historical implementation within Western and Oriental societies are core elements of cross-cultural communications, public administration phenomena and providing educational services for foreigners. According to popular today notion, each of mentioned above domains represents itself as multidimensional element of cognitive knowledge, thus it can be it also can be described as brain-child of social sciences (especially philosophy, psychology, management etc.). But most core elements of public administration or educational management are borrowed from philosophy and psychology - as like as: subject conceptualization, creation, deployment, contextualization, implementation and managerial strategies and tactics focused on its utility, validity and coherence with decision-making process in general and leadership as its practical and applied key element.

Taking into consideration that leadership can be described as process of interaction, when individuals exert efforts to manage and control behavior of others towards particular end, we can underline that its social and psychological factors are greatly influenced on leadership styles of decision-makers. Such notion illustrates to us social and psychological sense of public interests implemented into wide range of ethical commitments sometimes contradicting with pragmatic nature of Western public administration theory where aspect of gender plays nowadays initial role. Traditionally human factor was observed as the central concept of public administration, so why we propose to study it by means of classical archetypal analysis described in works of Karl Gustav Jung and his followers [17]. Also we have used in our research comparative analysis and philosophic anthropology methods to analyze nature and preconditions of reason why social perception of gender has initial differences in Western and Oriental societal discourses [16].

Hypothesis of our research is based on assumption that fixed social and gender roles within society is precondition for its conservative but rigid development, when flexibility of mentioned factors becomes a key reason for fast, innovative, but always unpredictable and usually affected by negative aspects like sexism, attitude to the third gender, etc. Nature of communicative style is caused by self identity in field of physiology (sex), social hierarchy (gender) and social role (leader, follower, passive marginal, etc) we propose to discuss and analyze through prism of archetype theory within its historical and social-philosophic perspective taking into consideration achievements of leading scholars.

Analysis of recent research and publications

Despite inevitable progress in societal changes, classical archetypal theory of K. Jung today confirms its validity on practice and coherence with issues of gender leadership, because even archetypes of masculine always apply to other half of human nature - women's ones (anima and animus). For example Thomas Moore and his colleague Douglas Gillette [14] have extended K. Jung's notion of masculine psyche by using collective male archetypes (King, Warrior, Magician, Lover) through female clusters of virtues and attributes of major female archetypes (Queen, Mother, Wise Woman, Female Lover) those we can find in ancient myths and world history. Also popular is work of Jean Shinoda Bolen, follower of Jungian theory has described in her book “Goddesses in Every Woman: A New Psychology of Woman” [3], seven general archetypes based on Greek mythology: each goddess is primordial image of women's personality (Hestia, Athena, Demeter, Aphrodite, Hera, Artemis and Persephone). Other scholars, like Jennifer Baker [7] and Roger J. Woolger [19], proposed to use only six archetypes represented by ancient goddesses (excluded Hestia), when follower of Carl Jung, Toni Wolf, has identified only four feminine archetypes: Mother, Amazon, Hetaira, and Medea.

Today many of feminist scholars have criticized T. Wolff's model for its male - centered quadruple instead of providing male-female archetype symmetry. This case is the most evident in definition of Amazon, who represents more female features in contact with her Animus, when semi-divine Queen has missed mentioned features and even Hetaira can't symbolize archetype of Female Lover. Wife of K. G. Jung, Emma, has wrote two works about Animus and Anima, where were described two functional complexes based on symmetry of personality components of opposite sex and, at the same time, images of opposite sex [17]. By their nature, Animus and Anima symbolized basic masculinity and femininity elements in general. Emma Jung in her works has provided for us various narratives about animal or mixed human-animal semi-goddess motives like swan-maiden mentioned in Edda [9, p. 269]. Here she has based on works of her husband, where male archetypes are coherent with meaning of female archetypes.

Changing nature of human history as such as processes of gender stereotypes breaking within traditional Oriental and modernized Western societies usually are based on historical precedents. Flexibility of Anima-Animus key elements in personality and decision-making process we can find in works of Sandra Bem [2]. But considering on controversial nature of gender as societal category, we can say that sex can be identified as male or female according to physiological characteristics, when gender is a category that forming as social and mental self identity in mind of each person despite of her/his religion, origin, income level, race or nationality. In other words gender is related only with imagination and affected or limited by stereotypes those we can meet today in each community. For discovering this aspect we have used the main ideas of Gilbert Durand's “Imaginer” [5] as theoretical framework for interpretation the dynamics of archetypes changing in modem (Western) and traditional (Oriental) societies.

Purpose of the research

Our research focuses on analyzing and redesigning existing conceptual frameworks of gender self identity in the field of leadership and public administration philosophy. Archetypal classical approach together with “Imaginer” allows us to determine flexible nature of social gender within Western and Oriental societies in the context of cross-cultural communication in educational space.

Presentation of main research results

In the early 1970s when feminist theory began represent gender as social identity, which is constructed, implemented and perpetuated by social institutions rather than being like something opposite to human's nature. Most of gender studies as other social theories are not focused on creation in alienation but rather as constructive and alternative to feminist theory. Among mentioned scholars was Kate Millett, who has argued that: “Female is born, but woman was created” [13]. Her idea was based on argument that sex can be biologically determinate when gender has more sophisticated nature then only social context. Other scholars argue that if sex is fixed, gender is a moldable and argumentative entity. Thus, there are existed differences between sex and gender. Gender hasn't any impact in shaping individual's identity, when some of feminist theories used essentialist concept of classical humanism as like as it was debate on social constructivism.

Analyzing gender critics turned essentialism head around we can underline, that selfhood (or identity) can't be predicted, because it has subjective character: identities undergo a continuous process of changes - there existed binary contradiction that highlights nature of unstable relationship in frameworks of man/woman, male/female and masculine/feminine gender equations. Concept of gender discourse in the Middle Eastern region was late in coming: even towards the end of 20^th century under the influence of globalization masculine/feminine and gender studies didn't get needed attention of scholars and governmental support. History issues, literature and narratives can demonstrate us more than just imitation of colonial culture. Most of woman-centric literature was written in male-dominated society. So why analysis of male-female dialectics and its discourse are based on works of Robin Lakaff [11] or Barry Thorne and Nancy Henley [18]. Later when feminist movements became popular within oriental communities among educated middle class and aristocratic circles, the question about difference between biological “sex” and socio-cultural “gender” constructs gets more controversial and conceptual character.

Famous researcher in area of feminine archetypes, Annis V. Pratt, also known as “leading feminist archetypal literary theorist”, has analyzed Karl Jung's work on archetypes and defined some sophisticated aspects of his theory in her works [15]. For example, in Jungian association of emotion and logic with woman and logical rationality with man, both of them were put in similar dichotomy: man and woman unite like opposites that if activated, degenerate into deep hostility. Such primordial pair symbolizes every conceivable pair of opposites that may occur: hot /cold, light /dark, north /south, dry /damp, good /bad, conscious /unconscious. But Karl Jung underlined that it is an elementary fact that a man always presupposes another and psychology as being identical with his own aggravates he faces with difficulties and hinders the correct understanding of the feminine psyche. Karl Jung even himself has faced with difficulties when he tried to analyze women's dreams as if they were identical in configuration to men's ones (See Figure 1).

Fig. 1 Archetypes and their constellation

Follower of Jungian tradition, professor G. Durand, has proposed the concept of “Imaginer” as implementation for logical description of imaginary things such as will, mind, patterns of human's behavior. Jungian psychoanalysis tries to summarize archetypal patterns derived from male experience are applicable to women's as well as a consequence, female archetypes are interpreted according to male patterns. These patterns allow to eclipse women's experience altogether. Feminine factors can be reduced to attributes of masculine personality rather than they can be detected as archetypes driving from women's experience that are background of power for the self (super ego) (See Figure 2).

we can apply to Sandra Bern's gender schema theory - cognitive theory that explains how individuals detect their gender in society and how sex-related characteristics are adopted and transmitted to other members within society and culture.

Fig. 2 Classical archetypes of gender leadership and Imaginer's regimes Thus, we can describe this situation as diapason between masculine mature (traditional masculine) and immature (traditional feminine) archetypes and multiplicity of their combinations within one personality. Describing gender leadership we also have to use our imagination and logics as instruments for its analysis and evaluation. In this case

Usually people who have strong gender schemata become filters through which we process incoming stimuli in the environment of our personality [10, p. 130]. That is why associated with gender information usually is reinterpreted by society in the prism of schemata, or networks of information that allow for some information to be more easily assimilated than others. According to the theory of Sandra Bem, there are individual differences in the degree to which people hold these gender schemata (see Figure 3).

Mentioned differences can be identified by degree to which individuals are sex- typed. Anyway gender schemata theory provides to us conceptual frameworks for help to explaine some algorithms by which gender stereotypes are psychologically ingrained in behavior patterns and retranslated on social life and historical memory or symbols within different societies [8].

Fig. 3 Spheres of human being and gender

Key point of Sandra Bern's theory is the notion that associated with gender information usually can be predominantly transmuted through society by schemata or informational networks that allows for some information to be more easily assimilated than other ones. Professor S. Bem bases on the idea that we can find a variety of individual differences and evaluate in scope in which each person holds gender schemata.

And these differences indicate by its degree to which sex-type belong each individual. Thus this theory describes only peculiarities of social process but not its content (see table 1).

Table 1

Gender schemata theory of Sandra Bem