چكيده لاتين :
Tehranian women performed in their private gatherings without men's presence. It seems that these performances were the manifestations their temporary dreams since their life conditions were much influenced by the culture of the society in which their freedom and power were threatened, and consequently their dreams were limited. In such situations, women's activities were done in hidden, away from the society's control. This raises a question: What is the relationship of these ritualistic performances and the women's dreams on the one hand, and what is its relationship with their condition as a second sex? The research method is document analysis and field study. 27 Tehranian women between 60 to 70 years old were selected and their memories were recorded. There were some interviews regarding their narrations of these rituals; however, the main data consisted of the documents analyzed. The data analysis was through thematic analysis. Firstly, Turner's symbolic anthropology and Schechner's performance theory were employed for analyzing the ritualistic performances, and then Gluckman's theory of reversed customs was used to investigate the paradoxes within the elements of the performances. The findings shows women's dreams of having a safer environment and more power like men to establish security for themselves.
Introduction
Humans have always needed to express their thoughts to meet their needs. One of these ways is performance. Women's have had the chance to do this in their private gatherings, away from their husbands to have fun (Boloukbashi, 1965, p. 34). Although in 1970s and 1980s most of these performances could not be played and remained in memories, one can find traces of these feminine performances such as "Dear Aunt Ophelia", "Ali, the Mender of Porcelain", "Ant Keeper", "Whose Garden Did You Go Last Night", and "Uncle, the Vegetable Seller".
The oppressed desire of women to perform and men's dominance led women to act in their private gatherings. Therefore, they tried to have an artistic play for each other so that they can find themselves in their feminine setting (Gashtasb, 2019, p. 92). The plays which were performed in the private settings were "firstly as short stories and took the form of a play through employing folk literature as happy feminine plays" (Boloukbashi, 1965, p. 26).
Background
Based on the evidence, feminine plays were common since royal periods in Iran. They found their places in the life of the aristocrat classes and then moved to the general public. There is evidence on pottery and steel tools dating the plays back to the pre-Islamic periods when there were rituals of dance and music (Gashtasb, 2019, p. 93). However, all of these gradually diminished after the emergence of Islamic, though there were some public female musicians in Safavid era who played in private female gatherings and danced as well (Naserbakht, 2009, p. 23). In late Safavid era, women had fewer roles … but in Qajar era, these performances became common in private settings in that if women needed help for music, they asked men to play but closed their eyes to follow Islamic rules. "Musical performances were common in private female gatherings until the late Pahlavi government and there were some happy performances within the celebrations (Gashtasb, 2019, p. 98). The most popular ones are analyzed in this paper.
Analysis
Considering Schechner's theory, female plays are ritualistic and the data analysis is done through thematic analysis. Firstly, Turner's symbolic anthrophony and Schechner's performance theory were employed. Then, to analyze the data and extract the paradoxes among the roles in the plays, Gluckman's theory of reversed customs was considered.
Aunt RoRo, Dear Aunt Ophelia, and Ali, the Mender of Porcelain
In these plays, women are destroying something in a few hours, and manipulating the rules of the society. 1. Descriptive order: in social life which means the roles and their hierarchy among men and women of different social groups, 2. Affirmative order: the moral and ethical system which determines the descriptive order and defines and constructs it as what is and what should be, criticizing and negating the order. It also focuses on the roles within the system. In the first three narratives, the topic is about virginity, which was an advantage for a girl in the traditional society. A girl's virginity could be lost accidently and this could result in her bad fortune. However, in the plays virginity is satirized. It is, then, negated through a reversed construction of the subject matter.
Ant Keeper, Whose Garden Did You Go Last Night, Uncle the Vegetable Seller
In plays, the structure of the society is reversed, and the paradoxes of the roles are manifested. The woman acts differently in such depictions of the world. She moves out of her common role and shows her body. This changes happen at two levels: 1. a woman becomes masculine, 2. she loses her shyness and shame. In another narrative, she asks for help from the sellers of the neighborhood through her beauty and kindness, but without doing any dirty work. She is, even, using the chances her religion has given her, chances which are never officially recognized, to have temporary marriage with other men and earn money. In another narrative, she chooses different partners. In the last narrative, she takes an active role.
Conclusion
The findings show that women were looking for a more secure environment and power status as that of men. Despite the fact that the stories seem to be a simple comic, they manifest deep-seated concerns regarding women's status in the society. It could not be said that, though, they are merely symbolic depiction of their concerns, but there are some suggested resolutions while raising the issues. The stories are a mechanism to put forth a symbolic construction of the female world. In other words, they indicate that women should not leave their agency and they need to find themselves through their femininity. They might be considered immoral, but the stories are a reminder for them to highlight their feminine agency and practicality. These aspects could be investigated in other rituals in the future studies as well.
