Fathers in Recent Basque Literature: Representations of Ageing Masculinities by Female Writers

Abstract

This article explores how the intersection of fatherhood, age and alternative models of masculinity (alongside the traumatic impact of violence), features prominently in the narratives of recent Basque women writers. While Edurne Portela’s Mejor la ausencia (2017) portrays the traditional hegemonic image of fatherhood, Luisa Etxenike’s Absoluta presencia (2018) and Aves del paraíso (2019) create a new understanding of the role and identity of fathers, marked by the impact of ETA’s deleterious violence. Male subjectivity in these works is elaborated in patterns of affective landscapes that reject traditional Basque hegemonic masculinity and interrogate marking constituents of fatherhood.

Key Words:

• Fatherhood
• Hegemonic masculinity
• Ageing
• Basque literature
• Female writers
• Terrorist violence
• Edurne Portela
• Luisa Etxenike

Notes

1 See María Jesús Pando-Canteli & María Pilar Rodríguez, ‘ “Menvertising” and the Resistances to New Masculinities’, in Audiovisual Representations, International Journal of Communication, 15 (2021), 493–513 (pp. 496–97); <https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/viewFile/14912/3335> (accessed 25 March 2022), for a more detailed explanation of the concept of hegemonic masculinity.

2 R. W. Connell, Masculinities (Berkeley/Los Angeles: Univ. of California Press, 1995), 77.

3 Terry A. Kupers, ‘Toxic Masculinity As a Barrier to Mental Health Treatment in Prison’, Journal of Clinical Psychology, 61:6 (2005), 713–724 (p. 716).

4 See Elizabeth Pearson, ‘Extremism and Toxic Masculinity: The Man Question Re-posed’, International Affairs, 95:6 (2019), 1251–70.

5 Karla Elliott, ‘Caring Masculinities: Theorizing an Emerging Concept’, Men and Masculinities, 19:3 (2015), 240–59.

6 Sarah C. Hunter, Damien W. Riggs & Martha Augoustinos, ‘Hegemonic Masculinity Versus a Caring Masculinity: Implications for Understanding Primary Caregiving Fathers’, Social and Personal Psychology Compass, 11 (2017), 1–9 (p. 1).

7 Hunter, Riggs & Augoustinos, ‘Hegemonic Masculinity Versus a Caring Masculinity’, 2.

8 In a similar manner to new portrayals of masculinities in the media (see note 5), new projections of alternative fatherhood can be found in recent television series and films. See, for example, Lisa Cuklanz & Ali Erol, ‘The Shifting Image of Hegemonic Masculinity in Contemporary Television Series’, International Journal of Communication, 15 (2021), 545–62; <https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/viewFile/15653/3337> (accessed 25 March 2022), in which they explore contemporary television series which feature a performance of masculinity that centres on caring and nurturing the family while simultaneously displaying traits of hegemonic masculinity such as the use of violence, stoicism and action orientation. That view reflects the tensions and negotiations in place around new images of fatherhood.

9 Fiona Shirani, ‘The Spectre of the Wheezy Dad: Masculinity, Fatherhood and Ageing’, Sociology, 47:6 (2013), 1104–19, (p. 1105).

10 See Mary B. Harris, ‘Growing Old Gracefully: Age Concealment and Gender’, Journal of Gerontology, 49:4 (1994), 149–58; and Margaret Morganroth Gullette, Age Wise: Fighting the New Ageism in America (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 2010).

11 Shirani, ‘The Spectre of the Wheezy Dad', 1105.

12 See Robyn J. Brunton & Gregg Scott, ‘Do We Fear Ageing? A Multidimensional Approach to Ageing Anxiety’, Educational Gerontology, 41:11 (2015), 776–89; and Michael Barnett & Cassidy Adams, ‘Ageism and Aging Anxiety Among Young Adults: Relationships with Contact, Knowledge, Fear of Death, and Optimism’, Educational Gerontology, 44:11 (2018), 693–700.

13 Shirani, ‘The Spectre of the Wheezy Dad', 1106–07.

14 Lorraine Ryan & Ana Corbalán, ‘Introduction: The Reconfiguration of Masculinity in Spain’, in The Dynamics of Masculinity in Contemporary Spanish Culture, ed. Lorraine Ryan & Ana Corbalán (London/New York: Routledge, 2017), 1–18 (p. 1).

15 Ryan & Corbalán, ‘Introduction’, in The Dynamics of Masculinity in Contemporary Spanish Culture, 1–2.

16 Ryan & Corbalán, ‘Introduction', in The Dynamics of Masculinity in Contemporary Spanish Culture, 2.

17 See, in the Spanish context, Juan Antonio Rodríguez-del-Pino, ‘A Farewell to the Iberian Spanish Macho? An Analysis of Masculinity in Spain. Conversations with Experts’, Revista Crítica de Ciências Sociais, 118 (2019), 5–24; and Vicent Borràs Català et al., ‘Male Hegemony in Decline? Reflections on the Spanish Case’, in Iberian Masculinities, ed. Mary Ann Newman, Ángels Carabí & Josep M. Armengol, Men & Masculinities, 15:4 (2012), 406–23, among others.

18 Such reconfiguration of masculinities is present at the international level, including transformations in media. ‘Menvertising’ is the term used to refer to advertising practices that reject hegemonic masculinity as a normative model, for example. See Pando-Canteli & Rodríguez, ‘ “Menvertising” and the Resistances to New Masculinities’.

19 To mention three relevant examples, the pamphlet Men, Equality and New Masculinities, ed. EMAKUNDE, intro. de María Silvestre Cabrera (Vitoria-Gasteiz: EMAKUNDE, 2010) (available online at <https://www.emakunde.euskadi.eus/contenidos/informacion/gizonduz_dokumentuak/es_def/adjuntos/men_equaliy_news_masculinities.pdf> [accessed 28 March 2022]); Congreso Internacional Sare 2007. Masculinidad y vida cotidiana, ed. EMAKUNDE (Vitoria-Gasteiz: EMAKUNDE, 2008) (available online at <https://www.emakunde.euskadi.eus/contenidos/informacion/publicaciones_jornadas/es_emakunde/adjuntos/sare2007_es.pdf> [accessed 28 March 2022]); and Congreso Internacional. Los hombres ante el nuevo orden social, ed. Ana Rincón (Bilbao: EMAKUNDE, 2002) (available online at <https://www.emakunde.euskadi.eus/contenidos/informacion/publicaciones_jornadas/es_emakunde/adjuntos/congreso2002_es.pdf> [accessed 28 March 2022]).

20 Margaret Bullen, Basque Gender Studies (Reno: Center for Basque Studies, Univ. of Nevada, 2003), 268.

21 Gema Lasarte, ‘Gizonezkoa emakumezkoen literaturan’, Jakin, 45 (1987), 79–100.

22 Gema Lasarte, ‘Maskulinitate berriak euskal literaturan: irakurketa proposamen bat’, Hegats, 52 (2014), 45–76.

23 Joseba Gabilondo, ‘Terrorism As Memory: The Historical Novel and Masculine Masochism in Contemporary Basque Literature’, Arizona Journal of Hispanic Cultural Studies, 2 (1998), 113–146 (p. 138).

24 See Carrie Hamilton, Women and ETA: The Gender Politics of Radical Basque Nationalism (Manchester: Manchester U. P., 2007); States of Terror: Begoña Aretxaga's Essays, ed. Joseba Zulaika, with an intro. by Kay B. Warren (Reno: Center for Basque Studies, Univ. of Nevada, 2005); and María Jesús Pando-Canteli & María Pilar Rodríguez, ‘Las mujeres de ETA: activismo y transgresión', Arbor. Ciencia, Pensamiento y Cultura, 196:796 (2020), n.p. (<https://arbor.revistas.csic.es/index.php/arbor/article/view/2368/3503> [accessed 4 July 2022]).

25 Iker González-Allende, ‘The Basque Big Boy? Basque Masculinities in Vaya semanita’, Journal of Iberian and Latin American Studies, 21:1 (2015), 19–37 (p. 19).

26 María Pilar Rodríguez Pérez, ‘Ocho apellidos catalanes: independencia, simulacro e hiperrealidad’, International Journal of Iberian Studies, 30:3 (2017), 215–28.

27 Alfredo Martínez-Expósito, ‘Hegemonic Masculinities and Staged Authenticity in Ocho apellidos vascos’, in The Dynamics of Masculinity in Contemporary Spanish Culture, ed. Ryan & Corbalán, 229–43 (p. 236).

28 For a study of the presence and treatment of the Basque political conflict in Basque literature, see Mari Jose Olaziregi, ‘Literatura vasca y conflicto político’, in Escrituras del siglo XXI, coord. Xelo Candel Vila, Diablotexto Digital, 2 (2017), 6–29; available at <https://ojs.uv.es/index.php/diablotexto/article/view/10144> (accessed 22 June 2022).

29 Karmele Jaio, Aitaren etxea (Donostia: Elkar, 2019); this was translated into Spanish by Jaio and published as La casa del padre (Barcelona: Destino, 2020).

30 Katixa Agirre, Atertu arte itxaron (Donostia: Elkar, 2015); this was translated into Spanish by Agirre and published as Los turistas desganados (Barcelona: Pre-Textos, 2017).

31 Gabriela Ybarra, El comensal (Barcelona: Caballo de Troya, 2015).

32 Edurne Portela, Mejor la ausencia (Barcelona: Galaxia Gutenberg, 2017). Further references are to this edition and will be given parenthetically in the main text.

33 Kupers, ‘Toxic Masculinity As a Barrier to Mental Health Treatment in Prison’, 714.

34 Pearson, ‘Extremism and Toxic Masculinity’, 1259.

35 Andrea Waling, ‘Problematising “Toxic” and “Healthy” Masculinity for Addressing Gender Inequalities’, Australian Feminist Studies, 34:101 (2019), 362–75.

36 Bryant Sculos, ‘Who’s Afraid of “Toxic Masculinity”?’, in U.S. Labor and Social Justice, ed. Kim Scipes, Class, Race and Corporate Power, 5:3 (2017), n.p. [1–7] [p. 3]; available online at <https://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/classracecorporatepower/vol5/iss3/6/> (accessed 4 July 2022).

37 Sculos, ‘Who’s Afraid of “Toxic Masculinity”?’, [3].

38 Judith Butler, Gender Trouble. Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (London/New York: Routledge, 1990), 13 & 24.

39 Judith Butler, Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of Sex (London/New York: Routledge, 1993).

40 Carol Harrington, ‘What Is “Toxic Masculinity” and Why Does It Matter?’, Men and Masculinities, 24:2 (2021), 345–52 (p. 350).

41 Mikel Ayerbe Sudupe, ‘La reescritura del pasado violento y la ficcionalización del presente conflictivo: las narrativas de Edurne Portela e Iban Zaldua’, Olivar. Revista de Literatura y Cultura Españolas, 19:30 (2019), n.p. [1–11] [p. 4]; <https://www.olivar.fahce.unlp.edu.ar/article/view/olie105> (accessed 5 July 2022).

42 Other novels by Etxenike, like Aves del paraíso (2019), also explore the traumatic effects of terrorist violence in family relationships through male characters that contest normative masculinity and challenge traditional fatherhood. However, these novels will not be discussed here and merit a separate analysis.

43 Luisa Etxenike, Absoluta presencia (Bilbao: Ediciones Gallo de Oro, 2018). Further references are to this edition and will be given parenthetically within the main text.

44 Gabilondo, ‘Terrorism As Memory’, 127.

45 Lynne Segal, Slow Motion: Changing Masculinities, Changing Men (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007 [1^st ed. 1990]).

46 Segal, Slow Motion, 33.

47 Segal, Slow Motion, 29.

48 Athena Athanasiou, Pothiti Hantzaroula & Kostas Yannakopoulos, ‘Towards a New Epistemology: The “Affective Turn” ’, Historein, 8 (2009), 5–16 (p. 6); <https://ejournals.epublishing.ekt.gr/index.php/historein/article/view/2123> (accessed 7 April 2022).

49 Roncesvalles Labiano Juangarcía, ‘Literatura comprometida frente al terror y el silencio. Las novelas sobre ETA de Luisa Etxenike: El ángulo ciego, Absoluta presencia y Aves del paraíso’, Castilla. Estudios de Literatura, 12 (2021), 620–55 (p. 638).

50 Susan Brison, Aftermath: Violence and the Remaking of the Self (Princeton: Princeton U. P., 2002), xi.

51 ‘This is the political contradiction of a foundational and historical Basque subject and its memory: it can only legitimize itself by negating its own self and others’ (Gabilondo, ‘Terrorism As Memory’, 138).

52 The reader feels the pain of these fathers and, as Butler notes, ‘to grieve, and to make grief itself into a resource for politics, is not to be resigned to inaction, but it may be understood as the slow process by which we develop a point of identification with suffering itself’ (Judith Butler, Precarious Life: The Powers of Mourning and Violence [London: Verso, 2006], 31).

53 Cristina Ortiz Ceberio & María Pilar Rodríguez, Affective Landscapes: Representations of Terrorism and Violence by Basque Female Authors (New York: Peter Lang, 2021 [1^st Spanish ed. 2020]), 5.

* Disclosure Statement: No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.