Research 2009 - 2011
Genders, Tradition and Imagination
Pauline Greenhill, Ph.D.
Professor, Women and Gender Studies
Feminist folklorist and anthropologist Dr. Pauline Greenhill studies modern and historical gender roles in both fantasy and reality.
One of her forthcoming books chronicles the tradition of shivaree (charivari) in Canada through four case histories: in Ottawa in 1881, Manitoba (1909), Nova Scotia (1917), and Saskatchewan (1940). Shivaree is an obnoxious, late night visit by friends and family to a newly married couple who are awakened with much noise (shouting, car horns, even chainsaws) only to have their house turned topsyturvy. In its mildest form, the tradition gives an excuse for a good party and an opportunity to play harmless pranks. Often however, consequences can include property damage, personal injury, or even death.
Shivaree continues today, notably in some farming communities of southwestern Ontario and the Maritime provinces, and is portrayed as a ‘welcome’ by participants. Yet Dr. Greenhill finds their gender bias telling. Women work their pranks inside the house: cornflakes in the bed, taking labels off cans; while men do theirs in the farmyard: putting machinery onto the barn roof or letting out the animals. Men usually return the following day to help a groom undo the acts of the previous night but the bride is left to put her home aright on her own, no such assistance is offered.
Based on some 200 interviews and over 600 responses to questionnaires, Dr. Greenhill explores the relation of this unconventional concept of ‘welcome’ to traditional values of hospitality, being a good sport, sexual morality, and community reproduction.
Another course of enquiry for Dr. Greenhill is a queer reconsideration of the Grimms’ and other fairy tales, a collaborative project with her New York based colleague Dr. Kay Turner. Most folktales were not created as Disneyesque stories for children; rather they were the popular literature of their time. Though feminist readings of fairy tales abound, there has been little examination of the genre as metaphorical expression of alternate sexualities (transgender, intersex, gay/lesbian). A host of tales feature transformations—human to animal or vice versa—and a few show women transformed into men, providing a wealth of material exploring ideas around transbiology and transgender in traditional cultures. Dr. Greenhill poses that, just as people imagined flight for centuries before it became a reality, people may have considered transsexual operations and the use of animal organ transplants in humans long before these medical interventions became possible.
Dr. Greenhill is co-editor (with Dr. Liz Locke and Dr. Theresa A. Vaughn) of the two-volume Encyclopedia of Women’s Folklore and Folklife.