Λεπτομέρειες

Nikos Vrantsis

English

30 Οκτωβρίου 2021

• κοινωνικοί αγώνες
• Ελλάδα
• φεμινισμός
• κοινωνία
• Greece

by Nikos Vrantsis

According to the European Institute for Gender Equality, femicide is recognized as ”the murder of women and girls because of their gender.” Gender based violence and murders are not new, but they remain undisclosed.

Greece is no exception to that. According to Greek Police data, 69 women were murdered in the years 2013-2018, due to domestic intrafamily violence (which accounts for 30-50% of all women victims of homicides per year). Nevertheless, the number of femicides is in fact much higher, since before law 4531 passed in 2018, current/former permanent partners or parties to a cohabitation agreement did not qualify as family. Overall, from 2012 to 2018, there were 22,183 reported cases of intrafamily violence against women.

It was November 2018, when the shocking rape and murder of 21-year-old student Eleni Topaloudi in the island of Rhodes by two uncannily unapologetic young males, turned into a watershed case and led to a public outcry that strongly contributed for the term femicide to be dynamically introduced for the first time in the Greek public discourse. Thenceforth, ”femicides” begun to be reported by the media as well as human rights organizations, without, however, significant steps being taken to prevent and support victims of gender-based violence.

People as property

It did not occur to me when I chose on the destination of my summer vacation, when I looked down out of the plane window, or when I landed and drove down the narrow streets replete with bare rocks, prickly pears trees, dormant wind turbines and structures made of concrete.

Only two days later, when I found myself in the traditional village of Olympus and encountered local women wearing their traditional costumes, did I remember a monograph written by an anthropologist, Bernard Vernier, about family relations on the small island of Karpathos.

It’s been many years since I read the book, and I vaguely remember the arguments of its author, but I still retain the connection Vernier draws between the small size of owned property and the emergence of a special norm of patrimony called ”κανακαριά”.

On this arid island marked by the in-existence of arable land, parents were favoring their firstborn children to the detriment of those born later. Their property was not divided, neither shared. The mother transferred her entire property to the eldest daughter, while the father transferred his property undivided to the firstborn son. Second-graders were demoted to unpaid labourers in the service of their siblings, who as undisputed heirs had complete control over the latters’ life and a duty not to let their propertyless brothers and sisters starve out of poverty.

Dressed in the traditional costume of Olympus, Mrs. Dimitra, who makes a living selling souvenirs to tourists arriving in this secluded village, has an answer at once apologetic and critical: “It was unfair… I can tell you some horrible stories… But Karpathos is a desert island, when we talk about property we are talking about ten olive trees; if they got this divided all children would...

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