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Privileging masculinity in the social construction of Basque identity
Author(s) -
Echeverria Begoña
Publication year - 2001
Publication title -
nations and nationalism
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.655
H-Index - 44
eISSN - 1469-8129
pISSN - 1354-5078
DOI - 10.1111/1469-8219.00020
Subject(s) - masculinity , privilege (computing) , vernacular , pronoun , identity (music) , ideology , ethnic group , gender studies , sociology , white (mutation) , language ideology , construct (python library) , acculturation , linguistics , politics , political science , anthropology , law , art , aesthetics , philosophy , biochemistry , gene , computer science , programming language , chemistry
Following a framework developed by Susan Gal and Judith Irvine (1995), this article illustrates how Basque‐medium schools promulgate an androcentric vision of the Basque nation. First, male privilege is upheld in textbooks through the erasure of women's contributions to Basque language and culture, so that men appear as the quintessential Basque speakers and cultural agents. Secondly, language ideologies about Spanish and Basque recursively construct Basque ethnic identity is such a way that it centres on vernacular Basque, whose primary marker is a second person pronoun, ‘ hi ’, which indirectly indexes male speakers and masculinity. An iconic relationship is thereby created between authentic Basque identity, Basque culture, Basque linguistic forms and masculinity. However, I also show that women have challenged this male privilege in various domains, thereby opening up the possibility of a Basque nation that embraces its female as well as its male members.