Open AccessFeminine names in current Romanian hodonymy
Author(s) -
Oliviu Felecan,
Nicolae Felecan
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
onomastica
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2658-2783
pISSN - 0078-4648
DOI - 10.17651/onomast.65.1.16
Subject(s) - romanian , politics , power (physics) , private life , function (biology) , public life , sociology , gender studies , aesthetics , history , political science , art , law , linguistics , philosophy , physics , quantum mechanics , evolutionary biology , human rights , biology
This study aims to map the gender politics of contemporary Romanian street naming. Hodonyms mirror mentalities and the ideas prevailing in a society. Urban microtoponimy is an androcentric one, as public life has belonged, throughout history, almost exclusively to men. Women emerged from the private and domestic spheres only in the nineteenth century, and this justifies, in a way, the much smaller number of street names that are claimed by female names. The recognition of women’s role in society and their commemoration through hodonyms can function as a reparative act of balancing the power and influence asymmetries.