Book: Europe and Women’s Rights
ANNA KARAMANOU
EUROPE AND WOMEN’S RIGHTS
PRESS RELEASE
Through a fascinating historical journey, from the 19th century to the present day, Anna Karamanou’s book examines, analyzes, and compares – both in theory and practice – the influence of the European system on the construction of the nation-state and the struggle for women’s rights in two countries that did not participate in the Renaissance and the European Enlightenment.
Historical sources, events, reactions, myths, and political, legal, and cultural elements that intertwine with stereotypes from the patriarchal, Balkan, and Mediterranean traditions are explored. The positions and reactions of political systems and dominant religions – Orthodox Christianity in Greece and Islam in Turkey – are examined. The book reveals the great injustice historically committed by using the sexual difference of the sexes, i.e., the fact that women bear children, as a factor of intellectual deprivation, inferiority, and exclusion from public life.
Greece and Turkey, despite having significant cultural differences and a history of conqueror and conquered relationships, exhibit remarkable similarities and parallel paths: an early European orientation and pro-Western policy, the pursuit of European identity, cultural dualism, a centralized state, delayed economic and social structures, discrimination and violence against women, and an inability to establish a modern, mature democracy.
In other words, two hybrid systems are examined and compared within a historical, political, and social context, attempting to balance Eastern culture with the development of ideas, science, human rights, gender justice, and modern European politics. The research, through a dialogue between the past and the present, demonstrates that the peaceful feminist revolution, inspired by European Enlightenment values, compelled national political systems to recognize gender equality as an intrinsic value and to proceed, slowly but steadily, with transformations that strengthen democratic institutions and the rule of law.
Anna Karamanou’s book is exceptional because it combines original research and political analysis with eloquence in writing. It is a book that gathers a wealth of hard-to-find factual elements, is enjoyable to read, generates scientific knowledge, and raises important questions for further research. For those who read it, it becomes a tool for social change and for understanding international relations beyond national stereotypes.
As noted in the foreword by Professor and Deputy Mayor Maria Stratigaki, “The character of the book is due entirely to the personality of the author. Anna Karamanou is simultaneously an activist and intellectual, a politician and a researcher. She is a woman for whom theory only makes sense if it is inextricably linked to action, if it contains a feminist perspective. This book is the result of her determination to always be an active citizen, a defender of women’s rights at every moment, in every aspect of her political, union, and research work.
Communication with the author:
Phone210-7775223, 6944/302328
[email protected], www.karamanou.gr