Vulnerability as Generativity. Undoing Parenthood in a Gylanic Perspective

By adopting an interdisciplinary approach, the book focuses on parenting, generativity and caring, proposing a socio-culturally contextualized analysis of them. Parenting is not considered as a mere biological function related to the reproductive capacities of gendered and sexual bodies, but also as a socio-culturally constructed role, with gender-specific consequences – concerning identity, relationships, socio-economic status and culture – for males and females. Gender roles and expectations are analysed and deconstructed by intertwining the authors’ opinions, empirical materials and scientific literature. The scientific perspective adopted is the Gylanic one, whose epistemological and hermeneutical foundation lies in the archaeological and archaeomythological studies on the Neolithic societies. Defined as genuinely gender egalitarian societies, Gylanic civilizations are characterized by a mutual, equitable and nonhierarchical social, economic, cultural and relational model, which may also be found in still existing matrifocal and matrilocal societies. Pinpointing other modalities of establishing relationships between genders in prehistory and in the contemporary world has an impact on the recognition of gender roles as unnatural and biologically unnecessary, and thus contributes to providing a basis for the reflection on paternity, maternity and the capacity/possibility of caring in the Western context. This perspective suggests a reconciliation between genders, shifting the analysis onto the common human condition of vulnerability that everybody experiences: birth. Acknowledging reciprocal fragilities and the need for caring would so allow finding and experimenting with unprecedented resilience and resistance spaces, in which the recognition of common origins turns into a meaningful transition to new mutual relations between human beings as well as between humanity and the surrounding environment, aiming at giving new meanings to roles, processes and relations.