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Article published In: Discourses of Discrimination: Language aggression in the construction of otherness
Edited by Angeliki Alvanoudi and Marianthi Georgalidou
[Journal of Language Aggression and Conflict 14:1] 2026
► pp. 98–122

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“I’ll throw acid on your pretty little face […], so wrote a genteel fanatic antifeminist”

The discursive management of male gender‑driven aggression by eminent Greek female autobiographers of the 19th and early and mid‑20th century

ORCiD logo with link | Hellenic Air Force Academy, Greece
Published online: 27 September 2024
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/jlac.00123.hat
Abstract
This paper examines autobiographical reports of acts of (non-)verbal aggression against four Greek women pioneers in education, medicine, art and dance. These aggressive acts had been launched by some of their male contemporaries against the women’s efforts to occupy authority or elite positions. The analysis, which falls within the scope of historical (im)politeness research (Kádár, Dániel Z., and Jonathan Culpeper. 2010. “Historical (Impoliteness): An Introduction.” In Historical (Im)Politeness, ed. by Jonathan Culpeper and Dániel Z. Kádár, 9–36. Berlin: Peter Lang.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar), focuses specifically on the rarely addressed issue of how the autobiographers discursively deal with the narrated incidents. The four women’s real-time reactions to, and post hoc appraisals of, the aggressive acts are categorized and discussed by applying and extending Bousfield, Derek. 2007. “Beginnings, Middles and Ends: A Biopsy of the Dynamics of Impolite Exchanges.” Journal of Pragmatics 391: 2185–2216. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar model of responses to impoliteness. Furthermore, contemporary witness and third-party contributions, offensive and defensive, are analysed in the light of relevant models (Dobs, Abby M. and Garcés-Conejos Blitvich, Pilar. 2013. “Impoliteness in Polylogal Interaction: Accounting for Face-Threat Witnesses’ Responses.” Journal of Pragmatics 531: 112–130. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar; Bou-Franch, Patricia, and Pilar Garcés-Conejos Blitvich. 2014. “Conflict Management in Massive Polylogues: A Case Study from YouTube.” Journal of Pragmatics 731: 19–36. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar). It is found that all four women take a dignified and defiant stance towards the recorded female-exclusionary behaviours, evidencing a common, diachronically/intergenerationally consistent self-heroizing disposition.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Theoretical background and methodological principles
    • 2.1Theoretical framework: Historical (im)politeness research
    • 2.2Historical impoliteness in Greek women’s autobiographies
      • 2.2.1The meso and macro levels
      • 2.2.2The micro level
  • 3.Historical cases of (non-)verbal aggression against four intellectual and professional Greek women, and their autobiographical responses
    • 3.1Sevasti Kallisperi (1858–1953), educationist and benefactor
    • 3.2Angélique Panayotatou (1873–1954), medical doctor and researcher
    • 3.3Sofia Laskaridou (1876–1965), artist
    • 3.4Rallou Manou (1915–1988), dancer, choreographer, dance educator
  • 4.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
References (46)
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