Memory and Gender

The article examines the role of gender as a category of collective memory, or more specifically, how museum and primary school textbook representations of World War II in Slovenia represent and construct gender, gendered subjects, and gendered communities. Authors are interested in how textbooks and museums produce specific flows of history and memory, through the mediation of gendered narratives and the use of non-neutral textual practices. They ascertain that even today, patriarchal and androcentric representations of women continue to leave a significant imprint on the socio-cultural organisation of communities. Authors employ fundamental theoretical concepts of cultural memory, ideology, habitus, power, and knowledge in order to address the gap within academic discourse concerning the study of the gendered dimensions of collective memory. Based on a critical multimodal analysis of seven museum exhibitions and five primary school history textbooks, the article concludes that the produced cultural memory is recognised as a significant agent in the construction of gender ideologies and gendered habitus. The article identifies seven analytical parameters that point to the gendered nature of memory – representations of professions and leisure activities, the use of quotations, anonymity, photographic approaches, the flow of the narrative, and placement on the continuum between heroism and suffering – through which authors demonstrate that museum and textbook representations of women in representations of the Second World War remain profoundly misogynistic.