The phone in Mr. Kostas Balta’s office keeps ringing. The ticket and group sales manager at Athenaika Theatra (the largest theater management company in Greece) is constantly on the lookout. He is constantly talking to union and club leaders from all over Greece who want to book seats for one of this year’s theater productions. “It’s always women!” she tells me. “They will come to Athens to see the theatre.” For as many years as he has been in this job, he longs to pick up the phone and hear a man’s voice, just for a change.

Indeed, one Sunday afternoon, I was located at the intersection of the University and Americas Street, a stone’s throw from the Aliki Theater. Buses from Farsala, Livadia, Chalkis and Mandra Attica drop off dozens of women and very few men who are barely touched. The ladies seem to be excited about the prospect of an afternoon show: the theater is playing one of this season’s hits, Reppa-Papatanasiou’s Papa with Rum. I’m trying to find out if it bothers them that they travel alone or if they enjoy it. It is more than obvious that the latter is true. It amazes me that they never scold abandoned husbands. “They don’t get upset as easily as we do,” says Ms Marta Spetsiotis, who within five minutes took 43 tickets matching her team and handed them out to beneficiaries. I cannot fail to note her organizational spirit and for some reason I cannot imagine a man with her harmony and abilities.

“Greece is full of such women,” Kostas Baltas tells me. “Mostly they are middle-aged people, they can be older, and usually they do something for their country. They do not want to deprive themselves of such an important entertainment as the theater, just because they live far from Athens. Indeed, in the eyes of all these women you see determination and a strong desire: to be happy, to share, to learn, not to waste time in vain, to have a good time.

This is a common denominator that characterizes the overrepresentation of women in almost all sectors of the cultural market. Women read more, women go to the theater more, women visit exhibitions and museums more often, women mostly support the side activities of the cultural industry, such as touring, educational lectures, book launches, and all the emerging markets of free time.

“Many, mostly men, think they are lazy ladies with nothing to do,” exhibition curator and art historian Iris Kritikou, who in recent years has created her own sorority, a particularly lively group united by a common starting point of interest in art they come together. mobilize, study, become active members of civil society. “But in addition to our group, go to the theater on a weekday, to the opening of the exhibition, to bookstores, to the museum, and you will see women. Do you know something? These are not seated women. They are very busy, they have very full 24 hours. So, my experience is this: it’s not true that women have more time than men. But they find time to do more.” Is there an explanation for this? “I think we’re more open as we grow up, more willing to include new things and people in our lives.”

They never scold abandoned husbands: “They don’t get upset as easily as we do.”

Sociability is a key parameter of female versatility. From this point of view, the example of the cultural company Pirna, based in a beautiful detached house in Kifisia, provides many answers. Pirna hosts daily performances, seminars, screenings, book presentations, but over 26 years of operation it has become a meeting and communication space where excursions, volunteer activities, and excursions are organized. “There are two seasons that significantly change the lives of women,” Marina Kuremenu, the “soul” of Pirna, tells me. “The time when the house is empty, when the children finish school, and the time of retirement. Then we realize, often with some chagrin, the existence of empty time. Marriages are often strained, stressed by health issues and aging parents.” Here, according to Ms. Kuremenu, the valuable role of cultural events is manifested, which open their doors to offer not only knowledge, entertainment and culture, but also a new way of life: interests and skills are revived or discovered, new associations are built. .

Over the years, Pirna has developed into an almost exclusively women’s club. “After 25 years at the helm, I admit that it took me some time to get over the idea that our events should attract young people and more men! It is clear that women over 60 tend to participate in cultural events. We focus on them in Pirna, although men are always welcome. But let’s not forget that they have another ally – sport.

The pandemic, instead of calming the wave, warmed it up. “Our professor, historian Dimitris Livanios, offered to conduct the entire four-month program online. But how; we wondered. With an audience that can hardly cope with mobile phones and tablets?” Marina Kuremenou recalls.

“However, upon hearing the offer, the children and grandchildren were recruited, installed screens, laptops, cameras, completed two or three basic courses on working with the Internet, and by the end of March 2020, the first webinar started.” Since then and for two and a half years, 150 women (and 4-5 men) aged 60-90 have taken part in Pirna’s 325 online meetings: history, philosophy, art, theater lectures, even a reading club and a master class on painting continued online. “Favorite moment, five minutes before kick off, when we were happy, when every friend came in and quickly shared our news! And, of course, the now experienced Internet operators were not deprived of the precious connection with their loved ones.

Inverted Stereotypes: Is Reading a Girly Activity?

Amanda Mikalopoulou

The latest study of readability in Greece by gender dates back to 2015 (the most recent one by the Organization for the Collective Management of Speech Projects – OSDEL – did not have a corresponding forecast). It was written by Sotiria Calasaridu and we read it on the bibliophile site Anagnostis. And this was confirmed by the results of other related studies, since out of 34,303 sample readers, 74% were women and only 26% were men. Caterina Malacate, owner and soul of the very active Booktalks bookstore in Paleo Faliro, has a similar experience. “Yes, women are buying and reading more books. Lifelong reading clubs, both in Greek and translated books, are attended almost exclusively by women, less often by men. But the landscape is changing as we move online. In our Zoom Club, at least a third of the members are men, and their participation is active, they make themselves felt. It’s pretty much the same in our Facebook Reading group: about two-thirds of the 130,000 members are women, but the men comment very heavily.” Note, however, this: “The creative reading workshops at our bookstore are almost exclusively female, while the creative writing workshops are mostly male.” Strange, right? “I think male readers, though less so, are equally supportive of buying the book. However, they do not participate in presentations, lectures, clubs where their physical presence is required, they keep aloof. That’s why we have a different image on the web. They rather prefer to be creators of art than its “consumers”.

AUTH professor and writer Venezia Apostolidou, commenting on a 2015 survey to The Reader, put an interesting parameter: “The right question is not why women read more, but why men don’t.” And he continues: “I am not able to give exhaustive answers to such a question, which certainly needs a comprehensive cultural analysis. We can only make assumptions about the discussion. The calmness and self-concentration that reading requires is perhaps responsible for the fact that reading is registered as a passive and introverted process, opposed to action, movement, production, social interaction and, why not, the imposition of power, domination, violence. So it seems that masculinity, despite the achievements, is still perceived based on the above characteristics. Educators tell me that the gender gap in reading has become very noticeable lately. Boys who read are few and hardly admit it, because when they do, they are laughed at.” Mrs. Apostolidou’s observation is confirmed by a teacher at a private school in Athens. “Very few boys have contact with the school library. And every year there are less and less of them. In a relatively short period of time, the habit of reading has acquired gender characteristics and for some reason is considered a “girlish” trait … Thus, the image of a boy who reads is subjected to bullying and bullying.”

In a hybrid essay in the Paris Review, writer Sheila Heti writes that we have more female protagonists in literature because after a crime or disaster, they suffer more than men for the consequences of their actions on society as a whole, so they are more interesting. narratively. A similar empathy is found in women’s clubs in real life—a group of women who buy theater tickets together or passionately discuss the same book. In the years when I ran creative writing groups and reading clubs (at Pirna, Tatoi Club, bookstores, but even graduate creative writing programs at the university), women dominated. They described their partners as single or house cats. They did not want to accompany them, they preferred to watch the film at home. Perhaps a sociologist can tell us better why women get together and men enjoy solo work. But let’s remember that just as modern women are descended from the ginkonites of Arabian tales and have learned to survive through their intercourse, so much have they adopted the image of a gracious hostess who throws parties and does not think that she can isolate herself and lick her wounds if and when she wants to.

* Ms. Amanda Mikalopoulou is a writer. Her latest novel, Her Transformation, has just been released by Kastaniotis Publications.