Gendered wall slogans and graffiti

Michael Tsangaris, University of Piraeus, Greece
Iliana Pazarzi, University of Piraeus, Greece
ISA RC10: International Conference 'Democracy and Participation in the 21st Century'
Lisbon 12-15 JUL 2017

 Vulgar language, insults and hate speech towards gender identities occur in every sphere
of daily life, in the private and in the public space, humiliating and objectifying their
victims.
 Linguistic sexism and gender offensive rhetoric are still common in mainstream media,
TV series, magazines, films and advertising as well as in social media (blogs, chatrooms
etc.)
(Fasold, 1987, Van Zoonen 1991, Messner et al 1993, Crowther 2009, Bartlett, J. et al.
2014)

 All forms of alternative media differ from the mainstream communication industries
and often challenge the dominant capitalist media systems as far as production,
content, distribution and reception is concerned
(Downing 2001, Fuchs 2010).
 Alternative media can take many forms such as print, audio, video, clothing, makeup,
wall slogans, theatrical performances, street art, social networking and so on.
 They are critical with the intention to mobilize local communities and the last two
decades they can also raise global effects with the collaboration of supplementary
distribution channels and the usage of new technologies such as internet and Web 2.0.

 Wall graffiti and slogans are considered to be unconventional artistic media of urban
expression communicating the social bitterness and discontent about social
inequalities.
 However, even progressive and non-discriminatory social groups or individuals that
use the urban walls as a means of free expression unwittingly sometimes misuse
symbols and words.

 The last fifty years there has been made a few interesting studies concerning wall
slogans and graffiti in relation to gender, most of them referring to college restrooms
and bathrooms graffiti, female performers and issues on graffiti writers and their
gender identity (Bruner & Kelso 1980, Carrington 1989, Arluke et al 1987, Rodriguez &
Clair 1999, Macdonald 2001, Green 2003, Pursley 2012, Lombard 2014).
 Meanwhile a great number of publications have been made concerning the Greek
graffiti, stencil and slogans by Dimaras (1981), Iosifidis (1997, 2000), Andriotakis
(2005), Menegos (2007), Peponis (2008), Theodosis & Menegos (2007), Theodosis &
Karathanasis (2008), Pagalos (2016) Avramidis & Tsilimpounidi (2016), etc.

 Our study is based on the existing Greek bibliography concerning graffiti-slogans, on the
archive of University of Piraeus European programme ‘Gender Equality and Employment
2003-2008’ and on recent observations of outdoor graphics in several zones of Athens
metropolitan area. Consequently the historical period of the selected data roughly covers
the years from 1976 until now
 The study explores the ways in which unauthorised outdoor graphics evolved concerning
gender citations in the symbolic level.
 We will use the phrase ‘wall graffiti and slogans’ in accordance to the term that gives the
Concise Oxford English Dictionary (2002) for graffiti that is as any ‘unauthorised writing
or drawings on a surface in a place’.
 In this sense ‘wall graffiti and slogans’ are all these peculiar types of alternative media
that after all are not limited only in political discourses or aesthetic expressions (street-
art) but they also include football supporting quotes, signatures (tagging) and existential,
personal spontaneous citations in the forms of written texts or drawings.

 For the purposes of our investigation we used a qualitative approach on textual
analysis avoiding accurate statistics.
 We assumed that in a rapidly changing environment such as the streets of Athens,
unauthorised outdoor graphics appear and get wiped out or covered up, from one
day to the next, so the instability and the complexity of those data can easily bring
great statistical fallacy.
 In a simple and straightforward way we described and clarified the basic features
of the data that we encountered trying to make sense of everyday social life as it is
expressed in the streets of Athens.

 Our basic interest rests basically on how slogans and graffiti developed in the
metropolitan area in terms of gendered expressions.
 First we proceeded to a brief historical review concerning the gendered wall slogans
and graffiti of Athens and then by using the semiotic approach we attempted to
decode the texts in order to understand in practice the most current gender
discourses

 It would be a great mistake to comprehend unauthorized outdoor graphics as a
new mode of communication or as a recent phenomenon.
 Actually, outdoor graphics have a very long history stretching back to the
conception of symbolic visualization in prehistorical times.
 In fact all the advanced ancient civilizations used such modes of public expression:
the Phoenicians, the ancient Egypt, the ancient Greece, the Roman Empire and so
on (Coffield 1991, Gross & Gross 1993, Parker 2003, Bartholome 2004).

 In the same context the modern city of Athens has an interesting history
concerning the writings on the walls that were made by various people or social
groups serving different and multiple social needs.
 The resistance during the German occupation in world war two, the conflicting
armies during the Greek civil war, the resistance against the colonels military
junta of 1967–1974, the football hooligans, the lovers, the rejected in love, the
anarchists, the punks, the Greek ‘indignant’ (‘αγανακτισμένοι’), the immigrants,
the hip-hop subculture youth, the street artists and so, were the actors in this long
history.
 As a matter of fact the streets of Athens were always opened to any alternative
modes of expression and artistic creation.

 First of all, more than the half of the unauthorised outdoor graphics of our
collection were incomprehensible in content especially for the uninitiated to such
subculture.
 Although there is a tendency from the scholars to give great attention on ‘street
art’ or to the American type of graffiti texts, according to our investigation in the
streets of Athens the numbers of simple tagging or socio-political and existential
quotes come over and above the number of all other graphics.
 Going back in the seventies even political statements were using sexist language

 When texts are comprehensible the patriarchal gender hierarchy and ideology is
still present in many ‘wall graffiti and slogans’.
 Nowadays anti-Establishment statements and expressions or political messages
are very sensitive to gender identity and equality issues comparing to all other
types of messages.
 Football and existential quotes seem to be regularly the most brutal and
phallocratic expressions.

 There was a growing tendency for change and improvement concerning the gender
biased expressions of wall discourses as time passed.
 The last decades the anti-fascist , the queer, the feminist and the lesbian, gay,
bisexual and transgender (LGBT) movements, enriched massively the street
discourses on gender by applying gender politics to graffiti and slogans.
 Although initially there were not so many foreign language graffiti and slogans in
the streets of Athens there is a great number now (basically English).
 In reality today there is a great sensitivity concerning gender and language in the
street expressions of the greater Athens but unfortunately someone can still get
brutal gendered insults written on the walls mostly from hooligan groups or
individual writers rejected in love or disturbed people fuelled by sexism and
misogyny in existential crisis.

In order to present an exemplified picture of the present situation we selected and
analysed a couple of typical texts concerning gender relations that we have
encounter in our own recent investigation on the streets of Athens.

 The most common expressions of abusive language against gender identities that
someone can come across in the streets of Athens are the ones that are written by
the football hooligans.
 For decades, the ‘Ultras’ as fanatic football team supporters have been covering
the urban streets with provocative quotes insulting the rival teams by using
obscene statements.
 Any analysis of those statements reveals that the writers in their vocabulary use
mostly metaphorical epithets as insults of sexual denigration.

In such a way the phrase ‘AEK R21 – Vazelles prostitutes’ (picture) is a metaphor that characterise
the supporters of the rival football team of Panathinaikos FC in terms of sexual affronts.

 That is to say, the label ‘prostitute’ seems to be used as a metaphor in a primary level
of signification to insult the rival team and then in secondary level as an ‘improper
handling’ of the female gender identity.
 Hence this metaphorical expression apart from insulting the rival football team
redacts sexist language.
 Statements like this actually prefabricate and index indirectly all women as mere
objects of sexual desire or as commodities, degraded to activities that are socially
considered as immoral and corrupted.
 The phrase is written in the Greek language and the writers address the message
directly to rival team supporters of the local community.

On the other hand another emblematic expression that is repeated in many walls over the greater
urban area of Athens declares ‘smash racism and sexism’ (picture) and is usually signed by antifa.

 As it seems the phrase denotes the meaning in clear and straightforward way. The
power of this rhetoric stands in its ‘obvious’ and ‘commonsense’ denotation that has
relatively broad consensus.
 The local and isolated wall graffiti and slogans are by their nature community based,
stationary and they have a limited access to a wider audience.
 However this phrase is written in English and this omens changes concerning the
settings of the communication process.
 The writers did not had the intention to address the message only to the local
community of the certain zone in Athens.
 The text has a recognizable signification code that can be decoded from most of the
cultures and the countries all over the world and it is prearranged to get a global
audience.

 Communication with visual outdoor graphics no longer depends only on the direct human
encounter and the cultural codes of the locals.
 Nowadays, unauthorized outdoor graphics are designed and conceived within the
requirements of the social media.
 In reality, a great number of graffiti and slogans in the streets of Athens are iconic or
written in English and can be ‘shared’ via Facebook, Google+, Instagram, LinkedIn,
Pinterest, Tumblr, Twitter, YouTube and so on, with online communities around the world
generating a considerable effect to the 'Image of the Nation'.

 In this sense wall graffiti and slogans as alternative media can provide content and
concepts for the new media in ways that may be oppositional to the established
patriarchal images and ideologies of the dominant local paradigm.
 Further, the growing usage of social media applications by mobile phones that can
instantly connect the local and the global has actually brought unauthorized outdoor
graphics to another dimension, uncontrollable and limitless, that can establish
different and more powerful types of non-institutionalised political participation.

 Gender equality and freedom of expression should be seen as intertwined rather
than opposing rights.
 Wall graffiti and slogans are a priori radical as the entire process is illegal for the
reason that the performers without permission sketch graphics on private or
public properties.
 Various people and social groups serving different social needs have been
expressing themselves in the walls of Athens for many decades.

 A great part of abusive expressions against gender identities was always written in
the walls of Athens by football hooligans and by people that were rejected in love,
insecure fuelled by sexism and misogyny. Those messages as they are not supported
by organised social movements usually stay local out of the reach or the interest of
social media.
 The socio-political statements initially, in the seventies, were characterised by sexist
language but as time passed became really sensitive to gender identities and equality
issues comparing to all other types of messages.
 Today a great part of the Wall graffiti and slogans’ are critical to patriarchy with the
intention to mobilize local communities.

 Anti-establishment, antifa, queer and LGBT movements are engaged in active
guerrilla graphics expressing gender politics in everyday life on the streets of Athens.
 In their rhetoric sometimes sexist words and symbols can be used as a weapon against
patriarchy as ‘détournement’.
 A great number of those writers foresee to disseminate their messages beyond the
bounds of the local community by using social media so they can present their own
image of Athens and raise global reactions and changes.

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 Iosifidis K. (1997) ‘Graffiti in Greece, Oxi, Athens [in Greek]
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