ABSTRACT
Mediterranean cultures, including that of Cyprus, have been typified as ones where the concepts of honour and shame underly every aspect of social and economic life, and where women’s actions are controlled through rigid norms and practices (Davis 1977; Campbell 1964; Peristiany (ed.) 1965; Gilmore 1982). In such societies the honour of men, women, and entire families is apparently more easily maintained if women do not go out to work.1 Where a woman does go out to work it means first, an open admission that the man cannot support the household himself, and second that the woman is mixing with outsiders. Neither of these is helpful in promoting family honour. However, in London we see thousands of Cypriot women serving behind the counters of small shops and cafés or working as machinists in the Cypriot clothing factories that abound in north London. These are the various branches of the Cypriot ‘ethnic economy’ and indeed, as Anthias has shown (1983), women have been the building blocks of this economy. Younger Cypriot women are also ‘out there’ working, but they have rejected the ethnic economy and are to be found in clerical jobs of all kinds, particularly in banking, insurance, and travel agencies; in hairdressing and beauty therapy; in the rag trade as designers; and in retail as buyers and trainee buyers. There are also increasing numbers of women in teaching and the social services, often employed in reference to their ethnic group. The fact that these younger women are working outside the ethnic economy entails a significant departure from the position of older women, since not only are they working outside the home, but they are also working for complete outsiders.
