Contemporary Feminist Research Articles

"Crazy Women" in Chinese and Foreign Literature: A Comparison of Ophelia in Hamlet and Fanyi in Thunderstorm

Ophelia in Hamlet and Fanyi in Thunderstorm are both female characters in literary works that have developed into being seen as "crazy" by others in the later stages. However, one work was created in Europe from the 16th to the 17th century, and the other in China from the 20th century. How can the similarities between these two female characters reflect the marginalization commonality of women in two different times and societies? What significance can the differences between these two roles inspire for the development of contemporary feminism? Driven by these objectives, this paper delves into two masterpieces in the literary treasure trove - Shakespeare's classic tragedy Hamlet and Cao Yu's modern play Thunderstorm and conducts a comparative study of gender roles that crosses time and space through a delicate analysis of their personalities and in-depth exploration of their experiences. At the level of "otherness", both female roles have the characteristic of lacking discourse power. However, from the perspective of her native personality, Ophelia is weaker and more passive, while Fanyi tends to be stronger and more active. Within different destinies, the two characters embarked on vastly different life trajectories. The two stories are like two prisms, reflecting the spectrum of women's survival status in the changing times. From obedience to struggle, the two characters outline an unfinished chapter about the awakening of feminism consciousness.

What is a Feminist Quantitative Method? Opportunities for Feminist Econometrics

Though feminist economics encourages methodological plurality, quantitative methods and econometrics have overtaken the discipline in recent years. Many feminist economists have demonstrated reasons to be concerned about the increasing foothold of quantitative methods, and others have provided thoughtful criticisms of specific quantitative measurements. However, few have made distinctions between mainstream econometrics and feminist econometrics, and a succinct set of resources for those trying to do feminist quantitative research is difficult to find. Drawing upon insights from feminist economics, queer methods, and intersectional approaches, this article sets forth practical guidelines for feminists using econometric methods. Namely, it considers issues of data cleaning, replicability, survey weighting, comparison groups, non-binary measures of gender, intersectionality, causality claims, identification problems, atheoretical index composition, and measuring “difference.” It raises questions for contemporary feminist economists to consider as we grapple with the methodological identity of our field. HIGHLIGHTS Gender diagnostic estimation can be used to endogenously measure gender. Separate model approaches and CARTs are useful in intersectional work. Econometric models can be structured so they are “studying up.” Oaxaca–Blinder and PCA methods raise some feminist concerns. Cohen’s D and the Index of Similarity can be used to test gender differences.

THE EVENT: ON SCREEN, REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS

This article analyzes the feature film The Happening (Audrey Diwan, 2021) based on the journey and experiences of its protagonist, a young French woman in the 1960s who seeks a safe abortion despite living in a patriarchal context marked by oppression, condemnation of women's bodies, and violence. The aim is to relate the aesthetic, visual, and sound analysis to the current and urgent debate on women's reproductive rights, with an emphasis on abortion. The theoretical framework is anchored in contemporary feminist theory and criticism, especially Federici (2018) and Diniz (2020), and the methodology of film analysis is understood here as a recreation of the original narrative, an exercise that prioritizes passages and frames allied to interlocutions with the theme addressed.

Reconsidering Fromm and feminisms, part II: a case for psychosocial compatibilities

This article continues an earlier one about how the work of Erich Fromm and feminist theories are compatible despite the connection usually remaining overlooked. Drawing on Fromm’s critique of Freud’s analysis of Dora, but also going further, I argue that associating Fromm and contemporary feminist thought is particularly important in the context of growing authoritarianism on the right and sometimes as reflected also on the left. The article elaborates upon five points of ‘psychosocial compatibility’ between Fromm’s humanistic vision and the ideas of several well-known feminist theorists including Simone de Beauvoir, Nancy Chodorow, Jessica Benjamin and others. The five points of psychosocial compatibility addressed between From and contemporary feminisms as addressed here are: connecting the personal and the political while stressing the prefigurative; kindred issues concerning objectification and self-love; emphases on relatedness and the pre-oedipal stage of human development; concerns about multi-dimensionality and intersectionality; and shared political beliefs aimed at overcoming gender and other oppressive inequalities

The Presence of Biopower in Keiko Furukura from Sayaka Murata’s “Convenience Store Woman”

The collected written and oral works of a society portraying values and beliefs as well as their challenges are referred to as literature. In terms of age and volume, Japanese literature is comparable to Western literature. Sayaka Murata, a prominent Japanese author, critiques conventions, exemplified by her 2016 novella "Convenience Store Woman," shaping the identity of a 21st-century woman. Keiko, Murata’s heroine, works in a convenience store and lives through the question of absolute autonomy. This study investigates the presence of Biopower in Keiko Furukura from Sayaka Murata’s “Convenience Store Woman.” Specifically, it looks into character, settings, and themes. This study uses a qualitative method, specifically Discourse Analysis. The theories that support this study are Michel Foucault’s Theory of Biopower and Sociological Literary Criticism by Kenneth Burke. The results of this study reveal that Anatomopolitics and Biopolitics are the forms of Biopower present in the character. In the settings, both Anatamopolitics and Biopolitics are also exhibited. Similarly, Anatomopolitics and Biopolitics are the forms of Biopower found in the themes. Based on the findings, this study concludes that Biopower is present in Keiko Furukura from Sayaka Murata’s “Convenience Store Woman.” From the study’s conclusion, the following are recommended: The Death of Individualism: A Character Analysis of William Stoner from John William’s “Stoner,” Construction of Identity: A Sociological Critique of Natsuko Imamura’s “The Woman in the Purple Skirt,” Challenging Gender Norms: An Examination of Gender Norms in Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice,” Challenging the Contemporary Feminism of Kojima in “Heaven” by Meiko Kawakami.

A Socio- Stylistic Study of the Role of Social Identity in Selected Feminist Texts

The current study explores the relationship between social identity and stylistic features in the context of contemporary feminism with reference to gender, race, and class variables. Although many studies have been conducted concerning the concept of feminist language, the relationship between social identity and linguistic features has not received enough attention, which is why the present study aims to identify the specific strategies that are used to address the goals of feminism. This research seeks to fill this gap through an analysis of twenty four contemporary Feminist texts in articles, speeches and social media posts. Employing socio-stylistic eclectic approach, the research analyses the patterns of stylistic elements in various media contexts and analyses how such elements work with the audience as well as embody different social roles. The results of the study advance the theoretical macro-socio-linguistic paradigm of socio-stylistics by identifying the link between language and social status. In addition, the study is helpful for the leaders of feminism to know how language can be utilized in a constructive manner to advance the cause of feminism.

Feminist aesthetics: then and now – reflections on thirty-five years of inquiry in the US tradition

Marking the thirty-fifth anniversary since its emergence in the United States, feminist aesthetics commemorates its significant contributions to feminist philosophical inquiry. This anniversary provides an opportunity to reflect on the field's current status and its potential to further enrich philosophical discourse. This article sets out to (a) synthesise the existing theoretical frameworks within feminist aesthetics, (b) delineate its subject matter and (c) chart the dominant trends and interventions marking feminist engagements with aesthetics. In contemporary feminist debates, aesthetics often occupies a peripheral position, a phenomenon attributed to its perceived detachment from the socio-political core of feminism (Plonowska-Ziarek) and its dismissal as a ‘feminine’ or ‘girly’ discipline (Brand Weiser). This marginalisation is further compounded by critiques of the field's allegedly slow response to the ideas, problems and methodologies present in related domains and broader philosophical inquiry (Eaton). So, despite acknowledging the vital role of aesthetics within feminist philosophy, the articulation of a systematic and coherent feminist aesthetic theory remains elusive. The purpose of this article is to provide an overview of the most significant and representative positions within feminist aesthetics in the US tradition. The first section introduces the topic of feminist aesthetics. The second section examines feminist interventions in aesthetics, including their evolution towards intersectional and transnational approaches. The challenges of establishing autonomy within and defining feminist aesthetics are discussed in the third, fourth and fifth sections. The sixth section explores the main currents of feminist aesthetics: (a) historical-critical, (b) essentialist (revisionism vs perspectivism), (c) gynocentric and (d) anti-theoretical.

Gendered disinformation in Spanish-language fact-checking: origin, methodology, and perspectives

The recent surge in disinformation targeting gender themes poses a substantial threat to women’s equality in democratic systems. This study investigates the efforts of three fact-checking platforms prominent in Ibero-America (Maldita.es and Newtral in Spain and Chequeado in Argentina) in countering antifeminist fake news. Employing a dual methodology, we conducted a content analysis of pieces published on gender issues over one year and semi-structured interviews with representatives from these platforms. The findings unveil a consistent production of texts addressing contemporary feminist affairs. Disinformers target both the feminist movement and its historical grievances, including gender-based violence. Fact checks emerge as the primary format for combating these hoaxes, with explainers gaining against increasingly complex disinformation narratives. The verification methodology emphasizes consulting official sources and expert testimony. Interviewees acknowledge that there is still much progress to be made in gender-related fact-checking.

“How Can You Be a Feminist if You’re Always Online?” Online Activisms, Ambivalence, and Dis/Connection

Digital presence and participation are often imagined as essential for contemporary feminist practices and identities. However, feminist engagements with digital and social media platforms can be tempered by drawbacks and tensions. This leads activists and everyday feminists to the need to negotiate digital dis/connection in their everyday lives. This article explores the affective dimensions of social media dis/connection in feminist contexts, grounding it on 22 in-depth interviews with people engaged with online feminisms and activisms in the Portuguese context. The article foregrounds the relationship between digital activisms and different affective ambiences, both internal and platform-driven. It explores the pressures felt by activists, the sense of disillusionment that paradoxically co-exists with discourses of political potential of social media, and, finally, practices of partial or temporary disconnection that emerge as means to negotiate the affective ambivalences of digital activism.

Overcoming “the Penetration Model”: Rethinking Sexuality with Foucault, Shusterman, and Contemporary Feminism

In the present contribution, dealing with the intellectual legacy of Michel Foucault forty years after his death, I offer an analysis of some possible relations between certain aspects of Foucault’s project of a history of sexuality, Richard Shusterman’s somaesthetic investigation of the experience of lovemaking, and some recent attempts to critically rethink sexuality in the context of feminist scholarship. My approach towards Foucault’s thinking in this contribution is not philological or attentively reconstructive but rather selective and interpretive. In the first section, I briefly examine Foucault’s general view of sexuality as a “limit-experience”; then, in the second section, I specifically focus my attention on his (critical) analysis of “the penetration model”—an expression coined by Foucault in the context of his inquiry into Greco-Latin sexual culture. In the third section, I take into examination the important influence of Foucault’s aesthetics of existence on Shusterman’s somaesthetics and, in particular, on his book Ars Erotica. Finally, in the fourth section, I make reference—without any ambition of completeness or systematicity—to the question of the relation between Foucault’s thinking and contemporary feminism, focusing my attention on some recent proposals for a critical rethinking of sexuality by feminist scholars such as Bini Adamczak, Ilka Quindeau, Amia Srinivasan, Tamara Tenenbaum, and bell hooks.

Research on the Cognition of Generation Z University Students on Contemporary Feminist Ideologies in the Context of the Digital Society

This study, set against the backdrop of the digital society, focuses on the cognition of Generation Z university students regarding contemporary feminist ideologies. It aims to understand how these students comprehend, accept, and practice feminist concepts amidst the digital wave, and how these concepts influence their social perspectives and behavioral patterns. Through methods such as surveys, in-depth interviews, and online forum analysis, the research systematically collected cognitive data on Generation Z university students understanding of feminist ideologies. The goal is to deepen the understanding of Generation Zs gender concepts and attitudes towards feminism, offering new perspectives and approaches for promoting gender equality and social justice, as well as providing valuable references and insights for future feminist education and research.

‘Does this hurt?’: feminism, pain and the problem of reification

Feminist debates around sex have often revolved around the vexed question of whether women can achieve genuine pleasure under patriarchy. Some ‘sex-negative’ feminists have claimed that the entire debate around ‘pleasure under patriarchy’ rests on an ontological mistake: when women say that they experience sexual pleasure with men, what they mean by ‘pleasure’ is actually pain. On this view, pain is assumed to have an objective existence regardless of whatever the subject is experiencing. Positing such a gap between ‘feeling pain’ as a subjective state of affairs and ‘being in pain’ as an objective fact presupposes a ‘detectivist’ theory of subjectivity, whereby the subject is taken to relate to her pain as a reified object. Examining how detectivism has haunted different feminist traditions – from 1970s feminist consciousness-raising and MacKinnon's anti-sex feminism, to contemporary feminist critiques of liberal consent – I argue that a detectivist theory of subjectivity limits the critical horizon of a feminist politics of pain: it ends up politicising marginalised pain only at the cost of falsifying the subjective nature of pain itself.

From Xenofeminism to Domestic Realism: Some Notes on Helen Hester’s Writings Post-Laboria Cuboniks

This paper discusses the recent texts of Helen Hester, a contemporary feminist theorist, in relation to the writings of Laboria Cuboniks, a feminist collective she was a member of. On the one hand, I critically discuss some of the main concepts underlying xenofeminism, a contemporary strand of feminism revolving around the refunctionalization of technology and the introduction of neo-rationalist tenets in feminist thought, developed by the collective Laboria Cuboniks in their 2015 Xenofeminist Manifesto. On the other hand, I want to propose that some of the shortcomings of these initial xenofeminist concepts are solved in the separate writings of one of the collective’s members, Helen Hester. I begin by situating xenofeminism in the context of left-accelerationism, a philosophy upon which they build their theoretical framework, comprising ontological anti-naturalism, neo-rationalism and a counter-hegemonic approach to politics. Then, I introduce the two key terms I engage from xenofeminism, hyperstition and technology, and demonstrate how Hester nuances their usage in her own works. Finally, I use the term mesopolitics to define Hester’s overall recent project and to help situate it in wider debates surrounding post-work politics and reproductive work.

Feminist Theory

Abstract As an overview to this year’s works in feminist theory, this chapter focuses on the use of personal narrative in feminist writing published in 2023. Overall, I contend that five overlapping motivations give way to contemporary feminist autotheory: first, a sustained interest in addressing the structures of feelings or affects that subtend and give shape to everyday life; next, an exhaustion with and suspicion of both empiricism and poststructuralism; still more, an interest in using writing and scholarship to promote healing or practice care; in addition, an insistence on complexity and particularity and the refusal of generalization; and, finally, a reparative turn towards mothers, especially Black and Brown mothers. The review begins by briefly contextualizing the works in relation to autotheory. The remainder is divided into three sections: 1. Affect, the Everyday, and the Black and Brown Maternal, which considers Moon Charania’s Archive of Tongues and Christina Sharpe’s Ordinary Notes; 2. Beyond Positivistic Empiricism, which turns to Carol Ulises Decena’s Circuits of the Sacred and Ed Cohen’s On Learning to Heal; 3. Attending to Pain and Loss, which reflects on Ayu Saraswati’s Scarred and Megan Sweeney’s Mendings. It ends with a brief conclusion considering autotheory in the university classroom.

From relational thinking to relational politics of responsibility: Reclaiming outrage in economic geography

Informed by economic geography’s history and by contemporary feminist thought, this exchanges commentary proposes the strategic reclamation of outrage to inform the construction and purpose of explanation in the subfield.

A Woman’s Body in the Novel the Bridge by Writer Jasmina Musabegović

The subject of research and analysis in this paper is how the female body was represented in the novel The Bridge written by Jasmina Musabegović. The novel The Bridge was published in 1994. and represents a kind of sequel to the novel Switches from 1986 and a connection with the novel Women. The voice from 2005. Metaphorically and literally this novel represents the connection between the two novels, in fact, a transitional narrative about the maturation and growing up of the main protagonist who, during her stay in a sanatorium, realizes changes in her own body and enters puberty and becomes the body of a women. At the same time, there is a process of identification with the mother and other women who play an important role in the life of the storyteller and who represent a connection during transitions from one stage of life to another. The body as a place in on which meanings are inscribed, becomes the reason for external and internal changes through which the girl who narrates experiences. Because of the sick body, she went to the sanatorium, the biological maturation of the body causes understanding and identification with the mother and sisters, only to remember performative repetition and observation of movements towards and over the bridge, rhythmic combing, and similar body repetitive gestures felt a closeness, understanding, and existence of transgenerational patterns that are transmitted along the female line in the family. This paper brings an analysis and interpretation of those elements in which the female body is represented as one of the primary determinants for self-identification and gender belonging. The theoretical starting point for the analyses of various aspects of the body in this novel is contemporary feminist research based on Elizabeth Grosz's study Volatile Bodies. Special attention will be paid to how a particular image of the human body is formed, as well as the factors that have a direct impact on it.

Women at the Crossroads of Worlds: Gender Dynamics and Strategies in the Novels of Jasmina Musabegović

Women at the crossroads of worlds: gender dynamics and strategies in Jasmina Musabegovic's novels The paper examines various aspects of women's lives “at the crossroads of worlds” exploring the complex dimensions of their experiences, identities, and role in different social, cultural, and geopolitical contexts. Analysis of gender implications often involves a combination of different theoretical approaches to gain a more complete understanding of how society shapes and reflects gender roles and identities. In the novels by Jasmina Musabegović Skretnice (1986), Most (1994), and Žene. Glasovi. (2005) From the disposition of contemporary feminist epistemology, we (re)interpret the position of a woman who is in a relationship (with someone), and not exclusively in the socially constructed role of an object. By reflecting, on the analyzed novels, women's experiences, gender dynamics, and gender-specific issues through the prism of different feminist perspectives and feminist theoretical practices, we realized that women in traditional societies also developed different strategies that enabled survival, adaptation, and partial coping with the limitations of patriarchal structures. These strategies varied depending on the culture, period, and social context.

¿El lado correcto de la historia? El uso político de la narrativa del progreso en los feminismos contemporáneos

This essay examines how the narrative of historical progress is used in contemporary feminisms. It argues that this narrative is used with a specific political aim: to characterise disagreements between feminists as confrontations between the modern and the retrograde. It observes that this positioning often employs patriarchal rhetoric which prefers personal criticism to a discussion of ideas. To illustrate this hypothesis, the article analyses the use of the progress narrative in the present debate about the sex trade within a wide historical context. Undertaking the history of women’s ideas in this way reveals how some arguments in this debate have been disfigured and misunderstood in order to serve the needs of the progress narrative.

Jennifer Cooke, Contemporary Feminist Life-Writing: The New Audacity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020), 234 pages, £83.99 (hardback)

Jennifer Cooke’s monograph Contemporary Feminist Life-Writing: The New Audacity is a recent addition to the Cambridge Studies in Twenty-First-Century Literature and Culture. The series offers a philosophically nuanced account of the twenty-first-century intellectual landscape, as Cooke’s book demonstrates. Aimed primarily at scholars and advanced readers, Contemporary Feminist Life-Writing consists of a carefully curated work of criticism of what Cooke calls ‘the new audacity’, a form of contemporary feminist life-writing that challenges autobiographical conventions. Cooke argues that ‘unlike their second-wave predecessors [new audacity writers] write in the wake of queer, gender, and trauma theory, post-structuralist and Derridean critiques of binary thinking’ (9). Building on a long history of women’s experimental life-writing scholarship, Cooke’s study examines these writers’ personal and theoretical relation to contemporary thought. In so doing, she points to the powerful presence of theory within contemporary feminist life-writing and the forms of fearlessness that its authors deploy.

A STUDY OF FEMALE IMMORTAL IMAGES IN THE "CHAOYUAN XIANZHANG TU"（朝元仙仗图) FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF THE MYTHIC-ARCHETYPAL CRITICISM

This paper intends to apply the mythic-archetypal critique to study the concept archetypes of human collectives and the archetypes in Taoist literature and mythology corresponding the feminine immortal images in the "Chaoyuan Xianzhang Tu." By means of image and word juxtaposition, the study investigates the emotional impacts of female immortal images on modern audiences as well as their contribution to current feminist movements. Aiming to clarify the several metaphors and underlying logic of the development of Taoist female immortal images as a symbolic system, this study analyses the Song Dynasty Taoist painting "Chaoyuan Xianzhang Tu," based on the mythic-archetypal criticism, attempting to visually reproduce mythological archetype images in the portrayal of characters in the image. The study examines the various metaphors in Taoist imagery related to the mythic-archetypal perspective, forming three hierarchical functions: "Great Mother Goddess- The Queen Mother of the West (王母) - Flowers and Fruits," "Anima-Female Immortal Worship-Female Immortal Head Portrayal," and "Eternal Life-Feathered Being-feathered sleeves," all of which allude to the ideological implications of Taoist female immortal worship. Frequently, the symbolic, artistic, and meaningful aspects of Taoist art surpass the literal intent of the surface. The "myth-archetype" theory can be used to interpret these images, thereby guiding contemporary viewers to obtain insights into themselves through Taoist visual arts and providing a potential solution to death anxiety. Additionally, the interpretation of female immortal images offers a novel possibility: the integration of yin and yang, which eliminates traditional male dominance and the concomitant "one-sided, self-centered" feminism. This perspective is applicable to the development of contemporary feminist theory. Keywords: Taoist painting, female immortal images, mythic-archetypal, feminist movements,