Feminist Discourse Research Articles

How are interpretive methods feminist and queer? Four discursive methods for studying marginality

ABSTRACT What is a queer feminist method? Both feminists and queer scholars attend to the issue of power, but in somewhat divergent ways. Feminist scholars focus social justice concerns on modernist notions of experience and agency within systems of inequalities, while queer theorists shun a modernist notion of rational actors and focus on the poststructuralist goal of demonstrating the organizing power of discourse. (How) Can social scientists translate these two epistemologies into empirical methods? We consider how traditional social science methods have not been conducive to studying power as everyday discursive marginalization and how interpretive methods can attend to feminist and queer analytical and activist goals. We identify four analytic methods (queer feminist discourse analysis, Loseke’s formula stories, queer feminist ethnography, and interpretive materialism) as potentially feminist and queer. In doing so, we find resonances between feminist and queer epistemologies, which, unlike some of our forebearers, we see as entirely compatible.

Surviving R. Kelly: a budding space for Black feminist discourses?

ABSTRACT Surviving R. Kelly (Part I) (SRK) was intended to amplify the voices of tens of Black and Latino women who have faced sexualized violence at the hands of singer Robert Kelly. The creators hoped to highlight the fact that these women’s testimonies had been deemed untrustworthy by the American legal system, and accosted within mainstream American media. Given that a lack of mainstream outrage regarding the violent experiences of Black women is neither new nor isolated to those victimized by Kelly, and considering that SRK documents the stories of visibly Black women, the docuseries constitutes a potential space for resistance to the harms perpetrated against Black girls and women overall. Thus, I will use a feminist critical theoretical lens to examine the extent to which SRK disrupts the imperialist white supremacist capitalist patriarchal paradigm within which Black girls’ and women’s accounts of sexualized violence are systematically denied credibility and/or attention. I argue that, while SRK begins to critique the harmful social norms that hinder the testimonies of Black victims/survivors from being both heard and believed, the docuseries falls short of holding responsible both the people and the systems complicit in the marginalization of Black female victims/survivors.

Language, gender and sexuality in 2022

This article focuses on research from 2022 that critically analyses the ways in which oppressive discourses continue to circulate, and which examines the role of language in protesting and resisting these discourses. It considers studies that remind us of the feminist and queer principles underpinning the field: to question and critique how hegemonic ideologies of gender and sexuality are reproduced and maintained. The review explores two key areas: research that reveals the continuing problem of mainstream transphobia and studies that consider how feminist discourses of resistance operate linguistically. It concludes with a call for more of this research to be applied to real-world contexts in order to create tangible change. In bringing this work together, the review aims to reaffirm the vital and emancipatory role that language, gender and sexuality scholarship has in both documenting and resisting regressive ideology.

Rewriting French Feminisms: Muslim Women and Intersectional Storytelling with Fatima Daas and Faïza Guène

ABSTRACT As intersectionality has burgeoned into a buzzword, it has not always retained its origins in black women’s lives and standpoints. Unfortunately, criticisms of the concept can further marginalise longstanding histories of resistance to overlapping systems of oppression. This article examines the value of an intersectional lens on transnational French-Algerian feminisms. It analyses the stories that circulate about intersectionality and feminism in France, particularly a misleading tension between, on the one hand, universalism, national identity and French feminism, and on the other, intersectionality. To ensure a situated and embodied approach, the recent works of two French writers, La petite dernière by Fatima Daas and La discrétion by Faïza Guène, guide this article’s rethinking of the epistemological bounds of (intersectional) feminism. An analysis of how the authors engage publicly with feminism, how their characters navigate sexism, racism, and Islamophobia in Paris and how the works are received, reveals a productive tension between the plural modes of resistance and agency Daas and Guène present, and dominant French feminist discourse. I argue for the value of an intersectional lens in bridging this gap and enabling the lives of Muslim women to shape the feminist project and participate in the construction of the universal.

#girls help girls#: feminist discussions and affective heterotopia in patriarchal China

ABSTRACT In June 2021, a girl named Du Meizhu revealed on Weibo (Chinese Twitter) of having been emotionally and sexually abused by the top-tier idol Kris Wu. The incident gained publicity over the month and climaxed in mid-July, when netizens started the hashtag #girls help girls# on Weibo. Rapidly topping the trending list, this incident led to heated discussions around the case and women’s social status in contemporary Chinese patriarchy. Yet unlike its #MeToo counterpart, the hashtag had been taken down hastily within hours, cutting its practitioners off from further engagements. In this paper we nonetheless propose a more positive interpretation of the incident. Combining Massumi’s affect theory with Foucault’s heterotopia, we argue that Weibo users constructed themselves an affective heterotopia in the hashtag #girls help girls#. Through an affective textual analysis of the posts in the hashtag, we argue that while vulnerable to censorship, the affective force in this heterotopia is ultimately untameable to the discursive regime, potentially leading to concrete feminist ends. In so doing, we offer methodological insight for understanding online feminist discussions in the particular context of contemporary China, adding to scholarship that transcends the global North orientation in feminist theory and politics.

Discurso feminista e identidad americana en la danza moderna: Martha Graham y el significado social del cuerpo femenino

. Este artículo reflexiona acerca de los conceptos del discurso feminista y de la identidad americana en el contexto de la significación social del cuerpo danzante tal y como está representado en las coreografías de la bailarina americana Martha Graham. Aquí abordamos el impacto de las obras revolucionarias Heretic (1929) Lamentation (1930), Primitive Mysteries (1931), Frontier (1935), Letter to the World (1940) y Appalachian Spring (1944), explorando su significado social con referencia a la demarcación de la masculinidad y de la feminidad en la visión de danza de Graham. La iconografía visual, las partituras extraordinarias y la atmósfera sensorial creada por y para estas coreografías seminales son experiencias únicas de una danza artística específica que construye el discurso feminista. La contribución de Martha Graham a la formación de la danza moderna y sus característicos movimientos de ‘contract and release’ que forman la Graham Technique, en la que la energía se localiza en el centro del cuerpo, está saturada de emoción humana. El discurso feminista incorporado en estas coreografías habla del amor y de la muerte, de la opresión y de la libertad, de las limitaciones del género y de la lucha por identidad. Su contribución iluminadora a la danza contemporánea se basó en sus frases de movimiento corporal únicas y en su cuestionamiento sin concesiones de los cuerpos construidos socialmente. Martha Graham creó un nuevo vocabulario de movimiento que revolucionó la danza y se configuró debido al ‘cultural embodiment, cultural communication and the whole shift in the Western lifeworld at the beginning of the twentieth century’ . Palabras clave. Martha Graham, Graham Technique, danza moderna, significado social, discurso feminista, cuerpo femenino, grupos sociales, identidad americana, paisaje musical, cuerpo danzante femenino.

War Metaphors in Feminist Discourse: A Subversive Position against Ethical Violence

ABSTRACT War metaphors are ubiquitous in feminism-related discourse, portraying activists as warriors against patriarchy. Recent research in critical discourse analysis shows positive and negative implications of using war metaphors in relation to political matters. The use of empowerment language reveals a subversive position taken by feminists in the construction of its own narrative. Building on Judith Butler’s idea of ethical violence, we examine the subversive position in feminist discourse as a form of response against the violent ethos that inhabits the symbolic construction of genders. This view is contrasted with Žižekian–Lacanian approaches to understand violence of exclusion as an effect of the Lacanian Real imposing a limit to the symbolic. The notion of sexuation and difference between gender and sex is analyzed from Butler´s and Lacanian perspectives. We distinguish between feminism and the Lacanian logic of the feminine, emphasizing the importance of situating the victim/warrior signifiers in terms of the function they fulfill for a speaking being. In the final section we propose an orientation toward devictimization of women in feminist discourse, in the spirit of recognition of the singularity and incompleteness of the subject in line with the logic of the Lacanian not-all.

The cultural distortion of the African world view and the subordination of women in ‘postcolonial’ African societies

The purpose of this article is to bring to light a critical question which borders around the decolonial feminism discourse, and in so doing I unveil some salient insights which add valuable contributions to the discourse about the place of feminism in the African context. The motivating problem is the question of subordination of women in Africa. There are many reasons and questions, each deserving thorough examination that have been brought forward for the causes and possible explanations of the phenomenon. The argument I seek to highlight is that cultural distortion through colonisation has led to the valorisation of narratives that perpetuate the subordination of women in Africa. One such narrative is that women are second-class citizens and that they occupy an inferior position in the social, economic and political hierarchies of our society. What will come from this article is that these narratives persist in what we would consider a postcolonial “modern” Africa where women seem to be gaining rights and tapping into spaces that foster equality owing to feminism. However, the subordination of women is still prevalent, even for the “liberated” women. The article will show why the persistence of this problem is proving difficult for the comprehension and acceptance of feminism in African contexts.

Идеология как фактор перевода: традиции в инновациях

The paper focuses on rendering the ideological component in translation, which engenders significant difficulty for a modern translator. Taking political and gender aspects into consideration, the authors aim to emphasize the importance of correct ideological translation, which is understood as creation of authentic texts in one language based on the original texts in the other language. The material of the study is comprised of authentic German-language media publications posted on the Internet in 2022–2023 and devoted to the topics of "special military operation" and "gender". As a result, it was revealed that in most texts about the special military operation, the translation of the ideological component is carried out not through decoding, but by means of reformulating the information, which leads to its distortion. In feminist discourse, the blurring of gender identity as an element of ideology contributes to the emergence of non-equivalent lexical units, the use of which does not always correspond to the rules adopted in institutional communication in a particular linguistic culture. To implement effective communication, the authors recommend to focus on the ethical principles of interaction. It is concluded that the multiplication of incorrect ideological translation becomes a new challenge for the professional community. In order to respond to it, the translator is to have profound knowledge in the field of culture, history, linguistics and regional studies, which determines the degree of accuracy in information interpretation that occurs while working with any foreign cultural text.

«Santé publique et libertés»: Considérations sur la peste dans «The Free-Thinker» (1718-1721)

In June 1720, a plague epidemic broke out in Marseille, killed half its population and, spread to Provence and Languedoc, thus arousing fears of contagion in England, where the memory of the Great Plague of London in 1664/5 was still vivid. While the English newspapers published short news on the mortality and measures taken by the French authorities, a leisure periodical, «The Free-Thinker», a bi-weekly essay paper published in London and circulated throughout the country between March 1718 and July 1721, chose to devote a series of twenty-five papers to the contagion between December 1720 and June 1721. The present study analyses the rational and liberal discourse of this periodical. It will show that at a time when the plague was the subject of many providentialist sermons, «The Free-Thinker» offered its readers an exclusively rational discourse based on the popularisation of medical, statistical and historical knowledge about the plague. «The Free-Thinker»’s arguments also echoed both the essentially preventive approach of the English government and medical polemics concerning two contagionist conceptions of the disease. Finally, although the periodical justified its series by using the argument of public good and put forward public health policies, its aim was primarily to counter a radical contagionist discourse which was considered harmful to the economic and political freedoms of its readers.

Metaphors Are Missing: Critique of Arabic Translation Strategies of Gendered Metaphors

This article falls within the broad area of translation studies in the context of feminist translation. It focuses on the strategies employed in translating gendered metaphors, and it carries out a critical analysis of gendered metaphors translation in Doris Lessing’s novel The Cleft (2007) and its two Arabic translations. The first translation is done by Mohamed Darwish under the title (The Female) (Al- Ūntha) 2008 and published by Mohamed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Foundation. The second translation is done by Mohamed Ibrahim Al Abdalla under the title (The Rift) (Al- Ṣād)) 2012 and published by the Arab Writers Union. The article focuses on and examines the cases where the translation of gendered metaphor presents challenge to Arab translator because of cultural differences. It argues that the areas where the translation of unconventional gendered metaphor challenges target culture deserve attention and need to be examined. The article offers a critique of the translation strategies employed by Arab translators for these unconventional metaphors. The article argues that gendered metaphors that appeared in feminist literary works invites different translation strategies when it is translated from English into Arabic. The article shows to what extant feminism values and agenda are reflected in Gendered metaphors that are developed by female writers. The analysis of translation strategies that Arab translators utilised in their translations of these metaphors intends to show which strategy is able to ensure a balanced representation of the author's and the translator's voices and render gendered non-traditional images in different cultures. The study vouches for hybridity as a strategy in translating gendered metaphors from English into Arabic, the article argues that Arab translators who are dealing with verbal gendered metaphor might need to adopt new approaches/ translation strategies to render the purpose of these metaphors in a different culture and bridges the gap in feminism discourse.

PLURALITY OF HISTORIES: NATIONAL DISCURSIVE NARRATIVES ABOUT 1971 WAR

The research article is based on new historicist technique and presents a comparison of the ‘national narratives of Pakistan and Bangladesh’ about 1971 war embodying the theme of secession. Therefore, for current research work, the ‘literary and non-literary texts[1]’ of both Pakistani and Bangladeshi writers have been selected. These representative texts about the discourse of separation and liberation, and 1971 war present dissimilar and opposing ‘national narratives’ about the whole event and 1971 war. This contrastive comparative textual analysis has helped the researcher to note and record disparities that how issues are taken and interpreted, even manipulated, at different levels, within a single society or nation for upholding and protecting vested (personal) interests. Keywords: Plurality, history, national discursive narrative, 1971 war.

Teaching through objects and collections: The case of Strängnäs Secondary Grammar School and school museum 1830-1960

This paper aims to introduce educational history to multimodal studies by combining a source-oriented approach with multimodal social semiotics. We trace the role of objects and collections in teaching and learning, and focus on Strängnäs Secondary Grammar School in Sweden 1830-1960 as a case example. Closely examining original documents, remaining physical objects, and examples of their situated use as represented in photographs and drawings, the paper provides a nuanced perspective on how object-based pedagogy was applied. It traces how objects and artefacts were incorporated into the school’s collections, by the actions of different actors, in processes of recontextualisation and framing. The activity types that we use as examples, include: drawing lessons in art, weapons practice in physical education, plant collecting in botany, and map exercises in history. These examples show how objects and their meaning potential were used in teaching and learning, and how they realized certain discourses of schooling. Based on our examples, we can see how educational discourses such as progressivism came to have different impact in different subjects. While an authoritarian and national discourse prevailed in art and physical education, a scientific and progressive discourse seem to have been established in botany and history. By combining multimodality with historical research, we can understand meaning-making within a larger context of sociocultural practices and sociopolitical forces.

MARGINALIZATION OF WOMEN BEHIND THE NEWS (A CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS OF SARA MILLS' MARGINALIZATION OF WOMEN IN ONLINE NEWS REVEALS CONDITIONS FOR CONTRACT EXTENSION IN STAYCATION)

This research discusses sexual harassment that occurs among women in online media coverage. Good media can provide balanced and informative information. Various reports related to sexual harassment experienced by women often represent someone within a discourse. Currently, the exploitation of women is carried out through more intellectual and sophisticated ways, one of which is through discourse expressed in mass media. Women in the media are positioned prominently visually but marginalized in meaning. If left unchecked, this will further emphasize the gender differences between women and men, resulting in an increased potential for gender oppression with women as the victims. The issue addressed in this research is the discourse analysis using Sara Mills' theory. Sara Mills' discussion on discourse theory revolves around feminist discourse as its main focus, addressing women's issues such as how women are portrayed in the news. The research method used in this study is literature review. The results of this study conclude that the texts exhibit bias in representing women in news texts across four different media sources.

I have Nothing to Say...

I Have Nothing to Say... is a poetic feminist discourse analysis that explores the feelings of an Indian woman who has been subjected to, and now struggles against, the constant familial and societal obligations of womanhood. Despite her talents, she has been repeatedly denied what she deserves – what she is owed. After having, not only her self-worth, but the very meaning of her existence repeatedly challenged by her loved ones, she eventually chooses the path of silence and unspoken words. But deep within her, she continues to fight the rising tide of emotions. The poem paints a picture of the many people who stirred these emotions – who sought to prevent the woman from pursuing her dreams, from society writ large to those who have tried to kill her, to her very family.

Reaching for the Stars: The Zambian Space Programme and Alternative Imaginaries of Space Travel

Discourses of space travel have long been acknowledged as imbricated in the logic and language of colonial expansionism. Despite the dangerous uses to which romantic framings of these have historically been put, there is nonetheless a lingeringly aspirational quality to imaginaries of space travel whose emancipatory potential exists in strange tension with its discursive complicity in coloniality. A related tension reverberates in newer revisionings of postcolonial science or speculative fiction that point to the utopian possibilities of imagining otherwise, in the face of traditional science fiction’s embeddedness in colonial discourses of science and progress. In this essay, I explore this tension by way of an engagement with some lesser-known perspectives on and interventions in the Cold War space race. This entails an analysis of the Zambian space programme as refracted in a number of texts: A. K. Chesterton’s The New Unhappy Lords, Edward Nkoloso’s article, “We’re Going to Mars! With a Spacegirl, Two Cats and a Missionary”, Frances Bodomo’s short film Afronauts, and Namwali Serpell’s novel The Old Drift. I propose that irony, satire, and the theatricality of space travel have provided entry points for the critiques of inequality and oppression manifested here, and argue that this has been used to undercut coloniality and white supremacy, albeit in very different, and often disjunctive and profoundly ambivalent ways. Though at times confounding, this ambivalence warrants nuanced exploration as it reveals both overlapping and incongruent strategies for resistance, and serves to contextualize appropriations, aspirations, and imaginaries of space travel today.

Disruptive protest, civil disobedience & direct action

Disruptive protest has become increasingly studied and promoted across the social sciences, not least in relation to climate protests. This paper asks what the rationale and effects of disruptive protest are. It argues that disruptive protest carries a prefigurative legitimacy, envisaging a more democratic and just society while aiming for broader appeal and legitimacy rendered by liberal discourses. The paper takes a political theory perspective through both the literature on civil disobedience and the anarchist literature on direct action. It then explores how the key attributes of these literatures render legitimacy to the practices and discourses of two social movements that have made widespread use of disruptive protest in recent years: the Spanish anti-eviction movement Plataforma de Afectados por la Hipoteca (PAH) and the mainly British climate change movement Extinction Rebellion (XR).

Feminist Discourse in Irish Literature: Gender and Power in Louise O'Neill's Young Adult Fiction by Jennifer Mooney (review)

Feminist Discourse in Irish Literature: Gender and Power in Louise O'Neill's Young Adult Fiction by Jennifer Mooney (review)

Men’s efforts to tackle men’s violence: negotiating gendered privileges and norms in movement and practice spaces

The involvement of men in efforts to challenge men’s violence is a crucial component for eradicating gender-based violence (GBV) and for disrupting the continued responsibilisation of women and survivors for addressing the problem at various scales. But as men’s participation in the field has evolved and become increasingly professionalised, so tensions have emerged regarding what happens when men enter women-majority professional and movement anti-violence spaces. Via a feminist discourse analysis, this article explores how men active in the violence against women and girls (VAWG) sector and movement conceptualise and negotiate the challenges associated with the reproduction of patriarchal privilege in the context of their work or activism. Analysis points to how gender inequalities and masculine norms are both instrumentalised as well as entrenched, even when men ‘allies’ seek to challenge them. Moreover, findings indicate how men’s often elevated status in anti-violence practice and movement spaces can be used to resource a type of ‘entrepreneurial masculinity’ which obstructs structural change as regards gendered norms and expectations. This article offers an empirical and theoretical contribution to the expanding literature on men’s role(s) in the prevention of men’s violence against women and minoritised genders, and the ways in which gendered privilege operates therein.

Rereading the story of Hagar in Genesis 16:1-16 as a narrative of prejudice in South Africa.

The present research is a rereading of the Hagar narrative in view of prejudice in South Africa. Some previous contributions on the Hagar narrative have tended to pursue either exegetical or hermeneutic route. The present research comprises an eight-tier structure. However, the Hagar narrative is explored in lieu of the following two foci. First, a critical exegesis of the Hagar narrative (Genesis 16:1-16) is given. The critical exegesis is a verse-by-verse analysis of the narrative. The analysis seeks to present clarity for the readership where some ambiguity and inconsistency occur in the narrative. For example, the study interrogates the flight of a pregnant Hagar from Sarah in Mamre and travels a journey of approximately 340km to Shur at the border with Egypt. Other misunderstood parts of the text include the enslavement, marriage and mistreatment of Hagar by Abraham and Sarah. Second, a rereading of the Hagar story as a narrative of prejudice in South Africa is explored. It is argued that the attempt is not to regard the narrative as a historical reality and that Hagar will not be discussed as a historical figure. On the contrary, the present study examines the concepts and themes in the Hagar narrative considering the perceived oppression and prejudice devastating post-apartheid South Africa today. The study argues that South Africa has not successfully dismantled apartheid policies by the dawning of majority rule; unemployment, poverty and abortion continue to depict the ‘rainbow nation’ in a bad light. For example, legalization of abortion contradicts the African Ubuntu philosophy. Hence, “…Return to thy mistress and submit thyself under her hands” (Genesis 16:9) suggests a perpetuity of apartheid policies. However, a rereading of the Hebrew phrase translated as “The well of him that lives and sees” (see Genesis 16:14), portrays Hagar envisioning triumph and a dispensation of euphoria beyond her situation of deprivation and prejudice. The study is, therefore, poised towards a feminist discussion of Hagar as an African mother (wife) who was jettisoned to take care of the young children solely and single-handedly. The study utilizes a contextual content analysis as an approach in which secondary data analysis on the Hagar narrative will be explored in light of the biblical text as the primary source. The study revolves around a symbolic interactionism theory.