Feminist Discourse Research Articles

The discourses of green modernization and eco-civilizational progress in contemporary China: convergence, tension and mutual learning

“Chinese modernization”, articulated systematically by the working report to the 20th National Congress of Communist Party of China(CPC) in 2022, has been gradually become a worldwide-known popular concept, which emphasizes harmonious coexistence between humanity and nature as one of its “five unique features”. A significant change arisen from it is that, two green theoretical discourses of “eco-civilizational progress” and “green modernization” in contemporary China have historically converged. In the Chinese context, the two discourses can be to a large extent understood as characteristic forms of a more general green discourse. Both the goals or the objectives to be transformed and the dependent environment are common or shared. As self-contained discursive theories, though, there are also noticeable differences and even a certain degree of tension between them. An ideal situation would be that, on the one hand, both of them are consciously put under a broader framework of green discourse theory, from which they can mutually learn and promote from each other, and on the other hand, it is expected that that can better serve China’s practice of building a modern socialist country in all respects.

A Mirror for Men? Feminist Activism of #ImitatingGreasyMen in China

With the evolution of social media, video-sharing platforms have emerged as new arenas for feminist activism. This article examines a new form of hashtag activism on Douyin (Chinese version of TikTok), where Chinese female vloggers satirically imitate certain male behaviors that are sexual aggressive to women. The term sexual aggression is used inclusively to indicate a continuum of manifestations of unwanted sexual behaviors that cover all acts of unwanted sexual contact from sexual harassment up to and including rape. Based on Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) of the top 20 most-viewed short videos tagged with #ImitatingGreasyMen, this study identifies two prevalent imitation archetypes: "Mansplainer'' and "Ordinary-But-Confident Men.", emphasizing the importance of social media platforms for women's expression of attitudes toward gender inequality using humorous language and gestures. Women can use social media platforms to mimic certain typical male behaviors through humorous language and actions in order to awaken women and stay tuned in society. The findings demonstrate a growing level of awareness and resistance to male chauvinist and patriarchal norms, suggesting a shift in traditionally male-dominated gender dynamics and the power of digital activism in challenging traditional gender norms and advancing feminist discourse in China's digital landscape.

Reconciling moral discourses on choice, risk and pronatalism: the politics of elective egg freezing in Singapore

This article examines the framing of choice, risk and pronatalism in Singapore’s debate on elective egg freezing, beginning from the government’s review of the ban in 2012 and ending in 2023 when the procedure was legalised. It demonstrates the possibility of reconciling liberal discourses on reproductive choice with technocritical discourses on egg freezing as a risky and oppressive pronatalist technology. While medical complications, false hope and commercial abuse were longstanding concerns in Singapore, these risks were perceived as reconcilable with choice through an age limit, mandatory counselling and comparative frames from the national and international regulatory context. Additionally, low fertility rates and efforts to advance gender equality enabled the reconciliation of choice and pronatalism as policy justifications, while the construction of female candidates’ heteronormative reproductive desire framed pronatalism in women-centric ways. Such reconciliation was facilitated by Singapore’s strong interventionist culture which normalises paternalism and pronatalism. Within this context and through actors’ articulation of policy ideas, elective egg freezing was reinterpreted as a technology with manageable risks, and a hope technology for women and nation. A moral Singapore State which permits elective egg freezing while supporting the interests of women and society was thus co-produced by politicians, journalists and doctors.

The Dark Lady’s survival in contemporary Black women’s writing

ABSTRACT This article discusses contemporary literary texts that feature the Dark Lady from Shakespeare’s sonnets as a Black woman from the past inhabiting the present: Zadie Smith’s White Teeth (2000), Bernadine Evaristo’s Soul Tourists (2005), and Caroline Randall Williams’s Lucy Negro, Redux (2019). The analysis draws on recent approaches to temporality that offer a critique of linear concepts of time and their function for discourses of progress and modernity as well as ‘race’. Through the figure of the Dark Lady, Smith, Evaristo, and Williams address Black history and project anachronic relations between the early modern era and the present moment, as well as between Shakespeare and the contemporary Black woman writer.

Feminist Paths For Multispecies Ethnography

This article explores the feminist viewpoint that is the basis of the multispecies ethnography that has emerged since the 2000s. Multispecies ethnography is a research and writing method that examines the interconnectedness of different species and acknowledges the significance of non-human beings for establishing culture, community, and nature. It comprehends interactions, entanglements, and associations between humans and more than humans by situating them within all-encompassing ecological frameworks. Feminist discussions about (1) viewing the world from a particular standpoint, (2) the rejection of the distinction between nature and culture, (3) the rejection of human exceptionalism, (4) the recognition of the interconnectedness of lives, and (5) the establishment of a language framework for multispecies form the basis of the methodology. Multispecies ethnography is a method that may demonstrate how nature, plants, animals, and people are all interconnected. It has been enhanced by feminist discussions and has taken on a critical quality. In this way, it can help us see the world as a web of life made up of the ecological connections, interactions, conflicts, and compromises between many species. It may also open the door for creative writing styles and inclusive fieldwork practices.

Affirmative action and employment equity in the professions: Backlash fueled by individualism and meritocracy.

In the 40 years since federal employment equity initiatives were launched in Canada, they have faced persistent backlash. This backlash is grounded in and fueled by conceptualizations of justice and equality that are rooted in ideologies of individualism and meritocracy. Here we draw on 140 qualitative interviews with members of six professions from across Canada, who self-identify as Indigenous, Black or racialized, ethnic minority, disabled, 2SLGBTQ+, and/or from working-class origins, to explore tensions between concepts of justice grounded in group-based oppressions and those grounded in individual egalitarianism. Though affirmative action and employment equity opened up opportunities, people were still left to fight for individual rights. This push to individualism was intensified by persistent hostile misperceptions that people are less qualified and in receipt of 'unfair advantages.' Through discursive misdirection, potential for transformative institutional change is undermined by liberal discourses of individualism and meritocracy.

여성의 몸에 대한 여성주의적 이해와 그 교육적 의미

This study aims to demonstrate that the female body is not an object to be overcome or negated but a constructive agent of social change based on philosophical and feminist discussions about the female body and to present the results of this discussion as an educational-theoretical basis for the formation of female subjectivity. To this end, this study systematically applied the methods of conceptual analysis and argument to philosophical and feminist discussions. This study is organized as follows. Section 2 reviews the meaning-giving function of experience of perception and the medial function of the body based on Merleau-Ponty’s theory of perception. Experience of perception, which individually reveals the meaning of self and object, is presented as the authority for the unity of mind and body and the integration of subject and object. Section 3 discusses from the perspective of social constructionism that femininity is not innately attributed to the female body but is constructed socioculturally. The distinctive way of experience and perception provided by the female body is presented as the starting point for the formation of individual identity and subjectivity. Section 4 attempts an educational criticism of the modern form of the oppression of women based on philosophical and feminist discussions about the female body. Expression based on the body and development of sensibility and sentiment are presented as educational measures to form female subjectivity from the perspective of self-formation (Bildung).

Local Women in the Christian Mission History of the Protestant Church in Southeast Sulawesi (Gepsultra), Indonesia

In the history of Protestant missions, women do not play a significant role in the collective memory. This study endeavors to examine and analyze the involvement of women in the historical records of the Protestant Church mission in Southeast Sulawesi, employing a feminist perspective. The primary thesis of this article posits that the adoption of feminist perspectives is imperative in order to elucidate the interrelated nature of masculine hegemony, Indonesian historiography, and the marginalization of women as individuals who have been excluded from the annals of missionary history and the collective recollection of the Protestant church in Southeast Sulawesi. The article commences with an examination of women and historiography, situated within the framework of feminist discourse. The results indicate that local women deserve to be dubbed missionaries because they serve as missionary heroes, leaders, and cultural bridges.

‘Parallax language planning and policy’ as a theory for navigating (con)(diver)gent interpretations of English Medium Instruction (EMI)

ABSTRACT This article introduces the theory of ‘Parallax language planning and policy’ which refers to the processes and the outcomes of reconciling various political and ideological variances by incorporating the fragments of different progressive discourses into synthetic language planning and policy. ‘Parallax’ captures the ‘changing’ nature of our interpretations of a phenomenon within a particular language planning and policy depending on our political, ideological and epistemological positions. ‘Parallax language planning and policy’ attests to the possibility of developing language plannings and policies that do not neatly fit into one particular position but rather interweave interpretations from various positions despite their contradictory natures. ‘Parallax language planning and policy’ understands that English Medium Instruction (EMI) is a contested terrain where the onto-epistemological, personal, pedagogical and political are interlocked, and it, thus, addresses the political construction of these differences (how they are rationalised, developed and disseminated) in policy defining, framing and making rather than the differences between various ideologies per se. This article draws on government policy initiatives, statistical reports, stakeholders’ interviews/speeches, scholars’ perspectives, news articles and social media posts to operationalise ‘Parallax language planning and policy’ as an analytical lens to examine the range of rationales, (im)possibilities, mechanisms and limitations to the sustainability of EMI in Moroccan higher education.

Gender Performativity and Unstable Identity in Contemporary Queer Romanian Prose

Despite its importance in the analysis of gender in various research fields, Judith Butler’s theory of gender performativity circulates in rather restricted academic spaces in Romania, as her gender studies is not yet a wide field of research. The importation and particularization of the discussion of gender as a social construct is influenced by various factors: from the persistent patriarchal structure of a society in which the post-communist legacy is still felt, to the simultaneity of theoretical receptions of works authored by Butler and several other types of feminist discourse, such as Rosi Braidotti’s posthumanist approach. This paper analyses to what extent these theories produce effects in contemporary Romanian literature, especially in prose with queer issues at its core. The paper further examines the way in which the category of socially constructed gender can be used as a tool for analysing the configurations of the human subject as a sexualised Other in contemporary Romanian literature.

Analisis Podcast Close The Door Tentang Pelanggaran Etika Episode Catheez

The purpose of this research is to conduct an analysis of possible ethical violations contained in the episode "CRAZY KAYA GINI TURNS OME TV⁉️ - CATHEEZ - WHERE IS THE BOCIL OME TV!?" from the "Close the Door" podcast narrated by Catheez. This research uses a qualitative approach to identify and evaluate ethical aspects that appear in the conversations and narratives in the podcast. This research also integrates feminist discourse theory with Vand DJik which is divided into 3 structures, namely macro structure, super structure and micro structure to explore the influence of this episode on gender construction and social norms in the context of conversation. The results of the research identified several forms of ethical violations which were emphasized in the episode including gender stereotyping, verbal harassment, as well as the use of derogatory language. With a feminist discourse perspective, this research also reveals the ways in which these episodes may strengthen or undermine gender norms in society. The results of this research provide important insights regarding the influence of podcasts on understanding ethics and social norms, taking into account gender and feminist perspectives. This research makes an important contribution to understanding the ethical issues that arise in the world of podcasts and also how feminist discourse theory can be applied to analyze the impact of audio media such as podcasts in the social and cultural realm.

(Post)Colonial Complexities and World (Re)Ordering: Contestations from/within the “Margin(alized)”

Abstract The changing constellation of international politics and the rise of emerging powers and new actors especially in the Global South (considered to be at the margins of international politics) are a characteristic feature of today’s world order. These actors challenged the cosmology of dominant Northern/Western liberal discourses on agenda-setting in international politics by creating alternatives like the Non-Aligned Movement, BRICS, and G77 focusing on South–South Cooperation, Pan-Asianism, and Pan-Africanism. However, racial capitalism and neo-imperial forces and conditions continue to define the global capitalist order manifesting in the rise of populism and nationalist sentiments across the Global North and the Global South. These developments have significant implications for world order(ing) and necessitate a deeper engagement with world ordering practices, especially within the Global South, which previously developed contestations of the dominant liberal international world order. Foregrounding postcolonial complexities existing within the “margins” of international politics, I examine the strategic appropriation of marginality by the Bharatiya Janta Party led Indian government externally (highlighting North–South Divide and portraying itself as the leader of the Global South) and internally (through language and elite/non-elite discourses) to gain legitimacy at the domestic level. I further explore how it promotes a particular ethnocentric vision of the world by bringing about changes in the education policy and curriculum. The world (re)ordering that is happening inside the states in the Global South can fertilize global discourses on addressing new and often conflicting ideas on the world order and practices of world (re)ordering.

Feminisit Discourse in Albanian Political Communication

Objectives: According to Foucault, "... dealing with the discourse on human sexuality cannot be done without understanding the power-knowledge-pleasure relationship. The longevity of power is proportional to its ability to hide the mechanisms it uses". The facts show that, in these three decades of upheavals and political changes, even political communication in Albania has known great changes, certainly with ups and downs, different tones and colors. Feminist discourse has tried to show that every woman, who is part of politics, can get out of those "frames" that have placed and labeled her and show herself in one way or another to prove that her own room for which Virginia Ulf spoke in 1928. Methods: The discourse texts in this paper are analyzed using various concepts of contemporary criticism of (Critical) Discourse Analysis. which is a type of literary research that studies how abuse of social power, dominance and inequality are developed, reproduced and resisted within the text in the social and political context. Results: This paper, aims to examine and highlight the way in which this type of discourse, i.e. the feminist discourse, tries to establish balance in a rather difficult terrain, harsh and wild as is the political terrain related to other aspects such as power, rhetoric, dominance, etc. Conclusions: The discourse approach of women in Albanian politics has a marked orientation in highlighting their values in decision-making and making rational politics. Women in Albanian political communication are still labeled simply as beautiful images, prejudging and leaving aside their professional aspect.

Influence of feminist mobilization on legal consciousness and the practices of femicide prosecutors in Mexico at the subnational level

Over the last two decades, some feminist organizations in Mexico have applied principles of transnational women’s rights through the use of concepts such as femicide (feminicidio) and also promoted both the pretrial preventive detention for these crimes, and the implementation of “gender-based violence alerts” by the Mexican federal government. The article aims to understand how these federal policies have influenced the legal consciousness and practices of prosecutors in the state of Nuevo León, Mexico, from 2009 to 2021. I argue that feminist discourses have been inspired by federal-level policies based on penal populism and, although they have encouraged prosecutors to defend the rights of femicide victims, they have also promoted violations of defendants’ and victims’ rights. A qualitative methodology based on documental analysis and interviews with prosecutors, defense attorneys, and human rights defenders has been applied. The article compares narratives and practices of femicide prosecutors during two historical periods and claims that feminist discourses have helped to raise consciousness of women’s rights for prosecutors but have also helped to justify some probable violations of human rights.

Beyond Critique: Returning to the Maternal through Vulnerability

ABSTRACT Critical awareness of how social locations and normative frameworks shape maternal realities has led feminist discussions to gradually withdraw from looking for any constant formation of the maternal that might connect different maternal experiences in different social settings. This paper suggests that implying a theory of vulnerability to the theorization of the maternal may provide a critical perspective concerning the influence of power formations and institutionalized injustices on maternal realities, while also theorizing the shared ontological, ethical, and political aspects of the maternal. This study draws on vulnerability theory to offer an account of maternal affective relations with the child, in which commitment and becoming are intertwined. I argue that the maternal is a relational space in which the desires for life of both the child and mother are entangled through and by the mother’s responsive commitment to the child’s vulnerability.

"Lacking Members of Play": Sexual/Textual Politics in J. M. Coetzee's Foe

Abstract: This essay considers the divide between two camps of critics responding to the use and potential abuse of a white woman narrator in J. M. Coetzee's Foe (1986) and finds within the novel a critique of contemporaneous feminist discourses. I identify a rhetoric of rape deployed by the novel's protagonist, Susan, against the mute ex-slave, Friday, and consider its effect on Susan's ability to mediate between oppressed and dominant groups, represented by Friday and the author—(De)Foe—respectively. Ultimately, I argue that Susan's curiously masculine sense of desire complicates the charge that Coetzee is simply appropriating the voice of a woman, finding instead that he utilises Susan's attempted penetration into Friday's silence to demonstrate the faults of a second-wave feminism that exploits various categories of otherness.

When digital feminisms collide with nationalism: Theorizing “pink feminism” on Chinese social media

This article examines how Chinese digital feminists synergize with cyber nationalism to fight the patriarchy and strive to legitimize feminist discourse in Chinese digital realms, where online feminists face strict state censorship and nationalistic backlash. We situate pink feminism as a form of Internet-based nonconfrontational feminist activism revolving around nationalism, in which “pink” connotes young female nationalists, and analyze its precarity within an authoritarian state and neoliberal platform economy. We argue that while pink feminism contributes to the plurality of Chinese feminisms by legitimatizing feminist expression within nationalist frameworks and reinterpreting Chinese nationalism from a feminist perspective, it may inevitably reinforce the existing power structures that feminists seek to dismantle. We suggest that Chinese digital feminists should strategically and consciously engage with pink feminism without ceding feminist autonomy and reflexivity. This study enriches our understanding of the entanglement between feminism and nationalism in non-Western contexts.

Promiscuous Possibilities: Regenerating a Decolonial Genealogy of Samoan Reproduction

Most of the common ways of thinking about genealogical reproduction are influenced by colonialism and capitalism, which emphasize the importance of the nuclear family, heterosexuality and reproducing future citizens. Under colonialism and capitalism, Samoan women are disciplined into good reproductive laborers who reproduce the moral family and also wider society. This paper looks to Indigenous feminist discourse of regeneration to place Samoan reproductive labor outside of capitalism and within Indigenous feminist genealogies of world-building, asking what other promiscuous possibilities there are for Samoan regeneration. Here, we present a theoretical exploration: thinking with Indigenous feminism offers a decolonial intervention into Samoan reproduction, placing Samoan women’s labor into an alternative genealogy of Indigenous feminist world-building and outside of colonially imposed genealogies.

The national text of Hannah Cowley’s drama “A Day in Turkey; or the Russian slaves”

The paper analyzes the specificity of imagological representation in the play “A Day in Turkey; or The Russian Slaves” (1791) by Hannah Cowley, a prominent English 18 th -century playwright. We consider the literary and historical-political contexts and pretexts of Cowley’s drama in connection with the most outstanding geopolitical events of the last decade of the 18 th century (the Great French Revolution, the Russian-Turkish War of 1787-1791) and outline a number of plays, which belong to the “oriental text” of English drama. A peculiar feature of the play “A Day in Turkey; or The Russian Slaves” is the realization of imagological heteroglossia as well as the interaction of particular national representations in the framework of political and feminist discourse. This interaction is analyzed based on the national images of Russia, Turkey and France, regarding the genre strategies of the play. Special attention is paid to “the Russian text” of the drama marked by a positive evaluation of the national hetero-image and the absence of imagological aggressiveness, which is quite natural in the case of rival countries. Russian personages carry the main ideological load of the play, embodying the author’s humanistic message.

Beyond Representationalism: The Performative Materialities and Affective Dimension of Lin Tianmiao’s the Proliferation of Thread Winding

This paper reexamines the meanings and values of Lin Tianmiao’s (born 1961) The Proliferation of Thread Winding (1995) through an analysis of its materialities. Lin’s Thread Winding has received much attention in feminist discourse, which tends to draw attention to the symbolic manifestations embedded in the act of winding, and in textiles and domestic objects—techniques and materials often associated with “women’s work” within certain Western feminist critiques of women’s art. This paper moves beyond the gendered lens of interpreting Lin’s art, which has built on symbolic and metaphorical readings of the underlying visual representations, and instead turn to investigate how her work can be understood from the perspective of its discursive materialities, through which the art objects produce material signs (phenomenological effects) that indicate its previous process of art making. Drawing upon new materialist theories and the notion of affect, this paper understands the materialities of Lin’s work as dynamic phenomena, emerging from ongoing intertwining relationships between human and nonhuman agencies. It examines how Lin’s work constitutes a series of inquisitive investigations into multiple processes of making, and how affective qualities and critical knowledge can materialize in and through this process.