Feminist Texts Research Articles

Feminism, Capitalism, Death

This piece works as a critique of neoliberal feminist ideology through an analysis of Anna Melyikan’s 2007 film Mermaid. It begins with a close reading of several scenes in the film and how they operate as a criticism or representation of neoliberal post-Soviet existence. Alissa, the protagonist, is subjected to a series of events which shape her life as a post-Soviet woman—these events ultimately lead to her untimely death. The theme of labour, financially, domestically, and sexually, defines Alissa’s life in Moscow. I use a sociological study on Russian post-Soviet self-help literature written for women as the ideological lens to study the film, drawing connections between the events of the film and the real contents of several self-help books, which are analysed and critiqued by the article’s author. The film visualises a patriarchal double-bind where post-Soviet women are expected to be both patriarchally subordinate and independent economic subjects. This paradox is present in the self-help literature. The essay forges a connection between real-life feminist critique and film criticism, exploring how film criticism can be a vehicle for feminist thought. The essay also interrogates ideas of what a feminist text is and how the creation of a feminist text is an act of discursive meaning-making, a relationship to the viewer/reader as opposed to a definitive quality which takes shape during the text’s creation.

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.

«Como animais ungidos e empalhados na postura duma cópula ou duma presa comum a consumar»: Entre a incompreensão do outro e a potência de ser diferente

In the novel Maina Mendes, by Maria Velho da Costa, some female characters are repeatedly compared to animals. In this essay, we make a survey of some of these approximations between women and animals, seeking to reflect on their association with Maina and Cecily’s search for freedom, and their consequent resistance to the traditional role of women. This reflection is made within the scope of some feminist texts, using the concepts of Subject and Other, seeking the affirmation of difference through the creation of other ways of being, despite the incomprehension, and the consequent threat, that difference can cause in the patriarchal society.

Virginia Woolf s A Room of One s Own: A Foundational Feminist Vision in Euro-American Thought

Virginia Woolf’s seminal work, A Room of One’s Own, published nearly a century ago, is reexamined in this study as not only a feminist manifesto but as a feminist vision that anticipated some of the key features addressed in subsequent Euro-American feminist philosophies. Divided into three sections, the research offers a close analysis of Woolf’s text and its prescient insights, discussing separately the particular focal concerns of British, American, and French feminism, and elaborating on the ways these were envisioned and addressed as early as 1929 in Woolf’s visionary text. The study utilizes Showalter’s typology to analyze Woolf’s text and to organize elaborations on the points Woolf addresses and envisions that became fundamental within subsequent Euro-American feminist criticism, including the correlation between economic and social conditions and intellectual freedom, the necessity of women’s inclusion in the literary canon, and the significance of feminine discourse and gynocriticism. By highlighting Woolf’s remarkable foresight, this research positions A Room of One’s Own not only as a foundational feminist text but also as a profound feminist vision that continues to inform feminist thought today. This re-examination of Woolf’s work contributes to on-going academic discourse surrounding feminist theory and literary criticism.

AMBIVALENTE LYRISCHE PERSPEKTIVEN AUF DIE INDUSTRIELLE REVOLUTION BY LOUISE OTTO‐PETERS

AbstractLouise Otto‐Peters (1819–95) worked as a political activist, women's rights activist, publicist and writer in the turbulent decades before and after the March Revolution of 1848. These pursuits were closely linked, since Louise Otto, who came from middle‐class liberal circles, commented on social grievances and developments in her newspaper articles, novels and poems. This also applies to the poem ‘Einst und Jetzt’, written between 1840 and 1850, which is hermeneutically examined in this article. As the title suggests, the text outlines the dichotomy of past and present or future. The poem, in which the arrival of the railway is a symbol of industrial change, focuses on the contrast between the old, peaceful world and the new world with its noise, faster speed and growth. A young man is drawn into the new world, while his beloved stays at home and is excluded from the innovation resulting from social and industrial upheaval. I examine the poem according to the following questions: What perspectives on the Industrial Revolution and its consequences are expressed and how? In what ways is the poem a feminist text? And where does the poem sit in terms of Louise Otto‐Peters’ literary‐political background?

A Feminist Appraisal of Tess Onwueme’s The Reign of Wazobia

This paper attempts a feminist appraisal of Tess Onwueme’s The Reign of Wazobia. It begins with discussing the stereotypical portrayal of women in male-authored works and the tenets of feminism. The work attempts to answer some feminist questions postulated by Ann Dobie to analyze a feminist text. The study discusses the text by analyzing stereotypes of women, how the male characters talk about women, the treatment of female characters by male characters, and socially and politically powerful characters in the text. The study concludes that women are capable and can perform better when they lead. They should be educated and empowered economically.

OTHERTONGUES: MULTILINGUALISM, NATALITY AND EMPOWERMENT IN SHARON DODUA OTOO'S ADAS RAUM

ABSTRACTWritten in German by the Black British author and activist Sharon Dodua Otoo, the novel Adas Raum (2021) intervenes in contemporary debates on colonial legacies to forge ‘a critical multilingualism’ (Yildiz 2012), challenging master‐narratives and tropes of founding fathers which privilege linear constructions of time and bounded concepts of nation and peoples. This article examines how Otoo foregrounds diasporic female figures as material agents by focusing on ambivalent experiences of childbearing, then argues that the multilingual feminist text rejects dualistic heteropatriarchal models to reconceive community in terms of intersubjective encounters and shared spaces. To illuminate the politics of Otoo's structural concern with rebirth, I take up the concept of ‘natality’ developed in the writings of Hannah Arendt and Adriana Cavarero, which offers a model for imagining possibilities of political action that defy forms of domination. Black feminist thought further informs the ambivalent figuration of motherhood in Otoo's narrative and its central preoccupation with intertwined issues of gender, racial and class discrimination. Challenging the ethnocentricity that has been identified throughout Arendt's oeuvre, Otoo reveals instead how fifteenth‐century West African concepts of space and time can be understood as in dialogue with the post‐war philosopher's understanding of natality as the central category of political thought.

Is She a Feminist Icon Now? Barbie 2023 Movie and a Critique of Postfeminism

This study seeks to analyse Greta Gerwig’s Barbie 2023 movie, exploring how it playfully interacts with academic criticisms by incorporating them into its narrative in a humorous way. This article intends to investigate how the movie serves as a critique of postfeminist media texts by highlighting how it affects women's psychological well-being, illustrating the ways in which it can be debilitating. The movie also highlights the unfulfilled psychological aspects of feminism, rendering it a feminist text in that regard. A thematic analysis of the movie prompts a discussion on how a character who has been a postfeminist icon transforms into a feminist narrative identity.In the beginning of the film, Barbie resides within a paradisiacal realm characterized by unwavering agency and authority. She lives in Barbieland where “every day is a great day”. This mirrors the way in which both girls and boys immerse themselves in their imaginative play, constructing their microcosms replete with agency and the role of the protagonist (Yakali Camoglu, 2020). However, as individuals mature into adulthood, the shift is palpable and the world they encounter demands a relinquishment of some of that power, leading them to transition from active agents to potentially objectified subjects in certain contexts. This is symbolised in Barbie’s own transition from Barbieland (imaginations of childhood) to the Real World (adulthood) in the end of the movie.The movie engages in the critique that Barbie encounters, as her portrayal symbolizes the unrealistic standards imposed on women, portraying them as unattainable ideals. Although her initial intent -supposedly- is to empower girls by rescuing them from the confines of stereotypical maternal roles and introducing them to diverse occupations, her portrayal inadvertently immerses them in a realm where not only physical perfection but also success in careers and relationships is expected—a realm where limitless possibilities coexist with a profound burden. This postfeminist portrayal offers a vision of boundless potential achievable through belief in self, but concurrently fosters a burdensome mental strain and self-objectification among women, entangling them in a constant cycle of self-critique.This predicament forms the crux of Barbie's critical error, leading her to relinquish her paradisiacal abode, Barbieland, and embrace the realm of real-world womanhood. By assuming the complex roles women navigate, Barbie forfeits her idyllic sanctuary and immerses herself in a world where the concept of "perfection" is inherently absent, as authenticity takes precedence over plastic constructs.After identifying the existing literature on Barbie, the article proceeds to present the theoretical framework, which is postfeminism, and outlines the research methodology. The results of the thematic analysis reveal Barbie's active engagement in critiquing the postfeminist media culture in which she was a prominent figure. This pivotal process underscores Barbie's latest contribution to the realm of media studies, transforming from a text entrenched in postfeminist ideals to embodying a feminist narrative.

Utopian and Dystopian Sociotechnical Imaginaries of Big Data

Data feminism, a way of thinking about and “doing” data utilizing feminist tools and perspectives, has emerged in recent years as a part of a critical discourse surrounding datafication. The aim of this study is to analyze and identify shared perceptions of big data as expressed in a corpus of scholarly writings published in the domain of data studies and data feminism. We analyzed a set of 44 scholarly texts engaging in feminism concerned with the concept of big data. For the purpose of this article, we refer to this set of texts as data feminism and examine how authors frame and describe big data. We compare future visions in data feminist material with policies by the European Commission and explore what tensions arise among them. Furthermore, we explore and delineate social and political alternatives that emerge from data feminist texts. Both corpora describe futures inclusive of big data and imagine possible positive outcomes from different perspectives and with different ideas of the current role of big data. We found that sociotechnical imaginaries of big data within the data feminist corpus are considerably richer and more nuanced than those of the European Commission. In the data feminist corpus, big data is described as a multiplicity of things and often implicated in perpetuating power imbalances and large societal issues. The European Commission corpus employs the perspective of “data as a resource” to be exploited.

Multimodal rhythm in TikTok videos: Exploring a recontextualization of the Gillard ‘misogyny speech’

This article presents a multimodal rhythmic analysis of a TikTok video, adopting a social semiotic perspective on embodied meaning-making. We highlight the importance of rhythm in coordinating and intertwining semiotic modes to produce meaning. The study develops a method for undertaking an integrated multimodal analysis of rhythm across speech, bodily action, gesture and music, and develops a transcription convention for representing this rhythmic unfolding. The data considered is a TikTok ‘glambot/boss challenge’ video featuring a lip sync to audio sampled from former Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s 2012 culturally iconic ‘Misogyny Speech’ condemning misogynist and sexist men, particularly those in positions of power. This speech achieved viral prominence internationally and continues to be a key feminist text in Australian political history. The paper demonstrates how end-accented rhythmic groups create anticipation and lead to the main event in both the speech and glambot sections of the video. Alongside the rhythmic analysis, the article examines the intertextual meanings established with other TikTok videos that iterate the glambot meme and glambot challenge.

Whose city? (De)colonising the bodies of speculative fiction in Lauren Beukes's Zoo City

This article explores the (de)colonisation of the body and body boundaries in contemporary South African speculative fiction, paying particular attention to award-wining author, Lauren Beukes's, second novel, Zoo City (2010). I will apply Lara Cox's (2018:317) argument that 'Haraway's cyborg resembles the liminal view of identity presented by queer theory, which seeks to blur strict divisions between sexual and gender categories, dissolving binary oppositions such as woman/man and heterosexual/homosexual', to my reading of Zoo City. By centring the novel around Zinzi December, a resident of 'Zoo City' (the marginalised underbelly of Johannesburg), and situating the novel in the cradle of humankind, Beukes reacts against South Africa's colonial history and its colonisation of the body by blurring the animal-human boundary and challenging the colonial construct of body binaries. The novel can be read as a decolonial feminist text as it re-writes South Africa's apartheid history and critiques its division, separation and bodily segregation. Furthermore, I explore how fictional bodies are imagined and constructed in the text; I ask what kinds of boundary-breaking bodies predominate; and consider their thematic, narrative, and political significance in the postapartheid imaginary in relation to speculative fiction. I examine how new boundaries (particularly between 'normative' society and 'Zoo City') are formulated. Zoo City pulls into focus Kristeva's (1982) notion of the abject body as a central to its concerns, while also bringing attention to Foucault's (1992) notion of the 'disciplined' body. It foregrounds questions about the formulation and destabilisation of identity, with a particular focus on the construction of female identity. This article builds on the critical literature on the dystopian post-apartheid state by examining Zoo City's depictions of marginalised people and its construction of the body and body boundaries, as well as by extending the examination of representations of the body in speculative fiction.

Black feminist texts, presences, methods: a dialogue

Black feminist texts, presences, methods: a dialogue

Feminist Appreciation of Jahnavi Barua’s Undertow

Jahnavi Barua in her 2020 novel Undertow narrates a family sagawhere the relations are estranged due to the daughter’s decision tomarry outside her caste. The novel can be read as the story of threewoman characters– Usha Goswami, Rukmini Goswami and LoyaAlex. These three women are blood relatives; however, they do notshare a common bond of love amongst them. Usha dies withoutaccepting her daughter Rukmini’s marriage; thus, Rukmini’s daughterLoya does not know her grandmother. Rukmini lives an abandonedlife and does not even know about her mother’s death. It is Loya whogoes to her maternal grand parents’ home and claims her mother’splace in it. All the three women seem to follow their own ideologiesand their thoughts and actions provide a suitable set to explore theirposition as a woman. Therefore, the aim of the paper is to explorewhether their decisions are ignited by patriarchy or not and to studythe novel as a feminist text.

Steering through Métis Feminism

Indigenous feminisms are concerned with addressing power imbalances particularly at the intersections of sexism, racism and colonialism. These lived, felt and flesh-based theories allow for more contextualized analyses of women’s lives and help us to dream and realize more just ways of being in relation. The experiences of Métis women, trans, and Two-Spirit people are not disconnected from the experiences of people in other Indigenous nations; however, how sexism, racism and colonialism intersect in Métis communities is distinct in many ways. This article celebrates diverse sites of knowledge production, contributing new ideas to the constellation of Métis feminist texts we live (and dream) daily. The article discusses the need for a Métis-specific articulation and actioning of feminism that responds to the patriarchal oppression taking place within settler societies and within our own communities.

Appropriating Feminist Voice While Translating: Unpublished but Visible Project

Translating a text and making it comprehensive for others is an essential job of the translator, but when a woman translator transfers a text and intentionally stresses the female voice, the act becomes a gender-significant distinction. This study aims to understand the 'feminist' translation strategies used by translators in producing her works. It also aims to study the feminist movement in the Arab world. This paper adopts Skopos's theory to justify using specific strategies in their translation and explain why translators' identities are becoming more visible. The databases from ProQuest, Taylor and Francis, EBSCO, and Google Scholar, were used to explore research articles and books published between 1980 and 2021 for western feminist studies and between 2000 and 2021 for Eastern (Arab) feminist studies. Systematic analysis methods were used, and findings were reported in this study. The results were discussed and presented thematically. Additionally, this paper opens more discussions on the politics of feminist texts in different ways and methods via translation. It shows how the translator's interventions and strategies reshape the Translations so that the force of the feminist message is amplified in some places and mitigated in others. However, further research is needed to investigate more questions, such as the effect of understanding feminism(s) and the translator's ideology on the translation of feminist texts produced. This paper is a crucial contribution to feminism in the Arab world because very few works have been published, and few scholars have discussed this topic.

Sarah Perry’s The Essex Serpent: A Contemporary Remap of Women’s Identity

Sarah Perry’s The Essex Serpent is a contemporary feminist text that sheds light on various perceptions, such as women’s identity, trauma, and social misogyny, through the appropriation of historical fiction. This study investigates the text through the lenses of genre theory, feminism, and trauma theory. It demonstrates that the novel faithfully represents a Victorian setting while remaining relevant to post-postmodern readers. The study suggests that the novel appropriates subversive contemporary conventions and simultaneously expresses Victorian themes. It also argues that Perry’s text provides a commentary on the present by integrating the past. Further, this study explores the misogynistic portrayal of women in the novel and concludes that such depiction emphasizes Victorian patriarchy and women’s marginalization. This research highlights the novel’s depiction of trauma as interrelated to identity and examines its influence on the representation of women’s identity. It demonstrates that the novel’s spatial setting evokes traumatic memory and illustrates various responses to trauma through its employment of features and elements of genre fiction.

Accommodation of Feminism in J. P Clark’s Wives Revolt

Feminism has become a major topic of discussion and research in African drama over the years. Playwrights as well as critics have written numerous works on different aspects of feminism in Africa, including J. P. Clark’s Wives Revolt. But the burden of the African feminist ideology and the different ways it is reflected in the African feminist dramatic texts (the different dimensions of feminism) have not gotten the needed critical attention. This caught the attention of the current study. The study used a literary qualitative and analytical approach, with the primary play text chosen for the study being critically analysed using feminism as the guiding theory. The study concludes that all of the play chosen for the study is feminist text because it deals with the burden of the woman. Beyond this portrayal, the play deals with the place of women and their responses in different ways, thereby attending to the different strands of feminism. The study concludes that the only way to wholly appreciate this play is by connecting the various strands of feminism in their appreciation.

PHONOSEMANTIC FEATURES OF FEMINIST TEXTS MODERN GERMAN PROSE

The article investigates the phonosemantic features of D. Krien's feminist novel "Die Liebe im Ernstfall" in order to establish the symbolic meanings of the initial consonant phonemes encountered in this text. We analysed the theoretical and methodological basis of contemporary German prose and highlighted the typical labelled features of the feminist literature genre (female authors, female protagonists, subtle authorial humour, hard women's fates, struggle for equal rights, fluidity, etc.) and compared them with the text under study. Based on the opinions of expert critics, the plot, idea, purpose of the novel, and our own reading experience, we argue that D. Krien's novel Die Liebe im Ernstfall meets all the features of a women's novel and contains five separate chapters dedicated to each individual heroine and her difficult life path. D. Krien presents the readers with a veiled problem of women's relationships in society and their relations with men, and also points out the inequality of rights in the modern world. Therefore, the paper investigates the functioning of phonemes in the feminist text Die Liebe im Ernstfall by means of a continuous sample and uses the descriptive method and component-statistical methods, namely the chi-square method and the coefficient of mutual conjugation, to establish the symbolic meanings of the initial phoneme combinations. We processed 5056 units of phonemic vocabulary and published the results of the most frequently used words. We have practically established that the most frequently used vocabulary in the novel belongs to the phoneme systems ∫t-, ∫p-,kl-, kr-, gr-, pr-, tr-, ∫r-, and we have also highlighted adjectives of negative perception, colour adjectives, abstract nouns and nouns of negative meaning. In the course of the study of the novel, we found that the modern feminist text by D. Krien "Die Liebe im Ernstfall" is characterised by the minor tone of the phonemic vocabulary used, which contains the leading phoneme [∫] and [r] in the second or third position and a "negative" emotional impact on the reader, the reliability of the results obtained was confirmed by the statistically significant chi-square criterion and the coefficient of mutual conjugation.

Feminism: Critical Analysis of Barclays Ayakoroma's a Matter of Honour

Over the years, feminism has grown to be a crucial subject of debate and study in African literature. A Matter of Honour by Barclays Ayakoroma is one of several plays and criticisms on many facets of feminism in Africa. However, the weight of African feminist ideology and the many ways it manifests itself in African feminist dramatic texts (the various facets of feminism) have not received the necessary critical attention. The present research was interested in this. The core play text selected for the research was critically assessed using feminism as the guiding principle. The study used literary, qualitative, and analytical methods. The research comes to the conclusion that the play used for the study is a feminist text since it addresses the responsibilities of being a woman. Beyond this representation, the play addresses the many strands of feminism by addressing the position of women and their reactions.

Becoming Other, Becoming More

Abstract This article examines how continuity is dealt with in fictional feminist texts that depict gender or sexuate transition, via surgical intervention or transmogrification, in terms of naming and pronoun use, self-image, and perceived image. The texts here examined—literary and filmic works by cis artists Angela Carter, Sally Potter, and Octavia Butler, principally—all pastiche the familiar narratological mode of transsexual autobiography, aping the convention of internal focalization, though each elides the wrong-body formula that frequently accompanies such narratives to justify access to medical treatment and care. I situate each alongside scholarly engagements with transsexual embodiment, surgery, and lived experience, with particular focus on flesh as that which both contains and determines gendered and sexed readings, to ground these fictive accounts of becoming.