Identifying Feminism : The Narratives of Power and Resistance
Jezik književnost, moć / Language, Literature, Power : zbornik radova, Filozofski fakultet u Nišu, 2023, str. 347-358
Even though the feminist agenda has always been related to the concept of empowerment and resistance, the feminist struggles, both in theory and practice, have often just replicated forms of exclusion and domination in their own ranks and narratives. This failure to bring about substantial changes in the underlying systems of power has made it necessary to reconsider the achievements made so far, while the ability to identify the structural matrices of oppression in the existing narratives is seen as crucial to performing a radical break with dominant culture of systemic violence. Today, it is the culture in a consumerist world in which women have been declared free, and are persistently lauded for having won most of their feminist ‘battles’, but it is more often than not, and usually under the surface of its politically correct speech and democratic ways, even more toxic and oppressive than ever. Redefining the idea of transformative power – of both words and deeds – and a choice to resist is therefore related to remembering the warning words of bell hooks, the recently deceased feminist icon of resistance. In the context in which mainstream feminism has been largely appropriated to serve the ends of neoliberal agenda, her warning states that it has become urgent to re-appropriate the term, change the narrative by identifying and proclaiming feminism to be not just about gender roles but about liberation for all people – female and male – from domination and oppression in all its different manifestations, old and new. The paper will then proceed to illustrate different aspects of power, and different ways of speaking out to demonstrate resistance to its destructive ways by calling upon the resisting voices of three contemporary literary figures: that of Antigone (Sophocles), of Adolfina Freud (Goce Smilevski), and of Michael K. (J.M. Coetzee)
engleski
2023
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OSNO - Opšta sistematizacija naučnih oblasti, Književnost
OSNO - Opšta sistematizacija naučnih oblasti, Književnost
the feminist agenda, identifying oppression, the idea of transformative power, changing the narrative and re-appropriating the term, resisting oppression