Analize – Journal of Gender and Feminist Studies

10

Authors: Maria Bucur, Indiana University, Bloomington, USA

This article identifies a number of trends over the last two decades in the evolution of feminism in academia, with a focus on the significance of cultural studies, the experience of socialism and post-socialism for women, and new forms of feminist activism to suggest both points of tension and also necessary departures in order to render feminism still relevant.

15

Authors: Adriana Iordache, University of Bucharest

This article explores the importance of women’s rights in the fight for women’s empowerment. It contributes to the theoretical debate on whether women’s rights are compatible and complementary with the general concept of human rights, or rather irreconcilable. The use of the human rights framework for upholding women’s rights has been criticized for: its male norm hidden behind a false universalism obscuring or even excluding women; its disregard for the limited choice of many women, its comprisal of a hierarchy of rights in which those most relevant to women’s equality often do not rank the highest, its limited vocation in positively enforcing women’s equality, its tension with multiculturalism and the problems related to the enforcement of such rights. The paper will discuss these claims and will provide counterarguments to them, and subsequently conclude that the liberal concept of human rights is the best vehicle for promoting women’s rights.

19

Authors: Alina Hurubean, “Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University of Iaşi, Romania

In this article I intend to carry out a critical exercise relative to Romanian feminism and the concepts with which some of its representatives or their opponents operate. By this approach I do not claim to put in order the natural diversity and the dynamics of social representations, but I attempt to establish this practice of a constant critical (self) examination of the meanings with which we operate, of the principles that we support, and of the theoretical options available at a given moment. This article aims to bring attention to certain clichés, theoretical and semantic distortions that are frequently encountered in various communication contexts (in daily life but also in professional or specialized public communication: within projects devoted to this topic, within educational establishments, disciplines, programs of study etc.) concerning the themes of feminism, of equality in gender relations, of femininity/masculinity, and other correlated concepts (discrimination, gender inequalities, differences between sexes, and so on). These conceptual confusions or ambiguities have a twofold negative effect: on the one hand, they affect/denature the correct reception (in the sense of nuanced, documented, and grounded understanding) of feminism in this country, producing reactions of a priori rejection of feminism/gender equality and, on the other, they distort, reduce or even annul the expected results of projected social action and intervention (through programs of information, education, and public policies) as well as the development of a strong feminist movement. This paper seeks to argue answers to some questions: Which are the most common stereotypes and clichés that are operating in the collective mindset and how they preserve the patriarchal model of gender relations? What kind of feminism and gender equality that would be needed today in Romania? What are the opportunities and the means of action needed in order for gender equality to be naturally assimilated in the Romanian collective mindset, deprived of many of prejudices and stereotypes?

22

Authors: Diana Socoliuc, Independent researcher, Leuven, Belgium.

Feminism encompasses such a wide range of cultural and ideological movements that one may rightfully ask: What is Feminism after all? Post-feminism, Girl Power feminism, Do-Me feminism, Queer feminism, Postcolonial feminism, Cyber feminism, “I'm not a feminist... but...” feminism, Third Wave feminism, postfeminist men, Libertarian feminism, illustrate prolific productions in feminist meanings that are multiple, contradictory, may overlap in their beliefs and other times deny one another. Some of these after-feminism movements have often been criticised of being anti-feminist, too commodified by a mainstream patriarchal media language, while others of being apolitical because of celebrating an indeterminate and intersectional subject. In this article I argue for a feminism that is able to be political while embracing an indeterminate and intersectional subject, by replacing identity politics which is exclusionary and perpetuates hierarchical thinking, with an activist politics that is not subject centred but object (policies and practices) centred. Accepting an epistemological position that challenges categorical thinking and embraces indeterminacy and contradiction, is not incompatible with political activism, it reveals in fact potentialities to change the way we think about politics and to rethink possibilities for changing oppressive mentalities. I explore therefore aspects of feminism's politics of representation and its struggle with defining its own subject on one hand and on the other hand I use my ethnographic field-work research on sexual and gender identity within a LGBT community in Belgium, in order to illustrate the lived-experience of the intersectional subject. By this means I don't want to create an antagonistic relation between representation and the lived-experience but show the complexity of their inter-dependency in the process of identity and self making. The non-categorical subject should no longer be disquieting, but become a new means of engaging politics. In this regard I draw on third wave political agenda as exemplary for integrating a feminist political agenda with an intersectional and contradictory subject.