فمينيسم در عرصه سياست گفتمان

FEMINISM AND THE POLITICS OF DISCOURSE

The repressive function of linguistic and discursive elements has been highlighted in feminist critique. Feminists have demonstrated how these elements may lead to the repression of women and feminity as well as to the perpetuation of male dominance. They can be considered as pioneers in their emphasis on the linguistic construction of reality (including in categories such as "man" and "woman") and in their focus on the role of language in dominance and power relations. Thus one of the main loci of their struggles is discourse and language both in the narrow sense and the broader sense as semantic and semiotic systems. Womenʹs movement was engaged at this level of struggle in a non - systematic way during its first wave from 1840ʹs to 1920ʹs. It was, however, in the second wave, i.e. during the 1960ʹs and 1970ʹs that feminism, like other "new" social movements, turned toward symbolic struggles. This type of struggle has become a (if not the) major arena of feminist activism during the last two decades of the third wave of womenʹs movement. This article is an attempt to analyse this aspect of feminist theory and practice.