Women Finding Their Voices in the Symbolic Order of American Society
Journal
VERMILION International Journal of Literature and Art
Date Issued
2019-06
Author(s)
Abstract
The aim of this article is to show the struggle of women from various cultural, ethnic, race and
sexual backgrounds to find their voices amid the confines of the Symbolic Order of
contemporary American society. Through the medium of language, society imposes and
perpetuates the roles which its members have to accept and abide by. Due to the fact that the
Symbolic Order and language as its articulation are male-centred, they serve to entrap women
in roles which define them in accordance with the dominant logocentric concepts. They are
forced into mimicry, having to use an alien voice, while theirs is forced into the background, into
the “semiotic”. The autobigraphical works by Maxine Hong Kinston, Audre Lorde and Minnie
Bruce Pratt present us with the social, gender, sexual and racial prejudices, struggles and
obstacles they had to go through in American society, but also with a powerful set of strategies
to find and express their voice and identity in life and literature.
sexual backgrounds to find their voices amid the confines of the Symbolic Order of
contemporary American society. Through the medium of language, society imposes and
perpetuates the roles which its members have to accept and abide by. Due to the fact that the
Symbolic Order and language as its articulation are male-centred, they serve to entrap women
in roles which define them in accordance with the dominant logocentric concepts. They are
forced into mimicry, having to use an alien voice, while theirs is forced into the background, into
the “semiotic”. The autobigraphical works by Maxine Hong Kinston, Audre Lorde and Minnie
Bruce Pratt present us with the social, gender, sexual and racial prejudices, struggles and
obstacles they had to go through in American society, but also with a powerful set of strategies
to find and express their voice and identity in life and literature.
Subjects
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Damjanoski, M. (2019). Women Finding Their Voices in the Symbolic Order of American.pdf
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