By Mihaela-Diana Crăciun Gender equality has never seemed more attainable. It appears to be so close, it’s almost refreshing: we no longer have to fight for it or question it. We are free. Period. Because we’re worth it. The current mainstream discourse informs us that we enjoy unimaginable sexual freedom, which is allegedly the equivalent of women’s emancipation and of the triumph of gender equality. However, according to Natasha Walters, this discourse originates in the hypersexualization of feminine identity as a basis of consumer society and of the reproduction of patriarchal domination. The woman-as-object sells. And not only does it …

by Irina Costache I first came across Nina Cassian in her volumes Memory as Dowry. From her diary notes spread across half a century, I built an image of her as a sort of feminist-poetic ideal. Nina Cassian seemed to be a free woman, open to experimenting (either poetically, politically or amorously), a woman dedicated to her work (maybe the only woman who was known to spend her entire time on the reading-writing rollercoaster so present in the lives of male intellectuals) and not least of all, a woman honest with herself. Critics would say Nina Cassian was spoiled, including …

By Judith Butler[1] “Women” as the Subject of Feminism For the most part, feminist theory has assumed that there is some existing identity, understood through the category of women, who not only initiates feminist interests and goals within discourse, but constitutes the subject for whom political representation is pursued. But politics and representation are controversial terms. On the one hand, representation serves as the operative term within a political process that seeks to extend visibility and legitimacy to women as political subjects; on the other hand, representation is the normative function of a language which is said either to reveal …