DOI
10.1353/tsw.2016.0032
Abstract
This article considers the contributions of Argentinean poet Alfonsina Storni (1892–1938) and Brazilian novelist Clarice Lispector (1920–1977) to the women’s column of newspapers and journals in their respective countries. The women’s column or page was a section entirely dedicated to women’s concerns, addressed specifically to a female readership, and generally authored by a woman or a female persona. As such, it operated under specific parameters of form and content. This article argues that both writers’ transgression of this discursive space can be seen as resignifying gender meanings and potentially transforming readers’ perception of female subjectivity. Analyzing selected pieces from the various columns authored overtly or covertly by Storni and Lispector, the article draws on Judith Butler’s reflections on the performativity of gender and Mikhail Bakhtin’s ideas on double-voiced discourse to focus on the “acting out” of gender as a means of subverting the presuppositions underlying the rigidly codified space of the women’s page. This article explores a corpus that has gone largely unnoticed until recently and generates new understandings of both women’s works.
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
Fall 2016
Publisher Statement
Copyright © 2016 The University of Tulsa. This article first appeared in Tulsa Studies in Women's Literature 35:2 (2016), 413-437.
Please note that downloads of the article are for private/personal use only.
Recommended Citation
Méndez, Mariela. "'Só para mulheres' (Just for women): Alfonsina Storni's and Clarice Lispector's Transgression of the Women's Page." Tulsa Studies in Women's Literature 35, no. 2 (2016): 413-437.