The Pitfalls of Gender

Gender is one of the most contested socially and culturally constructed categories, the
definition of which is assisted by cultural discourses, including ideologies, customs, beliefs. Since all
these are seldom questioned as constitutive of social structuring and modes of representations,
gender is still percveived as ‟an enigmatic compound of features which is far from being fully
understood.” (Suthrell, 2004) Though the debate is ancient, we owe it to Simone de Beauvoir for
introducing it into the space of philosophical meditation once she asked the apparently innocent
question: ‟What is a woman?” From 1949 on, when The Second Sex was published, superficial, sexist
and paternalistic answers to this question have no longer been taken seriously. Feminism itself had
to rechart its way from self-reference to somber and rational evaluation of the relationships between
sexual and gender identity, ideology, reality and truth.
We conform with and are formed by preexistent discourses that encode sexist and patriarchal
conventions and we face today the World Wide Web revolution that offers new spaces for connecting
with others, debating, sharing experience, and negotiating sexual and gender identity. The new
communication and social media allows for a better comprehension of the way in which gender
normativity shapes individual expression and creativity. In these new debate spaces provided by You
Tube, Facebook, Myspace etc. the heteronormative order no longer functions. Neither do traditional
politics of repulsion and public shaming work to further strengthen gender norms in social media as
they cannot influence drastically the discourse of blogs, social networks, mobile phones etc. All these
effects of the unprecedented development of communication technologies are apparent in
contemporary discourse, which is still centered on complicity and power.
The journal Meridian critic, http://meridiancritic.usv.ro, invites researchers who are
interested in analyzing the impact of gender debates and disputes on culture, especially on literature,
cinematography, language, and communication. We welcome proposals that cross-examine and
engage with these interdisciplinary questions. Possible topics of interest include, but are not limited
to:
 The game of forces involved in various discourse constructions of difference; labelling, stigma,
and power relations;
 Theories of intersectionality and inclusion, redefining queer and gender studies in relation to
other social differences such as those related to race, class, ethnicity, disability, migration, etc.;
 Reproductive technology (in vitro fertilization, surrogacy, embryo donation, etc.) and plastic
surgery that break down the norms of genetic reproduction and change radically gender
relationships, sexuality, and procreation. As a footnote, the cyborg may be approached as a
means of redefining gender and sexual categories and boundaries;
 Gender held up as a scarecrow argument in traditionalist cultures where genderism is
accompanied by a hostile anti-feminist and homophobic rhetoric;
 Gender in Romanian culture and literature;
 Representing homosexuality, abortion, and rape in literature and film;
 Woman as creator: women writers, directors, screen-writers, artists, etc.
 Gender and popular culture: textual and cultural practices, movies, computer games, cartoons,
graphic books, ads, etc. in/through which gender is produced, represented, and consumed;
 Gender and discourse: sociolinguistics facing the feminist epistemology and redefining Judith
Butler’s performative; the issues of power and privilege in language.

Articles may be written in Romanian, English, French, or German.

Abstracts (no more than 200 words), full article (maximum 7,000 words) and a brief
presentation of the author (a bio-note of no more than 400 words) will be sent at:
meridian.critic.flsc@gmail.com
For further details concerning style and templates, follow the format of the samples given at:
http://meridiancritic.usv.ro/index.php/instructions-for-authors/
Deadline for full article submission: 31st of May 2019.