Redefining Womanhood: Agency, Voice, and Identity in Francophone Women’s Cultural Production

The definition of womanhood has been contested for centuries. Despite the progress made by generations of feminist and queer thinkers, fixed ideas about what 'makes' a woman continue to persist: womanhood is too often defined in terms of 'innate' qualities and limited roles. This volume explores the ways women have responded to supposed biological and social imperatives in literature, film, photography and music, with contributions on French and Francophone artists and writers in a variety of geographical and cultural locations.
Whether in writing, music, film, or photography, the artists examined in this volume respond to social expectations and attempt to (re)define what it means for them to be a woman. Mainstream discourse on many of the themes addressed position women as victims (of rape or harassment, for example), or ignore women’s experiences of traumatic events, such as war. Women who fail to live up to normative configurations of womanhood (as non-mothers or ‘bad’ mothers) are also stigmatised or erased in mainstream cultural representation. The works studied in this volume contest such damaging misrepresentations by constructing and re-constructing the notion of womanhood, recouping it as an expansive, meaningful term and a site of resilience, autonomy, and self-reflection.
Overall, this volume takes an intersectional feminist approach. The range of media and artists explored across the volume’s chapters means that contributors will bring to bear an array of more discipline-specific theoretical frameworks in their individual essays. The overarching themes that guide and connect the four sections of the volume are female agency and the de-/re-/construction of female identity.