Women in Theory

Editor's quote: "Feminism has been a major political and
cultural force to alert us to the ideological and constructed
nature of images. Feminist theory has shown us the ways in which
patriarchy gives rise to male-dominated visual representations
of the world and therefore of women. This article considers that
the political framework provided by feminism has given some
women a new and oppositional way of creating and reading
photographs. The author, however, argues that the
psychoanalytical starting point of Lacanian theory is not so
fruitful for feminists as the discourse theory developed from
the work of Volosinov." The author says of Volosinov, "His
importance lies in the fact that he opens up an awareness that
signs are social constructs; attaching meaning to a sign is not
a fixed process, so that any policical struggle accents the sign
in different ways - we have the power to determine meaning...
Moving away from any kind of structuralist, almost mechanistic
theories in which people were seen as impotent re-producers of
fully-constructed meanings." The "de-constructive" work of
Barbara Kruger, Marie Yates, and Mary Kelly is discussed.


Citaten:
Lacan
Volosinov,