The Awakening of the Locked Up Female Body in That Scorching Season of Youth

Abstract

The dichotomies of 'self/other', ‘subject/object’, 'mind/body', ‘reason/emotion’ and 'materiality/rationality', having been initiated and systematized by Plato and Aristotle respectively, and accepted as ‘Cartesian Duality’ with the ideas of French philosopher René Descartes, have been gradually turned into strongly established binary opposition of ‘male/female’ by patriarchal societies. This transformation process deriving from female body and sexuality has defined and marginalized woman in accordance with androcentric terms and imprisoned her within patriarchal constraints. Women and women writers, aiming to subvert male hegemony, have been in a struggle for articulating the unspoken female body and sexuality, and giving voice to muted fellows with the required words and awareness. Erendiz Atasü, knowing all the difficulties and limitations as a woman and a woman writer in a patriarchal society, is one of those women writers seeking alternative ways to change women’s constructed submissive and secondary position. In accordance with those considerations, Atasü strives for transcending beyond long-established gender dichotomies emanated from primary ‘male/female’ opposition and emphasizes the significance of unshackling and de(con)structing the phallocentric discourses and unspoken taboos in regard to female body and experiences. In this respect, based on the theories of post-structuralist feminism, this study analyzes Atasü’s poetic work, That Scorching Season of Youth, and aims to prove how women can establish a new, female-oriented tradition that will allow, justify and acknowledge their female existence through the rejecting the constructed phallocentric discourses and hierarchical binary oppositions

Keywords

• female body and sexuality
• phallocentric discourse
• de(con)struction
• mind-body
• unspoken

References

1. Allen, Prudence. The Concept of Woman: The Aristotelian Revolution 750 BC-AD 1250. (Toronto: Eden Press, 1985).
2. Ardener, Edwin. “Belief and the Problem of Women”, Perceiving Women ed. Shirley Ardener (London: Malaby Press, 1975).
3. Aristotle . Generation of Animals. Trans. A. J. Peck (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1943).
4. Atasü, Erendiz . Gençliğin O Yakıcı Mevsimi (Ankara: Bilgi Yayınevi, 1999).
5. Atasü, Erendiz . Bilinçle Beden Arasındaki Uzaklık (İstanbul: Everest Yayınları, 2009).
6. Berktay, Fatmagül. Tek Tanrılı Dinler Karşısında Kadın (İstanbul: Metis, 1995).
7. Cixous, Helene & Clement, Catherine. The Newly Born Woman, Trans. B. Wing (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1986).
8. Diquinzio, Patrice. The Impossibility of Motherhood: Feminism, Individualism, and The Problem of Mothering (New York: Routledge, 1999).

9. 148 The Awakening of the Locked Up Female Body in That Scorching Season of Youth Direnç, Dilek. “Yurekli Yaratıcılıgın Buyuk ve Istıraplı Mucadelesi: Erendiz Atasu’nun Yazan Kadınları/Kadın Yazarları”, Erendiz Atasü Edebiyatı ed. Günseli Sönmez İşçi (İstanbul: Can, 2014), 83 – 103.
10. Freud, Sigmund. Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality. Trans. James Strachey (New York: Avon Books, 1971).
11. Garber, Marjorie. Vested Interests: Cross-Dressing and Cultural Anxiety (London: Routledge, 1997).
12. Gubar, Susan. “‘The Blank Page’ and the Issues of Female Creativity”, Writing and Sexual Difference ed. Elizabeth Abel (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1980).
13. Jaggar, Alison & Bordo, Susan. Gender/Body/Knowledge: Feminist Reconstructions of Being and Knowing (New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 1989).
14. Irigaray, Luce. This Sex Which Is Not One. Trans. Catherine Porter (New York: Cornell University Press, 1985).
15. Irigaray, Luce. Luce Irigaray:Teaching (London: Continuum, 2008).
16. Kamitsuka, Margaret D. “Toward a Feminist Portmodern and Postcolonial Interpretation of Sin”, The Journal of Religion 84, no. 2 (April 2004): 179-211 https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/381210
17. Kristeva, Julia. “The Subject in Process”, The Tel Quel Reader, eds.Patrick French and Roland- Francois Lack (London: Routledge, 1998), 133-178.
18. Kolodny, Annette. “Unearthing Herstory: An Introduction”, The Ecocriticism Reader:Landmarks in Literary Ecology ed. C. Glotfelty & H. Fromm (Georgia: The University of Georgia Press, 1996), 171–181.
19. Koyuncu, Nevin Yıldırım. “Bilincin Usuna Beden Duşunce: Bedende Yeşeren Bilinc”, Erendiz Atasü Edebiyatı ed. Günseli Sönmez İşçi (İstanbul: Can, 2014), 169-192.
20. Menteşe, Oya Batum. “Kadın Dilinde Aşk: ‘Gençliğin O Yakıcı Mevsimi’” Varlık 12, no. 1119 (2000): 11-15.
21. Omolade, Barbara. “Heart of Darkness”, Powers of Desire: The Politics of Sexuality ed. Ann Snitow and Christine Stansell (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1983), 350-367.
22. Showalter, Elaine. “Feminist Criticism in the Wilderness”, Critical Inquiry 8, no. 2 (1981): 179-205.
23. Stephen, Kylie. “The Legal Language of Rape: A Feminist Reconstruction of Rape” Letter. 19, no.5 (1994): 224-228.
24. Yüksel, Ayşegül. “Erendiz Atasü: Karşıtların Gerilimi Üstünden Edebiyat Üretmek”, Erendiz Atasü Edebiyatı ed. Günseli Sönmez İşçi (İstanbul: Can, 2014), 39 – 48