Abstract
Lesbian feminist literary criticism seeks to deconstruct the essential categories of male and female and their “natural” link to the production of desire, enabling an insightful criticism that formalism and feminism alone cannot fully venture in. Thus, this lesbian feminist literary reading of Aida Santos’s poetry critiques heteropatriarchy in language, desire and gender by questioning the binary assumption operative in them. A binary logic defines women and men by what each are not, highlighting one sex over the other, and presenting them as in need each other. This patriarchal assumption intersects with compulsory heterosexuality to marginalize lesbian existence in the world and in the word. This self-same logic operative in language and discourse naturalizes rape by presenting women actively searching for the desire of men. The poetry of Aida Santos exposes this blunder and presents a version of desire that goes beyond phallocentrism by presenting lesbian existence in the world and in texts.
Keywords
deconstruction, Lacan, lesbian feminist criticismPlease login first to access subscription form of article
Kritika Kultura
Department of English
School of Humanities
Ateneo de Manila University
The Philippine Commission on Higher Education (CHED) declares Kritika Kultura as a CHED-recognized journal under the Journal Challenge Category of its Journal Incentive Program.
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