What is it about?
Recent research in translation has shown that feminist values can be buried under other values. In the Soviet case, feminist values were buried under the values of egalitarianism. Soviet translations of African fiction by women show that Soviet women translators employed feminist translation strategies, albeit they did not consider themselves feminists or indeed embraced consciously a feminist ideology. Instead of seeing the value of feminism within their own thinking, they rejected feminism and its Western version.
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Why is it important?
The Soviet case demonstrates the importance of identifying and supporting local feminist ideas and practices which may be buried under other values. This would allow one ‘to counter the facile dismissal of feminism as an alien entity’ (2017:203) in any context. In addition, the values of egalitarianism can strategically mobilize women and men in the fight against gender oppression. Unlike the term feminism and its associated terms which are problematic, the Soviet gender equality discourse with its egalitarian norms served as a unifying force, and it can be a new way of making connections between groups in increasingly radicalized Western societies on gender related matters including abortion.
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This page is a summary of: Can the subaltern be heard?, Translation and Interpreting Studies, February 2023, John Benjamins,
DOI: 10.1075/tis.20029.kas.
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