De)construction of Women’s Image in Southeast Asia through Select Literary Piece of (Her)stories
Abstract
Southeast Asia is considered as part of the Global South. Feminism, in this respect, draws attention to advance women in their rights and socio-economic development, more specifically, to obtain equality. However, this movement to exalt women status is incomplete in the experience of SEA women. This study looks into the construction of women in the literary pieces. The study design is qualitative and critical discourse analysis (CDA) of Norman Fairclough was used. To dissect the data, a literary analysis on the literary elements is the first step which directs its focus on women. Second, women's image is constructed or deconstructed based on decolonial feminism. A decision method framework was created to identify the character’s construction in the herstories and if there is a need to deconstruct due to nonadherence to feminism. It is revealed that the holistic change and growth of women is brought by the experiences enclave in the culture. It is also seen that image is constructed when the description and feminist perspectives (GF and DF) are similar, meanwhile when it opposes, a deconstruction based on decolonial feminism is required. The study has limitations on the sample literary pieces studied and does not generally scope the SEA society, therefore, further studies on literary pieces or genres representing all the SEA nations can provide more deep exploration of this topic.
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References
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.17509/psg.v13i1.80082
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