The point of departure of the article is an analysis of medical discourse of the end of 19th century, which was concentrated on the symptoms of neurasthenia – a disease of men who were considered victims of civilisation, in contrast to women’s hysteria, regarded as their bodily affliction. The author notes a special status of this discourse which transcends the borders of medicine and diagnoses the whole social field: it becomes entangled in the relationships between sexes and genders, in class, ethnical and national stratification; expresses the traits of capitalism, democracy and its requirements, thus becoming a means of conveying contemporary ideas and phantasms concerning sexuality and its relation with subjectivity. The phantasmic projections of “endangered” masculinity, lined with panic and fear, constitute the main objects of reconstruction and interpretation.
Post Scriptum The text constitutes an attempt to provide an answer to the question: “What uses can literary studies derive from feminism and what pitfalls can be expected in connection with it?” Right at the very beginning, the authoress distinguishes between the concept of “feminism” and that of “feministic literary criticism” and subsequently she mentions the most important inspirations derived by literary studies from the feminist movement. While enumerating the benefits and advantages which flow from these inspirations, she also warns against some negative consequences of the ideological pressure exerted by feminism on literary studies.
The object of reflection is Pauline Harmange’s famous essay, I Hate Men (2020). I start from the perturbations it caused on the political scene, then try to situate it on the French map of feminist and anti-feminist movements since the 1970s, asking about the place from which the young essayist speaks. I consider the central issue to be the misandric discourse she has activated, and around it I (re)construct a spectrum of issues that, in her view, illuminate it. I trace the “archaeology” of the word misandry, which is not anchored in the everyday reality, including the academic one. I ask about its function by juxtaposing two contradictory perspectives: Harmange’s feminist one and the anti-feminist one whose activists proclaim misogynist and sexist slogans. The symmetrical or asymmetrical approaches to misandry and misogyny are also arranged at these poles. Harmange, while cultivating misandric attitudes among women, consistently enumerates the benefits they should derive from misandry.
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