Navigating Ideological Divides: Alternative Feminist Discourse(S) Within the Romanian Contemporary Literary Sphere

This paper aims to analyse the emergence of alternative feminist platforms (such as Literatură și feminism, Premiile Sofia Nădejde, Buletin de știri Ecaterina Arbore, Cooperativa arbore, Pagini libere, Cenaclul X, frACTalia) within the context of an ideologically divided Romanian literary sphere. The national political climate registers conservative attitudes towards feminism as volatile. They oscillate between that of “opportunist non-sexists” (Grünberg, Lived Feminism(s)), who appropriated the movement for cultural capital, and the outright rejection of feminism, understood as inextricably linked to imported Western ideology (Miroiu, Drumul către autonomie). In response, our paper implements a double perspective: one that juxtaposes instances of feminist appropriations with leftist feminist articulations. We first adopt a birds-eye view, examining the post-communist political climate that gave rise to waves of “retraditionalization” in Eastern European countries (Bluhm et al.), as well the issue of alignment or synchronisation of feminist ideals with similar local and global movements. Then, we showcase the means of disseminating anti-genderist and anti-feminist ideas within the Romanian academe, as well as the larger civil society. Lastly, we aim to highlight alternative feminist platforms, which we interpret as feminist “counterpublics” (Fraser; Majewska) able to form sites of resistance within the masculinist public sphere. Our study highlights convergent time-frames or temporal coherence within alternative feminist discourses, illustrating how non-liberal feminists sometimes coordinate actions and responses to better address social struggles.