Woman becoming… Gender possibilities in selected speculative short stories of Intan Paramaditha and Isabel Yap short stories of Intan Paramaditha and Isabel Yap

Wacana Journal of the Humanities of Indonesia Vol. 24 No. 1 (2023): 150-173 https://doi.org/10.17510/wacana.v24i1.1163 

Autor: Chin, Grace V.S; Universiti Sains Malaysia; grace.chin@usm.my https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9292-4494

Keywords: Speculative fiction, gender, transnational, Southeast Asia, Indonesia, Philippines, Intan Paramaditha, Isabel Yap. 

Abstract: The ontological question of woman’s nature forms the focus of this essay, which develops the theory of “woman becoming…” to examine how the hegemonic patriarchal discourses and constructs of woman and femininity are subverted and reinterpreted in two speculative short stories by transnational Southeast Asian women writers, namely Intan Paramaditha’s “Beauty and the seventh dwarf” (2018) and Isabel Yap’s “Good girls” (2021). Of interest here are the gender possibilities of the female characters, which uphold women’s freedom, agency, thinking, feeling, creation, narration, and expression in the making of herstory – indeed, everywoman’s potential for change and transformation, and to become more than what society expects and demands from women. Materialized through the resistant and rebellious multitudinous female self and body, woman’s becoming and her gender possibilities ultimately interrogate, vex, and unsettle the entrenched sociocultural and politicized meanings, representations, and stereotypes of woman’s nature in the Southeast Asian context. 

Idioma: inglés. 

Publicación: junio 2023.  

Volumen: Wacana Journal of the Humanities of Indonesia Vol. 24 No. 1 (2023): 150-173

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