Maar net nog ’n butch? ’n Feministiese lesing van die Halewijnlied

Abstract

Just another butch? A feminist reading of the Halewijnlied
In this article the authors argue that a form of covert feminism is present in the Halewijnlied (Song of Halewijn), an important Middle Dutch text. Utilizing the poststructuralist notion of écriture rather than lecture, the latent content of the text is explored, enabling the authors to (re-)construct the ‘meaning' of the text within the context of Kristeva's notion that the Virgin cult constitutes "a triumph of the unconscious in monotheism This "triumph of the unconscious "amounts to a form of female power which is the “underhand double of explicit phallic power" and sets up a temporary "commonality of the sexes" within the patriarchal system. By means of the personage of the Princess, Freudian displacement in terms of social sex roles occurs, negating some of the binary oppositions characterising the man:woman dichotomy. This process results in an 'androgenic’ space in which both sexes are temporarily set free from the sexual roles forced upon them by a patriarchal system.