Loud Ladies: Deterritorialising Femininity through Becoming-Animal

Abstract

Modern feminist movements run the risk of being appropriated by capitalist agenda and commodified for mass appeal, thus stripping them of their revolutionary potential. I would propose that in order for feminism to challenge this, movements may want to consider the subversion of subjectivity. Deleuze and Guattari's notions of becoming-animal and becoming-woman emphasise a subjectivity not confined by rigid identity, such as man/woman. However, feminists have challenged this theory, suggesting it is difficult to both fight for and dispel the very same notion, that is, woman. I argue that in first considering the feminine subject via the Lacanian understanding of ‘Woman’, it can be argued that feminine subjects can engage with becoming-animal to destabilise the notion of ‘Woman’. Riot Grrls, FEMEN and Pussy Riot all demonstrate tactics which could be said to utilise becoming-animal and have had varying success in avoiding commodification.

The queer coat: Konstantin Goncharov’s fashion, Russian masculinity and queer world building

“…In other words, in the spirit of transitology, 10 Russian culture is frequently assessed in terms of its capacity for self-expression, less so for community building. For example, in the famous case of Pussy Riot, research has focused on the limitations to self-expression (Morris 2018;Wiedlack 2018;Zikrata 2018), disregarding the fact that their performance was instrumental in the creation of new communities, namely, transnational associations of male and female feminists (Strukov 2013). Goncharov's case allows me to consider a period when self-expression was not only 'allowed' by the government but existed irrespective of any form of governance.…”