Translation and Gender: A Feminist Perspective

Introduction 

The translation process remains subjective rather than omniscient because it develops through power dynamics between cultural perspectives and linguistic preference decisions. Gender plays a role in translation because it mirrors through practice the societal and literary meanings that affect women and men across various historical and cultural spaces. This paper investigates how translation relates to gender through the analysis of Sherry Simon's Canadian scholarly work on translation and gender studies. The following section demonstrates several examples of feminist translation practices that resist patriarchal understanding of translation.

Translation as a Secondary and Reproductive Activity

Historically, translation received the status of secondary reproduction over primary creativity. The traditional perspective reflects misogynist prejudices about women because translators commonly find their place in literature and culture. The description of translation contains gender-based terminology that displays a negative connection to women.

For most of human history, women faced social barriers against public engagement that resulted in their marginalised status or total voicelessness in public domains. Women found translation suitable because it consisted of preventing textual changes while showing complete deference to the source text. According to traditional views, translation existed within the domestic sphere and the maternal realm because it produced and developed another text. These views simultaneously presented translation as an inferior practice which needed the original text, thus making translators into passive and submissive agents of authors.

Feminist scholars, together with translators, have proven that translation functions as a strong instrument which reshapes patriarchal frameworks in the world. Feminist scholars and translators have demonstrated how women translators facilitated the growth and spread of literature and cultural elements throughout different times and locations. Through their research, female scholars demonstrate how women translators influence which texts become canonised while enabling cultural communication, thus promoting social transformation and establishing new identity narratives.

Translation as a Gendered Practice

The Canadian translation scholar Sherry Simon becomes widely recognised through her research on gender-related translations as she investigates textual analysis with gender perspectives while targeting translation studies because they mistreat culture as an unambiguous, simple concept. According to her view, culture constitutes an ever-changing field of social contest that leads various communities to fight for both visibility and representation. Within translation studies, she observes gender discrimination when metaphors are used which represent the translated text as subordinate and violated. The study of translation reveals an inferior depiction of women who depend on men for their value, thus influencing the practice of translation.

Simon specialises in feminist assessment of translation research by examining the societal and literary  repression of women alongside text translation functions. She seeks to recognise and evaluate the network of concepts which pushes translation and women toward an inferior position in social structures and literary order. She suggests changing how translation should be viewed from a reproductive secondary practice to an active, creative one. In her advocacy, she supports a translation work where the purpose of faithfulness is targeted neither at authors nor readers but at the writing process itself. Writer and translator historically function together on this collaborative work that develops fresh meanings and expressions for disrupting dominant patriarchal discourse.

Simon develops his method from an intersectional standpoint that analyses how gender combines with elements like race and class while investigating women translator phenomena. The author recognises multiple variations among feminist perspectives, which manifest in different geographical settings and cultural environments. The practice of feminist translation varies according to context because it responds to distinct particular needs and goals.

Examples of Feminist Translation Projects

Numerous feminist translation projects demonstrate Simon's understanding of translation alongside gender motifs. Susanne de Lotbinière-Harwood served as the translator for Lettres d’une autre after Lise Gauvin through a committed feminist approach. The translator declared her practice of translation involved political methods to activate language for women. The signature on my translations signifies that all possible translation methods were applied to visualise the feminine nature within language. She employed multiple techniques to demonstrate the feminine voice in her translation through inclusive language use while adding footnotes and changing punctuation as well as creating new terminology..

 

Women translators played a significant role in making great classics of Russian literature available in English translations. Constance Garnett completed an impressive series of translations of most literature produced by Turgenev, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Chekhov and Gogol into the English language. The sixty books she translated into English significantly influenced how English readers received and valued Russian literature. Women translators brought important German literature to English readers by creating the English versions of Rilke's poetry that Jean Starr Untermeyer translated, as well as Kafka's novels, which Willa Muir translated, while Helen Lowe-Porter handled Thomas Mann's works.

The feminist approach to sacred text translation includes works such as the Bible alongside the Quran. Men have typically performed translations and interpretations of these texts while applying their personal views and their cultural standards to them. Through their alternative translations, feminist translators have tried to contest these interpretations by upholding female dignity while promoting diversity. Several feminist translators have raised concerns about violent verbalisation in verses that instruct women on behaviour. An example from the Quran is:

Original Verse: اللَّاتِي تَخَافُونَ نُشُوزَهُنَّ…. فَعِظُوهُنَّ وَاهْجُرُوهُنَّ فِي الْمَضَاجِعِ " وَاضْرِبُوهُنَّ" ۖ فَإِنْ أَطَعْنَكُمْ فَلَا تَبْغُوا عَلَيْهِنَّ

Full Translation: As for those wives, whose rebellion you fear: admonish them; banish them to separate beds; beat them. But if they obey you once more, seek no means against them. Indeed, Allah is ever Exalted and Grand.

Translation by Men: Scourge them; Strike them; Beat them (lightly)

Feminist Translation: Go away from them

Conclusion

Translation reveals direct connections with gender, as it both reflects and reiterates the traditional roles of women and men across various historical eras and cultural contexts. Translation exists as a gendered practice because it requires understanding both power dynamics along cultural values, and the choice of language. Feminist translation challenges dominant patriarchal translation views by establishing new meanings and linguistic expressions that convey feminine identity while amplifying female voices. Feminist translation creates new understandings by redefining what translation fidelity stands for and how it relates to equivalence, in addition to eliminating translator invisibility. The project targets feminist goals, not original materials, and works to undo the social and cultural power that males exercise through meaning redefinition.

References

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