Some authors queer of contemporary literature seek to challenge patriarchal norms, but end up replicating their language of power. Class privilege influences the descriptions that authors such as Constance Debré or Eva Baltasar make in their works of the women with whom they relate and sleep. Although both deal with themes of desire, freedom, and emotional-sexual bonds between women, patriarchal power dynamics seep into their narratives, generating tensions in their representation. In the case of Debré, it is blatant how she prides herself on living an almost nomadic and minimalist life when she has a family mattress underneath that protects her. “Life with all the comforts and full refrigerators makes me want to shoot myself,” writes Debré, who comes from a line of highly influential politicians and intellectuals in France. His grandfather, Michel Debré, was one of the drafters of the constitution of the Fifth Republic and prime minister under Charles de Gaulle. Her father, François Debré, was a renowned journalist and writer, which gave Constance a privileged position within the country’s cultural and political elite. This privileged environment allows her to move with a freedom that is not available to other women, which influences the way she approaches topics such as desire and relationships.
In this sense, it is relevant to remember the reflections of Monique Wittig, who argued that “lesbians are not women” because they reject the patriarchal construction of femininity, linked to heterosexual oppression. I remember the protagonist of boulderthe novel by Eva Baltasar, say: “Resentment chooses the words. I talk about women without counting myself among them. “I am not a woman.”
From this position, Debré has the freedom to reject social conventions without the consequences that other women might face, which in my opinion creates a distance in her understanding of the power dynamics that oppress those who do not share that status. This privilege carries a distance that may seem like a subversion of gender norms, but actually reproduces a patriarchal language of control. Their narratives do not radically break with power structures; they often lack a deep critique of the hierarchies that sustain those same structures. “I call them both little ones. I would like to pay them so that no misunderstandings arise.”
The narratives of Debré and Baltasar do not break with power structures, they lack a deep criticism of hierarchies
In Love me tend (Alpha Decay, 2024), Constance Debré adopts a radical stance of rejection towards the conventions of motherhood and traditional femininity, but what is most surprising is how she talks about sexual desire. Expressions like “wanting to pay them so they don’t talk” reveal a deeply patriarchal power dynamic, where women are reduced to objects that can be controlled through a transaction. This type of language, historically associated with masculinity, generates a central contradiction in his work. Although Debré seems to challenge the heteronormative order, she ends up replicating a control that oppresses rather than liberates. From its position of privilege, this transactional logic is not questioned, which causes a distancing from readers who seek a narrative. queer to escape these patriarchal molds. Perhaps everything can be reduced in Debré to one of his phrases of Love me tend: “I would have wanted to be queer.”
Eva Baltasar, for her part, also uses a distanced approach in the representation of desire and the female body. In Permafrostwomen’s bodies are treated as something purely physical, almost utilitarian, and sexual desire is narrated from a disconnection that is reminiscent of male approaches to female sexuality. In bouldermore of the same. I remember that in the interview I did with Baltasar I told him that his main character consumed women just as a man would. That their characters are privileged bodies that do not need rights or a new language that tells new things. The protagonist of boulder She gets a connection, and I wish she did because she was a woman with a penis, but the connection is only linguistic and, above all, about privilege and power: “If he looks at me, he’ll know, like Samsa knew. “I don’t want him to look and yet I’m worse than Ragnar, I feel like I’m suffering from a terrible abandonment, I’m hard on.”
In the work of Peri Rossi, the women’s body is not an object, but an active force in resistance
In both Debré and Baltasar, the body is something transitory, devoid of a deeper dimension, which can alienate readers who expect a representation queer most challenging of power structures. Baltasar, like Debré, seems to write from a place where privilege allows her to avoid the power dynamics that other women face, leading to a narrative that, rather than subverting patriarchal power relations, subtly reinforces them. . A clearly conservative writing.
Something similar has always happened to me with the poetry of Cristina Peri Rossi, but I am going to save her a little. At least I am going to acknowledge that his work, although it shares with Debré and Baltasar an equally crude and direct language in the representation of desire, differs in the context from which he writes. His poetry is marked by political struggle and exile, which gives his treatment of desire a dimension of resistance. Although she also uses language that objectifies and reduces women to utilitarian bodies, desire in Peri Rossi’s work becomes an act of defiance against patriarchy. The difference is that, while Debré and Baltasar write from a position of privilege, Peri Rossi uses desire as a tool of subversion against oppressive structures. In her work, women’s bodies are not an object, but rather an active force in resistance against male control.
This tension between the narrative queer and the use of patriarchal language raises a crucial question: how can narratives that seek to challenge power structures end up reproducing the very oppressive patterns they seek to break? In the case of Debré and Baltasar, their privileged environment gives them the freedom to speak with a distance that, paradoxically, objectifies and silences women, replicating the patriarchal control they try to subvert. Peri Rossi, on the other hand, by writing from an experience of vulnerability and resistance, manages to use desire as a tool of liberation rather than oppression.
In the end, these authors’ analysis reveals how privilege can affect the capacity of a narrative. queer to truly break with patriarchal dynamics. This makes me reflect on how we can build narratives queer more inclusive and subversive, that really question power hierarchies and open new possibilities for the representation of women. This journey, I think, leaves us with one last question: can true subversion of patriarchy come from positions of privilege, or do we need to listen more to those voices that have directly experienced the oppressions we want to dismantle?
Some authors queer of contemporary literature seek to challenge patriarchal norms, but end up replicating their language of power. Class privilege influences the descriptions that authors such as Constance Debré or Eva Baltasar make in their works of the women with whom…
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