Persephone at Mid-Life: Revisiting Feminist Archetypal Theory in a Personal Journey Through Menopause
This article suggests that feminist archetypal theory provides a helpful and empowering framework through which to understand embodied change as experienced in contemporary times. A mainstream approach associated with second-wave feminism, it has fallen victim to poststructuralist critiques and is r...
Main Author: | |
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Format: | Electronic Article |
Language: | English |
Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
Journals Online & Print: | |
Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
Published: |
Sage
2024
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In: |
Feminist theology
Year: 2024, Volume: 32, Issue: 2, Pages: 132-146 |
RelBib Classification: | FD Contextual theology NBE Anthropology ZB Sociology |
Further subjects: | B
Moon
B Menopause B Goddess B Archetypal feminist theory B Quest |
Online Access: |
Volltext (kostenfrei) |
Summary: | This article suggests that feminist archetypal theory provides a helpful and empowering framework through which to understand embodied change as experienced in contemporary times. A mainstream approach associated with second-wave feminism, it has fallen victim to poststructuralist critiques and is rarely used, despite a renewed popularity of goddess archetypes in broader lay culture. I argue that this framework deserves revisiting as, in generating positive images and plots, it can serve as a source of empowerment and strength for women and especially so where hegemonic contemporary discourses are overwhelmingly negative and medicalised, as in the case of menopause. Using auto-ethnographic methods, I illustrate this with reference to my own lived experience of menopausal transition. Finally, and just as importantly, I show how this approach configures a different and more holistic kind of knowledge that recognises connection, relationality and communion of self, others and world, rather than separation and domination. |
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ISSN: | 1745-5189 |
Contains: | Enthalten in: Feminist theology
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Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1177/09667350231208137 |