ON THE POWER OF LOVE: PENTHESILEA AND TRANSGRESSION

Abstract

How are love and reproduction possible in a social fabric in which the man is considered to be per se phallocentric and henceforth excluded in a radical manner? Can female emancipation be guaranteed when women permit heterosexual relationships exclusively if those are regulated ritual practices in which the man is submitted to the woman’s will and reduced to an agent of reproduction? To what extent does such a social formation represent a system that exerts pressure on women themselves? The paper raises questions to which reference has scarcely been made in this manner in the debate on interculturality, feminism and gender.