Dai Women’s Studies alle teorie queer: una panoramica sugli studi di genere

Beatrice Spallaccia, Università di Bologna

beatrice.spallaccia(at)unibo.it

Abstract: Since the late 1960s, feminist practices and theories have increasingly influenced academic research, bringing new approaches to the study of gender and sexuality, and leading to the establishment of gender studies. Today, gender studies are a broad and interdisciplinary field of research which brings together different disciplines, from linguistics and literature, to sociology, economics, and biology. This contribution aims at tracing the evolution of gender studies, from the birth of women’s studies and their institutionalisation, to the emergence of queer theories. First, this paper provides an overview of the debate that led to the distinction between sex and gender, and then questioned this binary model, thanks to the influence of LGBTQ+ studies. Second, it focuses on the intersectional approach which has been adopted by gender scholars to analyse discrimination across different axes of inequalities (e.g., gender, race, ethnicity, and class), and to explain how different systems of power work simultaneously in society. The contribution also discusses briefly how gender perspectives have influenced linguistics and translation studies, to understand how identities are negotiated through the use of language. In the conclusions, it also sheds some light on the new war on gender studies, i.e., the anti-gender sentiments which have recently spread across Europe to oppose women’s and LGBTQ+ people’s rights, and to thwart the implementation of anti-discrimination policies.