Feminist translation

What exactly do we understand by feminist translation? It could be translation that helps the cause of feminist ideology. There are times when the translator brings in her ideological perspective into the author’s work. Sherry Simon quotes Luise von Flotow, who works on gender and translation, as describing three phases in the process of feminist translation – supplementing, prefacing and footnoting, and ‘hijacking’. Hijacking means the appropriation of the text by the feminist translator. Sherry Simon gives the example of a Canadian writer Lise Gauvin’s French work Lettres d’une autre,  translated as Letters from Another by Susanne de Lotbiniere-Harwood. Harwood made the language gender neutral, where the language in the original was not, and she has stated openly: “this translation has used every translation strategy to make the feminine visible in language” (Simon). What makes this translation distinctive is that the translator is given equal status as the author. This is possible mainly because the author and translator worked together and arrived at an understanding of how the translation should be.

However, what happens if the translator and author do not agree? What if the translation gave a new direction altogether to the work? Simon points out that disagreement between writer and translator would not suit the “dynamics of feminist translation, where there is deliberate collusion and cooperation between text, author, and translator” (Simon). However, Lori Chamberlain argues that feminist translators should not turn away from works they find ideologically offensive, as this would seem as if they were capitulating “to that logic which ascribes all power to the original” (326). Quoting a translator Carol Maier, she states: “It is essential that as translators women get under the skin of both antagonistic and sympathetic works. They must become independent, ‘resisting’ interpreters who do not only let antagonistic works speak . . . but also speak with them and place them in a larger context by discussing them and the process of their translation” (326).