Gender Determination of Subject-Object relations: Reversion of Feminine/Masculine as a Power Relation in the (Post) Modern Interpretation of Culture
The article presents an analysis of subject-object relations from the point of view of gender determination. Over the centuries, the dominating role in the "Masculine/Feminine" opposition was that of the male, reflected in numerous cultural practices and in the space of representation. The cultural changes of the last decades together with globalizaton, cultural pluralism, rehabilitation of the Other, the activization of the women's movement, as regards social and cultural practices, as well as theoretical reflection — has brought about a shift of roles in gender relations, up to the deconstruction of one of the basic binarisms of mankind. In the field of representation, this was expressed in the reversal of traditional roles of Man, as the subject of creativity and Woman, as its object or mediator. More and more women have become successful in fields that had long been considered the privileged territory of men. The spread of female authorship, in its turn, has also led to the reconsidering of many representational strategies and semantic fields of cultural texts considered literary classics. Reading such texts from a feminine point of view in many ways has served to deconstruct traditional figures and plots, presenting them as the objects of "feminine gaze" and postmodern irony. Two archetypal figures, still very popular in cultural production Don Juan and Carmen — are discussed in the article. Their role in gendered cultural space as models of traditional and reversed Masculine/Feminine opposition is discussed. The analysis of stage representations of Don Juan and Carmen by a director personifying subjective gender construction has been carried out on the basis of the work of Francesca Zambello and her two productions: "Carmen" (2006) and "Don Giovanni" (2008). The article's соnclusion discusses the importance of the gender aspect relating to the importance of cultural production in understanding contemporary culture.