Translation and Gender: Translating in the 'Era of Feminism'

4. Rereading and Rewriting Translations

4. Rereading and Rewriting Translations Feminist initiatives of the 1970s triggered enormous interest in texts by women writers from other cultures. This led to the realization that much writing by women has never been translated at all, and to the suspicion that what has been translated hasbeenmisrepresented in 'patriarchal translation'. Thus extensive translation andre-translation activity was set off,for which willing publishers were found. As H. D. Kolias puts it in her article on the translation of the autobiography of Elizavet Moutzan-Martinengou, Convincing publishers about the worthiness of this work and the need for recoveringit was easier thanit mighthavebeen inprevious decades. (1990:215) The context created by the women's movement encouraged the development ofwomen's publishinghouses (The Women's Press in London,Editions des femmes in Paris, Frauenoffensive in Munich, Les editions du remuemenage in Montreal) and the establishment of lists of women writers in translation at university as well as private publishing houses. This rush of translations has doubtless played some part in setting off translation criticism and analyses, as well as research into the work of 'forgotten' women translators. Reading Existing Translations Simone de Beauvoir The English translation of Simone de Beauvoir's Le deuxieme sexe has given rise to a good example of gender-conscious translation criticism, triggered by feminist inquiry.Beauvoir's text hasbeen referred to as the 'feminist bible', an epithet that may overstate the case but definitely points to the influence her book exerted on feminist thinking in the second half of the twentieth century. Le deuxieme sexe was published in France in 1949 in two thick volumes; the English translation came out in 1952, prepared by American professor of zoology Howard Parshley. His version, TheSecond Sex, made the New York Times bestseller list in the spring of 1953, has seen several reprintings, and is thus considered successful. Criticisms of the translation are primarily based on unmarked deletions of more than ten per cent of the original material. Large sections of text recounting the names and achievements of women in history have been 49 Translation and Gender cut from the English version; critic Margaret Simons (1983) states that the names of 78 women —politicians, military leaders, courtesans and saints, artists andpoets - have thus been eliminated. The lineage ofinfluential women, so important to feminist historiography, is thus broken through 'patriarchal translation'. Similarly,the translation deletes references to cultural taboos such as lesbian relationships, and to unwelcome realities such as the tedium of women's everyday lives. There appears to be a pattern to these cuts, perhaps motivated by the assumption that men's experiences and feelingsare considered more valid or interesting than women's. Simons writes He [Parshley]didn'tcare to havediscussions ofwomen'soppression belaboured, although he was quite content to let Beauvoirgo on at length aboutthe superioradvantages of man's situation andachievements ...(1983:562) While Simons concedes that some of Beauvoir's text is longwinded and repetitive, she insists that the deletions are serious interventions in the text that should at least be marked and explained. This is all the more necessary since these deletions are the source of considerable confusion. When, for example, there are references to earlier argumentation that has been cut out of the translation, the development of Beauvoir's thought is scrambled and she comes across as a confused, incoherent thinker. The translator, Parshley, has been somewhat vindicated in terms of his professional context: critic Yolande Patterson explains he was badgered to condense, simplify or eliminate in order to "lighten the burden for the American reader", as publisher Knopf put it (1992:43). The damage done by such edited translation may haveother consequences, however. One such consequence was recently revealed through another translation, a problem that de Lotbiniere-Harwood (1991:52) has discussed: when Claudine Vivier was translating Mary O'Brien's The Politics of Reproduction (1981) into French, she came across numerous references to Beauvoir that required back-translation into French. But O'Brien's English text cites the 'confused' English version of Beauvoir, and bases some of her virulent arguments against Beauvoir on this version. Unable to find the references in Beauvoir's original text,Vivierhad the task of negotiatingthe misunderstandings caused by the edited The Second Sex. Unfortunately,Vivier does not comment on this problem in her translation La dialectique de la reproduction (1987). Increasing criticism of Beauvoir's stance on sexuality and sexual practices by anglophone feministshas motivated further references to Beauvoir translations. As Barbara Klaw states, many fault her for "perpetuating patri50...