SUBVERTING FRONTIERS OF GENDER: EXPLORING THE SELF IN ANGELA: AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

Abstract

Body poses hindrance for one’s performance when an immotile gender inscribed on it. Compartmentalizing human behaviours and actions into ‘feminine’ or ‘masculine’ curbs the freedom of self expression. Moving in line with the predestined order is easy and effortless. But it takes extra effort in transgressing the predetermined and conventional structures in society and culture. The word ‘gender’ itself is so controversial in current scenario. Woman moving beyond her ‘feminine’ roles often faces attacks in all means. Angela Davis is a Black American activist who succeeded to survive the attacks resulting from transgressed gender as well as racial roles. Her activism demands more consideration as she stood and fought for Black women’s freedom in a white supremacist background. Her life narrative An Autobography, published in 1974, reveals the subjectivity of Black women in 1960s American milieu  and the obstacles they had to encounter being a woman as well as a Black. This study focuses on locating such margins of gender and downplaying them.