Expanding Terms Associated with Womanhood through Role Playing within a Role and Ritual

Building on Sara Ahmed&s;s suggestion in The Feminist Killjoy Handbook that every term one uses should be “thought through or thought about or thought out,” this chapter considers how Lauren Gunderson&s;s Emilie: La Marquise du Châtelet Defends her Life Tonight and Jaclyn Backhaus&s; Wives promote the expansion of the definition of terms associated with womanhood. Gunderson&s;s Emilie challenges the strict eighteenth- and twenty-first-century definitions of ‘motherhood’ and ‘mothering,’ considering how people who do not fit the normative conventions of motherhood can ‘mother’ in alternative ways. Meanwhile, Backhaus&s; Wives reconsiders the term ‘wife,’ opening up the definition to include mistresses, widows, and even husbands. In the play, rather than ‘wife’ having a social and economic definition, Backhaus suggests that the word should have a more fluid and ambiguous meaning. This chapter also explores how different metadramatic conceits allow both playwrights to address these issues: role playing within a role in Emilie and ritual within the play in Wives .