Translating Feminism: Paratexts in the Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish Translations of Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique (1963)

Abstract

This chapter focuses on the paratexts of Betty Friedan’s 1963 book The Feminine Mystique in its Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish translations. More precisely, the study sets out to investigate how the feminist message of the source text is affected when transposed to a new target text context, as reflected in the pa-ratexts of the three target texts. The paratextual material investigated consists of the titles, front cover designs, synopses, and forewords of the Scandinavian translations of Friedan’s book. Methodologically, the study uses Norman Fair-clough’s Critical Discourse Analysis as a point of departure. The results show that the paratexts are used to explain why Friedan’s book is important in a Scandinavian context. The main argument for translating the book seems to be the belief that the US is some years ahead of sociological development in Scandinavia, and that one must make sure that the feminine mystique does not become a reality in Scandinavia too. One common trait that several of the paratexts have is that the feminist message of the source texts becomes more concrete in the target texts. The Danish paratexts distinguish themselves from the other translations in several aspects. The Danish title is quite different from the source text title and the titles of the other target texts. In addition, the Danish target text has no elaborate cover design, no synopsis, and no author’s biography.