Portuguese PhD Student Diana Trindade Drumond Publishes Her First Book

Pode a mulher escolher? (Can women choose?) explores the relationship between gender and power and how it affects women’s autonomy, offering a detailed analysis of Margaret Atwood's novel The Edible Woman (1969). Although set in the 1960s, Atwood's story remains highly relevant today, raising important questions about the pressures that limit women’s choices, idealize marriage and motherhood as the ultimate goals, and mask the exploitation of women within the capitalist system.
The analysis examines the experiences of Marian MacAlpin and other female characters, whose struggle to choose between marriage and career reflects the larger historical challenges faced by women. Marian is faced with choosing between a marriage that would reduce her to the traditional roles of wife and mother or a job offering limited career prospects. Both paths, shaped by patriarchal constraints, ultimately serve the interests of capitalism.

Through an interdisciplinary approach, drawing on feminist criticism, socialist feminism, and other frameworks, this analysis highlights how the choices available to the novel’s characters are constructed by the intersection of social and economic systems. As socialist feminism argues, marriage often functions as a mechanism to disguise the unpaid labor women provide to sustain the male workforce. Thus, both marriage and work — rather than representing distinct, autonomous choices — converge as tools of capitalist exploitation.

In this context, capitalism relies on patriarchal norms to subjugate and exploit women. The characters in The Edible Woman face restricted options that undermine their autonomy. Pode a mulher escolher? encourages reflection on these oppressive dynamics, making it an essential read for those who wish to explore the intricate connections between patriarchy and capitalism.