Media Role of Art in Identity of Subaltern Women Based on the Post-Colonial Ideas of Gayatri Spivak

The present study aims were to find a way to identity formation of the subaltern women via reviewing and analyzing the ideas of Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak one of the critics and thinkers of the post-colonial studies. In her famous article, "Can the Subaltern Speak?" she examined the status of the subalterns and, considering colonialism and patriarchy, found that the subalterns could not speak out. According to her critique of feminism, Marxism, and subaltern studies, she believed that the colonial social-political hierarchy has been reproduced in the post-colonial domain, and the voice of the subalterns was never heard. This research criticized Spivak's ideas with a descriptive-analytical method and sought an approach to identity formation of the subaltern women and answer the question that how the subaltern woman could speak out? The findings of the research showed that Spivak only focused on verbal communication and disregards the non-verbal aspect of it; which art could be its main pillar. Art in the role of a media could act as a language for subalterns and give them identity. The artistic activities of Iranian women on the Hormuz Island were an example of such a media that had been able to give them identity.