The aim of this article is to examine different theories of reading, writing and translation in the context of an interdisciplinary anthropology of translation from a feminist perspective and within the framework of contemporary hermeneutics. If the concept of ‘‘gender’’ is a useful category to analyze social relations between the sexes, it is also a valuable reading grid to identify social constructions that reveal power relations. Indeed, the evolution of society today has put into question the gains of the feminist movement since the 1970s. Translation, in revealing practices of domination and subversion, can bring new elements to the feminist debate on power and the violence of the patriarchal tradition. Our analysis of the symbolic dimension of male-dominated hierarchy refers in particular to the work of Françoise Héritier on thought related to sexual difference in systems of representation. We shall examine metaphors of marriage and sexuality in translation in light of Lori Chamberlain’s work, and begin with George Steiner’s masculine model of translation. While referring to an unconscious theological dimension in translation, as shown by Jean-René Ladmiral, we shall argue that there is also an unconscious dimension of love to which it is tied and which seems to be present in all of the thinking about translation, as well as in translation studies. Other descriptions of translation in the context of love or as a sexual dialectic will also be discussed, in particular Valery Larbaud’s reading and Serge Gavronsky’s argument developed in psychoanalytical terms. Different feminist interpretations of translation illustrating the freedom to resist stereotypes, and therefore inequality, will be put forth in opposition to gender metaphorics in translation and Steiner’s model, while opening the discussion to the question of authority. Questions of gender, sexuality and authority in translation have deep political implications, and we conclude our analysis with an argument in favour of a pluralistic view of authority.