So lately I’ve been reading loads of feminist theory and am slightly shocked to discover that many of these works from the 1970s still speak an undeniable truth. I’m definitely not a feminist type, at least not in the conventional sense of the word, but some of what I’ve read has roused unexpected and passionate feelings in me. Helene Cixous and Luce Irigaray both take Freud to town on his portrait of femininity and it is truly a joy to watch them do it. But it’s interesting too, to see how some of the things they are deconstructing are stigma about women that still hang around. Freud talks about woman’s sexuality as a “dark continent,” he talks about “the riddle of the nature of femininity,” men as “active” and women as “passive,” masochism as “truly feminine,” women as naturally hysterical, and he essentially implies that women’s function in society is to be men’s objects of desire. And then there’s the one that makes me blindly crazy whenever I read it: “Women have made few contributions to the discoveries and inventions in the history of civilization.” Except, of course, plaiting and weaving, which he argues is somehow an imitation of our natural shame about being women. You can certainly dismiss much of what Freud says by recognizing that he was a man borne of a particular time in history, which is what I’ve always done. But let’s face it, the discourse of psychoanalysis is so deeply embedded in our culture now that we have sustained many of these views without even acknowledging it. How many of us women out there have been brushed off as “crazy” or labeled as incomprehensible. Femininity as a “riddle,” feminine sexuality as a “dark continent,” still seems to me to be the dominant discourse about women on an everyday level. Sure some of our material conditions have drastically improved in the past hundred years, but as far as I’m concerned we’ve got a long way left to go. And it’s not about having more rights necessarily — it’s about how we are talked about, how we talk about ourselves, and how we talk about each other.
Cixous says that men have pitted women against each other. And isn’t that still true? Even still, in my adulthood, in the 21st century, I find it difficult to avoid competition and bitterness amongst groups of girls. She also talks about the limitlessness of women’s desire. But don’t many of the women you know still find satisfaction by simply subjecting passively to sex? I know that’s a gross generalization, but I am constantly amazed that so many of the women I’ve spoken to about it over the past few years experience desire under totally masculine terms.
All I’m saying ladies is that we have a long way to go. And it amazes me that the concerns of 30 years ago are still around to such an extent.
