Cixous

I thought that feminism was very interesting to read. Cixous in particular interested me. She pointed out things that I had never thought about before but I completely see where she gets her thoughts from. She points out that society and philosophy is male dominated. When she simply discussed how things, words, are coupled she said like a marriage (R&W 229). I never realized but it is true. In a marriage the man’s name comes first and in coupling of ‘things’ the dominant ‘thing’ comes first as well. Her examples were father/mother…. head/heart…. intelligible/sensitive…. activity/passivity. All of these as one can notice, have the more dominate and mostly male associated ‘thing’ listed first in the coupling. Society has made all these words and ‘things’ become more dominate and labeled to the male.
Also when she discusses in philosophy how the female is passive she gives the example of, “a will to say something.” She then points out that a “will” is an active, authoritative desire equally male. She says that the world of being can function without the mother all it needs is a something maternal. She then says that a father who can act as a mother is just as good as the real mother in the world of being (R&W 230). This really shocked me when I read it. I do see her point though and where she is coming from. A lot of times the female is viewed as not needed or not needed as much. The copy of the original is just as sufficient as the original.
Another very interesting thing she discussed was when she said, “What does she want?” She explained that there is no place for a woman’s desire in the world. She ends up not knowing what to do with her desire, where to put it, if she should hide it, or if she even has any at all (R&W 233). I agree with this. We see it every day in society. A woman wants to go out and have a career before having a family and people think there is something wrong with her, that her priorities are mixed up. Should she really feel bad for wanting to be successful on her own? ...of course not. Also take a woman who does have a family but also has to juggle a career, people think she should stop trying to be “super mom” that the task of both is too much. Desire can be anything from wanting to be successful, wanting to have fun, wanting to do anything. In society a lot of women have to hide these wants though because they will be labeled with a negative name or looked at as being different. This is where the desire gets lost. You don’t know what to do with it because you don’t know what is right anymore. You want something that society says no to. I am sure there are instances when men feel this way too but it’s not as difficult for them. They are the “stronger”, more “stable” people who can make the correct choices. Yes it must be hard to always live up to that expectation but it makes it easier when society backs you up.
I was offended when she talked about Freud (who I’m not sure I’m much of a fan of) and he said “‘fatality’ of feminine situations is a result of anatomical ‘defectiveness’” (R&W 232). I’m sorry I had no idea being a woman was a defect. Also when he talks about how both the young boy and girl desire the mother, he feels that since the boy is loving the opposite sex his love is the ‘natural’ one (R&W 232). Not only does that offend females but also homosexual relations. How does Freud explain those? I felt that Freud is very narrow-minded in his thinking and in many instances is completely wrong. He makes assumptions about things that he has no experience with. I do not think a male can speak for a female’s feelings or desires. One person should not think for another person or even try to explain their thoughts the way Freud does. Freud really aggravates me and I am doing a Freudian and Lacanian reading on a movie for my final paper so we will see how that goes and if my views on him change at all…..