I'd like to use this "free write" blog to put a more slightly more contemporary spin on the dense feminist theory we've been reading. In other words, Helene Cixous has managed to break my detachment to what I read and write. A call to women of the world to take up their pens and write for feminism, Cixous implores us: "The Americans remind us, 'We are all Lesbians"; that is, don't denigrate woman, don't make of her what men have made of you" (420).
Reading this, we might initially recoil: "Lesbians?" we'll say, "Not all of us." But her notion of a capital-L "Lesbian" is not simply a woman who is sexually attracted to other women. Rather, she imagines a woman who is not defined by men. Think Wittig. But Cixous goes a step farther: her conception of Lesbianism is not simply outside of patriarchal phallocentric definitions, but one who actively works for women's liberation and rights.
Furthermore, her direct command to women readers, "don't make of her what men have made of you," resonates especially today. What have men made of us? For Cixous, they have essentially made us the lack-of-phallus. Women are defined (wrongly) as simply castrated men, wrought with penis envy. But today, I think this penis envy has been transferred onto other women. In competition for male attention and validation, women (especially young women) can be really vicious towards each other. So often, I hear (even from my own mouth) the objectification, judgment, and dismissal of women by women. In doing this, we are making of women exactly what men have--sexual objects defined by desirability.
At the risk of sounding like a wannabe flower child, I think we can all take a page from Cixous' book and suspend our phallocentrically informed judgments of women.
Penis envy is something I have blogged about before, and I think that I sometimes have been subject to wanting something I well, don't have. I think your idea is interesting, that penis envy rather than defined as simply "castrated men" is now being defined as being competition for male attention. This is seen on the row at USC, and at bars in Los Angeles. Its hard to be an independent woman, even if I'm not a lesbian. I like the quote "don't make of her what men have made of you". Because yes, what have men made of us? They have made us followers. I can't walk out on the row in my leather studded punk biker jacket without getting a few passing comments from guys. Or, am I putting on my long flowy skirt and my lace top, my bandeau, buying Coachella tickets and calling myself a Lesbian? Either way, I am actively work for women's liberation and rights.
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