Quandry
Francoise Herrmann (fherrmann who-is-at igc.apc.org)
Fri, 10 May 1996 14:40:46 -0700 (PDT)
After Simone de Beauvoir's "Second sex" and A. Rich's "Of women born",
I found "A history of their own" volume 1 to read. And I am uneasy the
further I am reading. My feminist heart tells me "yes, women have
been subordianted through the ages". True that there may not be much
eveidence for tracing the roots of this subordination in the Stone Age,
but the writings of the Greeks, the Romans and the Hebrews have spelt
it out loud and clear. At least so the quotes that I am reading are used
to make that point. But then soemthing in me also cringes at the
constant denigrations. Couldn't there be some history that doesn't blame,
that doens't amount to reversing domination to create an equally
monstrous matriarcal history (and I mean not in content but in its
ennunciating subject). "Menstrual fluid was deficient semen; woman
was deficient man, able to supply only 'the matter' of a fetus, to which the
superior male contributed "form' and 'soul'". Psychoanalysts will
speak of mother's milk both cultural and nutrional and of the father's
role in symbolic structuring, which doesn't escuse the ignorance
of value judgements (inferiority/superiority concepts) but in other
words explains and differentiates the parental division of labor.
Aren't words both of milk and of blood, don't mothers speak to their
daughter's bodies (to pleasure and joy) and fathers to mind, discipline
and authority. I may sound reactionary, but soemthing here is deeply
disturbing to me. Something says to me that surely over time we overcome
what is plain ignorance (the floating uterus stories) towards an
understnading. And that that understanding soemhow cannot blame and
must be equal.
Francoise
Francoise Herrmann
fherrmann who-is-at igc.org