fang- cixious and butler and irragay

The readings on feminist theory were much different than that of race theory as race theory strongly urged people to avoid othering and not see racial problems as white v. black problems but people problems.  The feminist theorists see distinct differences (or for Cixious differances) between men and women and a binary opposition in the two genders.

Irigaray’s piece notes the misconceptions between men and female sexual organs and the skewed view of sexuality but does not explain the similarities in the two, but the differences and how those differences cause many to view sex as a dominating act. She others women saying “woman finds pleasure more in touch than in sight and her entrance into a dominant scopic economy signifies once again, her relegation to passivity: she will be the beautiful object...” (handout 255) fleshing out the misconceptions about female sexuality.  While on some level, there is certainly a lack of understanding in the inner workings of women, Irigaray focuses more on female superiority than the overall goal of fostering understanding and complete equality and empathy across genders.

Cixious’s piece further develops Derrida and Irigaray’s ideas about different thoughts of sexuality. She focuses on how the writing of women features more passion and a “privilege of voice” (C 162) and that women move forward compared to men who revert back to a previous state prescribed by society. Women, however, “steal language to make it fly” (166) demonstrating a superiority of women over men.

Lastly, Butler, the most logical of the theorists, takes feminism from a political standpoint hoping for a “universal basis for feminism, one which must be found in an identity assumed to exist cross-culturally, often accompanies the notion that the oppression of women has some singular form discernible in the universal or hegemonic structure of patriarchy or masculine domination” (C 193). Butler desires female representation in the political world and that when that is achieved, it is more likely people understand the differences between men and women.

It is quite possible I didn’t dig as deep into the readings as they merit but it just seemed like the readings did not get at the same solutions and rational thought as the other theorists this semester.