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kayla's picture

past and present of nature/culture

 

I appreciated Ortner’s return to her classic “Is Female to Male as Nature is to Culture?” It’s not as if her observations were wrong, but her return to those observations in order to present an updated look at the question of universal male dominance. I’m not totally sure if I am correct, but it seems to me that there has to be some sort of divide between generations of women and feminists, and that some are simply unwilling to bridge that gap. If this is the case, then “So, Is Female to Male…” is an excellent example of returning to past conceptions of feminist issues and reflecting on what can be changed and updated. And more than that, I loved the conclusion to the second essay: “so what?”. She states that she has moved beyond “the static parallelism of the categories” to “understanding the politics of the construction of such linkages” (180). I’m interested in hearing more about Ortner’s process, if it can be called that, of coming back to the past and rethinking her own ideas, especially considering it can be so hard for people to do this.  

 

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