Week 4--The Dark Continent

I will readily admit that it took our class discussion today to convince me to post this week. Yes, I realize it's required and highly valued, but as I said in class, I get very, very nervous about writing responses, especially on a forum such as this, where, even if my response doesn't receive comments, I know it's being read. Well, screw it. Thanks to Cixous, I accept that the female world may be losing unrivaled and unanticipated brilliance through my choice not to write.

I found myself inspired today, both in reading and understanding Cixous and by the route of the class discussion today. Abby's orgasm imagery is on point with how I feel and react to Cixous' piece (which is not to say that I literally found it "orgasmic"). Cixous' reclamation of female sexuality and bodily function in a literary manner spoke to me on the deep level on which it seemed to speak to Rhapsodica. I naturally respond better to poetic, flowing, anecdotal writing, rich with imagery and saturated with metaphor and zeal, perhaps because that's the form of writing that I find myself falling into most frequently and most comfortably. I've written the majority of my paper for tomorrow, but I find myself wondering if it will ultimately follow this form.

For me, feminism is almost as bodily an experience as Cixous' orgasm statement. My blood boils, my heart races, my eyes widen and my cheeks flush at the chance to defend womankind. Perhaps it is this reaction that makes Cixous' essay the most interesting reading for me thus far in our studies; her descriptions are almost edible in their sumptuousness. I feel Cixous teasing a reaction out of me, almost as if she is leading me by a string into her glimmering web of feminist theory and principles, urging me straight from the marrow to respond to her call to arms.

Well first off, go Abby for your Ani reference! From one Ani feminist to another...it was very much appreciated! (if you do not identify as a feminist, I want to apologize in advance!)

Secondly, I agree with Kat Wheeler! The female body is too often forgotten, misrepresented and/or taken advantage of. For me, this ties in so well with previous discussions of understanding how the body shifts from context to context, or rather from foreground to background. This is partically why I was up in arms when I read and heard about Spivak's Jane Eyre compared to how I first learned of the story and saw it in a film with Orson Wells and Joan Fontain.

It was interesting (in the ironic kind of way) and terrible how the idea that Birtha was a crazy woman of color was so differently represented in a visual from the film. This also reflects on the contexts and mediums from which we are able to express ourselves. Why was Bronte able to expose Birtha in writing as a woman of color, but she is not able to be visually represented in the same way? Do some mediums of expression have more agency than others? Or is it always a question of context?

Like Kat, it sort of makes you question the hegemonic influences we buy into even now.

My response also is pretty long, so here's the short version, and I elaborated a little more in my blog, because there's probably some gaping holes in what's here:  

Cixous’s essay was the most intriguing for me because it framed the question of whether there is such thing as a definite feminine style of writing in terms of what the world would be like if woman’s way of thinking were just as deeply rooted and institutionalized as men’s, if woman’s half of the world were painted, in her words.

Cixous also basically redefined what “personal” means, at least in comparison to Kauffman’s definition, because she sees writing as a woman (“I-Woman, escapee” (888)) unrelated to the personal.

I don’t necessarily agree with her definition of feminine writing (achronological, multifaceted, both the author’s self and Other, emotional, embracing rather than hating, and most interestingly (at least to me) anonymous (888), or even whether there is such a thing, but it does raise some questions fundamental to feminist studies – is there an inherent difference between how “men” and “women” (if those catagories exist) think and write? Is it biological, evolutionary, cultural, or even existent? Is it even limited to women? because Allen’s essay I thought asserted otherwise, that the Keres people think in a “feminine” way, that is non-hierarchically and matriarchically. 

First, what I pulled from class discussion about Spivak on Monday:

Feminism:Ariel::Imperialism:Prospero.

Imperialism means making natives the means to imperialism’s ends, but claiming that natives are being made into ends, through imperialism.

Feminism, as it is, is part of the imperialist hegemony.

We should critique the forest of feminism, not the tree Jane Eyre; it is the forest that made Jane Eyre feminist, that is, made it part of the hegemony.

The water from Cixous’s “The Laugh of the Medusa” ("the water" is a reference to bel hooks's notion of letting the silt sink to the bottom of the glass, ignoring those parts that aren't useful, and pulling out and using what is):

I think “Laugh of the Medusa” is a call to revolution. “Break out of the circles … Take a look around, then cut through!” (pg 892) Cixous isn’t proposing any particular kind of new order, but chaotic experiment and exploration by individuals each doing as they please, indulging their desire, whether it is to write or to gestate. Her only law is that we should try to understand and love the other, instead of to subdue it and fear it.

What is the connection between Woman reclaiming her body (reclaiming it like a territory), and Woman writing? Specifically writing, not any other form of voice. On page 891, Cixous defines “the desire to write: a desire to live self from within, a desire for the swollen belly, for language, for blood”. Perhaps I find this hard to grasp because I never feel less embodied than when I’m writing – then, I’m all mind and eyes and hands, in that order, but mostly mind. But is her point that women regard their bodies and their writing in a similar way, with shame and without pride? And is her assumption that to take pride in one will be to take pride in the other?

What is Cixous’s attitude toward men? For most of the article, she seems to see them as the opposition. But near the end, “I want all. I want all of me with all of him … I want all of us … I don’t want a penis to decorate my body with. But I do desire the other for the other, whole and entire, male or female …” (pg 891)

The silt, which I’m calling silt because some of it irritates me or I disagree with it, and if I let myself get distracted by disagreeing then I’ll never understand the gist of the overall piece:

-Discussing women and men as if they were discrete, neat categories, and the only ways of being; and saying there is feminine writing and masculine writing.

I don’t think of myself as a woman, and I’m not going to say how I think of myself, here and now: out of the closet, but you don’t know what closet I stepped out of, and I’ve gone some place else where you can’t see me because there aren't any damn words for it anyway. The overall impact of these readings is to feel myself an outsider, albeit one with a stake. I don’t want to redefine the words woman and man or explore new ways of being them, or be them better than before. I want to make new words. A renaming.

-Speaking about women as Africa, as black (pg 877): I wonder what Spivak would say about a citizen of a colonizing nation saying that all women are Africa, are black.

Also, some photos of Helene, her mother, and her brother, which I found arresting. They all have the same magnificent nose.

http://olivier.roller.free.fr/cixoushelene.html

First impressions:

Spivak--Kind of tiresome ranting, but it would be interesting to get ahold of both Jane Eyre and Wild Sargasso Sea and read them together.

Cixous--This is poetry more than an essay.

Later thoughts:

 My opinion on Spivak hasn't changed much with re-reading, but I've appreciated hearing (by proxy) the insights shared in class, and thoughts posted here so far.  Political discussion always seems to make me angry and sad--not a productive combination.  (But I'm still interested in trying the JE/WSS experiment, though not so analytically as she might suggest.)

On the third reading of Cixous, she started to make sense to me, and I think in terms of "contributing to a current feminist praxis" she offers ever so much more than Spivak.  It is so much more inspiring to be exhorted to set ourselves free to do what we can do than to continue with rounds and rounds of recriminations for past injustices.  Cixous says "write," but Abby recognizes that not only writing, but painting, songs, cooking, theoretical imaginings, etc., etc. are all ways in which we can (and should) creatively express ourselves as seems appropriate to each individual.  (Thanks, Abby, for expressing that so clearly.)

I think again we may be confronting the difference between feminism per se and feminist literary criticism.  As Matos says, Spivak may contribute more to literary criticism, but I think Cixous offers more to a feminist life (if only we can live up to her lofty expectations.) 

--Alex '65

    I am thankful, Mary Clurman, for what you shared this week in your above post.  The experience you describe of leaving Bryn Mawr because of a resistance to that which is "too intelectual, too abstract, too self-consciously rigorous...Unreal" reminds me of some of my own struggles when I first came to this college.  I think many must share your experience, if not completely, at least in part.  I guess your words inspired me to forgo an attempt at "appropriate" academic analysis of this weeks readings and just talk about what turned me on.

  I might as well come out and confess:  I'm a sucker for a good sex metaphor.  Cisoux's comparison of the woman ashamed of her private erotic pleasure and the woman ashamed of her writing drew me in from the start.  Perhaps it's because I study literature that I find the connection between words and erotics so appleaing; because I've spent the past three years flirting with authors instead of athletes, staying up all night with books instead of boyfriends.  Who knows?  All I do know is that orgasms are powerful, and so are words.

  I think that's at the heart of Cisoux's piece. She's encouraging us to let it out: to write, speak, scream, EXPRESS.  Our drives and desires have huge implications: they can create!  People, perhaps especially women, are creative creatures.  We make ideas, books, poems, songs, paintings, orgasms, babies, families, you name it!  Put aside all the jargon and politics and what it comes down to is this: we've got a lot to give.  That's not to say that every woman should feel as though she must give, must express or must make her expression public; certainly not.  I think the point is this: don't be ashamed of the sounds you make.  Our voices are valuable; just as valuable as our wombs.  There's no need to be silent, if you don't want to be.  That which we give birth to is a contribution to the continuous project of world-making, whether it be children, theories, art, protests or some crazy mix of all those things.  We have the potential to envision new worlds.  We might as well take a shot at actually building them. 

"And I sing sometimes like my life is at stake

 because you're only as loud as the noises you make."

                                   - Ani  DiFranco

(Sorry, had to quote the woman at least partially responsible for my foray into the feminist world)

I feel like the largest connective force between the Spivak and the Cixous piece is the theoretical concept of "othering". Perhaps this comes to mind because of Spivak's focus on imperialism, especially connected with the concepts of "worlding" and "Orientalism" -- two concepts which I, for reasons I am not prepared to analyze at the moment, automatically connect with feminist theory as regards the concept of "woman" as the "other" of "man". While Spivak groups together Western men and women under the umbrella of the imperialist oppressor who causes the "worlding" of non-Western societies, Cixous vehemently insists on the seperation of femininity from masculinity and, therefore, woman from man.

I think the biggest difficulty I have with the Cixous essay, and, in fact, probably the same problem I've had with every other text we've read so far, is the assumption of the categories "woman" and "man" as things which are biologically determined and pre-destined to exist throughout all ages. The notion that the there are two genders, male and female, and, for most of these theorists, that these genders are biologically determined is a presupposition which I believe we must overcome if we are to move forward to individual equality. However, I suppose perpetually railing against the gender binary is not the purpose of these weekly postings, though I'm sure this will not be the last time I do so. To return to my original point, I really like the positioning of the Spivak essay with the Cixous because it points out the problem with setting up any dichotomy. Eventually, and probably sooner rather than later, another category will be introduced which throws the entire system out of whack.

<>I'd like to start by saying that I agree with Elizabeth319 that it was therapeutic to break up into small groups to begin discussing Spivak. The text was difficult and it was refreshing to get our thoughts out there without having to worry about being eloquent in front of the whole class. I also think it helped fuel the class discussion later on.

<>I think we decided at the end of class that the point of Spivak's essay was that feminism itself has become imperialistic. However, I don't think that I would have ever reached that conclusion on my own. I have studied Orientalism in the past and hoped that it would help me here, but it only made my understanding of the text more convoluted. You can use the theory when talking about feminism because women are often viewed by men as the "other" (the second sex). Spivak extends that to say that Bertha Mason was Jane Eyre's "other." However I think they are both the "other" to men. Spivak's interpretation is a modern construction that is divisive and not necessarily helpful to reaching a better understanding of feminism.

This may be a tangent but I know that particularly within the British Empire, women (both white and of color) were very often used as a means to an end. For example, widow-sacrifice or the rape of white women by natives often incited conflict. But if I recall, it was not usually a concern for women's rights so much as a way for the British to dehumanize the natives involved. When the British could establish the natives as the "savage other," then they justified their dominance over them.

I haven't read Jane Eyre but I don't buy that Bertha is the physical manifestation of Jane's inner turmoil. I would do a traditional feminist reading of the imperial context and say that in a man's world, the two women are pitted against each other. In the end one must be destroyed for the other to be happy and man retains his hegemonic power. That's as much as I have figured out. Caliban and Ariel could also be representative of this model but I've no idea how to fit Frankenstein in. Or child-bearing and soul-making for that matter. Hopefully we can continue this discussion in class.

The idea of "interpellation" forced our class to look at our own place in society, as students who are interpellated into school. When looked at from one perspective it seemed as if we were unknowingly, yet willingly, formed by school because it is the "dominant ideological apparatus," and we submit to it. However, when we delved more into the subject it became clear that we didn't think of attending college as a domination technique created by society, but rather attending school is equivalent to internally making a deal to engage in certain social practices.

In regards to Spivak's essay, our class broke up into four separate groups to discuss how "the active ideology of imperialism provides a discursive field" for Jane Eyre, Frankenstein and The Tempest. After we regrouped the following questions were brought to light: (1) What is the relationship between hegemonic imperialism and child-bearing/soul-making? (2) How does imperialism affect oppression in regards to race and gender? Which is affected more? (3) How does a hegemonic reading of literature relate back to feminism? (4) How do the three texts relate when it comes to child-bearing/soul-making?

We came to a general decision that a soul is a creation by social process that is added to a pre-existing body. Imperialism assumes that a monster/native needs a soul, when really she already has one - it just doesn't fit into imperialist norms. Also, when it comes to child-bearing and soul-making, we found, particularly in Frankenstein, that there is a problem with ignoring the female role in these processes.

I found the most enlightening part of the class discussion to be our discussion of the relationship between imperialism and feminism. We found that the type of feminism people use is imperialist. Also, the way that men treat women in certain texts is equivalent to the way imperialist countries treat natives. When it comes to literature it became clear that white women use native women to represent their own psycho oppression and in this way perpetuate imperialism. To follow up this thread of thought we asked: "Does the madness of one woman need to be contained so that another woman can be foregrounded?" (Examples: Jane Eyre and Wide Sargasso Sea)

We left class with the following questions in mind: Why is Jane Eyre the cult feminist text when it has hegemonic imperialist forces in it? What role does literature play in the project of feminism?

I can certainly identify with the uneasiness Mary Clurman felt upon encountering Cixous's mystical leanings.  It seemed to me, at first, that the vague, shadowy style of her writing could only reinforce the "dark continent" misconception she seeks to eradicate.  I was confused, because not only does she seem to be fully concious of writing in this potentially off-putting way, but she even predicts, "you'll splutter that I'm a 'mystic," a statement that suggests an unapologetic pride, in a style that allows her to write of functioning within the discourse of man, "it is time for her to dislocate this 'within,' to explode it, turn it around, and seize it; to make it hers, containing it, taking it in her own mouth, biting that tongue within her very own teeth to invent for herself a language to get inside of."  I'm still working to untangle that metaphor. 

I realized though, that Cixous was most certainly allowing her writing to swirl around like this in order to be the best possible example of her own edict, "Woman must write her self: must write about women and bring women to writing."  I was fascinated to notice my own immediately averse reaction to Cixous's "feminine" writing style.  I was disoriented, and the absence of Spivak's masculine, academic style was keenly felt, not because it neccesarily made more sense to me, (both articles were difficult to understand) but because I have grown accustomed to Spivak's brand of academic writing, and am more comfortable grappling with it, when grappling is neccesary.  Once I was able to accept that Cixous's essay could not be read like an ordinary article, I was able to return to it, and found her thoughts immensely helpful.  To finally respond to the original prompt, I found this article infinitely more compelling and/or useful to the current feminist praxis, because if the exploration process Cixous proposes were to take place on a large scale, I believe it would effectively wipe out Spivak's imperialism issue.  As we discussed in class, the problem with imperialism is that it assumes that there exists an inferior, soulless group in need of soul-making.  Free a woman from the fear of her own "dark" unconcious, and she will soon discover her soul.  Once she is secure in this knowledge, she will never again consent to be oppressed. 

Before I attempt to crack the message that Spivak hides in her writing, I want to express my gratitude for the discussion in class about the direction in which the forum was starting to lead. I praise to the alums for bringing to the surface the lack of interactions within the forum. I had started to sense a brewing of competition steaming in the forums. I became worried that my post was not long or scholarly enough. I thought I misinterpreted the idea that the forum was suppose to be another means for informal dialogue and a way for us to share our thoughts about the texts and reflection of discussion in class.

            With all that said, I apologize to the alums that are not able to be in the classroom because my post will allude to much of what was discussed in class. Class yesterday was particularly valuable in relation to making sense of the dense, manic writing of Spivak. I have yet to read Cixous’ text (and know that I will not be able to get it to prior to the deadline for this week’s posting) but I can only hope that it is more comprehensible than Spivak. Mary Clurman’s posting has given me a sense of reassurance for the Cixous’ text as I found myself relating and agreeing with much of what Mary expressed in her post.  Cixous piece appears to have a heavier psychological rather than philosophical perspective. A psychological perspective may put me on the same wavelength with Cixous because I relate to an underlying psychological perspective as a psychology major. That is not to say that I did not appreciate Spivak in class today as we untangled and deciphered what she expressed in her essay.

            Spivak’s writing is already difficult to decompose without the references to the novels which I have not read (except Frankenstein). The examples drawn from the novels only made her writing seem that much harder to grasp. Class discussion and analysis acted like the Tums per say to alleviate the indigestion that occurred after I read Spivak. I would not concur with Spivak’s argument that European women were using women with another skin color to symbolize the less pure thoughts of the white Europeans. Whether the European writers’ intentionally translated their “darker” desires through that of women of a minority class or that the patterns of female writing during imperialism was more of an act of the unconscious is up to debate. The imperialistic influence may have been a trigger to the hierarchical standing that the European women assumed in society especially during the period of colonization. The men may have been the ones to actually explore the lands to colonize, but the women may very well have played a crucial passive aggressive role in demonizing the third world female population.