In this week reading I could relate a lot to Derrida’s Differance and other post modern writing especially when I started reading Cixous but interestingly when I moved further or read a bit more it became really complex and serious!!!!

Cixous in ‘The Newly Born Woman’ started her essay talking about the binary opposition and the hierarchy that exists in it, like – active/passive, Sun/Moon, Man/Woman etc. and questions the symbolic order which is created by Man. She states that man has the authority over this symbolic order and woman is absent, ‘nonexistent’ in this order. Therefore, the relation that exists is between father and son, also she questions the rejection of femininity by men. She challenges all the ideas be it philosophical, poetic or artistic without recognizing the other in oneself.

Irigaray in ‘The Power of Discourse and the Subordination of the Feminine’ targets the language as one of the important elements in the symbolic order. Therefore, she suggests that women should mimic because that is what they have done and practiced till now. She says “to play with mimesis is thus, for a woman, to try to recover the place of her exploitation by discourse, without allowing herself to be simply reduced to it”.  Later in ‘Women on the Market’ she develops her argument based on Marx’s concept capitalist /proletariat. But surprisingly we see women are neither categorized under capitalists nor under proletariat but they are commodities or products exchanged and negotiated between two men. Although women are commodities that are ‘precious’, they are also ‘impenetrable, ungraspable and not susceptible to appropriation’. She also talks about the different role that are assigned to the women as per the convenience of the symbolic order – from a mother who cannot be exchanged anymore since she is a private property of the man as she says “This means that mothers, reproductive instruments marked with the name of the father and enclosed in his house, must be private property, excluded from exchange”, whereas in case of prostitutes their body is “useful” because it has been used already by man and “the more it has served, the more it is worth”.

However, Audre Lorde’s argument on this topic has given a new twist to the readings of Feminism. It has challenged the western feminist theory which focuses in deconstructing the binary opposition of the symbolic order and asks to look feminism in a broader sense to include women of color, third-world people, working class and older people so that a solidarity can be developed against the oppressors. She says “….white women focus upon their oppression as women and ignore differences of race, sexual preference, class and age”.  Further, she also stresses that when we speak broadly about feminism or demonstration of women’s culture we should not limit our production of art forms to one specific genre and “to be aware of the effect of class and economic differences  on the supplies available for producing art “. I find this very interesting as it allows people to participate from across the world to express their views, ideas, frustration etc without any restriction to any forms. She also gives importance to older people and says that through them we can ‘examine the living memories’.

I felt after reading this text that feminism is not simply fighting against the binary opposition but rather fighting for other oppressed and marginalized groups and communities. But to fight for them one has to understand that their culture, concern, economic condition etc are different from the other and therefore it cannot be homogenized. Hence, feminism is a complex issue.