Savvy, Cixous, 4/27/09

When reading this article I couldn't help but do think of the ways in which it related to so many of the class discussions that I have had here at Rollins. From my anthropology classes, to womens studied, to cmc, to religion. This topic of the "male dominance" has always come up in relation to gender issues, world stereotypes, and heigharchy. I think the most significant question that Cixous poses is the question of "why does man fear being a woman?"(159). I myself can't help but to ask this question. Constantly within our society male's are trying to prove that they are 'tough' and 'man enough'. What does this even really mean? Why has our society created the notion that a male has to be 'tough' and that this is what represents masculinity? In my CMC100 class we looked at a clothing ads in a magazine for Gucci and other name brands. This article remind me of the ads that we had seen because in all of these ads there was male dominance. In one had was a woman laying on the ground with three men placing each one of their feet upon her chest. I can't help put to ask the question, why does this type of marketing sell?

In many of the religion classes that i have taken we have discussed male dominance in literature, practices, rituals, and traditions. Recently, in my Modern/Contemporary Jewish Though class we analyzed feminist scholarship. Many of these Jewish feminist scholars posed the same question that Cixous did in asking why men are so afraid of becoming female and why is there a fear of giving women power? Women oppression can be seen throughout religious literature. For instance, a women can read from the Hebrew bible that she can be sold as a slave by her brothers or father. This may be getting a little far away from the point that Cixous made, but I thought that it had relevance to me when I was reading this piece.

Another quote that stood out to me was, "every woman has known the torture of begining to speak aloud...because for women speaking-even just opening her mouth - in public is something rash, a transgression." This may not be the case in many circumstances, but there are times where this quote does prove a point. When I was a freshman at Rollins a took an international business class. Often I was scared to speak up in class because there were only two other girls in my class. When I would speak, often I would feel as if the men in the class would look at me as if they were saying, "are you really talking or saying something right now". I do think that this quote has some truth, and I also do believe that there are circumstances that counteract this quote. It is all a matter of looking at where our society stands today in it's gender issues.