spaghetti, cixous

I found Cixous' essay particularly relevant to my courses this semester. In one of my communication courses, we recently discussed what it means to be male and what it means to be female, and what we found in our discussion is fully supported by the claims made in this essay. I liked how Cixous introduced her ideas at the beginning of the essay with the notion of binary oppositions and their roles in society. She draws on their ubiquitous presence and strong influential power upon our society and the way in which we define ourselves when she states, "Organization by hierarchy makes all conceptual organization subject to man" (158). Her use of binary oppositions reminded me of Marx's analysis of signs of the ruling class. which we studied earlier this semester.
In my communications class, we discussed what it means to be male. We concluded that from an early age, males are socialized to define themselves and their gender identity by being "not female." Even when examining a happy meal from McDonald's, we found evidence of this. For example, the side of the box meant to appeal to little boys had scientific tools like microscopes and calculators and rulers on it. it was covered in dark colors and had sports equipment and numbers in the background--all things that the male sex is supposed to naturally enjoy. On the other side of the box, which was brightly colored with pinks, purples, and yellows, there were cartoon girls with long hair and ponies, jewelry, make-up and a note written on the box encouraging little girls to eat their protein to get beautiful nails and long shiny hair.... clearly this is something our society instills in children's minds early on in the course of their personal identity construction.
So to be male, you are not female. Meaning you should not enjoy or take part in things that females do. For example, little boys are not supposed to play with dolls, be affectionate, enjoy dancing, etc. But then my class discussed the reverse of the question. what does it mean to be female? It most certainly does not mean not enjoying the things that males do. Women wear pants, enjoy sports, are interested in science and math, etc. Therefore Cixous' claim stands true in our society today..."in a certain way woman is bisexual--man having been trained to aim for glorious phallic monosexuality." Therefore women posses characteristics traditionally attached to both conventional ideas of male and female. Men, however, are socially discouraged to host any traits other than those stereotypical of traditional male ideals.... what a shame