Bubbles, Cixous/Bulter

In Cixous’ text she discusses our ideologies of hierarchy. Although the cultural hierarchal values that she discusses are not new concepts, she uses a very interesting way to discuss them: through opposition. Some of the oppositions she uses are sun/moon, activity/passivity, head/heart, and more. She uses these oppositions to the differences in men and women. Most of her oppositions show how the well-known ideas of how men are the dominant sex and women are inferior. I found her strategy to explain hierarchal through opposition to relate back to de Sassure’s concepts of difference. In the beginning of the semester we discusses that difference is the key to understanding meaning and language, we can only know what one word means because of its difference to the other. Similarly, we can see in Cuxous’ text that the opposition is what allows us to see what it means to be a male or female only in the opposition between the two.

I also found Cixous’ concept of Bisexuality very interesting. Before reading this text I had never thought of Bisexuality in this manner. I the past I only thought of Bisexuality as the attraction to both sexes and never as the person themselves as two sexes. Cixous gives two examples of what Bisexuality can mean-“bisexuality as a fantasy of a complete being,” and “bisexuality as the location within oneself of the presence of both sexes.” I believe that her first meaning of bisexuality she is portraying this complete being as having the best of both the male and the female sex in one being. Similarly the second one states that both sexes are present as well, but in full, just not the two halves placed together. Although I have not fully grasped what Cixous is discussing, out of both text this concept popped out to me and challenged my own ideas on the matter. I am eager to discuss the issue further in class.