Kiwi, Cixous/Butler

In Cixous text she discusses a lot of the differences of men and woman and emphasizes on how men are the dominant sex and women are inferior. In the reading she states that, “Traditionally, the question of sexual difference is treated by coupling it with the opposition: activity/passivity. “I think she is trying to say that our society has certain stereotypes of men and if they don’t live up to these expectations that we have for them, then they have failed their manhood and are looked down upon. Men are the ones that financially support the family, if the wife is the one that is financially supporting the family… then the husband is looked down upon. This is simply because of our media and the specific stereotypes that we have made of men and women. It is an ideology.

This idea can relate to both Alhusser and Lyotard. Lyotard because he says that we are living in total metanarratives, which is commonly shared set of beliefs or stories that people use to make a sense out of their world and out of their lives. He says that we need to get away from this however we never will because this is what our society continues to follow.
Althusser would say, that the hegemonic class sets these standards, that if not followed you are looked down upon for not following the rules that our society has set on how we should live our lives. But here is my question… is it fair that we have made these stereotypes about men and women? Is it fair to that women will never be credited for their hard work too? As Habermas would say, “we are all neoconservatives” he says that we are living in a world where we have certain beliefs that are this or that and that we will never be able to come together as one and compromise, it is impossible. Although I would not like to think that what he is saying is true, I do belief that he is right and we will never be able to compromise (men and women) therefore women will never win because the men are the dominant ones, therefore they will always win because they have more “power, more control.”

I thought that this reading was very interesting and I am not sure if this is Cixous main point or not however, I do believe that this is an issue and there needs to be more discussion about this within our society. As Jameson would say, “depth is replaced by surface.” Our society does not take the time anymore to look deeper it issues like this and perhaps this is why we have so many problems later down the road. I look forward to class tomorrow and seeing how others feel about this issue.