background connections

Sexuality  as a separate yet connected element of the personal self is a theme that spans both Cixous and Gottlieb’s work and is particularly important to analyze in terms of language because it is often less apparent than others (or at least less acknowledged, due to historical/social taboos). Helene Cixous places a heavy emphasis on this concept in her theories of the self, stating that writing is:

[An] act which will not only ‘realize’ the decensored relation of woman to her sexuality, to her womanly being, giving her access to her native strength; it will give her back her goods, her pleasures, her organs, her immense bodily territories which have been kept under seal… (880).

Cixous continues to cite sexuality and the honest recording thereof as a means to reject the hushed and limited nature of societal views on female sexual practices (as well as societal views on sexuality in general), a way to tear women away from the “superegoized structure” of androcentric society (880).

Likewise, in Telling Sexual Stories, Ken Plummer states, “Sexual stories live in [the] flow of power. The power to tell a story, or indeed to not tell a story, under the conditions of one’s own choosing is part of the political process” (26). The weight of telling sexual stories, especially ones dealing with concepts such as victimization, being queer, or having “explicit” sexual desires – all of which are often seen as even deeper taboos – can be a source of empowerment for both the writer/speaker and her audience (27).

Daphne Gottlieb’s work deals with all three of these more “risqué” topics, and her telling of her sexual stories and sexual self is simultaneously uninhibited and carefully calculated. By writing about past sexual abuse experiences as well as current forms of reclaiming sexuality using fluidity in her lexicon and imagery, the poems embody the power that sexual writing can hold according to both Cixous and Plummer.

 

clarity on Cixous’s use of “woman”

Just wanted to insert this little footnote from my original paper proposal:

The word “woman” is used in Cixous’s The Laugh of the Medusa (1976) inclusively to mean both woman-as-woman and woman-as-person. She states that man must write him self as well: “it’s up to him to say where his masculinity and femininity are at,” which in turn will cause them to “[open] their eyes and see themselves clearly” (877).  Cixous sees men as victims of the oppressive patriarchal state just as women are: “the way man has of getting out of himself and into her whom he takes not for the other but for his own, deprives him, he knows, of his own bodily territory” (877). However, because language and speech are explained and seen to be “governed by the phallus,” the concept of femininity remains the default in her essay as well as my own (881).

Also: In class, we discussed the gendering of pronouns and using gender-neutral language, and while I can recognize that using woman-as-person (with the disclaimer about men) excludes individuals who do not subscribe to or fit into the neat little boy/girl gender boxes that we have socially constructed, I do appreciate her early use of the female pronoun as opposed to the typical male default.

 

thoughts on “the doctor’s daughter”

In this poem on pages 73 and 74 of Why Things Burn, Daphne Gottlieb describes how she chose writing poetry as a teenager:

“forgetful, I spent a year writing poems
feverish, as if each was the first
about girls, me, and all
the things that happened to those girls, me
and all those poems, monsters the way
adolescence is monstrous”

Using writing as a sanctuary from a “monstrous” adolescence, she reconnects with her self despite, “the isolation of the unfamiliar body / that no longer even remembers itself.” However, as the poem progresses the reader learns that she accidentally left her notebook out, which her father finds and reads. In describing her father’s response, she says that he witnessed puberty like a disease invading his daughter, and she was “a 14-year old host vulnerable to foreign bodies / the enemy, the trembling, the bodies”

By using the metaphor of an illness, a “wild, unchecked growth,” young Daphne takes on the role of the plagued and disease-ridden, being preyed on and used by the “foreign bodies,” both hers and – more importantly – others’.  However, the lack of symbiosis/healthiness in the relationship Daphne had with these invasive bodies escapes her father, the doctor, who responds to her confessional poetry by saying: “you know who / that girl is / don’t you? / that girl’s / a whore.”

In he language her father chose (“that girl” and “whore”) he distances himself from her, furthering her feelings of being misunderstood and preyed upon. Now, Daphne has not only been betrayed by a multitude of things: the invasive bodies of others, her own body during the turmoils of adolescence, her father, as well, in part, by her poetry. In an attempt to be honest and confessional, she is outcasted once again, which clearly has emotionally scarring effects on young women. Although she does not recall in this particular poem the specifics about her sexual encounters with other boys (or men), I assume they are intense and difficult for her to process at a young age. This sexuality seems to be placed opon her by Other Bodies and is now labeled as deviant by an outsider, her father.

As a woman, I could think back to the invasiveness of not only puberty but also young men who attempt to test their limits and take advantage of our “unfamiliar bod[ies],”  could remember feeling disconnected and unsure about my own sexual impulses and those of others. This sexual ostracization was difficult for me to read because it felt so real and personal, which is only one of the many reasons why Daphne’s poetry has such an impact on me each time.

 

coming to Cixous

I found out about Helene Cixous in my feminist theory class during the fall semester of 2007. Diana Tigerlily introduced us to Cixous during a section on – appropriately enough – French feminism. Cixous resonated with me rather intensely and I remember finishing “The Laugh of the Medusa” feeling immensely satisfied with what I’d absorbed. I went to class the next week ready to discuss and was more talkative in that class than I had been in any other, which was a personal accomplishment in itself.

The phrase “Write your self. Your body must be heard” has echoed in my brain since the very beginning, and it has become one of my mantras in both my writing and general navigating of the world. She continues:

To write. An act which will not only “realize” the decensored relation of woman to her sexuality, to her womanly being, giving  her access to her native strength; it will give her back her goods, her pleasures, her organs, her immense bodily territories which have been kept under seal (880).

Although Cixous does not discourage men from writing and expressing their selves, her focus on women’s writing is obvious from a feminist perspective; as many of our foremothers have pointed out, the very language (both written and spoken) in which we participate is birthed from patriarchal and racist mindsets or  “governed by the phallus” (881). This reclamation of linguistics and text is as important – if not more so – than the reclamation of our bodies, and Cixous argues that the two are inseparable. Aside from the literal bodily connection between the mind and the pen (the keyboard, the typewriter), writing provides a distinct voice to each person, a voice that had not been – and, indeed is still not always – given to women of any color or creed.

I have used “write your self” as a tagline inside notebooks that I have designed and either given to friends or listed for sale because I also find the act of writing to be tied so closely to the body. In my own writing, whether poetry or blog entries (which I feel are becoming an essential form of expression) I try to let my voice be heard through specific words (chosen of fabricated), punctuation, use of asides, etc. because it gives me a sense of purpose and selfhood.

Indeed, Cixous talks about the individuality of each woman that can be found through her body and through the expression of her essential self (emphasis original):

What strikes me is the infinite richness of [women's] individual constitutions: you can’t talk about a female sexuality, uniform, homogeneous, classifiable into codes – any more than you can talk about one unconscious resembling another. Women’s imaginary is inexhaustible, like music, painting, writing: their stream of phantasms is incredible (876).

Cixous tells of imaginary worlds within each woman, a place where she has had ultimate rule all of her life but often chooses not to express. She urges us to hone in on this world and exclaim “I, too, overflow; my desires have invented new desires, my body knows unheard-of songs” (876). These lines fill me with so much hope and encouragement that I tear up each time I read them. To think that it is possible to completely let go of societal pressures, guilt complexes placed upon our sex (referred to by Cixous on page 878 as an “antinarcissism” or “the infamous logic of antilove”) is just awe-inspiring.