The World in Black and White: Sexpression (Female Ethics)

In the essay, “One is Not Born a Woman”, Monique Wittig argues that women must fight their own oppression by refusing to accept the ideology that society has created for them. She quotes Simone de Beauvoir who said thirty years ago, “One is not born, but becomes a woman” to prove that the woman we have all tried to live up to are myths. We have been conditioned into feminine personalities because of our biological differences from men. Media and society as a whole manipulates our minds to believe that we should allow men to use our bodies for their own pleasure.
Wittig explains, as a lesbian herself, that it is as if women belong to men and even lesbians feel their being oppressed, as women are more or less off limits for them. She says women become defined by their physical and biological features. She admits that as long as giving birth is what defines woman then it will be hard not to recognize that women are part of a natural group that may continue to be out of her reach.
What lesbians have proved is that as women they can choose not to accept the group chosen for them and instead be niether man nor woman. They choose not to be inferior to men, or abused by them, used or enslaved by them. They do not accept that men should be allowed to violate them by refusing to be heterosexual.
Wittig believes that woman are a myth made up by the imaginations of heterosexual men that want nothing more than to be master of their own sexual slaves. She feels the only way to fight this oppression is to suppress men as a class. Her thoughts being that once the class of men disappears, so too will the class of women. She says, “for there are no slaves without masters”.
Sandra Bartky's assertions in her essay, “Foucault, Femininity, and the Modernization of Patriarchal Power”, are very critical of Foucault for not recognizing that womans lives are more institutionalized than mens. After all, their whole life is filled with steps on how to be beautiful, how to look younger, how to keep your skin looking young and every different weight watchers diet is on their shelves at home. If there is a remedy out there for looking good, women have tried them all. The rituals on keeping herself thin are a daily chore and night creams and face masks are mandatory before bedtime. She is so conditioned from societies high expectations for her that her life is filled with endless beauty chores.
Woman beat themselves up if they get too fat, or a pimple shows from her eating too much chocolate. If they notice their hair is out of place and their girlfriend did not tell them about it they assume it was intentional to stop them from looking better than they do. Everything is about competition and trying to be perfect in every way. They have to talk softly, be sexy, stay faithful, look youthful, act happy and be successful. Yes, at home and at work. It is increasingly clear that men have it made and women have to do all the hard work. Men just need soap and razors for a shower and a splash of aftershave and off they go. Their wardrobe can be kept in a hall closet and that's enough to keep them sought after. A woman needs at least 20 pairs of shoes to go with every color outfit she owns. It gets expensive and hard to keep up with the fashion magazines when they change their looks every season.
Bartky points out that “something is “internalized” when it get incorporated into the structure of the self”. Our society has done a good job of getting inside womens heads and turned them into human structures that resemble mannequins. Woman are even starting to look alike. The blond haired blue eyed female is going to be a woman of the past as societies genes become mixed with various nationalities. Brown eyes are dominant and so is dark hair. The Brazilian female is the woman of the future. However, there is always colored contacts, hair dye, fake nails and boob jobs for the Marilyn Monroe's of the world. Woman cannot resist the temptations of taking a trip for a “nip-tuk” here and there. It is just too hard to match up with the competition when the girls they are competing with keep getting younger and younger every year.
Maria Lugones' would probably tell Wittig that is is not necessary to destroy woman in order to understand them or be accepted by them. She would say that every woman is unique and that you may need to enter her world to learn what pleases her, or better than that, find out if this woman could ever please you. She would tell women to stop trying so hard to please everyone else. She would try to remind them that they are only as old as they feel. She would remind Bartky that woman radiate beauty on the outside when they feel it on the inside. As woman begin to see themselves as real human beings and not the superficial supermodel s they try to be, they also begin to love themselves more. A woman should dance because she is happy and likes the song that is playing, not because she needs to loose eight more pounds for a date she has Friday night with some guy she just met. She would say stop asking yourself if you are good enough for him, and make sure he is good enough for you.
It is hard to convince a woman not to worry so much about everything and extra hard to get her to stop acting like a robot. Woman have settled for too little from men for too long. It is important that you are sexually satisfied too, so stop acting in the bedroom and tell your man what you need from him. You will notice ladies that when women stop acting like slaves, the men stop treating them like them. Do whatever makes you happy and find a man who thinks your playful so you can both have fun being together.
I doubt I still have to tell you which of these woman has the best strategy. Lugones won me over hands down. She has learned that it is easy to get along with other females even if they are younger and prettier than you. That is a tall order to fill sometimes. She has found a way to avoid the oppression by ignoring it and living her life her way. She has enough compassion in her heart to place herself in other woman's shoes and work out reasons for why they feel or act the way they do even if the way they are acting is rude and obnoxious. She has learned how to understand the nature of woman by taking time to get to know their world. The more she learns about the nature of other women, the more she understands her own nature as a woman, as a mother, as a friend, or as a daughter. She is the natural and reasonable choice of the three theorists and the only one with a winning strategy that I could learn to love and live with.