Girl Power?!

The other day I found myself in a course of conversation with a friend during which she declared to me that she is a feminist. Perhaps the word declared is a bit abrasive, it wasn’t as though she was purposefully making a declaration of her feminist ways, but that is neither here nor there. I couldn’t help but chuckle from deep within my being, though silently, mind you I am not that rude, as I considered that this friend was relating herself to people like Helene Cixous. As I giggled inwardly, I realized the very real possibility that my friend has never even read anything by any feminist critics. I am certainly not suggesting that my friend, in declaring herself as a feminist, was drawing a perfect parallel between herself and Cixous, yet her statement just aroused a bitterness within me. A bitterness for people who make statements without having any real knowledge on what they are saying. Not that my friend isn’t at all a feminist, in actuality most of us are even if to a minimum, but I take issue with people who say things prior to “doing their homework”. If it weren’t for my ability to tame my words I probably would have asked my friend, right then and there, to evaluate her feminist ways in relation to VirginiaWolfe and Helene Cixous. The point is, if you are going to say you are something, you ought to study up on that something first. I am a major proponent of studying. Ok, I need to stop before my bitterness completely takes over the voice of my writing, as I believe it has already begun to. Can I be honest? Ok, I take that ummm silence as a yes. While reading "The Laugh of Meduse" I couldn’t help but think how bizarre Cixous must be or have been (wait is she living?). Looks like IIIIIIIII didn’t do my homework! Anyway, along with the bizarreness of the essay, she was also quite crude. Several times I had to resuscitate myself from the shock of her writing. I never knew writing to be such a sexual act, but I guess I never asked Cixous before. Honestly, her writing really disgusted me and half the time, well over half the time, I found myself questioning how she even came up with such strange notions. I’m not even sure I completely followed her notions that “women are multiple,” “women are open to the other,” “women write in white ink,” etc. Perhaps the essay would make more sense to me if I read “The Laugh of Medusa” prior to Cixous’ response.

Random fun story:

I thought of the following the other day in class when Dr. Powers asked the question at issue of whether theory impacts our everyday lives. I can't say it impacts the way I brush my teeth, atleast not yet, but it does impact everyday conversation. Last week I was on the phone with, well someone I am really close to, but we will leave them unnamed. Anyway, we were having this conversation that related to upward mobility, and all of the sudden I found that I starting twisting Ohmann's whole essay to fit the conversation. I started relating and basing all of our conversation about upward mobility to capitalism. I went so far that the person I was speaking with on the phone finally made the comment that I was being a bit too extreme, at which point I realized I was going over the top with my relating the conversation to capitalist ideology. Anyway, I will admit that I am starting to relate everyday things to literary theory. Sad, scary? Perhaps, but also true!