"Soft", "pure", "nature", "guardanship", "slave", "home", "family", "weak'", "emotional", "body" are words that are associated with the female body. Judith (Josephina Pelliza de Sagasta) uses all of these nouns and adjectives when referring to women's place and role in society in her piece "Women: Dedicated to Miss Maria Eugenia Echenique". The female is constructed and othered by its counterpart, the male in what is called a dualism. Judith uses this dualism to reinforce women's place in society and glorify our oppression. What makes me uneasy is her use of religion to justify women's role as emotional, soft bodies that are only good for gawking and for being daughters (owned by her father), wives (owned by her husband), and mother (slave to her children) (99). She denies women the right to be independent and self-defining by her own agency. Instead she characterizes her as only through her relationships with her male counterparts. In her own words, "She is a slave! you emancipated women will exclaim - and I in turn will reply to you: not a slave but a companion, man's other half, slave perhaps to her children, but how seductive and poetic is her beautiful sacrifice"(99-100). This notion of women as docile, body and emotion is still highly visible in Latin American culture today. I've witnessed my cousins and aunts disciplining their daughters when they act unladylike, threatening them with the idea that they will never be loved by a man if they behave assertively, play "like boys do", get dirty, or wear pants instead of dresses. The dualistic nature of gender is harmful to women because it forces them into a position of second-class citizen and denies them agency.
Maria Eugenia Echenique briefly rants about the necessity for emancipation by the power of the pen in her piece "Brushstrokes". She is enraged by the denied access to a good and full education, and the dependence women are forced into due to the social institutions that impede her emancipation. She blames the centralized ambitions for gold and "prosaic shine of possessions". How can women progress along with men when they have been excluded from this progression? When they are possessed and cannot possess themselves needless to say objects? I believe that her approach to change in writing is a well intended one and throughout history has proven to make many changes societal changes. However, despite the number of feminist theories, papers, and speeches, this dualism that oppresses women and raises men to the status of superior master and owner of the objects of knowledge is still very much with us today. There is a missing link between what is written and what is done/thought. The key for full women emancipation is in finding out what that missing link is.
it would be an interesting task to see how the words you've taken from the reading apply to today's society and how they are still a part of a framework for femininity. I too was uneasy when i read Judith's justification for her views taken from religion. However, I think that it is important to note because her tactic is to say that it is not a choice but the law of nature or 'how god intended' things to be. and that to deny the status quo is to deny god. which i think would have been taken very seriously.
ReplyDeleteI definitely agree with everything you have said here! Your post reminds me how grateful I am that my family has never expected or forced me to behave or act a certain way based on my gender. This is a relief since I was always more likely to play with a tractor than a Barbie as a kid, something that might be looked down on in other places. I agree that there is still much work to be done to bring about fully equal rights and freedoms for women globally.
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