for Jenna re: feminization

Charles Gavette timbukt2 at excite.com
Thu Apr 1 02:49:53 EST 1999


The husbanding of the earth, as well as the care of our own bodies, this
nurturing, is a feminine activity. Lines of the universe are feminine, but
lines of the state are prostitutional. The feminization is one of the
"harlot" in each of us, yes, we prostitute ourselves to adopt to the state
of things. This is the feminization meant, and it is the hotel model as
opposed to "One  Mona Lisa, One Blue Marble." This is in relation of each
individual and their integration of the anima/animus, the feminine and
masculine in each of us. I agree whole-heartedly with the feminine nurturing
principle. Is not this balance compromised when we prostitute ourselves
before the machine? Your choice of authors is formidable, Irigaray, Cixious,
Anais Nin, Kristeva, Braidotti, I consider all the 'riot girls.' You are
right, it is the human, but the problem in the human mind, its imbalances
are literally being made manifest onto the very surface of the planet as an
actual reflection of man's ills, man's divorce from himself and from nature.
A phenomenon of the surface, our constant
deterritorialization/reterritorialization is weakening deixis, which is the
active exchange among interlocutors, and calls into question the stability
of spatial points or boundaries that would define a subject. There are
electronic seductions that are further impoverishing us in this respect. The
scenarios of perversion are quite salient when we behold the fact that
Seattle-ites will not give up their cars and vote in a Light Rail System,
because they do not want to face the real truth about the economy they are a
part of. Taking the bus or train is a threat to their definition of
individuality, because it reveals an image of otherness, an alterity that
peels away the cheap veneer revealing them as just another within the herd.
They choose their object relations from fear so as to not have to engage in
what is looming as a threat to their individuality. I don't say that the
threat is not very real, but the longer they postpone reconsidering spaces
that they have taken for granted, or have not even thought about, the more
explosive will be each individual's consequences. But while still hooked on
fossil fuel and as long as they can get their fix, no problem. This is still
dealing with the idea of the perverse, the idea of the phenomenon of
surfaces. The scenarios of perversion have been closely accounted for by
Joyce McDougall in "Theaters of the Mind," and also by Janine
Chasseguet-Smirgel in "Creativity and Perversion."

  What Henry Miller was calling feminized in America, may well be the
profound ignorance of the anima and animus in both genders, the cause of
much confusion millions of times across the planet everyday.

  The term is deracination, or nomadism, is a "practice" of space, so as not
to allow strategic forces to fix one's position in a mental or social
milieu. You can still have your singularity when you get on the bus, or even
when walking. (But walking is tougher, I would not prescribe it until one is
quite well along in weaning themselves from the insularity that fossil fuel
has given them. When cars, and those that are driving them begin to look
comical to you, and you only consider cars when crossing the street, you
will be a walker "a la Thoreau."

  Do something brave and take the bus, because the slightest sound of
another scepter is rising. It is at first shy, and not bold. It is a new
female, a fresher one, a debutante, a new spring flower...a Medusa, but this
one is smiling. She can be seen as the new image for young women. College
women have the power to dictate styles, and this new girl on the block is
beginning to show herself on campuses, on posters, stepping onto a bus,
riding a bike, or walking. She's a doll, and she's also dangerous.




_______________________________________________________
Get your free, private email at http://mail.excite.com/


More information about the Leps-l mailing list