Monday, November 16, 2009
Who Is The Modern Woman?
Last class we discussed De Beauvoir who in her text wrote about femininity. She tried to describe discover and explain what it meant to be a woman. She began by making the obvious physical distinction between men and women. But, as we discussed in class, the difference must transcend this. I am not sure I really understand where de Beauvoir resolves this? Regardless, my question concerns femininity today. Outside of the physical differences what is it that gives a woman her femininity? Because it seems to me that anything we typically attribute to being a woman, seems a part of some traditional depiction of women, or some stereotype of what women should look like. However, I can't find anything of this nature which one could attribute to solely women, and all women. The first example of something that society has deemed feminine that came to mind was hair. Having long pretty hair is usually deemed a femanine attribute. However to say that women derive any of their femaninity from their hair implies that a woman with no hair is so how less femanine which is certainely not true. So then I tried to think of something less physical, and thought women are often said to be motherly. And, as much as this is often true, but there are women who are not so gentle and not so caring, are they not femanine? So my question is who is the modern woman? Someone please describe her to me.
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I do not think there is a way to define the "modern woman". A true modern woman cannot be defined, she defines herself. I would say the closest thing to a definition one can derive is that "modern woman" is whatever she works to be or however she acts. She does not have to be a caretaker because giving that role solely to a woman does not empower her to be her own person. She should not feel obligated to be a mother. She should never sacrifice her wants in order to satisfy the wants of society. However, if she wants to stay in the kitchen, that is her prerogative.
ReplyDeleteI think my defining a woman we are would be doing what men have been doing throughout history. We would be labeling all women as having certain physical and psychological characteristics. the problem with trying to create a definition is that what about the females who don't fit in this category? Are they not women then? This is exactly what we want to distance oursevles from. I agree with Elise. Women want to be able to define themselves as human beings and not just women.
ReplyDeleteSorry for the delayed response I have been meaning to write something and simply have not had a chance. Anyway, in one of our previous classes we finished up the discussion of Debeauvoir where the question of what is woman was clarified at least in regards to debeauvoir. As all of us stated above there is nothing we can attribute to what is woman outside of her facticity. Thus, there is no difference between what we define as man and what we define as woman outside of that which is judged physically. So, there is no such thing as sex there is just man and that entails all that is human. So the question of who/what is woman does not exist.
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