For my Spanish class, we had to read a short article about the advancement of women. My professor was excited for us to read it, and even expressed that he was sure the women in the class would love it.
I read the article. And was immediately pissed off. I've decided to post the article here; I would like to add that it is indeed written by a man. (The original was written in Spanish, so I've given you as best a translation as I could, bear with me. The inherent problems of the article should be fairly obvious.)
What are Human Priorities for the Upcoming Decades?
Gabriel Garcia Marquez.
"The only advancement that could possibly save humanity in the 21st century is if women were to take hold of the wheel of the world. I don't believe there is a superior or inferior sex, I don't believe that one is below the other. I believe there are distinctions, with insurmountable biological differences, but masculine dominance has squandered opportunity for 10,000 years.
Someone once said: "If men could get pregnant, the right to abortion would be a sacrament." This brilliant aphorism completely brings to light a moral, and this moral is the thing that we have to invert and change. It would be, for the first time in history, an essential mutation of the human generation, that would allow a common ground to prevail between the sexes. But so far, men have despised and made a mockery of the name of "feminine intuition" - beyond reason - as a joke with which men have solidified and legitimized their ideologies, almost all of which are absurd or abominable.*
Humanity is condemned to disappear in the 21st century because of the degradation of the environment. Masculine power has demonstrated that they cannot stop it because of their inability to set aside their own interests. But with women, on the other hand, the preservation of the environment is a genetic vocation. And this is just one example. But if only for that, the inversion of power is a matter of life or death for humanity."
*This paragraph was difficult to translate - the grammar was very strange, but the basic point is that men have put down the idea of feminine intuition, called it crazy, and used that hysteria as a means of legitimizing their own ideologies.
Sounds all well and good, right? I mean, we see a bit of De Beauvoir in this - in that the author agrees that women are indeed the Other, agrees that men have indeed written the world as a man's world, even in philosophy, and that "feminine intuition" has been defined as 'hysteria' by men. The author laments this, says finds it wrong. Fine, that sounds fine.
BUT WAIT! Something doesn't sound right...
The problem with this text is mostly found in the part that I have bolded in the third paragraph. This article would sound very pro-women if you were merely perusing it - "Hey look, this guy wants women to take charge, we've been repressed, put down, we need to stand up, we need to redefine who we are rather than allow men to define us as they have so far." Right? RIGHT?
Wrong. Try again. Read that last paragraph one more time.
"The preservation of the environment is a genetic vocation" [for women].
Think about that statement for a second - this assumes that because of our [women's] feminine intuition, presumably that of "mothering" tendencies, we are genetically and essentially designed for giving care, creating life, and overall being, in the most literal sense possible, mothers of nature.
This article, specifically this paragraph, completely back tracks and plows over everything that the author has previously been talking about. It reinforces the definition that men have thus far given to women. Marquez laments that women have been put down by men and defined by men, and yet he himself has given us NOTHING. He has only given us once again the idea that what it means to be a woman is to be a mother, to be a care giver.
Ladies, the fate of the world is in our hands [apparently]. And gentlemen? Take a step back. You cannot care for this planet or our lives, as you lack and even mock feminine intuition because it does not fit your personal agenda. Not only are you bastards, but you are bastards who are incapable of taking care of anything. Get back and let the women do this. Or at least, so says Marquez... Kind of.
I found myself rather outraged at the article, and apparently very few people in the class sympathized. I think part of it was that I couldn't properly express my irritation in a foreign language. But al mismo tiempo part of me feels like this should have jumped out at a lot of people. The women in my class should have been enraged that - regardless of if they want children or not - the article was defining them COMPLETELY as mothering figures and reinforcing the idea that a woman's sole purpose (her JOB) in this world is her genetic predisposition to being a care-giver.
Ladies, forget power, forget equality. We don't need those things because according to this guy, we've already got this gig in the bag because we have ovaries and a functioning womb - and apparently (so says the man) that comes with an innate ability to care for and save the world. (God help infertile women - I suppose that they should never be in positions of power. They can't have babies, they wouldn't understand, god knows what could happen! It'd be like letting a GUY run things and the whole world would explode or something along those lines.)
The guys should have been offended too, because not only does this author say that you overexert your masculine power but that you take it even further by being selfish in the process. It wasn't enough to have written the definition of women and men and humanity, but you are so stuck to your masculine agenda that you will inevitably lead our species to destruction. We need a woman's touch here, boys, so for once, quit making 'women can't drive' jokes and let us take the wheel, so to speak.
Right? No, wait...
To this author, 'woman' is still the Other - capital-freaking-O. Regardless of whether or not he tries to write her in a positive light - he is still writing her, he still defines her. Sure, he says we're oppressed, we need to stand up, we need to take action, ladies. Sure. But at the end of the day (or in this case, the article) all Marquez has shown us is that women are still the Other to men (and maybe even that men should be made into the Other, as they could never possibly understand the reason and intuition of femininity).
Why do my ovaries make it so my primary and genetically-predetermined job is to be a care-giver. Why does a functional womb make me suitable for saving the environment? Matter of fact, why do testicles make men incapable of doing so? How do I even have a sense of feminine intuition when I have never known myself apart from what another has defined me as? In fact, the mere idea of the "feminine intuition" has been proposed by an individual (a man) who could never KNOW this intuition unless it were not solely limited to females - but if that be the case, it wouldn't be a 'feminine' intuition at all, it would be a 'human' intuition and none of this would be a problem.
This article's tendency to backtrack over its own logic would be hilarious if it weren't so audacious. Boys? You're selfish bastards who are going to destroy this planet cause you can't get over your own interests. And ladies? We can have babies, and that's what makes us "women", that's what gives us our sense of "feminine intuition", and as such, we're the only ones who are capable of caring for our planet and even SAVING OUR SPECIES.
WHAT?
Who else is annoyed? Guys? Girls? Any takers?
Obviously the nimrod who wrote this article lacks a skill, which I would call thinking or common sense or maybe it was act like an dumbass day when he wrote this, and he forgot to add that footnote. Anyway, I think it is clear that this dude is somewhere between a candle without a match and that term ignoramus, which is found on that peg game at Cracker Barrel. This man must have had a rough time with the ladies, I can almost see an interaction now. "Hi (or hola to be more accurate) there babymaker. I'm a lonely tree, would you care for me because that's your JOB?" Not much more needs to be said before even the most fleet of minded woman busted his balls, literally. To think that a woman is naturally predisposed to do anything is ridiculous, but he takes it to an extreme.
ReplyDeleteI do see how the author of the article comes to the conclusions that women are caregivers since, by nature, we are. Women give birth, before formula was invented they had to take care of the baby by breast feeding, etc. Without the mother the baby would have a hard time surviving (since nourishment would be difficult to come by).
ReplyDeleteHey, I think this article is awesome because it relieves me (along with the rest of the male population) from the responsibility for saving the world.
ReplyDeleteLadies, y'all should get on that whole world saving thing while the guys party it up!
While I don't like or agree with Marquez's interpretation of women, I wouldn't go so far as to say it infuriates me. I agree with Elise in that women are, by nature, caregivers since we are the ones who possess the ability to bare children. While males can care for babies just fine, they cannot physically give birth. This is why women are typically seen as mothering figures - because they can mother.
ReplyDeleteYes, Laurie, but to say that this is the sole duty and definition of women? It's not that being mothering figures is a trait of women, but rather, in the author's own words, it is a vocation. A job, a purpose, and if we even go by just the dictionary definition, a divine service we must provide as dictated by god, or nature, or biology, or whatever.
ReplyDeleteI also think this is offensive. And you make a good point that the man who wrote this is only furthering the idea of women as the "other." It is ironic that he speaks out for women to change the idea of their own sex, but then at the end condemns us as women to a certain job. It is almost as if he is defining women as those who should give care to things. This is bullshit. If we really want women to change the perceptions of their roles, we need to break away from this kind of thinking and writing.
ReplyDelete