The reason I entitled this "thinking outside the box" is because I've been reading Fear of Flying. It's a really authentic, still relevant portrayal of the female dilemma in our culture. You may or may not like or identify with the protagonist. However, the novel clearly demonstrates that she is rebelling against the society that created her. Sadly, not much has changed since its publication, when I was a toddler. Sure there have been changes, but not enough. Misogyny is still so prevalent and so ingrained in many of us that we don't even notice it.
Erica Jong asked the question, and I reiterate it: How does a woman reconcile her desire and her need to be taken seriously in any other context? Gertrude Stein said, "Literature - creative literature - unconcerned with sex, is inconceivable." (I'm trying not to picture Wallace Shawn from The Princess Bride.)
Do women have to forsake femininity to be respected professionally? Do they need to forsake the positive masculine traits they have either been born with or have learned, in order to be considered feminine by someone considered to be a masculine male?
And what IS femininity anyway? Will we ever evolve enough for all people to just truly be "feminine" or "masculine" to whatever degree they wish without personal and sociological conflict?
I started this draft years ago. My life has changed pretty dramatically, and yet, these questions are still hanging there, like a pair of pantyhose in the shower in some 1950s movie.
I would post that certain amounts of sexism could be traced back to language itself... For instance, we all know that the Neanderthals' word for woman was "oongaah" whereas the word for man was of course "oon". "Oon" of course is a root vernacular part of "oongha" which in turn denotes that "oon" comes before "oongha". I can see some sexism in that.
ReplyDeleteUnless of course the universe is actually inpanding instead of expanding. In which case time would be reversed and oongha would come before oon. Ghaoon. Of course that would be reverse sexism. Which is the same. But in reverse.
So what do you think Mrs. Fashburne? Would it do harm to alter languages' historical roots in order to effect anticipated positive change within the sexis' shared social construct?
Now that I think about it though it could have just been a caveman and he got excited about a certain cavewoman and couldn't think of anything to say because of course there was no language back then so he just went up to her and expressed himself verbally by the way he felt about her and "OOONG!!!" came out but she misinterpreted his feelings and thought he was actually introducing himself as "OOONG!!!" but he wasn't. He he was just excited and that's the first thing that came out of his mouth. So to explain she started calling him "OONG!!!" and he liked that so he started calling her "oonGHA!!!". This is a scenario where the female makes up the name you see...
ReplyDeleteMark, you raise some seriously good questions. I wish you hadn't misspelled "Fashburn." That being said, I first apologize for the delayed response. And no, I don't think we should change history, even if that might make things "better." I do think that you bring up a good point, which is that we don't actually KNOW a lot of our own anthropological history. Thank you so much for reading and commenting. You are exactly the kind of caveman I need!
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