Mother-daughter-relationships in American literature: life writings in Kim Chernin's works / vorgelegt von Julia Elisa Melcher (original) (raw)
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This is not what being a woman means': female identity in American narratives from 1960 to 1970
2021
Imagine a world where half the population feels as if they 'don't exist.' A world where women are expected to be 'fluffy and feminine,' and always be 'the children's mommy, or the minister's wife,' but never themselves. A world that constantly asks, 'what is wrong with American women that they can't accept their role gracefully?' This is the world described by Betty Friedan in her book The Feminine Mystique, published in 1963. Considered by many a groundbreaking piece of writing, Friedan's study deals with what she terms 'the problem with no name'-a sense of malaise that leads to profound dissatisfaction. According to Friedan, this malaise affects most women, and its roots lie in the social expectation that to be feminine means to marry, have children, and become the 'perfect' housewife. Friedan investigates the lives of these women to uncover the limitations that a deeply patriarchal society places on them, and to suggest solutions that would help them achieve greater fulfilment. Yet, on a closer look Friedan's investigation reveals significant limitations: Friedan is almost exclusively concerned with the problems of white, middle class, suburban women whose lives denote a significant amount of social, political, and financial privilege. What about the unmarried city girls from modest backgrounds? What about the traditional Jewish mothers? Or the little Black girls? When there are so many different types of women, what does being a woman even mean? These questions serve as the backdrop to the five novels and one memoir that make up the core of this thesis:
Acta Slavica Iaponica, 2005
The Ukrainian feminist writer Olha Kobylians'ka (1863-1942), who lived almost all of her life in Bukovyna, occupies a well-established place in three different literary canons that were created in Ukrainian literature during the first half of the twentieth century, namely the modernist, populist and socialist canons. This does not mean that Kobylians'ka's writing was neutral and transparent, and thus suitable to any ideological and critical interpretation. It only signifies the ambivalent, multi-leveled character of women's writing interpreted in each canon according to its own ideological and aesthetic paradigm. At the dawn of the twentieth century Kobylians'ka's symbolically-styled stories stimulated a discussion about the fate of modernist high culture in Ukraine. 1 The populist critic Serhii Iefremov accused her of emulating Nietzsche's cult, expressing an aristocratic spirit, and abandoning populist themes. 2 The young modernist critics, namely Ostap Lutsky and Mykola Ievshan, praised her modern symbolism and individualism. 3 The social-realist critics of the official Union of Ukrainian Writers appreciated Kobylians'ka only as an author depicting the hard life of the Bukovinian people working the land. Soviet literary criticism completely neglected Kobylians'ka's neo-romantic collisions between nature and culture, aristocratism and populism, paternalism and individualism in the process of a subject's identification. To explain these critical polarities is a phenomenon of women's literature. By the notion of women's literature we mean the social, cultural and aesthetic functioning of texts written by women. In general, women's literary works look marginal in relation to "the imagery of succession, of paternity, of hierarchy" 4 represented by the male-dominated literary tradition. The paternalist models usually define the character of literary imagination. To enter into literature as an author a woman must redefine both the literary tradition and the character of representation of social, cultural and gender identities in literature. 1 See Ãóíäîðîâà Ò. Rites de passage: íàðîäaeåííÿ «íîâî¿ ae³íêè» // Femina melancholica. Ñòàòü ³ êóëüòóðà â åíäåðí³é óòîﳿ Îëüãè Êîáèëÿíñüêî¿. Êè¿â: Êðèòèêà, 2002. Ñ. 18-47. 2 Åôðåìîâ Ñ.  ïîèñêàõ íîâîé êðàñîòû // Ñ. ªôðåìîâ. ˳òåðàòóðíî-êðèòè÷í³ ñòàòò³.
Untimely meditations on sex, gender, and feminism
All things must be examined, debated, investigated without exception and without regard for anyone's feelings."-Diderot Note: Much of what follows isn't exactly "politically correct." A large proportion of respectable psychological and scientific literature from the past and present is contrary to feminist dogmas about gender, but I'm skeptical that this fact in itself invalidates that literature. As I see it, there are interesting innate (and also socially constructed) differences between men and women, and over the years I've liked to reflectively probe what those differences might be. Perhaps in doing so I've been a bit too provocative sometimes; but we should all be open to perspectives that diverge from our own, at least if they're professed in good faith. Anyway, for what it's worth, none of the following bears on the feminist moral crusade, which every ethically aware person is obligated to support. We should all be feminists in the sense of fighting for political and economic equality. I'm critical only of the movement's idealist, postmodernist (and thus pretentious) orientation. To speak bluntly, in order to explain gender and sexuality I don't think it's necessary to resort to the airy discourse-mongering and labyrinthine deconstructionism of postmodernism, feminism, and queer theory. These sorts of "theoretical" writings may be useful for academics hoping to get tenure, but they often serve more to obfuscate than to explicate. A more fruitful and accessible approach is to use good old-fashioned straightforward reasoning, combined with respect for the findings of relevant scientific research. Readers accustomed to academic language and argument will find that much of the following (excerpted from books) has a rather unsophisticated and even offensive sound. This is because, unlike academic language, it's direct and unpretentious, based only on neutral observation and contemplation of humanity, rather than adherence to disciplinary norms. Professional intellectuals would do well to reflect on Noam Chomsky's statement that their institutional function, which they carry out with relish, is to make simple things appear complicated. *** On feminine self-ambivalence.-Why does the feminine as such seem to be more prone to insecurity about itself and its place in society than the masculine? There are many reasons, of course. One set of them is suggested by this passage from Christine Downing's book Women's Mysteries: Toward a Poetics of Gender (2003): …From a series of letters written to me over the course of years I have culled these reflections: "I write today as I bleed. The first day and the heaviest flow. I write feeling my weightedness, the drag of my uterus. Feeling my wound, my incapacity. All the changes in my body-my voice flattened, my belly swollen, my clumsiness, a flood of dreams I cannot bring back to consciousness. "How difficult it is to stay in the body. I get up, get to the bathroom, reach into my vagina for the menstrual sponge-a bloody mess! Squeeze the blood into a cup. It splatters everywhere. "Can I write this to you? Am I so crazy I don't even know it? Today I feel such selfdoubt. "The knowledge of taboo returns. The blood is not to be touched, let alone saved. "Even what we value of menstruation-are our bodies there? We value the rhythmic cycle, the feelings, the dreams, the bond. We talk and interpret. Analyze dreams. Theorize. Baroque elaborations. Virginal fluffy clouds. Ascending out of the blood, the mess, the ache, the wound. "Even this writing. How difficult for me to stay with my body. My feelings of vulnerability. My tears that I had hoped were past, falling again. Fears and doubts. "Here I am. The ache in my lower spine is sensual, as is the openness of my vulva, my blood slipping in my vagina. "A wound not to be healed-but attended to-felt, touched, smelled, seen. Received." Merida's words remind me of how our monthly periods open us to our vulnerability, our tears, our doubts, our fears, to a sense of wounds as not to be fixed but attended to. She encourages us to honor our dreams, the dreams we have that prepare us for our bleeding, the dreams that accompany our bleeding, the dreams that warn us we may cease to bleed… This passage highlights the importance of the body, and of biology, to our behavior and selfconceptions. What it suggests, for instance, is that the body tends to be more "other" for women than for men, even as women have a more intimate relationship with it. It asserts itself against their will, it has its own cycles and rhythms, it bleeds and leaks and swells and gets pregnant and determines moods. These facts, combined with women's relative physical weakness and smallness, evidently cause them to feel, at least implicitly, more "passive" and weak than males as such (which is what makes it possible for them to desire the feeling of being "protected" by their man). 2 Firmness, leanness, muscular tautness, as in young men-but also in some women, for example female athletes or bodybuilders-is experienced as signifying things like fighting against opponents, being active and confident, dominating, being mobile and strong; softness, physical weakness, pregnant immobility, do not foster a dominating self-confidence relative to the opposite sex. A second obvious answer to the question I posed above is the ubiquity of the "male gaze." It seems to be a biological fact that male sexual arousal operates largely by virtue of the look, the look at a beautiful woman, a naked woman, a scantily clad woman. Women tend to be aroused by touch, emotional intimacy, male assertiveness and strength; men are aroused, in large part, by sexobjecthood in the woman. So there are strong tendencies for the male gaze, and hence for some degree of objectification of women, to be an ever-present element in most or all societies. This will, first of all, tend to make women relatively self-conscious, conscious of their appearances.
An essay evaluating feminist theory through the movement's waves and the progressions it made in them by criticizing the feminist work of Virginia Woolf, mainly focusing on To the Lighthouse and A Room of Ones Own. Defines the dated and original idea of feminism that prominent authors of the time advocated for which excluded women of color, women with disabilities, and women of lower classes.
Encyclopedia of Feminist Literary Theory
have been outrageous. To bring this project to closure is, then, to acknowledge with gratitude the struggle of all those who worked to establish legitimacy for the field. A work like this, however massive in its proportion, can never do full justice to their accomplishment.
Honoring the Feminine: The Path to a Conscious Masculine
ProQuest, 2019
This phenomenological hermeneutic dissertation explores what it means to honor the feminine as a path to the conscious masculine and a direct experience of inner marriage. This study identifies characteristics and dynamics of the feminine and masculine aspects of our inner selves and the creative interplay between them, demonstrating how honoring the feminine in daily life can positively impact both the inner landscape and the outer world. These concepts are equally relevant for all genders: women, men, non-binary, and non-gendered individuals. The foundation for this work is a private conversation that took place between the author and Marion Woodman, in which Woodman stated, “The only way I know to engage the masculine is by going deeper into the feminine.” This dissertation is the author’s personal exploration of that dynamic. The research utilizes a Jungian approach focused through a feminist lens, supported by intuitive, imaginal, and somatic ways of knowing. The research methodology includes a close reading of segments from the author’s memoir, demonstrating both conscious and unconscious choices that either did or did not honor the feminine, and analyzes the results of those choices. A reflective component reports on the author’s writing process, which struggled to honor the feminine within the context of a patriarchal work ethos. Findings identify ways to honor the feminine through the heart, feelings, inner guidance, and somatic awareness. Social and cultural implications and implications for depth psychology are identified. Keywords: feminine, masculine, inner marriage, Marion Woodman, patriarchy, gender, memoir, writing, rape culture, inner guidance