Preclass post 11-13 E.M.

Helene Cixous sound like a Jungian to me. “Through dual hierarchical oppositions. Superior/Inferior. Myths, legends, books. Philosophical systems. Everywhere (where) ordering intervenes, where a law organizes what is thinkable by oppositions (dual irreconcilable; or sublatable, dialectical.” (Cixous 157) Yin and Yang – or any other system of though that believes that there is an oppositional balancing natural system in place. By natural – I mean this is the nature of how things work. Her essay is very esoteric – I understand and comprehend most of it. She does like to knock Freud off his pedestal, “For Freud, the repressed is not the other sex defeated by the dominate sex….” (159) This is very feminists text referring to the (we) of women in very regal terms. Cixous uses Macheray’s term jouissance yet she adds a different slant, “...is that he gains more masculinity: plus value of virility, authority, power, money, or pleasure all of which re-enforces his phallocentric narcissism at the same time.”(161) This sounds like we the women of the world must rise up and be strong against The Man. Break the chains that bind (us) women. I know this writer must be very famous otherwise she would not be in this book – the writing style is very stream of conscious. So very different from the other theorists. The others seem to deal in the macrocosm she deals in the microcosm. While I find feminist theory to be interesting I think that it gets in its own way if it becomes the totality of what is being conveyed. Yes it is true women have several millennial of conditioning to overcome.
I would like to say Helene Cixous is a very dynamic and forceful writer. A real hero’s of the feminists movement is this woman who earned the Noble Peace prize two years ago – for her efforts in reforesting Kenya:

Trees for Democracy
by Wangari Maathai

When I was growing up in Nyeri in central Kenya, there was no word for desert in my mother tongue, Kikuyu. Our land was fertile and forested. But today in Nyeri, as in much of Africa and the developing world, water sources have dried up, the soil is parched and unsuitable for growing food, and conflicts over land are common. So it should come as no surprise that I was inspired to plant trees to help meet the basic needs of rural women. As a member of the National Council of Women of Kenya in the early 1970's, I listened as women related what they wanted but did not have enough of: energy, clean drinking water and nutritious food.
From: http://www.commondreams.org/views04/1210-25.htm

Instead of complaining about the lack – this woman replaced the lack with something as lasting and vital as trees. Kenya of today is becoming reforested. The Kenyan women mid-wife the rebirth of a healthier Africa. There is no continent that suffers from more “phallocentric narcissism” than Africa. In a wasteland there is this powerful movement. To me Cixous and Wangari Maathai are the binary opposites the theorists and the visionary activist. Two sides to a ageless question. The one who asks the question and the one who answers the question with action.