Consider Derrida's notion that language always needs supplementation to give it its metaphysical "presence". Otherwise, it tends to remain slippery, unstable -- which is effectively to say "without authority". I think about how much of patriarchal thinking is designed to make language seem to be stable -- indeed to stabilise it so that certain words can have only one meaning, or at best a few of them, that are considered to be authentic currency.
And yet, despite all this effort to stabilise reality through language -- to, in effect, hypostatise language into ideology -- the patriarch remains victim to slippages, to the assaults of contingency against the absolutism of the ideological system he wishes to set up. That is why he tries to bring women into play, to BE that supplementation of language, that emotional presence, that gives language its ideological quotient -- its stability.
But this means that women cannot be their own meaning; cannot position themselves at their own centre (not even for a moment). Rather, they are made to be decentered from themselves -- so that patriarchal meaning can be furnished by women's emotional quotient.
This is why men are typically inclined to preach at women: "What you say isn't what you mean, it's just emotionalism. In fact, what I am saying, as a male, in re-inscribing the overarching ideology (the hegemony) is what is really meaningful."
At the same time as he says this, however, the patriarch must surely also sense that his words are just words -- basically inclined to slip away from the emotional quotient of his intended meaning. He implicitly understands then that it is not the words themselves, that have meaning, but rather his capacity to decenter women with them that makes them seem so meaningful. For it is by this practical (and not at all merely intellectual or symbolic means) that he seeks to give his words a more stable and thus "objective" meaning.
It is only by destabilising women's meanings that he seeks and obtains his psychological supplement -- giving to his words an emotional presence. "These words," he says to himself "are Spirit. For see how they are can actually create reality."
And yet, despite all this effort to stabilise reality through language -- to, in effect, hypostatise language into ideology -- the patriarch remains victim to slippages, to the assaults of contingency against the absolutism of the ideological system he wishes to set up. That is why he tries to bring women into play, to BE that supplementation of language, that emotional presence, that gives language its ideological quotient -- its stability.
But this means that women cannot be their own meaning; cannot position themselves at their own centre (not even for a moment). Rather, they are made to be decentered from themselves -- so that patriarchal meaning can be furnished by women's emotional quotient.
This is why men are typically inclined to preach at women: "What you say isn't what you mean, it's just emotionalism. In fact, what I am saying, as a male, in re-inscribing the overarching ideology (the hegemony) is what is really meaningful."
At the same time as he says this, however, the patriarch must surely also sense that his words are just words -- basically inclined to slip away from the emotional quotient of his intended meaning. He implicitly understands then that it is not the words themselves, that have meaning, but rather his capacity to decenter women with them that makes them seem so meaningful. For it is by this practical (and not at all merely intellectual or symbolic means) that he seeks to give his words a more stable and thus "objective" meaning.
It is only by destabilising women's meanings that he seeks and obtains his psychological supplement -- giving to his words an emotional presence. "These words," he says to himself "are Spirit. For see how they are can actually create reality."
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