The patriarchy insists that women should be thoroughly passive, and that it must somehow play witchdoctor, inspecting the entrails of female behaviour, in order to discover their mysterious meanings.
This insistence on women's passivity by the patriarchy is necessary in order for women to play the role they are required to, under the patriarchy. That is, they are to be mirrors of men's souls, nothing more and nothing less. So a male looking into a woman is supposed to be able to read his own sex drive, in terms of good or evil, and to make sense of it that way, in relation to other men.
If what he sees in the mirror makes him angry about himself, he may beat or kill the woman, but if what he sees of himself pleases him, he will try to couple with her in a more peaceful manner.
In any case, he is a narcissist who uses women as a means to an end.
My view here is based on thinking about people like Freud, and how they reflect upon masculinity and femininity. The puzzle is why so great an intellect as that of Freud's was unable to figure out "what women want". My conclusion is that patriarchy has fixed it so that women's voices are silenced. But why? What did patriarchy want, when it fixed things this way, for surely it must have had some reason, some incentive? My sense of things is that patriarchy wanted a mirror for the male "soul" as it were (like Narcissus) -- but more specifically in order for masculinity and the male as such to discern the meaning of his sex drive. And, looking at it closely, this was really Freud's intention all along -- to discern the meaning of the male sex drive, to focus on it, and understand its message for patriarchal culture.
But, as I have said, in order for the male sex drive to be able to read "objectively", it needs to be in isolation from all other sex drives. The female drive has to be rendered a still lake. And so it was rendered so by patriarchy throughout the ages. And this is precisely why it became technically impossible -- by virtue of patriarchy's own logic and the way it had structured reality -- to find out anything about the female sex drive.
In other words, patriarchy is institutionalised male narcissism which obliterates the Other.
UPDATE: Interestingly, THEO DORPAT seems to concur that Freud was culpable in attempting to override some of his clients' self-expression, in order to impose his own rigid views. See:
http://www.amazon.com/Gaslighting-Interrogation-Methods-Psychotherapy-Analysis/dp/1568218281
This insistence on women's passivity by the patriarchy is necessary in order for women to play the role they are required to, under the patriarchy. That is, they are to be mirrors of men's souls, nothing more and nothing less. So a male looking into a woman is supposed to be able to read his own sex drive, in terms of good or evil, and to make sense of it that way, in relation to other men.
If what he sees in the mirror makes him angry about himself, he may beat or kill the woman, but if what he sees of himself pleases him, he will try to couple with her in a more peaceful manner.
In any case, he is a narcissist who uses women as a means to an end.
My view here is based on thinking about people like Freud, and how they reflect upon masculinity and femininity. The puzzle is why so great an intellect as that of Freud's was unable to figure out "what women want". My conclusion is that patriarchy has fixed it so that women's voices are silenced. But why? What did patriarchy want, when it fixed things this way, for surely it must have had some reason, some incentive? My sense of things is that patriarchy wanted a mirror for the male "soul" as it were (like Narcissus) -- but more specifically in order for masculinity and the male as such to discern the meaning of his sex drive. And, looking at it closely, this was really Freud's intention all along -- to discern the meaning of the male sex drive, to focus on it, and understand its message for patriarchal culture.
But, as I have said, in order for the male sex drive to be able to read "objectively", it needs to be in isolation from all other sex drives. The female drive has to be rendered a still lake. And so it was rendered so by patriarchy throughout the ages. And this is precisely why it became technically impossible -- by virtue of patriarchy's own logic and the way it had structured reality -- to find out anything about the female sex drive.
In other words, patriarchy is institutionalised male narcissism which obliterates the Other.
UPDATE: Interestingly, THEO DORPAT seems to concur that Freud was culpable in attempting to override some of his clients' self-expression, in order to impose his own rigid views. See:
http://www.amazon.com/Gaslighting-Interrogation-Methods-Psychotherapy-Analysis/dp/1568218281
1 comment:
I follow, but doesn't this mean then that it's the patriarchal sex drive that is highlighted, and that the "male" one (if there is ONE such thing) is also unknowable?
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