On Being Woman

This is a response and rambling of thoughts provoked by the class reading of Simone DeBeauvoir’s The Second Sex as well as some ongoing musings that I have suffered over the years at the mercy of my talkative inner dialogue, otherwise known as “Note to Self”.

I must admit, or rather I cannot deny much of DeBeauvoir’s descriptions of the female experience. Of what it is to be woman now, yesterday, on this earth, of this species. On how she (woman) regards herself, on being the Other, on being subordinated and aware of being so. On love, on work, on pleasure and pain, and on the fictitious prescripted roles that are laid out for her to grow into and perform again and again.

The experience of reading such a book when I recognize myself as the “Other” that she speaks of is one that causes great interest from the point of view of study and information gathering, and one that causes pain, fatigue and demoralization from the personal perspective. DeBeauvoir has compiled a heavily historical perspective on the accumulative societal degradation of the female sex to a second class that spans the boundaries of race and culture. That being said she infuses the book with visionary statements and suggested conditions for the plausibility of a truly egalitarian gender partnership and society.

While my detailed notes are included in the Page link for this particular book, I will indulge myself in some thoughts about my own observations, frustrations and personal experience being woman.
A recurring consideration for my self is the hypothetical question – What have we lost as a society, even as a species, by subordinating women to a non participatory role in such important realms as science, art and politics? That too of any demographic that has less than an equal opportunity to participate and over any span of historical time. When you quiet any group – and in this case such a large percentage of the totality of the human race, it is not simply an issue of fairness or moral deficiency, but a great tragedy of intellectual and contributory loss. What of literature and art has gone uncreated, unseen and unconsidered in the accomplishments of man? What of war and policy and human rights and solutions and any scenario positive or negative has failed to occur in the global history of politics without the varied influence of woman? Had women been integrated into medicine earlier, would we have seen more cures, or perhaps even an entirely different trajectory of health care? The questions are futile and speculative only – but the point that resonates with me by asking the question at all is of the undeniable multiplicity of viewpoint, possibility and investment that has been lost through the imbalance of gender integration in the interests of humanity as a totality.

On a more lighthearted note, (the fault of humourous consequences), I would like to discuss the phenomenon of high heeled shoes. DeBeauvoir mentions several times in her book the problem of women willingly making choices to subordinate themselves in their lives – to identify themselves as the other, as the object, as “prey”. The donning of high heels is a celebrated icon of sexuality and desirability. Even as modern women climb the vertical hierarchy within the workplace, they choose to put forward a foot clad in patent leather and unimaginable discomfort. In light of Darwin’s natural selection theory it would seem counterintuitive to reduce your abilities, to make yourself less able to flee or to keep up with the pack in a misguided attempt to fit in, assert power, or to be desired. In my eyes, to wear such footwear is to lower your own status on the food chain. I have witnessed executive women in high end business suits hobble across the city crosswalks, several meters behind their male counterparts, and visibly in more pain. Struggling to keep up takes on new meaning when the confident male suit strides across the road and up the ladder while the female in her expensive wool skirt, fragile nylons and unstable masochistic heeled shoes clamors and wobbles in the distance, in pain, distracted and enslaved to both fashion and pandering to her added obligation to be desirable.

I have also witnessed young women in night clubs and social arenas leaning, hobbling, awkward posing and the like, in violently high footwear. This seems like it could be justifiable if you want to succeed in being plucked from the crowd by a suitor – your achievement of the night tallied by the number of approvals you get from the opposite gender, and the competitive edge you have over your own. I argue that the sickness of this scene is the obvious objectification of our own selves. As we tie ourselves up willingly to the railroad track to be saved by the stronger heroic gender of man. Feeble, helpless creatures we, tottering inches above the earth on our spindled shoes – beautiful, weak, and helpless and ready to be taken by force. Go on! We can’t run away!

And yes, I have three pairs.

My third point covers a number of conflicts of interest faced by myself, and I believe of most women today as they come to the point of deciding their own path of life. DeBeavoir’s discussion actually begins with the point of biology and the nature of the female gender as being the more reproductively obligated of the two sexes. Her very important point is that women should not be considered by their biological mechanisms, but by their totality of person. That being said, even as a woman it is very hard to separate or identify with yourself as a creature of reproductive potential – that may rightfully and reasonably choose to deny herself, or her body the act of producing child. There are many things to contend with, including the instinctual bodily urges, the societal pressures, the family expectation or simply the internal narrative developed from childhood (“when I growup and have children…”). In the class following this reading there were several comments made from women in regards to marriage, motherhood and career choices. It seems to me that there is still a very awkward second choice that has yet to be specified as a legitimate role in our society. If a woman makes the decision to forfeit family life and follow a career or otherwise do as she likes, she is still blazing into the unknown. I know many powerful women in my company who are childless and traveling the world doing exciting and rewarding things. That being said, they are remarkably similar in that they are slightly aloof, frighteningly cold and perpetually single. The men who hold similar jobs are inevitably family men who afford themselves a single income scenario and are able to bring along their family of wife and children no matter where the relocation package takes them. Somehow the women do not attempt, or are unable to follow suit. It may be a matter of personal choice, but I believe it is both a matter of plausibility to rear children and focus on a demanding career, and an issue of the current social rules and understanding between genders that they fail to find secure love and partners as do their male counterparts. I have yet to see an upper level manager of the male gender without a lovely wife and family and without a smile on his face. I have seen many attractive, strong and powerful women, with brave and independent and what I speculate as potentially lonely lives.

So as I continue my education and get further into my window of child making opportunity, my inner narrative has shifted. It seems that all too late it occurred to me that I didn’t have to make babies, and that I didn’t have to get married and “settle down”. I am faced now with some confusion over what that means. If I do want to do it, I want to do both – and the undertaking that that will represent is a level of intensity that means on or the other, or myself will suffer the extension of my means as a human being. Without many good examples or role models available, or a long history of positive representation, it feels like a brand new field of operation. Something that has to be made up from scratch. That is frightening. Even in my own mind I have subordinated my current choice, into failure or spinsterhood. Regardless of my successes and the irrelevancy of childrearing on who I am as a person. This only proves further to my self the point of DeBeavoir’s book that the nature and role of woman is a heavily crafted project of society. We have created such a powerful gender construct that the alternatives are nearly impossible to fathom.

I think I will leave it here at that, however the list goes on. This issue of disparity between sexes need not remain a rift or a war between men and women, however it remains largely unclear how we are expected, and expect each other to fulfill our roles. I can safely say that as a woman I continue to wreak havoc on my own potential for equality by enacting archaic theatrics, and by identifying with the weaker of two. I desire for the better unknown, because it is clear what is undesirable, but not yet written what is truly the equal and authentic way to exist as a woman.

~ by katethinks on March 20, 2008.