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A review by iammandyellen
Straight Düşünce by Monique Wittig
5.0
I love the essays on the constitutive power of language, and her ideas about how that which language assumes as the universal becomes a tyranny in itself (white, male, heterosexual).
Question: does Wittig advocate making 'Lesbian' into another sexual class? One hand seems to present the idea that sexual identities are unstable and oppressive, but the other hand seems to reserve some signification for homosexual identity.
Uncomfortable with the use of historical slavery as a simile & metaphor for the oppression of women. Feels exploitative.
"Having stood up to fight for a sexless society, we now find ourselves entrapped in the familiar deadlock of 'woman is wonderful.'" (13) Written 26 years ago and still so relevant.
"Language as a whole gives everyone the same power of becoming an absolute subject through its exercise. But gender, an element of language, works upon this ontological fact to annul it as far as women are concerned and corresponds to a constant attempt to strip them of the most precious thing for a human being — subjectivity." (80-81)
Question: does Wittig advocate making 'Lesbian' into another sexual class? One hand seems to present the idea that sexual identities are unstable and oppressive, but the other hand seems to reserve some signification for homosexual identity.
Uncomfortable with the use of historical slavery as a simile & metaphor for the oppression of women. Feels exploitative.
"Having stood up to fight for a sexless society, we now find ourselves entrapped in the familiar deadlock of 'woman is wonderful.'" (13) Written 26 years ago and still so relevant.
"Language as a whole gives everyone the same power of becoming an absolute subject through its exercise. But gender, an element of language, works upon this ontological fact to annul it as far as women are concerned and corresponds to a constant attempt to strip them of the most precious thing for a human being — subjectivity." (80-81)