Vous êtes sur la page 1sur 3

Weedon, Ch.

2
According to the reading in Weedon, poststructuralism states that language doesn’t
reflect social reality, but constitutes social reality. The world itself has no fixed meanings
that language reflects. Meanings vary between languages, within languages and over
time. The theory assumes that “meaning is constituted within language and is not
guaranteed by the subject which speaks it” (22). Language is an abstract system of
chains of signs made up of a signifier and a signified (the signifier’s meaning). But these
meanings are plural and changing. Signifiers are located in a discursive text , which is
located relative to other discursive texts, and “is open to constant rereading and
reinterpretation” (25). It is through discourse that language gives meaning to the world
and organizes social institutions. Any society at any specific time has many discourses,
but one is usually dominant and reflects it’s values and interests (35).

The concept of subjectivity is also crucial to poststructuralism. It refers to the individual’s


sense of self, their relationship to the world and their conscious and unconscious
thoughts and emotions (32). The subjectivity of poststruc. is not fixed, but is “precarious,
contradictory and in process, constantly being reconstituted in discourse each time we
think or speak” (32). Each individual has multiple subjectivities and they may be in
conflict

Feminist Poststructuralism uses these concepts to understand social relations, social


institutions, and power relations especially in relation to gender; it also addresses where
they came from, how they exercise power, and how they can be changed or opposed.
Subjectivity and consciousness which are socially produced in language are the sites
where change will occur (40).

Sandra Bartky’s article, Foucault, Femininity and the Modernization of Patriarchal Power,
addresses how power is wielded by institutions and becomes internalized by our bodies
and minds. Institutions like schools, the military, hospitals, factories, prisons, control not
only our bodies activities, but our bodies time and space. Modern technology can control
not only our bodies, but our minds, in more social and psychological ways than ever
before. The subject knows that she is controlled in both mind and body by the many
institutions that she is exposed to. She comes to internalize these disciplinary structures
and ends up policing herself (p. 115).

Foucault’s relationship of power to the body is similar in some ways to Grosz’s in that the
external inscriptions of power become internalized and lived; but Bartky points out that
Foucault sees the body as one, as if there are not differences between women and men,
and as if women and men had the same relationship to power. He doesn’t recognize the
disciplinary practices that produce feminine bodies (p. 105). Bartky writes of three
practices in particular that define the “artifice” of femininity:
1. the size and configuration of the body – practices that promote the ideal of
today are dieting, exercise, plastic surgery.
2. bodily comportment – gesture, posture, movement – the way women take up
space, sit, walk, compose their facial expressions, smile, touch, etc., is
different from men
3. use of the body as an ornamental surface – through makeup, jewelry, clothes,
care of the skin and hair

All these practices produce a body that sees itself as inferior and deficient. According to
the media none of us are attractive enough or measure up to society’s (men’s)
standards. In order to even approach the standards set for us we must invest enormous
amounts of time, energy and money and still we are destined to fall short of whatever the
next season’s ideals are.

I thought Bartky’s paragraph on p.110 describes so well what most women feel: “A
panoptical male connoisseur resides within the consciousness of most women: they
stand perpetually before his gaze and under his judgment. Woman lives her body as
seen by another, by an anonymous patriarchal Other. We are often told that ‘women
dress for other women’. There is some truth in this: who but someone engaged in a
project similar to my own can appreciate the panache with which I bring it off?” Even the
successful practitioner of this regime doesn’t gain power or respect. The fact that she is
a women makes her efforts of little worth and women end up being “ridiculed and
dismissed for their interest in such ‘trivial’ things” (p.111).

Bartky asks what and where is the disciplinary power that inscribes femininity. It is
everywhere and nowhere. It does not reside in any particular institution – it is unbound.
And this “absence of formal institutional structure” makes it seem that the production of
femininity is natural and voluntary. Actually these disciplines can be voluntary and
involuntary at the same time; nevertheless, they “must be understood as aspects of a far
larger discipline, an oppressive and inegalitarian system of sexual subordination” (112).
Even though there are no formal sanctions or disciplinarians, a woman who refuses to
follow these disciplines will find herself facing the most significant rejection of all in a
patriarchal society – the refusal of male patronage (113).

Ironically, the same discipline that can bring disempowerment from a larger perspective,
can also bring the self a sense of mastery and accomplishment in the skills that she has
developed to carry out the demands of the discipline. Looked at this way, a radical
feminism that questions the patriarchal construction of the female body might be resisted
by some women for several reasons. It would challenge their sense of competence; they
would be unwilling to give up what they see as rewards for complying with the standards
of beauty; they might see it as a threat of “desexualization, if not outright annihilation”
(p.114). But liberal feminism often accepts the conventional standards of femininity while
rejecting the sexual division of labor; Bartky finds this kind of feminism incoherent and
calls for the “deconstruction of the categories of masculinity and femininity” and an “as
yet unimagined transformation of the female body” (p.115).

Native Tongue
Chapters 10-15 deal with the results of Aquina trying to make Nazareth barren so
she could live at Barren House and concentrate on the Encoding Project. The women’s
main concern with the upcoming investigation is that the House not be disturbed and
their secrets revealed. They have to conceal the real Encoding Project, their forbidden
books, herbs, medical equipment which have all been accumulated over many years. It
would be an irreplaceable loss if these things were discovered by the investigators and
understood by the men of the Houses. They agree that the only thing they can do is
sacrifice Belle-Anne; they are very sorry about it, but it must be done. I’m not sure how
Belle-Anne feels about it, but she goes about her ‘confession’ with no hesitation. She
admits to the crime for the seemingly trivial, but really very important, reason that she
doesn’t want men messing around the house and upsetting the women’s things.

When Rachel confronts Thomas (an unthinkable thing for a woman of the Lines to
do), she tries to follow the script of being unemotional and manipulating him. But the
idea of marrying Nazareth at 15 to Aaron Adiness is too much for her. She uses the
analogy of hearing words from a language she had never studied and cannot process
them. She ends up being emotional and begging which infuriates Thomas. She knows
she should cry in order to manipulate him and try to persuade him, but in the end she
cannot debase herself that far. She knows she has done everything wrong – she
challenged and opposed him directly, then she failed to use her ‘womanly’ ways of
persuasion. She is disgusted with herself, just as Thomas is disgusted with her; even
the women of Barren House are disgusted with her lack of finesse. They have no
sympathy for her – a woman of the Lines and a woman of Barren House should know
better how to ‘manage’ a man.

When the women confront Nazareth to persuade her to accept her marriage to
Aaron, they reveal how they treat each other and expect each other to act. They expect
as much devotion to duty to the Encoding Project as the men do to their linguistic duties.
They use blackmail, humiliation, deception, anything to ensure her devotion to the
Project – even though at this point she doesn’t even know what it really is. Her marriage
to Aaron is something all women have to put up with – a prison, but one shared with
every other woman.

In Chapter 15, Nazareth meets Jordan Shannontry. After living with Aaron for
several years and being subjected to his humiliation, belittling, etc. Nazareth is
bewildered at how civilly and considerately Jordan treats her. It leaves her pitying Aaron,
realizing that “…it must be miserable to be Aaron Adiness and have to live in constant
terror of your own ego.” (p. 183)

Vous aimerez peut-être aussi