The Woman in France

            During the in-class discussion between essentialism and socio constructivism on “Born this Way” we touched on the French feminist movement. We spoke on it in reference to one of our theorists, Luce Iragaray and the thoughts she contributed to the discussion of feminism. This made me want to delve more into the full ideas of the French feminist movement as an American student looking in. I’m sure in France it wouldn’t be considered by such terms, just the same way that they probably call ours the American Feminist movement (which we obviously don’t call it ourselves).

However it made me very curious to see what the fundamental thoughts on French feminism are, even though some do consider the idea of French Feminism to be a fabrication in itself.  Example? The definition of French Feminism is the “Holy Trinity”. The “Holy Trinity” of French feminism is three women writers, Cixous, Kristeva and (our very own) Iragaray. However, None of these women were born in France and neither would consider themselves feminist. In fact, Cixous and Kristeva despise it. In addition, there are women in France who fight against the need for feminism in the first place.  …… But we’ll deny the fabrications in moving forward!

The French language itself uses the female as the negative binary.

( Example: Masculine/feminine…   Masculine= subject/self    Feminine=  object/other) From the language alone the female perspective becomes the other, which makes the feminine subject an “other” before it even begins. I thought this was mind blowing! To view a form of male superiority rooted in the language made the feminine struggle a little more apparent in ways I had never thought of. I found this very important, especially when considering the socio constructs argument.

            I thought Cixous’ thoughts on the refusal of the “other bisexuality” fit in very well with our current conversations on the LGBT community. She emphasizes refusal of the “self” and “other” while highlighting that sexuality exudes from anybody part at anytime. Maybe this is why she wouldn’t consider herself a feminist. Her vision on the neglect of labels seems to claim the fight for the LGBT community here. However, the mindset of understanding the French language to be a masculine infused verb, that neglects the ability to treat the women as her own subject is an important one to the feminist movement Cixous’ thoughts can be used in addition to Iragaray thoughts we have discussed. Although differently, she highlights the distinction of women to be the negative opposition of men, as described by men.

It is pretty interesting that depending on geography, the ideals of the seemingly same movement change. France has been a country based on its social class and prestige for ages. Not surprisingly, the ideals of their feminism have also been affected by circling prestige in both imperialistic government and domestic views. It seems that French feminist thought developed more due to the socio construct of their history. Today France has the leading social welfare policies, but the largest wage gap between men and women. It seems France is in more support of helping the domestic women role than the one what goes out and enters the workplace. The laws alone aid in the depletion of the women’s movement.  The “gracious” assistance of a woman at home could be vey well given graciously to those same women who would take the option to go to work to support her family.