Book Review: Abigail Bray

Helene Cixous: Writing and Sexual Difference by: Abigail Bray

How do we go about undoing the oppressive evolutionary and socially scripted female identity?

Abigail Bray in this book, a part of a series called transitions, brings together the thoughts of Helen Cixous, with the hope of facilitating new ways of thinking and doing. Bray believes that Cixous' thoughts offers a way of engaging with reality that will facilitate movement (as opposed to stagnation) through critical engagement.

Helen Cixous is a professor, feminist writer, poet, playwright, philosopher and literary critic. Her thoughts paved the way for the creation of new avant-garde philosophy; and in literature, creativity in dealing with feminist issues. Her writings is characterized by femininity. Being a Jew, Cixous can identify with marginalization, exclusion, and rejection. She married, had two children and then divorced. Her feminist writings focus on psychoanalysis and female sexual repression. Clarice Lispector, Nelson Mandela, Jacques Derrida, are but some of the personalities that influenced her.

The major concepts around which Cixous' writings revolve will make her thoughts clear.

Cixous gives stress on the fluidity of the term sexual difference. It does not mean anatomical difference, but its representation, which morphed into something quite foreign to the body itself, and is perceived in different ways by people who are also socialized in different ways. Simple categorization of sexual difference will result to a simplification of a complex concept. The prevailing understanding of sexual difference should be considered provisional. It is unable to account for the complexity of the matter. Awareness of the fact that sexual difference is made not on the basis of biology but on social signification, opens it to deconstruction.

While heterosexuality serves as a masculine tool for the perpetuation of what Cixous calls masculine economy, bisexuality is a mere reproduction of the masculine binary structure which impose rigid sexual roles, and prescribed sexual identities. She rather suggests a sexuality that goes beyond the separate definitions of male and female desires, which she calls the "other bisexuality", a third sex, who is not categorized as male or female, but is capable of becoming more than male or female. The other bisexuality, the "Other Sex" is beyond being feminine and masculine.

Female desire is intimate, and more in touch with the surroundings, and with one's body and desire. In contrast the status quo is based on a binary structure (Hegelian), that works in oppositions. This structure which she calls phallocentric is closed, it colonizes differences through which the synthesis is controlled. Phallogocentrism is the ideological machine that orders reality, history, philosophy, social structures, and everyday lives.The woman is positioned in this thought arrangement as passive. This thought system was foisted as the natural order of things, when in fact it is unnatural. Phallogocentricism exist and is maintained at the exclusion of the female --'there is no place for your desire in our State of affairs' (1991:67, as cited by Bray).

The emancipation of the female desire will according to Cixous, lead to the recognition, and circulation of a new worldview, and usher in female libidinal economy. Feminine economy is itself the gift. Here giving does not presuppose the transaction logic of phallocentric economy where a gift is given to get something in return (identity based on the other). As a mother gives birth to life without expecting something in return, so feminine economy is life-giving. In contrast masculine economy is death driven as it seeks to dominate, oppress, exploit, and use. Feminine as the end result of all social and political prescriptions in history, and the symbols appropriated for women, is capable of changing thought patterns, language, and social relations. Femininity is therefore a socio-political stamp as well philosophical and linguistic assignation. Positively it also means the vitality which women exhibited in dealing with the repression of their desires. Hence, Cixous affirms Nietzche's positivity of the body, as a source of creativity. The repressed body of a woman bearing the marks of repression and prescriptions, is at the same time the source of dissident,and subversive energy. Going beyond equating femininity with alienation (Friedan, Wolf), Cixous argues that alienation (fragmentation, mechanization, distantiation) did not result in annihilation, but instead bestowed upon women the capacity to creatively live, transforming alienation into a gift.

Fidelity, faithfulness to the 'other's' essence where the person can be who he/she is; is only possible in a feminine economy. Fidelity is a capacity that allows the other a life and space without appropriating the other for oneself or erasing differences. Andre Nye comments that Cixous gives a glimpse of an 'experience of things, an experience which does not attempt to master or classify, but listens, looks, feels, hears. To speak a rational language is to kill the things, to refuse to hear them, or look at them (Nye, 1988:99 as cited by Bray). Passivity a feminine quality, enables openness and comprehension. Castration, engulfment, domination, defensive destruction have no part in feminine libidinal economy. Confident of its own identity, it does not perceive the 'other' as a threat and does not feel revulsion towards that which is different.

Here, Cixous' thoughts connects with Irigaray's proposition to open up metaphysics of sexual difference in a way that ethical relationship will flourish, through recapturing the 'sense of wonder'. Similarity with Irigaray's thoughts, also surface in Cixous theme of the third body. Cixous suggests that in intimate encounters, a third body is somehow conjured. This third body is like a offshoot of the intertwined desire of the lovers. Rather than consume, the lovers' desire creates an "alter entity" where the differences between the lovers are represented. Thus, another way of perceiving things emerges which is not limited by the physical. Cixous idea of a third body can also be compared Body without Organs (BwO, Deleuze and Guattarias cited by Bray). Accordingly, the BwO is desire; it is that which one desires and by which one desires. This body is set against Freudian conception of castrated body whose desires are regulated according to the phallocentric mold. It is the by product of an attempt to think in the body (along with Focault) through desire, against the confines of the law (Focault 1992: xii, as cited by Bray).

This theme intersect with Cixous' another themes, the other and love. Conceived as the other sex, the female sex has no autonomy of being. Thus, it is necessary according to Cixous for the other of the other to come to being. This other self of the feminine lies outside male dominance.
While love, an important theme for Cixious, is defined as an openness and space the lover affords the beloved accepting the beloved's strangeness, without being threatened, giving space for the other to be true to her/his self, and having the sense of wonder and openness to the unknown. And, laughter finds place in Cixous thoughts, as a jubilant a celebration of life, which subverts and diffuses the rigidity of a masculine law. In face of death laughter affirms, reveals vulnerability, and makes a mockery of the empty claims of masculine dominance.

Death which is the untimely fate of so many women is an important theme in Cixous' writings. For her, it is through the encounter with death that new life and ways of perceiving arise. Death is the loss of the inauthentic being. As a negative force death limits freedom, creativity, fullness and wholeness; but death is the furthest extent of masculine power. To confront death is to open and extend the horizons. Death then serves meaning-making, as it can break new grounds, and expose and throw off the "mind forged manacle" of phallocentrism.

L'ecriture feminine (Feminine writing)

Following the direction of Cixous central ideas, writing in the feminine is a type of writing which is free and and open, and is consistent with feminine libidal economy. It does not impose its own ideas and allows a respectful distance for the other to exist and shine forth, thus opening a possibility for a real two-sided conversation. While this kind of writing brings the female body into the discourse, it also aims to break new grounds for thinking, language, and representation for the feminine; and engage the dominant thought, through philosophy and political ethics. The main characteristic of feminine writing is being grounded on matter, which for Cixous also stands for "mother": the substance of the world, our bodies, the bodies of others.

Undoing the Law: reading with Cixous

From the lens of the themes above, Bray brings us into Cixous' readings. This will further reveal how her thoughts work particularly in writing. James Joyce: Ulysses (1922) Published in 1922, Ulysses was banned, condemned for its defiance of literary, social, and religious norms. It is the story of a day in the life of Harold Bloom a faltering Jew, and tortured husband of Molly an adulterous woman. 'A sort of encyclopedia' that's the clue the author gives regarding the structure of the book. Cixous views it like a 'womb', where new techniques and representations are born. This for Cixous is an example of feminine writing, as Joyce writes with a multiplicity of voices of differing perspectives. He writes not as an authority instructing his readers, but uses language as a way of remapping the world forging new ways of relating and representing reality. (I can just imagine that it was totally mind boggling and structure resistant.) Joyce, accordingly spared no detail in articulating Bloom's and Molly's interiority (sexual fantasies, bodily discharges, etc.) Following Cixous' thought then, Joyce's writing unmasks phallocentrism and destroys it. It liberates desire from logic and frees it from phallocentric possession.

Bray underlines the value of such experimental writing as Joyce's, as it breaks the ground for unexplored thoughts attested to by the creative writing spawned by such works as Ulysses. According to Bray, it is through the vehicle of eroticism, that fixed values and fixed truths are raptured. It proposed a metaphysics that is not conceived in the popular maxim 'I think therefore I am' but following Cixous and Bray, should rather be, 'I desire therefore I am'. It is a thinking grounded on libido, which can explore the unconscious and thus represent it - a feminine thinking.

Even as Cixous grounds writing on the body she also advocates sensual reading , that is, an involved reading that seeks to connect with what we read, and thus hear, see, taste, and be touched; and be transformed by what we read. For as we read we inevitably negotiate meanings as we bring our own thoughts into our reading of the text. Cixous then reads Ulysses' Molly as she sings, breathes, grunts, moans. Meanings therefore transcends the Molly portrayed in words (unable to break through phallocentrism), as Molly's sings her way out of phallocentric grasp.

Virgina Wolf: The Waves (1937)

Here, the main character sits in a river bank, basking in the sun. The pleasure and beauty that he experiences at that very moment resists representation. Words muddle the reality of the moment. In the same way, he realizes that his representation fail to represent who and what he really is. That self, continues to shift. Thus the story shows how perception opens up the connections between identity, representation, and the world.

Representation leads to alienation, as the connection between being and representation is hazy. Alienation brings death as the break from what is true is stretched. It is materiality that will open the way for life-affirming thinking. The Wave gives stress on the process of becoming and in this sense Cixous third body finds affinity with Wolf. One can be outside of ones' self and become one with the other, and therefore transcend the limitations of thought and being.

Libidinal Education: Cixous and Lispector

Clarice Lispector gives focus on formulating a non-dominative and non-appropriative relationship to the despised. Taking cognizance of the compulsion the dominant masculine power to purify and appropriate, Cixous subscribes to Lispector's work on libidinal education. Homophobia, racism, genocide, and discrimination against women, are but some of the products of purification. It has also contributed to the negative view of the human body. Both Cixous and Lispector see the connection between reverence for difference, and the material itself.

As a point of departure, Bray notes the harm done in the classification human and non-human. This dichotomy corrupted the understanding of nature and has set humans apart from matter, and thus support the view of non-humans as inferior and impure. Following Lispector, Cixious cites those who are considered unclean in the Old Testament together with those who deviate from social and political dictates because of the sex, race, culture and social class. These are collectively called the ugly.

The main character in Lispector's book, contemplates on the contemptibility of a cockroach, and in an attempt to connect with the other, the character corners the cockroach and squeezes it, until a whitish substance oozes from it. The character then examines the irrational fear of that which has been considered profane by society which is actually a source of joy.

Lispector does not create another dichotomy by an anti-law, instead she advocates slowness, allowing the process of becoming to take due course, a gradual approach that gives due attention to the presence of the other. Slowness is a feminine characteristic as opposed to the masculine speed that possesses. Libidinal education recognizes the other's materiality beyond representations, and approaches it with humility and respect, resisting the seduction of possession, by being able to distance oneself, and thus acknowledge the failure to fully know the other.

The Question of Transgression: Angela Carter

The War of Dreams (1972) serves a critique of on one hand: the unbending rationality, time-tested truths, and order; and on the other post-modernism's avant-garde thoughts, new representation, and limitless freedom to satisfy desires. The main protagonist sought to restore order in a city where reason was overthrown by eroticism and fantasy, as people were more given to the subconscious and their desires. This served as a satire on libertarian ideologies which equate sexual repression with political oppression and sexual liberation with body politic.

Bray points out that reading Carter with Cixous, will give us a view of how a feminine libidinal economy will operate. While libidinal transgression can break the repression of reason, within desire also lurks the drive to dominate. Desire presents itself as the opposition of the law and has the potentials to oppress reversing the Hegelian dialectic, but a dialectic nevertheless -- in other words still an offshoot of phallogocentrism.

Following the adventures of the main protagonist, Carter exposes the separation of desire from body. In giving way to libidinal transgression, a new binary was replicated, desire was torn from the body like the mind. Desire might have been emancipated, but the body remains exploited.

Carter and Cixous writes against the pervasive phallocentric hierarchy. Desire without responsibility to the flesh or a corporeal being may be what the elite wants. But Cixous and Carter insist that materiality manifested in culture, politics, and the social fabric cannot be easily destroyed by 'the moment of libidinal explosion'. Phallic desire threatens to overshadow love, compassion, and care. It disregards ethics of sexual difference. For while Cixous advocate for the liberation of feminine desire she has always anchored desire in the themes discussed above and in the ideals of justice, freedom, and equality.

To summarize, Cixous does not propose a way of categorizing sexual difference. Rather she leaves the question open for continued engagement with the hope of unmasking, courageously confronting, and undoing violence resulting from sexual differentiation. Cixous propose that new meanings can be created through writing as it is provoke thought. Here writing is not only the inscription on a surface but the creation new thoughts and meanings. Feminine writing, does not seek to reverse hierarchies, it is not destructive and repressive; it is not motivated by fear or lack, in contrast is phallocentric script seen in fundamentalism, exclusivism, and oppression. She believes that writing is an obligation to the other - but for Cixous the other is not just any other, but particularly those who are forced to submit to oppression, injustice, and violence.

The term 'the other' most appropriately represent Cixous respectful distance, knowing when not to know, to preserve individual authenticity, and resist mastery and therefore fixed meanings. But Cixous is very careful to ground her meanings in materiality, and to continue to think through what exist. To say the patriarchy is the ground of oppression is not enough. The ground must be thought through and through, and continually engaged. The struggle must be sustained. And since it is those who think in the feminine who are able to do this, they must joyfully and generously share the gift, not because of what they will get, but because it is a gift.

There is an ethical maxim which says: the way must be consistent with the end. Cixous shows us a way. If we dream of a just, free, and happy world for all, then the way must also be just, democratic, and affirming.

Conclusion

I have not considered myself a feminist. The aspects of feminism that I know is mainly reactionary and filled with negativity. Yet, raised in patriarchal home I have been on the receiving end of patriarchy's violence. As the youngest and the only girl I had been fighting a battle against 3 older brothers, and an unmovable solidly patriarchal father. My father who died in 2010, in his deathbed left a word, that I cannot have a part in his necrological service because I am a woman. But My father and my brothers were also to be credited for the sense of wonder and joy, with which I view life.

Cixous gives us a glimpse of the what it would be like to live in the cutting edge. She is affirming of desire, but it is a desire that is anchored on responsibility, respect for difference, acceptance. Love does not possess, it is open to the unknown and risks allowing the other to become, and be who he/she really is. She advocates the abolition of the system of thought that pit one to the other in oppositions, and envisions a way of viewing sexual identity where boundaries are not pronounced but a man is man-womanly and a woman, woman-manly.

I can imagine how this would work in everyday reality. One would not be expected to be womanly or manly but will be free to be who one truly is. Gays will not feel they are out of place. Hair and clothing styles will overlap. In most advanced countries, a lot has been done in terms of legislating the central tenets on which feminism is built: equality, freedom, and justice. But a lot has to be done to open up thinking and living to ways that are inclusive, respectful, accepting, affirming to the end that persons may become who they truly are. These are ways of loving which will advance women's causes.

Cixous is a thinker. And indeed, she mainly addresses those who engage in meaning-making to dispel myths of masculine supremacy. But these thoughts may have come out in the comforts and safety of the academic world. For a woman experiencing oppression embedded in social norms and laws, and in one's community and home, daily; these thoughts would be too profound and feminine to be of real relevance. Patriarchy will happily indulge us. The applicability of Cixous views lies in the ideological sphere. Its ethics can be applied in societies where women's causes have advanced, and women have the time and luxury of the finer ways of relating and confronting domination.

Lily F. Apura
February 23, 2013

Who is Helene Cixous?

What are the main themes that undergird her approach to feminist issues?

How does she engage current dominant thoughts? How is this related to Phallogocentrism?

With what thoughts and with whom does she align herself?

How do we go about undoing the oppressive evolutionary and socially scripted female identity following Cixous?

Are her propositions practicable? How does main thoughts connect with my reality?

Bray, Abigail. Helene Cixous: Writing and Sexual Difference. Palgrave: Mcmillan, 2004.