Saturday, April 9, 2016

Sexuality=Power

Women's sexuality has been talked about in stories beginning in the 14th-century. Starting with fairytales like Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and the film A Knight’s Tale. In short, these are stories of heroes, Sir Gawain and William Thatcher, who “must pass [a] test to prove his masculinity” by saving the women in the stories, The Lady and Jocelyn, who are also used to tempt them, much like “Eve tempted Adam” (Lecture 3, Slide 26 & 27). Another example is the fairytale Snow White, who is the naïve virgin who “buys the protection of seven little men by cooking, cleaning, sweeping, and being beautiful for them” (Lecture 4, Slide 7). In the stories of becoming a woman, it isn’t until she is “coming of age sexually” that she has achieved true femininity (Lecture 4, Slide 10). This is done through the use of red lipstick or bleeding from a prick of the finger. The red is used to symbolize the “maturing of her body into womanhood, and the first menses” (Lecture 4, Slide 10).

As symbolized in these fairytales, menstruation denotes maturing into womanhood, but it is also a form of power. In “Where I Come from Is Like This” by Paula Gunn Allen, she points out the power the women in the Iroquois community had. She says, “Women are explicitly critical to tribal functions” and “the grandmothers, the elder women of the clan,” had the power of electing and recalling representatives to govern their community (Lecture 10, Slide 14 & 39). However, the roles these women held weren’t their only form of power within the community. Like in Western society, there were taboos around menstruation within Indian society, which Allen says these “menstrual taboos were about power” (Allen, 47). She continues to say that “many Indians see it is that women who are at the peak of their fecundity are believed to possess power that throws male power totally off kilter” (Allen, 47). Allen says that within Indian tribes, “the occult power of women, inextricably bound to [their] hormonal life, is through to be very great; many hold that [they] possess innately the blood-given power to kill” (Allen, 47). 

Fast forward to the mid-1950s where Audre Lorde, a “Black lesbian feminist,” fought for the sexual rights of blacks, women, and queers in a society dominated by heterosexual white males. Lorde believed eroticism was necessary to understand who you are and that it’s a form of emotional liberation. She states that it’s not just sexual, but it is what makes us function and we can’t be whole without acknowledging it. She believed “women must define their own eroticism because it has been co-opted by men and constructed for their own benefit” (Lecture 7, Slide 59). Similar to Lorde, the women of Greece in the play Lysistrata thought “The power of the women of Greece resides in their sexuality” and the women in the film Absurdistan used their sexuality to express their power (Lecture 8, Slide 16). By recognizing their sexuality and eroticism, these women have power over men and society to get what they want.
            The power of women’s sexuality is still talked about and advocated for today. In the article “Women Should Embrace Their Sexual Power” by the Huffington Post, author Krista Thompson says, “Women have the gift of sexual power” (Thompson). She elaborates by saying that “Entire industries are based on it (beauty, fashion, porn) or attempts are made to cover it completely (some Muslim and Jewish ultra-orthodox societies, etc)” (Thompson). When referring to sex, Thompson remarks that “Men want it bad, women bestow it on the deserving” with the “only way for a man to have complete control over when and where he has sex is to pay for it” (Thompson). Going along with Lorde’s advocation for embracing female eroticism, Thompson says the “joy in the gift of female sexuality is pursuing your interests in all areas of sexual opportunity” (Thompson).

The discourse of women’s sexuality within fairytales, plays, films, Indian culture, feminist rights, and modern writing is that women posses power through their sexuality!

Allen, P. G. Where I Come from Is Like This.

Bredin, R. (2016). Lectures 3, 4, 7, 8, & 10. 


Thompson, K. (2014, March 24). Women Should Embrace Their Sexual Power. Retrieved from http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/krista-thompson/women-sexuality_b_5013099.html

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