> When I think of "female", I think of strength, gentleness, humour, wit,
> sensuality, generosity, rationality, defiance, resistance to pain,
> anarchy, mess, desire... I want to resist the diminutive, which is what
> men have imposed/projected on women.
This is an issue that fascinates me ( love the linkage 'anarchy, mess,
desire' btw).
What intrigues me is the delicate balance between the dimunitive as
power-playing placement and condescension and the the dimunitive as
familial-like reassurance, like the entries in the character lists of huge
Russian novels.
There is no way that anyone can seriously deny that our, and others,
cultures have denied women voice. At the same time, the language of
diminuitives is part of the core vocabulary of psychological support, who
among us, male or female, is immune to the need for 'petting words', the
there-there's of shortened names and little endearments, which presumably
relate to the baseline experiences of personhood peeking out of infancy.
But alongside that is the play on 'smallness' (women being on average
smaller than males, he sagely observed) that becomes a means to denying the
other humanity, to giving them 'pet' status, aren't they charming, etc.
which is an infestation of our world.
Best
Dave
----- Original Message -----
From: <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Sunday, July 29, 2001 12:39 AM
Subject: Re: Femininity in Poetry
> Jospehine wrote:
>
> >The better artists are the ones who go
> >beyond this difference, and the women who apply a male
> >aesthetic to their work are the ones who gain better
> >recognition.
>
> You might also say that the better male artists are those who incorporate
> a "female" aesthetic into masculinity. The Romantics did this; and the
> idea of the Muse is an old and fertile one in poetry, also the image of
> one who like Teresias is both male and female. Art is surely reaching
> towards some androgynity - years ago I toyed with the idea of writing a
> series of essays "Beyond Gender", but I never got around to it.
>
> When I think of "female", I think of strength, gentleness, humour, wit,
> sensuality, generosity, rationality, defiance, resistance to pain,
> anarchy, mess, desire... I want to resist the diminutive, which is what
> men have imposed/projected on women.
>
> Best
>
> Alison
>
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