Her being is divided between what she really is and what she imagines she is, and
this image has been dictated to her by her family, class, school, friends, religion and lover. She never expresses her femininity because it always manifest itself in forms men have invented for her. (Octavio Paz, The Labyrinth of Solitude, 197)
this image has been dictated to her by her family, class, school, friends, religion and lover. She never expresses her femininity because it always manifest itself in forms men have invented for her. (Octavio Paz, The Labyrinth of Solitude, 197)
There is a feminist part of me that wants to argue with Paz. I want to tell him that women are more than what society makes them. But if he were to ask me "How so?" I would not be able to come up with a solid answer. As I ponder what femininity is, I think of dresses and the color pink and women's suffrage and bra-burning and I'm struck by my own thoughts. This is exactly what he means. Even though I am a women, I cannot think of a definition of femininity outside of what I've learned from my own culture and essentially what has come from men. In context, Paz describes women as objects, as counterparts to men. So, with this rationale, it would only make sense that femininity or womanhood is what men have created for the objectification of woman. Although this paints a pretty bleak picture, I would suggest that Paz makes a really good point. Whether we like it or not, womanhood is often reduced to what a society cultivates its women to be. I can really only speak of my own society here in America, but women here are cultivated to behave in certain ways. Yes, there are women who break the norms and are CEOs and presidents of major corporations, who work full-time while their husbands stay home to watch children, who function in important political positions. But is this because the men of the country allow it? We have yet to have a female president or vice president in our country. I would suggest that this is in part because the men of the country still have control. They ultimately have the power to allow or to ban women from participating in certain roles. Paz suggests that objectifying women is part of men easing their solitude, but I'm not quite sure if I agree. I have to believe that there's some other motive.
