Jane Denson, Cixous & Butler, and Irigaray

"Woman finds pleasure more in touch than in sight and her entrance into a dominant scopic economy signifies, once again, her relegation to passivity: she will be the beautiful object" (Irigaray, 1985, p. 255).

        This quote has so many layers to unpack and appears to be a heavy critique of the social construction of gender. While reading Irigaray's work, I found her argument to center around the disconnection from masculinity's reign over sexuality and suggest that there is an independence within female sexuality. What immediately comes to mind when perusing this specific section of her writing is Laura Mulvey's commentary on the male gaze [in cinema] and how that relates, rather prominently, to Irigaray's overarching theoretical insights surrounding the objectification of women. Both of them indicate that there is scopophilia, or pleasure in looking, that continues to cement itself in masculinity. Furthermore, the male sexuality's dominion over society shapes the perspectives of the texts that comprise our culture, like film and television. Usually, stories [from said types of texts] are told from a male point of view and exclude women in such a manner that essentially pushes them into passivity. In other words, women are often portrayed as spectacles and only serve the purpose of pleasing a man. I cannot count how many times I have seen a film, typically one from the 20th century, depict women as two-dimensional objects who are silenced into submission by their male counterpart. It is truly appalling and shows how far we, as a society, have come. However, there is still a great deal of work to be done and this theorist is cognizant of this. Her analysis alludes to the notion that femininity possesses its own unique depth that is significantly more than physical splendor. She also insinuates that women are held to different expectations than men and that female needs are neglected because they are believed to be negative when compared to their male counterpart. Finally, this quotation captures the larger idea that women are stripped of their agency as a subject, which is crucial to understand before any change can be made.