"Write yourself: your body must make itself heard. Then the huge resources of the unconscious will burst out. Finally the inexhaustible feminine Imaginary is going to be deployed. Without gold or black dollars, our naphtha will spread values over the world, un-quoted values that will change the rules of the old game." Cixous 167
Cixous argues that in order for the woman to be liberated from her socially constructed limitations, she must quite literally write herself into history. When women begin to write, we will be able to find ourselves again. As women, our bodies have been not only confiscated from us but they have been captivated and dominated by men--their thoughts, their desires, their expectations for us. Men have constructed an image of what a woman should be and this view is so prevalent that it dictates our entire beings--we are held to this unreasonable, nonsensical standard in which we are expected to be feminine but not too feminine, sexual but not too sexual, independent but not too independent, caring but not too caring. As women we have become so caught up in these expectations that we have lost the sense of who we really are, what we really want and what we are truly capable of. When we write, we declare our significance. We take back sovereignty over our own beings. We regain access to all of the potential we house within ourselves and become our actual selves again. We shed the sense of guilt that comes with being a woman that is constantly trying to live up to the male-deemed definition of perfection but always falling short. We must make ourselves heard, for we have been written out of history since the beginning of time--our accomplishments forgotten, our contributions stolen. We have never had a voice and as a result men have been able to speak for us; now it is time for us to reclaim our voices and allow all of the constraints placed upon our beings to fall off of us as though we are being freed from chains. When we begin to write we will realize that we are housing within us things we did not even know existed. We will change the world.
Cixous argues that in order for the woman to be liberated from her socially constructed limitations, she must quite literally write herself into history. When women begin to write, we will be able to find ourselves again. As women, our bodies have been not only confiscated from us but they have been captivated and dominated by men--their thoughts, their desires, their expectations for us. Men have constructed an image of what a woman should be and this view is so prevalent that it dictates our entire beings--we are held to this unreasonable, nonsensical standard in which we are expected to be feminine but not too feminine, sexual but not too sexual, independent but not too independent, caring but not too caring. As women we have become so caught up in these expectations that we have lost the sense of who we really are, what we really want and what we are truly capable of. When we write, we declare our significance. We take back sovereignty over our own beings. We regain access to all of the potential we house within ourselves and become our actual selves again. We shed the sense of guilt that comes with being a woman that is constantly trying to live up to the male-deemed definition of perfection but always falling short. We must make ourselves heard, for we have been written out of history since the beginning of time--our accomplishments forgotten, our contributions stolen. We have never had a voice and as a result men have been able to speak for us; now it is time for us to reclaim our voices and allow all of the constraints placed upon our beings to fall off of us as though we are being freed from chains. When we begin to write we will realize that we are housing within us things we did not even know existed. We will change the world.
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