In Genesis, it is told that woman was fashioned from the rib of man. Technically speaking, the rib is a quality body part that should not be unappreciated, but even so if all man gave to woman is his rib, surely his creation proceeding hers should not be so supreme. In Freudian theory, perhaps women have been slandered by the gift of a rib, and have thus developed Penis Envy. Freud, along with many men, seem to have this very outlandish thought that whether it is a penis or just the status that comes with being the impregnator rather than the impregnated, women have been resentful ever since the beginning.
In Shlain's writings, he expresses the dominance of the left brain as the turning point which forever has subjugated femininity. The very act of creating a book chronicling the coming to modern times is in itself left brained, and provides further insight as to who these authors of the Old Testament were. In the case of the rib, penis (or lack thereof), and left brain, the difference between man and woman are morphological and complementary. The balance between genders manifests itself throughout all nature, and does so in equality. If not for the overly analytical tendency to draw conclusions, we would see that both genders are needed to reproduce, which is the only reason there are two of them to begin with. While there are the advantages of being male, there is also the association with Freudian theory that women are jealous, "unstanched wenches," that puts gender differences in perspective.
In Laura's discussion of Timothy Treadwell, she mentions that God allegedly allowed the first man to name all of the animals. And yet, none of these animals were fit to be Adam's companion, as one could say of Treadwell and his bears. However he tried to conceal her presence, Treadwell's girlfriend was present through his last summers in Alaska. Likewise, in the first tale of human creation, woman appeared to always be there while Adam was off galavanting with the cattle and fowl. Judaism attempts to reconcile the discrepancy by claiming Adam's first wife Lilith would not submit to Adam and was thus banished from the Garden of Eden. Is not more accurate, then, to portray man naming the earth with language while the woman goes around killing babies as an example of womb envy? Complementary though they are, the bodies of humans lead to the opposing minds of men and women who value human involvement above all other life, which is more the tragedy than the relations of just one species in the history of a very old planet.
Wow. That was a very awesomely written post. I feel that the title dragged me in and then the post itself was so well put together that I was interested in reading all the way till the end. I agree with your left brain thing about the writing of the book. I think that it is a good thing to notice. YA JULIA!
ReplyDeleteFirst off, I would be lying if I said the title didn't grab my attention. The idea of linking Freud's theory of penis envy to Genesis is very clever, for perhaps woman would be envious of the male-dominated society and the prestige and power given to men from this. You clearly argue that the "difference[s] between man and woman are morphological and complementary," as well as claiming there are advantages to being male, but I don't see much information that really compares men and women in the same light.
ReplyDeleteThough you show that there are advantages to being male and that "women are jealous 'unstanched wenches'" to put gender differences in perspective, I was hoping to find a remark that reiterated the fact that men and women are complements of each other and are equal in every way. Perhaps I'm just looking at it in a different way.
The idea of womb envy stemming from the story of Lilith does not seem to make much sense to me, however. To me, womb envy seems like men would envy a woman's ability to give birth and nurture, rather than envy the woman running about and killing babies. As Gabe mentioned, though, this is a well crafted post that certainly evoked a lengthy response from me.