GeekinthePink

The whole idea of the binary oppositions in the beginning seem a little to elaborate to me. Activity/Passivity, Sun/Moon, Day/Night. I don't really agree with the point of view here--that one always has to follow the other, or that the female connotation is that we must follow the strong lead of the male. And her idea that one must be destroyed in order for the other to have meaning seems inconsistent with some of the other philosophers we have so far studied. What about Saussure telling us that language is made of differences and that we must have dissimilar values in order to know the vale of one thing? Or with Derrida, who tells us that meanings are deferred from one thing to the other and there is no point at which one thing can be defined without the existence of many other words in a labyrinth of meaning?

All of the binary oppositions she has juxtaposing one another have meaning in and of themselves and through each other, as I believe men and women do. The Sun has an existence completely opposite of the moon, and in that way, has nothing to do with the moon in its purpose. But, it does collaborate with it. Likewise, there is just as good of a reason for the night to exist as the day--one does not diminish the other and who says that sun precedes night? It could be that night precedes day or neither--this relationship cannot be defined. The fact that she says "we follow it, it carries us, beneath all its figures, wherever discourse is organized" shows women as the dumping grounds, but I think this is just her way of viewing it. I feel like she embraces the fact that women are different, because Cixous claim women have the ability to "change the rules of the old game." But I do not think she sees the reason women are treated different from men: we are different. And according to her, that is a bad connotation, but I don't think it necessarily is.