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...What do women and men really want for themselves and from each
other? Is it the body beautiful? Is it simply to have power over or to
protect someone else? Perhaps all that we have considered so far in terms
of privilege and roles can be re-examined in the light of the Grimm
Brothers' 1812 fairy tale 'Little Red Riding Hood. It's interesting how the
words little, red and a riding hood can be used as symbols for the vagina,
the hooded clitoris, the hymen, the veil. The narrative of the innocent
female, in need of protection, is a popular one. As Little Red Riding
Hood is sent out into the forest (the big, bad, world) until the woodchopper
or dutiful guardian saves the day. Every drama in a gender-specific
narrative needs adversity, but when the protagonist is a girl/woman, the
man is generally championed as her saviour.
In the narrative of the good/bad female, the good female is protected
while the evil female is destroyed. The narrative of Little Red Riding
Hood warns all women that the forest is dangerous, so keep to the path
and don't talk to any strangers. Most girls and young women would be
familiar with this advice. It is the voice of the patriarch and the moral
order. Of course, Little Red Riding Hood meets the wolf, who symbolises
the dangerous, lecherous man, at her most vulnerable moment, in the
middle of the woods. He could have gobbled her up right there, but the
wolf/man, uses his sly and cunning ways to overpower her, and her older
female counterpart, the granny, later. Through the narrative, we are shown
that nothing changes for women. Between the ages of girl and
grandmother, woman remains a symbol of the vulnerable, victim and is
portrayed as unable to protect herself from man or evil in general. The
woodcutter, a symbol of patriarchy, saves the day under the proviso that
she never, ever talks to another wolf.
Can problems and issues between men and women be solved in such
a simple way? To date, binary solutions for complex problems in society
and relationships have left huge gaps, and only half-hearted attempts at
holistic answers. To describe men and women in one dimensional terms is
limiting and clumsy. But splitting men and women into contrasting
sterotypes: women who 'live to shop' and men who 'retreat to the shed',
does not tell a holistic story. Freud's theories about stereotypes attribute
lack with women and excess with men have served to perpetuate these
myths.
We have found a multitude of examples of people living against this
stereotyping. Judy, for example, hates to shop till she drops, and would
rather be off hiking or riding a horse. But Pym loves to paint houses, to
shop and café hop. True wholeness can only be achieved when ideas
about sexuality and gender do not exclude difference or favour one sex.
It is a transcendence of male and female energies which provide an
opportunity for diversity and wholeness.
***
For us, then, the clitorocentric mindset is not meant to be divisive or exclusive. Instead the concept of complementary relationships between the sexes that neither divide nor polarise was the intent. This allows a place from which to give respect to identity and the layers of a person's experience.
How would it work? What has to happen for mutuality to be seen as privilege for all? Transformation towards mutuality involves changes in the perception of masculinity and femininity and includes wholeness within each experience. When people are no longer speaking in dominant, traditional fundamental language they can communicate more wholly. For example, the Play, Vagina Monologues, showed that women can speak openly and honestly about 'down there'. In ridiculing all the pet names for the vagina, the playwrights reclaimed 'cunt' as their favoured word for their sex.
In a culture of absence, clear, open communication with the body, mind and spirit are fragmented. Fragmentation perpetuates a cycle of stress, distress and violence in relationships. Because most fragmented people are in trauma, they armour their body through bullying, stonewalling, being emotionally barren or needy. In the worst-case scenarios domestic violence, child abuse, and murder are outcomes. Without holistic expression there are no solutions to the every day stresses and conflict. What are the options for dialoguing distress in relationships? The sad reality of living a fragmented existence means individuals turn the distress in on themselves and suffer neurosis, or take it out on others... back to top
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