Existence! QUOTES

Title of Article: Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence.
Author: Adrienne Rich

So let me begin by saying this was a hard read for me, and I hope I understood it correctly, because here I go writing my little heart out about the article. Let me also say why I chose quotes for this blog. As I read through Rich’s text, I noticed that although she is difficult to understand, once you do understand her, she is a great author and says lots of meaningful things.

                QUOTE #1: “Chodorow concludes that because women have women as mothers, “the mother remains a primary internal object to the girl, so that heterosexual relationships are on the model of a nonexclusive, second relationship for her, whereas for the boy they re-create an exclusive, primary relationship.”” What Rich means by this is the relationship a daughter and mother have, is different than the relationship between son and mother. Daughter and mother have a primary relationship because of their gender. Son and mother can create a primary relationship, but it does not come immediately like daughter mother relationships do. This quote relates to the rest of Rich’s text because her other main point is the primary relationship you can have in a homosexual relationship due to the same gender.

                QUOTE #2: “In her essay “The Origin of the Family,” Kathleen Gough lists eight characteristics of male power in archaic and contemporary societies which I would like to use as a frame work: “Men’s ability to deny women sexuality or to force it upon them; to command or exploit their labor to control their produce; to control or rob them of their children; to confine them physically and prevent their movement; to use them as objects in male transactions; to cramp their creativeness; or to withhold from them large areas of the society’s knowledge and cultural attainments.” Rich means by this that men can have a lot of control or dominance over a woman. This potentially would suck for the woman, but these things would only happen if the man realizes that the woman has many qualities that are unequal to their own. Rich is trying to point out through this article that men do cruel things to women not to be mean, but as an attempt to make their qualities equal.

                QUOTE #3: “ The fact that male employers often do not hire qualified women, even when they could pay them less than men, suggests that more than the profit motive is implicated.” Here, I think it is pretty clear what Rich is trying to say by pointing out this quote from another author. She put this in her piece because she also revolves her text around this idea. Even though companies would profit from hiring women, they still will not do so. Maybe they see that it is not worth it, that a woman could never do the job a man could do. Rich goes on to talk about how woman are hired for specific positions for a reason. Sometimes woman feel the need to do anything their boss says, even if it mean sexual harassment. I mean you have to do whatever your boss says right? Didn’t you know there was a reason why all secretaries are pretty?

My POINT TO SHARE that I will be bringing up in class tomorrow is an interesting fact that I discovered while researching for this blog. What happens when there is more than two genders? WHAT? Lol… well in this country that I read about , there are several genders, not just male and female…