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January 10, 2005
Hi Gary. It's interesting the way that the violence seems naturally to lead to questions of masculinity. Eruptions of violence--from Bataille to Fight Club--seem inevitably to raise questions about masculinity. I loved Fight Club (the book is also worth a read, although I've found Palahniuk's others disappointing), but a lot of my other feminist friends were uncomfortable about it... I thought Marla was as interesting a character as the guy whose alter-ego was Tyler Durden, and it seemed that Marla's violence was for the most part ignored.
The short piece I wrote that you posted to the blog the other day was originally presented to a group of women's studies postgrads and staff at La Trobe University. It left everybody pretty much with nothing to say in response... except my supervisor who (thankfully) 'got it,' and a women's studies lecturer who said "it's a very masculine desire that Bataille is dealing with"... (ie. this is a bad thing)... Basically, she was saying that it's violent (with all that talk about laceration), and so it must be masculine. This is a very nice 'pearl set' image of femininity that we get here though. Why do 'femininity' and 'violence' have to be placed at opposite poles? This suggests a kind of idealisation of 'woman' that I think is more problematic than the other option, that violence is also an integral part of feminine sexuality.
A social-worker friend of mine suggested otherwise, that in fact 'laceration' is very much a feminine preoccupation... that women 'cut themselves up' at the drop of a hat when in distress, whereas men who are acting out are more likely to surf moving trains or jump off things.
In that case, we could even conjecture that Bataille is acting from a position of femininity... feminising himself in relation to Nietzsche... something that I think might trouble a lot of feminists, but perhaps that's what's needed if we're to be able to think about women's desire not just as 'sugar and spice and all things nice'.
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"This is a very nice 'pearl set' image of femininity..."
How on earth does this kind of liberal academic feminism make sense of a highly colourful Amanda Vanstone in full flight in the Senate mocking and humiliating her enemies on the other side of the chamber?
Or a Julia Gillard running the ALP show in Question Time in the House of Representatives to destroy De Ann Kelly and make sure the blood splatters all over Tony Abbott?
Or Senator Sue Knowles doing her standup attack dog routine.
There is a lot of desire there, and it has very little to do with women's desire in the form of 'sugar and spice and all things nice'. That desire is about blood, wounding and death their political enemies.