Chris Phillibert "Women and womanhood" (5)

I was initially at a crossroads when it came to approaching how to answer question five. To me, the state of "women" versus the state of "womanhood" are two different questions. In my mind the first question refers to how women are viewed in society or what a woman's role in society is. In contrast the second question refers to the characteristics and traits that make up a typical woman or what it means to be a woman. It seems to me as if women are in a sort of quandary of identity. On the one hand they have all of these expectations from society about doing what is expected of them and fulfilling traditional definitions of womanhood like child-rearing. On the other hand, women feel a pressure to break out of the mold society has created for them in order to prove that womanhood is not just about fulfilling traditional obligations and customs but also carving out your own identity that may very well lie outside the confines of traditional womanhood.

 In "La Noire de...", Diouana illustrates what is expected from her as a woman: do what you're told, maintain subservience, be seen and not heard. The film goes on to illustrate that traditionally, even if you have grievances as a woman, proper custom is to hold them in and not make them known. In "Can the Subaltern Speak", Spivak argues that the subaltern have no way to voice their problems or troubles besides through violence or drastic action. This displays that for some, womanhood is about maintaining traditional roles and meeting traditional obligations. However, for others womanhood is about breaking out of that traditional role. Later in the film the viewer is shown that Diouana creates her own expression of womanhood by rejecting the traditional roles of cooking and cleaning that were thrust upon her. Spivak would say that Diouana, living as a subaltern in the household of the French family, had no way to protest her grievances in a way that she believed would have made a difference. With this scenario, Spivak would say that Diouana ends her life as a protest against the owners of the house who had oppressed her. While I agree with this synopsis, I would like to add that by ending her own life, Diouana shows that womanhood is also about breaking free from traditional roles that patriarchal society would like to see woman put into. In Twilight: Los Angeles, Anna Deavere Smith also creates her own definition of womanhood. Through Twilight: Los Angeles Smith shows her own forms of protest about the Los Angeles riots through portrayals of different characters. Instead of keeping her grievances to herself as a traditional woman, she makes her cause known through public art form.

Through this question I've thought about how it's possible that womanhood today is as much about breaking traditional roles and barriers as it is about keeping them. Then again, traditional roles for women are only traditional because those roles are once what womanhood was. Maybe the fact that womanhood is about breaking barriers means that we're in a time of transition. Hopefully, womanhood will mean something different to every woman and will be a personal construct and identity for each woman instead of being a standardized role.