*First of a ll I must appologize to all of the class for coming in 15 minutes late for class today. I think I only missed some general housekeeping things.

Mernissi

• she takes Freud to be almost the 'law' of Western sexuality partly becasue she com es from a culture where sexuality is determined by laws
• however, Freud's studies are explanations for behavoir verses Muslim perscriptions for behavoir
• it can easily be said there are similarities between Freudian and Juedo/Christian t hought on sexuality

*where does she get her terms for her writing?

-she is using and citing an Western sociologist as she frames her thoughts

*in the end what does she prove?

• she concludes Muslim women do have an a ctive sexuality so everything is done to protect society from women's sexuality
• she shows Western culture as being a two sex system and Eastern being a one sex in which both are active

*How could this view of women be empowering?

• In theory with this text ther is a much better respect to women's sexuality and desire, but these thoughts and ideas aren't openly discussed in Muslim cultures and you can easily see how fundamentalists have locked away their women with other laws and restrictions
• in most traditional Western writings pleasures of the flesh are sinful and sex is for procreation only but in this text sex is two fold 1) for procreation 2) it is a hint to the pleasures waiting for you in heaven

*Criticisms

• she assumes the Western model of women as passive and men as active
• at the same time she only discusses Muslim women as active, doesn't go so far as to say Muslim men are passive
• no Eastern women would ca ll a Western women sexually passive, they would usually call Westerners sluts and more forward than the Eastern women would ever be
• she frames her work in Western academic paradims and then uses a Western 'scientific' theory done by Freud as her basis for comparison
• the two sexual theories she is contrasting may be valid because they represent predominate thought in two different cultures, but they were written hundreds of years within each other, making the comparison a stretch
< LI>she treats psychoanalysis as a religion because it is something you can'tsee you just have to believe

Lazerg

• she is upset about everything and everyone's writing!
• she complains about setting Western standards to Eas tern cultures and about the generalization of all Muslim women with no regard to nationality, region or culture
• she represents and expresses the hatred of American feminists by foreign women because of American feminist's tendancies towards tell ing these women what to do when they actually have little to know idea about the culture and circumstances of the situation

classcomment: just as Westerners have stereotypes about non-Westerners, non-Westerners have just as many stereotypes about Westerners

-she comes down on both Western and Eastern writers fairly hard

*What does she say the Esterners should be doing differently in their writing?

• they need to start writing about their own lives through their own l anguages and no longer write about themselves through a Westerner's perspective
• but is there really an authentic 'East' language for them to return to?

*What is her solution?

-she all of a sudden throws humanism into the dis cussion as if it will solve everything

Cixous

• she says women should write to document their experiences and to leave a history
• she says women need to write to account for their own thoughts

*Who has done this?

• not very many people
• people who have stood up and defined their lives in their own terms
• she gives one gay man as an example
• just by speaking you are giving yourself a voice, it doesn't matter what is said
< LI>she does say that men can't write women writing but women are trained to write as men because it is objective, so a man can be trained to write as a women, but since it is all about experience and personalism he won't be successful

*What about 'women write with milk'?

class comment: white=pure

• women's writing as inate and natural
• white ink on white paper is invisible

*What about 'women will naturally express herself in song'?

class commen t: she is just writing for herself and doesn't care if she isn't understood because we have been trained by males and her women writing wouldn't make sense to us anyways

-very utopic