I would like to spead a little bit more about Irigaray's essay: "This Sex Which Is Not One." I know that a lot of people have problems with the maternal essentialist aspect of it and/or the idea that a woman's essence is centered in her physical body. If Irigaray were suggesting that we stop out thought process where her essay has terminated, then indeed she would be presenting an essentialist viewpoint. However, I don't get that feeling from her. I found this essay to be liberating and empowering because I saw it as a step in an evolution. Irigaray was setting a lot of women free with her words and to me that's really exciting. She attributes a great sense of mystery to woman and if she deposits that source of this mystery in the wrong place, still there is the recognition of a mystery...
What really interests me about this essay and about the class discussion that we had about it is the idea of the masculine way of thought and the feminine way of thought. Which is better and why? Neither is better and I think that a mistake is made when one claims that there is a superior thought process. I think it is equally as essentialist and untrue however, to clamin that there is a masculine way of thought and a feminine way of thought at all. I know plenty of men who think themselves into little emotional circles when they're figuring things out, and I know plenty of women who rival Dana Scully in incisive analytical commentary. However, everyone thinks both ways and any hendered connotations are meerely a result of patriarchal ideologies.
I don't really know how to address the whole maternal issue except to say that even if we are not all going to have children, we all were children. And this is slightly modified form the idea of daughterhood because in reading some of the other jounal entries for this week, it was brought to my attention that htis both includes and excludes boys. This relationship of oneness withth mother exists for children of both henders (if they are lucky enough to have a mother there). Both genders seek to recreate this oneness in their own families later (the husband with his wife, the wife with her children). However, the goal is the same. I'm not reeally sure where I'm going with this except that Irigaray is a step in a long line of steps that have been taken and those that remain to be taken. She is an important step and just beyond all of the essentialist things that she brings up, there are ways of knocking the divisions down. It is Important to remember the historical context of the work and the fact that some walls just can't be broken down until the social atmoshere allows for it. Sorry this was so disorganized :)
Sam