Feminism Revisited: Helene Cixous and The Newly Born Woman

In The Newly Born Woman, Helene Cixous discusses the masculine structure that has been imposed on women through a study of Ulysses by James Joyce. She proposes a definition of bisexuality to define the feminine and claims that contemporary writing is also of a feminine nature.

The duality of activity and passivity, where woman is always passive, marks all philosophical discourse as an absolute constant. Cixous writes that "either woman is passive or she does not exist." (p 349) She gives the example of Mallarme's tragic dream, where the father is acting even the part of the mother. This is seen throughout literary history - man's torment, the figure of the father, the male desire to be at the origin.

In order to threaten the stability of this masculine structure, Cixous states that it is urgent to question the solidarity between logocentrism and phallocentrism. There is a connection between the philosophical, the literary, and the phallocentric. Bringing to light woman's burial and questioning the existing structure would create a transformation of the functioning of all society. According to Cixous, this transformation is already in the process of happening.

The results of destabilizing the masculine structure are completely unpredictable. Meanwhile there is the certainty that man and woman are caught in a complex web of cultural determinations. Both sexes are trapped within a predefined ideological system that go back to ancient history. According to Cixous the radical transformation of behaviors, mentalities, roles, and the political economy is ultimately possible although the resulting effects on the libidinal economy are unthinkable.