Sexual Differences

"The transition to a new age coincides with a change in the economy of desire, necessitating a different relationship between man and god(s), man and man, man and the world, man and woman. Our own age, which is often felt to be the one in which the problem of desire has been brought to the fore, frequently theorizes about this desire on the basis of certain observations about a moment of tension, situated in historical time, whereas desire ought to be thought of as a dynamic force whose changing form can be traced in the past and occasionally the present, but never predicted." (Irigaray, 237)

I think in this passage we see that Irigaray, while thinking about the problem of the genders like our feminism readings from class, sees it in a new way. She says that to achieve this goal of more equal genders we must redefine man, in every aspect. I think she is basically saying that in order to change we must change our society from a patriarchal one. She also says that the moment that matters, that changed everything, is the moment of desire, which is one that cannot be pinpointed, it is an ever changing moment. “Of woman, upon whom he no longer depends, he retains only this space, always virginal, matter subjected to the desire that he wishes to imprint.” (Cixous) Here Helen is saying that a woman is only significant because of man. In a society like this, man and woman will never be equal.

" What is performed in drag is of course, the sign of gender, a sign that is not the same as the body that it figures, but that cannot be read without it. The sign, understood as a gender imperative -girl! - reads less as an assignment than as a command and, as such, produces its own subordinations.” (Butler 247) Here Butler is saying how everything we do is defined previously for us by our gender roles. People who dress in drag are trying to act out the opposite sex and therefore going against everything that has been defined in our society. This is important to realize that the genders are not the same and probably never will be, but who says that means they cannot still be equal?