Naomi Wolf, who became famous for her
book The Beauty Myth (1991), argues
that "beauty," as a normative value, is entirely socially constructed
and that patriarchy determines the content of that construction with the goal
of reproducing its own hegemony. According to her, women are under assault by
the “beauty myth” in five areas: work, religion, sex, violence, and hunger.
Ultimately, Wolf argues for a relaxation of the normative standards of beauty.
In 2012, Wolf writes in a new work, Vagina: A New Biography, where she says
that the “badness” to which women are attracted isn't a literal badness; it is
the sexual appeal of “otherness, wildness, and the dimensions of the unknown.” The
book is also about the role of the autonomic nervous system, which she explains
in the pages of the book.
Promoting her book, Naomi writes in The Guardian (September 8, 2012 issue), “a
single system” works for female orgasm and that is dopamine. She further
writes, “Dopamine is what I call the ultimate feminist neurotransmitter: it
yields motivation and goal-orientedness, trust in one's own judgment and, most
notably of all, in my mind, confidence. (Cocaine, for instance, powerfully
stimulates release of dopamine – hence the crazy confidence and sociability of
coke users, at least under the influence, responding to that boost). Opioids
give the brain the sensation of ecstasy or transcendence; and finally, oxytocin
– which can be released both when a woman's nipples are being stimulated and
during the contractions of orgasm – creates a sense of bonding, caring, and
intimacy. Oxytocin has been shown in studies to give people with heightened
levels an advantage in reading the emotions of faces.”
But is Naomi Wolf’s attempt to find a
brain-vagina connection or the role of dopamine in orgasm in any way helpful to
know or explore the real problems of female sexuality? I doubt it.
While reading Naomi Wolf’s Vagina: A New Biography, I tried to
search for that Naomi, the one who stands against the commercialization of
women’s bodies. You may remember her book Beauty Myth started an uproar against the multi-billion-dollar cosmetics industry.
According to her, these industries used the idea of beauty to exploit women for
their commercial benefits.
I have been asking questions about
where women stand in relation to the recent dopamine phenomenon declaration by
Naomi. Where are women’s voices on this topic? Where are the critical voices?
Isn’t it a fact that tomorrow, a pharmaceutical company will come forward to
market dopamine just as Pfizer has done with Viagra? Is the feminine mass going
to stand by and cheer being orgasmic with dopamine? Is all this so-called ‘brain-vagina
connection’ really in women’s best interests?
In Wolf’s latest book (Vagina: A New Biography),psychological,
social, political, economic, or relational factors regarding female orgasm are
rarely, if ever, discussed. I remembered in the case of Beauty Myth, she wrote in that book how women, held back by having
to work two shifts -- one of paid work for an employer and another unpaid at
home for the family compared with the single shift worked by men -- still made
strides; and how the addition of a third shift -- the beauty shift; all that
shaving, plucking, painting, curling, styling, toning and trimming -- serves
the purpose of keeping them down by keeping them tired and distracted -- too
tired and distracted to be successful at work and too tired and distracted to
become involved or even interested in unions or other political action that
might help change the situation.
As a feminist gender studies scholar,
I wondered how Naomi forgot about the women who engage themselves in
three-shift days could think over this dopamine for conjugal orgasm. Because
sexual dysfunction is related not only to the brain-vagina connection but to
economical and social situations through which a woman has to pass as well.
In traditional texts, the word ‘vagina’
was considered with very confessional and contradictory statements. In Hindu
scripture, Manu Samhita, vagina is mentioned as ‘the gate of hell.’ Indian
Tantra practitioners called the vagina ‘the pathway to enlightenment.’ Chinese
Tao philosophy used the ‘golden lotus.’ Shakespeare wrote ‘blackness’ in
Othello or ‘boat’ in King Lear.
But later after the Victorian age, the
gentlemen’s manner revealed a fear of the word ‘vagina’ in public discourse.
When I posted about Naomi’s recent book in a group on facebook, a female member
commented it is better not to use ‘taboo’ words (such as vagina) in public or
in a social networking venue.
This happens in India as well. When
the feminist music group ‘Pussy Riot’ were sentenced to two years in prison by a
Russian court for performing a 40-second anti-Putin ‘punk prayer’ in a Russian
cathedral and when Eve Ensler’s TheVagina Monologues had completed a
16-year run throughout the world, including India, the word ‘vagina’ still embarrassed
common females in India.
This embarrassment happened not only
in India but in America as well. In June, Michigan Democrat Lisa Brown was
barred from addressing the House of Representatives after using the word ‘vagina’
in a debate on an anti-abortion bill.
In Australia (Source: guardian.co.uk,
Friday 15 June 2012 18.32 BST) this year, a TV advertisement used the word
vagina for the first time to sell its products for menstruation. There was a
series of complaints and calls for the ad to be banned.
But the word ‘vagina’ still remained
as a potential factor either in religion or in business. Supporting female
genital mutilation in Islam by some feminists in the name of cross-cultural feminism
or making protest on this crude brutal system have been the main topics the
last few years. Meanwhile, hymenoplasty did a million-dollar business by only
surgical beautification of vagina. All these efforts made the ‘vagina’ more of
a mystique while the real questions and problems of female sexuality remained
misspelled in the feminist discourse.
For centuries, the vagina was the
centre of attraction for many intellectuals, psychologists, scientists, and for
people of letters. From Vatsayan (who wrote the Kamasutra) to Leonard Shlain (who invented GYNA SAPIENS theories)
to Sigmund Freud (the premier person to support the vaginal orgasm) to Ernst
Grafenberg (who invented the G-spot theory) and many other scholars also did work
on this female organ and interestingly enough, if we will verify the gender of
such scholars, we will find most of them to be male. So one can conclude the vagina,
which is merely a female organ, is more significant to males than females.
The attempt to proclaim women have
autonomy over their own bodies is the real solution of solving the problems of
female sexuality. But is the female body only restricted to the vagina? In
India, female fetuses are routinely killed before their births. Before such
killings, nobody asks the pregnant mother whether she wants to abort or
doesn’t. The decision is not hers. She’s merely a vessel. In India, when a
mother serves food to her children, she serves more to her son than to her
daughter. Can this be labeled as persecution over a female body? In India, when
a bride is killed at home by her husband or the husband's family due to his
dissatisfaction over the dowry provided by her family, isn’t it an attack on a
female body?
Believe it or not, India has more than
40 million widows -- the highest amount in the world. A widow, regardless of
her age, has to get into a dreary garment and give up other ornamentations and
confine herself to a corner of the house. A widow even has to tonsure her head
in certain communities. She is not allowed to attend weddings or other
celebrations as her presence is considered a bad omen. Are these patriarchal
rituals not linked to a female’s body?
The concept of women’s bodies in the
West differs from that of the East. Vagina may be a main source of female sexuality
for Naomi but it is not at all for an Indian female like me. Burning Brides may
be a name of hard rock band in America but here, it is very difficult for me to
even imagine bride burning being associated with any sort
of musical concert. This is the difference between Eastern feminism and Western
feminism. Before discussing South Asian Feminism, we have to realize this
bitter truth and carry on.
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