8. Iris Marion Young – Throwing Like a Girl (1980) PDF

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Professor Clinton Tolley...

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PHIL 169 Feminism & Philosophy Fall 2019 Zhang 1 Iris Marion Young – Throwing  Like a Girl (1980 ) Introduction ● Erwin Straus (27) ○ Young girl doesn’t make use of lateral space → throws ball w/o force, speed, or accurate aim ○ Young boy makes use of lateral space → throws ball w/ strength, acceleration & accuracy ○ Difference is observed at an early age → biological, not acquired difference; can’t specify the source of the difference (28) ○ Denies that the source is specifically anatomical → “feminine attitude” & mysterious “feminine essence” ● De Beauvoir (29) ○ Focuses on physiology (eg. hormones), not status & orientation of the woman’s body in relation to its environment ○ Creates the impression that a woman’s anatomy & physiology contributes towards her unfree status ● Young (30) ○ Goal: to fill a gap that exists in both existential phenomenology & feminist theory ○ Her account only describes feminine bodily existence for women in contemporary advanced industrial, urban & commercial society ○ Concerned w/ movement in which the body aims to accomplish a purpose/task; leaves out sexual being ○ Relies on de Beauvoir’s account of woman’s existence as a tension b/w immanence & transcendence (31) ○ Contradiction: woman = free subject who participates in transcendence, but her situation denies her that subjectivity & transcendence (32) ○ Modalities of feminine bodily existence exhibit this tension b/w transcendence & immanence, b/w subjectivity & being an object Section I ● Can observe a difference in body style & extension b/w men & women (women are not as open w/ their bodies) ● Physical differences b/w men & women limit their physical strength, but differences in the performance of tasks requiring coordinated strength are not due to brute muscular strength, but to the way each sex uses  the body in approaching tasks (33) ○ Women often don’t see themselves as capable of lifting & carrying heaving things or using force ○ Women concentrate their efforts on body parts most immediately connected to the task (arms & shoulders, not legs) ○ Men are not superior athletes; women don’t put their bodies into fluid & directed motion ● Sports ○ Women think that they aren’t free to move beyond a constricted space ○ Women tend to wait for the ball & react  to its approach → immediate response is to protect ourselves (34) ● Approach physical engagement w/ things w/ timidity, uncertainty & hesitancy → feeling of incapacity, frustration & self-consciousness ○ (1) lack trust/confidence in our bodies to carry us to our aims ○ (2) fear of getting hurt (greater in women than in men) → tentativeness ● Underestimate our bodily capacity → halfhearted effort → fail at performing the task → become frustrated → fulfill our own prophecy ● If release self from this & give best effort, then surprised at what bodies can accomplish ● No inherent, mysterious connection b/w these behaviors & being a female (many result from lack of practice in using the body)

PHIL 169 Feminism & Philosophy Fall 2019 Zhang 2 Section II (3 modalities of feminine motility ) ● (1) ambiguous transcendence : locating subjectivity in the body, not in mind or consciousness ● (2) inhibited intentionality : intentionality in motility (36) ○ Possibilities that are opened up depend on the mode & limits of the bodily “I can” ○ Woman projects an “I can” but as the possibilities of “someone,” not truly her  = an “I cannot” ● (3) discontinuous unity  w/ surroundings: the body unites w/ itself & surroundings by projecting an aim towards which it moves (38) ○ Women tend to locate their motion in part of the body only = discontinuous motion ○ Part of the body that is transcending towards an aim is in disunity from those that remain immobile ○ Feminine bodily existence needs to be the subject of the motion, but the woman sees herself as the object Section III ● (1) enclosed ○ Erik Erikson: Boys & girls were asked to construct a scene for an imagined movie out of some toys ○ Girls depicted indoor settings & emphasized inner space (like wombs & vaginas); boys constructed outdoor scenes & emphasized outer space (like phallus projection) ○ Confinement of feminine lived space → physically available space is of greater radius than the space that she uses (40) ● (2) double spatiality ○ Merleau-Ponty: There is a double  spatiality  in feminine existence (“here” & “yonder”) ○ “Yonder” = a space in which feminine existence projects possibilities that “someone” could move w/in it, but not I (41) ● (3) positioned in space ○ Feminine existence experiences itself as positioned in  space (differences in spatial perception b/w the sexes) ○ Females are more “field-dependent” (42) ○ Males view relations in space as fluid & interchangeable ○ Females tend to view figures as embedded w/in & fixed Section IV ● Modalities of feminine bodily comportment, motility & spatiality have their source in the particular situation  of women as conditioned by their sexist oppression ● Females aren’t encouraged like males to develop specific bodily skills → learn to hamper movements; differences increase w/ age (43) ● “The gaze” (a woman as an object in space in front of others); objectified so decorate bodies as such → “keeps her in her place” Lecture notes ● Supplemental to Merleau-Ponty’s work ● Like Thomson, an academic treatment ○ Not technical or logical legal ○ Starts from lived experience → phenomenological descriptive → draws attention to specific distinctions → organizes them into categories w/ the hope of presenting a meaningful vision of the lived experience of being a woman → philosophy)...