Cixous; break away female writing

I’m not sure if I understood Cixous correctly. To me she was saying that we live in a man’s world and in order for women to stand out they need to create a whole new type of writing. Sometimes I thought that she was putting out a call for distinctive writing just for the sake of being different (“white ink” 312). She also seems to have a problem with “reason”. “It is indeed that same self-admiring, self-stimulating, self-congratulatory phallocentrism” (311). She seems to condemn reason for being male, yet she encourages women to create their own “self-admiring, self-stimulating, self-congratulatory” writing.

She argues that female writing cannot be defined due to a woman’s imagination being “inexhaustible”, yet she is able to clump together all male writing as phallocentric. Then she seems to contradict herself saying, “In one another we will never be lacking” (320). To me that’s saying that we need to work together to be whole.

I do agree that a patriarchal haze hovers over women writers from which they should be freed, but I doubt that a significant female movement can be made devoid of the history men have created.

I also agree with Cixous in that women are not jealous of men for having a penis (318), nor do we feel castrated, we only want the freedom men have been afforded in the past—the freedom that comes with the possession of a penis in a male constructed society. (I must point out that women too are responsible for playing into this male society.)