Throwing Like a Girl - Essay Example

Take-Home Essay Name Instructor Institution Date of submission 3) According to Iris Marion Young, woman experiences 'her body as a thing at the same time that she experiences it as a capacity.' (Young, 1990, p147). Discuss with reference to Young and at least 1 other reading from the Unit Reader from the second section of the course, “Ways of Being” (lectures 7-12). In a collection of her eight series On Female Body Experience: "Throwing Like a Girl" and Other Essays, Iris Marion Young discusses her thinking about female embodiment and how she has engaged with other famous philosophers in introducing questions of the bodily experience from her feminist perspective. Young captures the key events in a woman’s life in her essays; Pregnant Embodiment, Breasted Experience, and Menstrual Meditation [Iri90]. This way she represents a valuable critique of how physical appearance of a woman holds her hostage in achieving her set goals and aims in life. She captures everyday experience to demonstrate how a woman experiences her body as a thing at the same time that she experiences it as a capacity (p. 107). Her essays are arranged in themes rather than how the chronologically happen in a woman’s psychological developments throughout her livelihood. Young aims at giving evidence on how social norms governs female bodily compartment. This yields an intentionally inhibited and interruptive pre reflexive engagement with her immediate surroundings. She stresses that women are unaware of their body’s value and take it as a mere object among objects rather than a point from which engagement originates. A woman’s body should be the oasis of ‘I can’ as the link to the relationship between the woman and her surroundings (p. 44). Young notes that the inhibited intentional characteristic of female embodiment is as a result of women experiencing their body as objects or mere things that are meant to be looked at and acted upon. A woman often takes her body to be a burden to be prodded and dragged along as well as to be protected. Such experiences of embodiment are not as a result of their physical anatomy, according to Young, this situation is as a result of the situation that women are placed in by the contemporary society. Young observes that typically, a woman refrains from throwing her body into a motion. She instead concentrates motion in one part of the body alone. This happens while the rest of her body retains relative immobility. This indicates that one part of the body is dedicated to the task while the rest remains rooted in immanence. She also observed that a woman does not believe in the capacity of her body to effectively engage in the physical aspect of events. In this regard, a woman often takes her body to be a burden that must be prodded along, dragged, and at the same time protected from its immediate environment (p. 35-46). According to young, women approach physical engagements with caution and timidity. They are often uncertain and hesitating. Women lack the entire trust on their physical being capacity to carry them to their aims. In this context, women lack the confidence to believe that they what it takes to do what must be done. The fear of getting hurt is far much greater in women that it is in men. The woman attention is divided between what must be accomplished, and the body that must accomplish it, and at the same time save itself from any harm. A woman feels like she must have her attention directed upon her body to ensure that she is doing what it is supposed to be done instead of paying all attention to what she aims at achieving through her body (p. 34) Young’s discussion of the female body experience serves a number of purposes. Her descriptive essays give an expression that gives an experience that has not been visible or spoken of in the western philosophical culture and tradition. This is because these experiences are stigmatized, devalued, and regulated to the private sphere that is considered to be unrepresentative of the norms. By bringing out the woman experience in a more insightful and detailed way, Young brings out the modes of embodiment to light and also performs a critical function. Her work points out ways in which women embodiment has over time been restricted through the confining social norms. Young relates pregnancy and woman’s body relation concerns and discusses them in her essay, “Pregnancy embodiment.” The woman’s body is viewed as a container in which the fetus development cycle happens and to which the pregnancy does not belong. “Pregnancy does not belong to the woman herself…” (p. 46). The woman perceives pregnancy as an objective and an observable process happening to her as scientific scrutiny. She takes the pregnancy as a condition in which she must take care of by herself. The process and the experience serve as a split between her past and her future. Young also points out that medicine, as a field, has also contributed to this feeling. This is because it indicates and identifies pregnancy as a condition that deviate a woman from normal human health due to the nature of care that the process is associated with. Young has also incorporated an experiment done by Erick Erickson which involved giving objects to young boys and girls and assessing their creativity in creating a story. It was observed that girls were coming up with stories that involved a space contained in restraining walls. In contrast, boys came up with stories which involved free and unlimited space. In this context, young demonstrates how a woman experience herself as enclosed by closures of immobility and fixity. The woman situation is conditioned by the sexist and oppressing contemporary society. Women are physically handicapped in a sexist society that physically inhibits confines and positions them in an objectified position. In the contemporary society, the distinction between sex and gender are based on the feminist theory and biological foundationalism. Women experience their bodies as burdens. This is due to the behavior proceeds which gives the woman account with remarkable depth, ingenuity and clarity but at the same time fails to give a place to status and orientation of woman’s body in relation to her immediate environment. Women breasts are perceived as object and regarded as things as discussed in Young’s essay, “Breasted Experience.” Breasts are essentially regarded as a total scheme of the objectification. They are termed as toys, boobs, knockers, and knobs, to be touched, grabbed, squeezed, and handled. The notion on how breasts should look like or appear places them as a symbol of desire and a representation of sexuality. Breasts are a symbol of feminine sexuality. This part of the body is taken as an important component of the body and a self-image. Women may therefore like their breasts or dislike them, and rarely be neutral about the whole issue of their appearance. Breasts are at instances considered to be a disruptive factor of the border between sexuality and motherhood. The menstrual cycle is also another factor that makes the woman feel to be at a distant with her body. This is discussed in Young’s essay, “Menstrual Meditation.” This is due to the negativity and ambivalence of the experience. Women are forced to hide this whole issue and distance themselves from their menstruating bodies. The process is termed as dirty, defiling, and disgusting. Therefore, it must be hidden and concealed. This requirement to conceal creates an enormous anxiety and practical difficulties for the woman (p. 107). The monthly cyclic event becomes a source of annoyance and self-denial. According to young, a study of girls who are on the onset of menstruation gives an impression of negativity and ambivalence of being associated with the menstruating body. This feeling of alienation and disgust originates from the fact that girls must take care and hide any evidence on their breeding from even the close family members and schoolmates. This results to menstruation being regarded with annoyance, discomfort, and with a sense that they are at a distant from the process. In these distinctive but related essays, Young has focused on distinctive aspects of female embodiment that yields distinct purposes of being alive. She stresses on the inhibited intentionality. She recognizes that such experiences can offer alternative possibilities for embodied engagement which can be negative or positive. She points out that such usual experiences constitute the woman’s sense of identity and the pride of being a woman. According to Young, an account to the lived body does not require a divided account of sexual differences. In conclusion, the modalities of feminine body existence originate from the fact that feminine experience in the existence of their bodies as a mere thing. This is because from the beginning of their being, they are taken to be fragile things that must be picked up and coaxed into movement. The woman’s body is taken to be something that exists, looked upon and acted upon as well. Although any lived body exists as a material thing and as a transcending subject, the feminine bodily existence is taken as a body that often lived as a thing that is other than itself. Her body is further taken as another thing of the world to the extent that she lives her body as an object that remains rooted in immanence. A woman’s body is inhibited with events happening within it and at the same time tries to retain a distance from the relationship with these eventualities [Iri90]. Reference Iri90: , (Young, 1990), Read More

Her descriptive essays give an expression that gives an experience that has not been visible or spoken of in the western philosophical culture and tradition. This is because these experiences are stigmatized, devalued, and regulated to the private sphere that is considered to be unrepresentative of the norms. By bringing out the woman experience in a more insightful and detailed way, Young brings out the modes of embodiment to light and also performs a critical function. Her work points out ways in which women embodiment has over time been restricted through the confining social norms.

Young relates pregnancy and woman’s body relation concerns and discusses them in her essay, “Pregnancy embodiment.” The woman’s body is viewed as a container in which the fetus development cycle happens and to which the pregnancy does not belong. “Pregnancy does not belong to the woman herself…” (p. 46). The woman perceives pregnancy as an objective and an observable process happening to her as scientific scrutiny. She takes the pregnancy as a condition in which she must take care of by herself.

The process and the experience serve as a split between her past and her future. Young also points out that medicine, as a field, has also contributed to this feeling. This is because it indicates and identifies pregnancy as a condition that deviate a woman from normal human health due to the nature of care that the process is associated with. Young has also incorporated an experiment done by Erick Erickson which involved giving objects to young boys and girls and assessing their creativity in creating a story.

It was observed that girls were coming up with stories that involved a space contained in restraining walls. In contrast, boys came up with stories which involved free and unlimited space. In this context, young demonstrates how a woman experience herself as enclosed by closures of immobility and fixity. The woman situation is conditioned by the sexist and oppressing contemporary society. Women are physically handicapped in a sexist society that physically inhibits confines and positions them in an objectified position.

In the contemporary society, the distinction between sex and gender are based on the feminist theory and biological foundationalism. Women experience their bodies as burdens. This is due to the behavior proceeds which gives the woman account with remarkable depth, ingenuity and clarity but at the same time fails to give a place to status and orientation of woman’s body in relation to her immediate environment. Women breasts are perceived as object and regarded as things as discussed in Young’s essay, “Breasted Experience.

” Breasts are essentially regarded as a total scheme of the objectification. They are termed as toys, boobs, knockers, and knobs, to be touched, grabbed, squeezed, and handled. The notion on how breasts should look like or appear places them as a symbol of desire and a representation of sexuality. Breasts are a symbol of feminine sexuality. This part of the body is taken as an important component of the body and a self-image. Women may therefore like their breasts or dislike them, and rarely be neutral about the whole issue of their appearance.

Breasts are at instances considered to be a disruptive factor of the border between sexuality and motherhood. The menstrual cycle is also another factor that makes the woman feel to be at a distant with her body. This is discussed in Young’s essay, “Menstrual Meditation.” This is due to the negativity and ambivalence of the experience. Women are forced to hide this whole issue and distance themselves from their menstruating bodies. The process is termed as dirty, defiling, and disgusting.

Therefore, it must be hidden and concealed. This requirement to conceal creates an enormous anxiety and practical difficulties for the woman (p. 107). The monthly cyclic event becomes a source of annoyance and self-denial. According to young, a study of girls who are on the onset of menstruation gives an impression of negativity and ambivalence of being associated with the menstruating body.

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