What Are The Similarities Between Harry Potter And The Phallus

The foundation of male hegemony relies entirely on the presence of women, a feminist notion Rachel demonstrates through embodying her objectified role that dominates man. Mulvey specifies a woman’s role in “patriarchal culture as signifier for the male other,” who imposes “the silent image of woman” (232). Furthermore, man’s scopophilic instinct, the “pleasure in looking at another person as an erotic object,” forces woman to become “obsessively subordinated to the neurotic needs of the male ego” (Mulvey 240-41). Apparently, man “emerges as the representative of power” in defining his authoritative sense of self in the physical presence

Similarly, Plath’s poem ‘Edge’ illustrates how patriarchy seizes the identity of woman, leaving them to be nothing but sexual entities. ‘The woman has been perfected’, society has shaped her into being socially and sexually pleasing. She has been moulded, making her ‘perfect’ to the naked eye, a ‘flower’, a ‘rose’, a ‘Greek necessity’ with no identity. In the second stanza the speaker states that the ‘body wears the smile of accomplishment’ she is now socially accepted.

The main argument is about the problem posed for the modern viewer by the eroticized body of the political ruler, which wasn't a problem for the ancient - Mesopotamians; that sexuality was inextricably linked to potency to male vigor and manly vigor to dominance and authority. In other words, Irene Winter's thesis is about sexuality signifying rule in ancient times.

Yet in presenting something as inaccessible and dangerous, an invitation to know and to possess is extended. The secrecy associated with female bodies is sexual and linked to the multiple associations between women and privacy. (92)

Bromden’s mother is also a significant example of this, with the Chief explaining how his once proud and “real big” father was reduced to a suffering alcoholic because his mother made him “too little to fight anymore”. The suggestion that women are presented as castrators is also noteworthy, as throughout the novel both McMurphy and Bromden make references. When Rawler castrates himself, the Chief observes that “all he had to do was wait”, implying that the institution and the women running it would have castrated him in the long run. This can be related to the Freudian theory of ‘Penis Envy’, in the sense that because Ratched and other female oppressors lack the manhood usually associated with men, they must exert their dominance in other ways. The fact that the hospital, run by women, treats only men is a further example of the matriarchal society that Kesey creates within the novel. Perhaps the most obvious reference to castration is when Nurse Ratched suggests an “operation” for McMurphy. Of course, she is referring to a lobotomy, but it could be interpreted as another “besides, it wouldn’t be any use to lop ‘em off. I got another pair in my nightstand”. Both procedures remove a man’s distinctiveness, liberty and ability for sexual expression. In this sense the operations are symbolically the same. The general consensus seems to agree with Harding, who complains, “We are victims of a matriarchy here.”

In Chapter 3 of his book, “Ways of Seeing”, John Berger argues that in western nude art and present day media, that women are largely shown and treated as objects upon whom power is asserted by men either as figures in the canvas or as spectators. Berger’s purpose is to make readers aware of how the perception of women in the art so that they will recognize the evolution of western cultured art.

Chapter 16: Sex can be symbolized through many means or archetypes. This occurs as many authors use common archetypes representing the mechanics involving intercourse. An active reader will be able to identify these symbols and decipher the truth in what is occurring in the novel or story.

The Traffic in Women: The “Political economy” of sex by Gayle Rubin is an exploration of the origin of women’s oppression. Rubin’s main objective is to arrive at a more fully developed definition of the sex/gender system, otherwise referred to as “mode of reproduction” and/or “patriarchy”. She further develops her definition through the analysis of the work of Levi-Strauss and Freud from a marxist perspective. Rubin provides the following preliminary definition of the sex/gender system “A set of arrangements by which a society transforms biological sexuality into products of human activity, and in which these transformed sexual needs are satisfied.” (159) She attempts to add to her definition of the sex/gender system through the analysis of the overlapping work of Claude Levi- Strauss and Sigmund Freud. Despite implications with their work, Rubin believes that both Levi-Strauss and Freud provide conceptual tools in describing the sex/gender system. Rubin looks at a Marxist analysis of sex oppression, as well as, Engels theory of society which integrates both sex and sexuality. Furthermore she incorporates aspects of each theory addressed into her own working definition of the sex/gender system. By shifting between Marxist, structuralist and psychoanalyst explanations of sex oppression, Rubin is able to construct a multi-dimensional definition of the sex/gender system that is not only inclusive but also provides a basis of which to build from.

There are many companies in the world today that put an idea of this perfect female body into the heads of women. These images lead to a faulty standard men hold of women and their bodies and that women strive to become. Margaret Atwood addresses the issue of the way men view the female body by writing her essay in the viewpoints of a male so the reader can better understand how the expectation men have of the female body is unrealistic. First, she uses an allusive comparison to show the male expectation of the female body and how it is objectified as if it were a doll that comes with accessories. Next, she uses an anecdote with defamiliarization to show how the way the father views a Barbie doll and the way it portrays the female body to young girls is hypocritical. Lastly, Margaret Atwood uses insidious diction to talk about how men not only view the female body as a product but how they also use the female body as a product which can be sold amongst businessmen. In The Female Body, Margaret Atwood uses many rhetorical devices to convey how the female body is viewed through the eyes of men.

A phallic symbol is an object that, by any stretch of the imagination, may be considered to resemble a penis in any way. The coulter is the first example of this in The Miller’s Tale. It is used as a tool for Absolon’s revenge in the storypoem, as he plans to use it to poke Alisoun in the arse. Instead, he ends up poking Nicholas in the behind, which is a clear metaphor for homoerotic or even homosexual behavior. This directly correlates to Nicholas using his “tool” to embarrass or insult John the carpenter by having sex with Alisoun.

Judith Butler’s essay, “Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory” calls for a new way to view sex and gender. Butler argues that “gender identity is a performative accomplishment compelled by social sanction and taboo”. In this case, gender is not constituted by what one is, but rather what one does; the performative acts constitute gender. In other words, gender is not the starting place; it is an identity repeatedly constructed throughout time. Butler is trying to show us a feminist perspective of sex and gender. She attempts to follow Beauvoir’s path in a fight against society norms.

“Queer's very slipperiness, however, its tendency towards instability and its pleasure in resisting attempts to make sexuality signify in monolithic ways, are all parts of its appeal” (Pearson 3). While reading The Left hand of Darkness through a queer lens, the context of the word changes. The novel’s world experiences a series of reductions and the most relevant and prominent one would be gender. The gender of the Gethenian people is reduced to one gender that does not adhere to a gender binary most of the readers are familiar with; they seem more like the hermaphroditic plants and animals that we, the readers, are aware of. In the novel, queer lies in the context of Gethenian taboos and are sexual in nature.

For Judith Butler, sex and gender is an outlandish cultural construction which defines the body. She calls into attention gender as a substance and practicality of man and woman as nouns. Although gender is not a noun, it proves that it is

in this stage where girls develop “penis envy”, the solution is to obtain the father’s penis (sexual desire) through identifying with the mother and mimicking her in order to replace her. Emily fails to resolve the conflict in the phallic stage because she was unable to identify with the same-sex parent. We can only hypothesize that the mother may have abandoned her or died during this time so that there was no same-sex parent to identify with. Failure to identify with the mother led to the failure of successfully obtaining the penis, and the failure to understand through psychosexual competition with the mother for the father, that all women do not and cannot possess a penis. Emily then begets a nonnegotiable necessity to have a phallic figure around in her life, and if she can’t, a possession of the “penis” herself. Emily’s submissiveness to letting her father control her romantic life can be interpreted as the need to have her father’s phallic figure around but when her father died, the phallic figure was “castrated” from her. The realization of the temporality of this kind of possession may have triggered the need to permanently have control over the possession of the penis in the form of a phallic figure. This may explain the poisoning of Homer, a “big, dark, ready man, with a big voice”, in the ultimate attempt to obtain the “penis” and finally, however perversely, resolve the penis envy. Emily herself is transformed—and tragically— into somewhat of a

“Never before in history of telecommunications media in the United States has so much indecent (and obscene material been so easily accessible by so many minors in so many American homes with so few restrictions” (qtd in “Pornography and Child Sexual Abuse”). The problem addressed in the quote by the U.S. Department of Justice is pornography, a 10 billion dollar industry, has made its way from discreet taboo to something that is today considered acceptable and even common. With the internet being such a common tool, it is no surprise that there is easy access to sexually explicit material. The widespread accessibility and usage of pornography has changed people’s outlook on the normality of watching such sexually explicit material, and