How Men Cover Their Womb Envy Through The Power of their Penis
What is Penis envy?
As a woman, I grew up with the mentality that the male figure is the only gender that will always get praised in what they do and what they are. I was also shown that women are the weak ones who must depend on a male figure to come along the way and rescue them. This was all encouraged through society and shown in movies, TV shows, cartoons, magazines, etc. As time went by, I disliked my gender. Not only because I bleed every damn month but because this “superior strong image” will not be see in me according to society. Society has a strong foundation on who has the strong masculine role. By stating this, I agree that many women might have “penis envy”, not because we want that exterior part on our bodies, but because of the way society perceived a man’s image to be. In the article, “Feminism and Critical Theory” by Spivak, she points out how Freud said that the clitoris is just a “small penis”. As if he was saying that women are “wanna be” males who were not able to become the male figure that they wanted to be due to this “small penis” not growing long, powerful and good enough. Basically (to my interpretation), he was perceiving this “small penis” as a loss of hope for women to become strong, masculine and powerful as men as perceived.
What is Womb Envy?
Freud states what penis envy is, but does not bring up the women and their power, he just speaks of their weakness or in his case their “small penis”. “Freuds account of penis envy as the chief determinant of femininity similarly avoids controlling the womb as a place of production or the possibility of women envy”. I completely agree with Spivak when she states this quotes because, men are afraid when it comes down to women controlling their own bodies. If a woman controls her own body, then she is in control of the whole production and reproduction system. Many men want to label themselves as the person who created the child and should be the one to get rewarded for doing so. However, the fact that we hold the power to reproduce scares men because they finally do not control this one thing in the world. Making them aggressive and possessive with women as they call them “mine”. Males are threatened when adoption and abortion are brought up because they see how the women is making her own choice in whether she wants to reproduce or not and these men right away want to take action and control of the “situation”.
How do we see this in our country?
We see this with our new president, Donald Trump. Who is another male figure that is threatened with the idea of women controlling their bodies and that is why he believes that abortion should be prohibited. When Donald Trump was signing the ban on federal money for abortions (that was going to international groups to perform or provide information on abortions) the only gender we see are men. Male figures who are clearly seen to have womb envy. This picture of ALL men signing this ban went rival, tweets emerged to the fact that women, the ones who are in control of their OWN bodies, are the ones who are not seen standing around that table. (hm, seems rare…NOT). As said in a tweet by Martin Belam, “As long as you live you’ll never see a photography of 7 women signing legislation about what men can do with their reproductive organs”. WOMB ENVY is exactly what we see here and the fact that (some) men want to control the power we have and take it away from us is not right and is trying to have us envy their power (penis envy). This just makes women upset that the power of penis envy has more power than womb envy IN society. No matter how much power we think us as females have, a male figure will always come along and control us and take our power away, as we see Donald Trump do.
Case of Motshidisi Pascalina (Pasca) in Evaton
There is so much threat and womb envy when we see cases of gay women being abused (verbally and physically) or killed just because they are “gay”. Men get scared with the idea of how women have the power to reproduce yet they switch their gender, making it impossible for them to do so (reproduce). Pasca was a lesbian in Evaton, who was 21 years old and had completed her final high school exams when she went to a part in December. Two days after the part they found her body in a field which was beaten and mutilated. Corrective rape falls into the idea of womb envy; there have been many cases of lesbian women who are raped as if men want to use their “penis power” to “change” lesbians and make them “women” again. Some men are so angry towards the way women can control their bodies that they make them go through rape and torture to “prove a point”.
Conclusion: How Spivak and Angela Davis’s arguments are different.
In conclusion, Spivak can be seen as going against what Angela Davis believes. We see how Angela Davis points out how gender has value as she speaks about women in the prison system but we also see how Spivak is showing that gender is not always what matters. However, from the look of it what matters to Spivak is the control and power that one can and should have for their body. Overall, show how all women can do what men can even if they do not have a large powerful penis attached to them (women).
