moiram@tektronix.UUCP (Moira Mallison ) (09/07/85)
Linda Schierse Leonard writes in her book _The Wounded Woman_: "Recently I asked one of my classes to describe their images and experience of feminine spirit. This same class had described their fantasy of the good father earlier in the term. That was not difficult for them to do and their descriptions of the good father were amazingly similar. But when it came to describing feminine spirit, they were at first stymied. The descriptions were quite different. The one common experience was that none of these women felt they could use their mother as a model. They had to turn to themselves and try to bring out their own experience." I thought a discussion of our images and experiences of the feminine spirit would be an interesting topic for this forum. Moira Mallison tektronix!moiram
mccolm@ucla-cs.UUCP (09/09/85)
<here I go, attempting to dominate net.women again...>
It occurred to me in reading the quote Moira took from a book, that dealt
with grade-school girls (?) trying to show their idea of the feminine
spirit, that children are pretty canny. Children have a funny way of seeing
through the facades that adults weave about themselves. It may be that the
girls in question did not see their mothers as good examples of feminine
spirit because they sensed that their mothers were not credible examples
of what the girls wanted to be in life (conflict between the then-incomplete
indoctrination to want to raise a family and the desire to "have an exciting
life"), or that they were picking their mothers' dissatisfactions (or
frustrations) with their,the mothers', lives. The existence of conflicts
discredits the legend of the "happily ever after" family life.
Note I said "it may be". I reserve the right to be wrong.
--fini--
Eric McColm
UCLA (oo' - kluh) Funny Farm for the Criminally Harmless
UUCP: ...!{ihnp4,trwspp,cepu,ucbvax,sdcrdcf}!ucla-cs!mccolm
ARPA: mccolm@LOCUS.UCLA.EDU
Quotes on the Nature of Existence:
"To be, or not to be..." -Hamlet (Wm. Shakespeare)
"I think, therefore I am." -R. Descartes
"<Gleep!>" -Gleep (Robt. Asprin)moiram@tektronix.UUCP (Moira Mallison ) (09/16/85)
In article <6803@ucla-cs.ARPA> mccolm@ucla-cs.UUCP (Eric McColm) writes: ><here I go, attempting to dominate net.women again...> > >It occurred to me in reading the quote Moira took from a book, that dealt >with grade-school girls (?) trying to show their idea of the feminine >spirit..... Huh? Please read a little more carefully: The one common experience was that none of these WOMEN felt they could use their mother as a model. They had to turn to themselves and try to bring out their own experience. (emphasis added) However, your point is well-made. Certainly, my difficulty with identifying with my mother as a role model when I was younger has had a lot to do with my feelings about being a woman, and with having to turn elsewhere to find positive feminine role models. Moira Mallison tektronix!moiram