Georgia O'Keeffe: Music Pink and Blue
Woman must write her self: must write about women and bring women to writing, from which they have been driven away as violently as from their bodies – for the same reasons, by the same law, with the same fatal goal. Woman must put herself into the text – as into the world and into history – by her own movement.
Here they are, returning, arriving over and again, because the unconscious is impregnable. They have wandered around in circles, confined to the narrow room in which they’ve been given a deadly brainwashing. … As soon as they begin to speak, at the same time as they’re taught their name, they can be taught that their territory is black: because you are Africa, you are black. Your continent is dark. Dark is dangerous. You can’t see anything in the dark, you’re afraid. Don’t move, you might fall. Most of all, don’t go into the forest. And so we have internalized this horror of the dark.
By writing her self, woman will return to the body which has been more than confiscated from her, which has been turned into the uncanny stranger on display – the ailing or dead figure, which so often turns out to be the nasty companion, the cause and location of inhibitions. Censor the body and you censor breath and speech at the same time.
To write. An act which will not only “realize” the decensored relation of woman to her sexuality, to her womanly being, giving her access to her native strength; it will give her back her goods, her pleasures, her organs, her immense bodily territories which have been kept under seal: it will tear her away from the superegoized structure in which she has always occupied the place reserved for the guilty.
It is by writing, from and toward women, and by taking up the challenge of speech which has been governed by the phallus, that women will confirm women in a place other than that which is reserved in and by the symbolic, that is, in a place other than silence.
*Excerpted from “The Laugh of the Medusa” by Hélène Cixous, and gifted to Disturbed Stranger, a woman who always writes her body.
I suggets you link Fahad to this. Seriously. And not so seriously. Simultaneously that is.
This reminds me of Ascia Djebar’s Fantasia.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
kil 3am oo ihya b5eir :*
That was wonderful and provocative. Happy birthday
I have always felt a deep kinship and affinity for the art of Georgia O’ Keefe, most especially her mesmerizing flowers. It is something I drew on long ago in my own photographic work. I have a huge collection of macro photographs I have obsessively taken of many different flowers since I was 18, and Georgia’s had something to do with inspiring me when I first started.
Happy New Year dear Hanan
May the coming year bring much joy and contentment for you and your loved ones.
P.S. Impromptu book review: After reading “Girls of Riyadh” I have to say I did not like it. I don’t deny the real value of the stories and the sadness of the personal tragedies of these women, but coming from a cosseted and privileged perspective of Saudi society makes it a rarified one which is not representative of the plight of Saudi women as a whole, and is very unsatisfying for me. Yes, I understand the point is that they are being toyed with and used despicably regardless of their life of privilege and seeming social immunity from such treatment (just as Kuwaiti women are being mistreated in the same way) since they belong to Saudi upper crust, but it is hard to feel any connection to their real pain and the real tragedy of their stories since it is not put in context with that of other less privileged Saudi women (and there are many). I personally have a few extremely elegant, highly intellectual and hard working Saudi female friends whom I respect and admire greatly (from both privileged-upper crust and more middle class backgrounds). I did not feel this book did them all justice. Again, it had more of a soap opera-ish quality which irked me considering how important and pivotal the issue of Saudi women as a whole should be.
Firstly, I would like to thank you deeply on that meaningful gift… Secondly, Angel and Ms. Baker thank you as well.
“A woman who always writes her body”- wonderfully put, although I’ve never thought of myself that way…
Anyway I haven’t been writing in a while… U think I’ve lost my spunk? Or just being plain old lazy?
amethyst. Poor Fahad
In terms of how you think of yourself, you should read Barthes’ Death of the Author. An old and much debatable text, but still so powerful and agreeable 
Ms. baker. You and I share too many values, too many opinions. I agree with you on your opinion regarding Girls of Riyath. I have actually come to accept that almost all, if not all, Arabic (Indian, African, etc) literature of revolt that is published in English is at fault and questionable. English readers require the exotic in Arabic literature (in spite of years of critique in that field), so authors, realizing this, tend to imregnate their work with the exotic, claiming that it is the authentic. This results in literature that is unreliable as a source of truth, which is fine by me. Literature does not need to be truthful. The problem with Girls of Riyath and other such texts is that they pose themselves as real, not as fiction. And I just can’t buy that the only real is that which is exotic.
Disturbed Stranger. I see that your spunk is back