Summary Of Disconnect Young's Throwing Like A Girl
While the glass ceiling hangs over our heads we must forget the saying that “those in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.” Women face an invisible barrier between the limited space they inhabit and the space that is actually available to them. The glass ceiling is traditionally defined as “an unofficially acknowledged barrier to advancement in a profession, especially affecting women and members of minorities” (Merriam-Webster). I argue that through Young’s analysis of the modalities specific to feminine spatiality, it becomes clear that the glass ceiling exists not only in professional environments but throughout a woman’s life. Women experience space as enclosed or confining, the severance between a “here” and a “yonder” creates a disconnect
…show more content…
Young states that through Beauvoir’s account it seems as if it is “woman’s anatomy and physiology as such that at least in part determine her unfree status” (23). However, it is not the anatomy of a woman that weighs her down, but society’s patriarchal views of women’s bodies, and thus women’s relationship with space. Young clarifies, as should I, that the claims made within both her paper and mine apply to the “feminine” existence and therefore do not apply to all women. The feminine existence is “a set of structures and conditions that delimit the typical situation of being a woman in a particular society, as well as the typical way in which this situation is lived by the women themselves” (24). Young combines Beauvoir’s account of the “feminine” existence, and the situation of women with the theory of the lived body as expressed by Merleau-Ponty. Merleau-Ponty theorises that “phenomenal space arises out of motility and lived relations of space are generated by the capacities of the body’s motion and the intentional relations that motion constitutes” (32). If lived space arises from our relationship with space and the ability to use our bodies, a connection can be drawn from the situation of women to our perception of space as enclosed or
Young states that through Beauvoir’s account it seems as if it is “woman’s anatomy and physiology as such that at least in part determine her unfree status” (23). However, it is not the anatomy of a woman that weighs her down, but society’s patriarchal views of women’s bodies, and thus women’s relationship with space. Young clarifies, as should I, that the claims made within both her paper and mine apply to the “feminine” existence and therefore do not apply to all women. The feminine existence is “a set of structures and conditions that delimit the typical situation of being a woman in a particular society, as well as the typical way in which this situation is lived by the women themselves” (24). Young combines Beauvoir’s account of the “feminine” existence, and the situation of women with the theory of the lived body as expressed by Merleau-Ponty. Merleau-Ponty theorises that “phenomenal space arises out of motility and lived relations of space are generated by the capacities of the body’s motion and the intentional relations that motion constitutes” (32). If lived space arises from our relationship with space and the ability to use our bodies, a connection can be drawn from the situation of women to our perception of space as enclosed or