Do Women Need to Unsex Themselves to Gain Power - Caryl Churchill's Top Girls
Feminism and Gender Studies
Do Women Need to Unsex Themselves to Gain Power? : Forgotten Womanhood, Capitalism and Clashes of Class in Caryl Churchill’s Top Girls
Ayça ATAKAN DENİZ
Introduction
‘’Unsex me here’’ (Macbeth, Act I, Scene 5, 46)
Why did Lady Macbeth want to be unsexed and leave her womanhood behind in a play written by Shakespeare at the beginning of 17th century? What was her purpose when she asked this from the spirits? The answer is definite: power. All she wanted was being as powerful as a man. She wanted her excessive womanly feelings of compassion and fear to be taken away from her and to be transformed into a warrior. This was her vivid way of asking to be stripped of feminine weakness and invested with masculine resolve.
Throughout the ages, women have symbolized weakness, redundant feeling of mercy and fear which have become stumbling blocks in front of their ability to gain power both in ruling and in business world. Without doubt, another reason for this was repression by male dominated, patriarchal world. However, as far as the findings of materialist feminism are concerned, it has been possible to observe that women could be transformed into cruel, man – like creatures and torture other women once they gain power in business world as a result of the sharp capitalist system. In this sense, materialist feminism tries to underline the role of the class and history in making the oppression over the women and in a way admits that although women are bounded with a term of ‘’sisterhood’’ they oppress each other when they are in different classes. In other words this refers to the collapse of sisterhood. Are these women really sisters or can they be transformed into enemies under the influence of capitalism and search for power?
Materialist or socialist feminism emphasizes the differences which particularly refer to the social and economic differences between women, by positioning the gender oppression in the analysis of class and
Do Women Need to Unsex Themselves to Gain Power? : Forgotten Womanhood, Capitalism and Clashes of Class in Caryl Churchill’s Top Girls
Ayça ATAKAN DENİZ
Introduction
‘’Unsex me here’’ (Macbeth, Act I, Scene 5, 46)
Why did Lady Macbeth want to be unsexed and leave her womanhood behind in a play written by Shakespeare at the beginning of 17th century? What was her purpose when she asked this from the spirits? The answer is definite: power. All she wanted was being as powerful as a man. She wanted her excessive womanly feelings of compassion and fear to be taken away from her and to be transformed into a warrior. This was her vivid way of asking to be stripped of feminine weakness and invested with masculine resolve.
Throughout the ages, women have symbolized weakness, redundant feeling of mercy and fear which have become stumbling blocks in front of their ability to gain power both in ruling and in business world. Without doubt, another reason for this was repression by male dominated, patriarchal world. However, as far as the findings of materialist feminism are concerned, it has been possible to observe that women could be transformed into cruel, man – like creatures and torture other women once they gain power in business world as a result of the sharp capitalist system. In this sense, materialist feminism tries to underline the role of the class and history in making the oppression over the women and in a way admits that although women are bounded with a term of ‘’sisterhood’’ they oppress each other when they are in different classes. In other words this refers to the collapse of sisterhood. Are these women really sisters or can they be transformed into enemies under the influence of capitalism and search for power?
Materialist or socialist feminism emphasizes the differences which particularly refer to the social and economic differences between women, by positioning the gender oppression in the analysis of class and
Cited: Churchill, Caryl, Top Girls, 1982 Austin, Gayle, Feminist Theories for Dramatic Criticism, University of Michigan Press, 1990. Case, Sue Ellen, Feminism and Theatre, London, Mac Millan, 1988 Eagleton, Mary, Feminist Literary Theory / A Reader, Blackwell Press, 1995. Dolan, Jill, The Feminist Spectator as Critic, UMI Research Press, 1988. Jaggar, M Alison, Feminist Politics and Human Nature, Brighton, Harvester, 1983 Naismith, Bill, Commentary in Caryl Churchill, Top Girls, London, Methuen, 1991 Marwick, Arthur, British Society since 1945, London, Penguin, 1990