FEMALE SEXUALITY, A SOCIAL ISSUE

by Lida Prypchan

 

An understanding of female sexuality cannot be achieved by the anatomical observation of women.  It must be viewed in the light of social reality.

 

The most authentic and solid form of human participation in society is through productive work.  If we examine the level of women’s participation in productive work the elements of restriction become evident.  This situation can be explained by the following reasons, among others: firstly, history has been made by men and it is therefore they who determine how women may participate in society.  Secondly, the manner of women’s participation has been determined by the sectors of society that possess the means of production, which in turn create their own specific values within an ideology of domination.  This ideology provides for conformity in a total thought process that prevents men as well as women from truly understanding the critical situation that woman’s problem constitutes.  Thirdly, this ideology of domination perceives women as soft, weak, passive, who do not enjoy having to think and who are conformist, superficial, given to pleasure and frivolity.  This ideology of domination uses all its resources in order to reproduce this model, which permits the perpetuation of domination.  The so-called “feminine personality” has thus been created – and the social communications media impose this as much upon the minds of women as of men.  On the other hand, it has been established that biological differences between man and woman do not imply a condition of inequality on the part of woman.  Anger Egg expresses it thus: “Today one cannot accept any reason, either biological or psychological, that justifies a woman’s dependence on man, or her situation of disadvantage and inferiority.”  What happens is that this type of society proposes a model of a woman that both women as well as men have internalized.  This has resulted in a situation that generates a set of preconceptions, on a woman’s part, that she should behave according to the requirements she supposes men expect of her.  Men, consequently, share in this by completely assuming the role that society has assigned them.  We must accept the challenge of creating models that do not yet exist and invent new forms.  In short, we must get out of the mold and stop treating women as objects, a behavior mode that has come about as a result of our cultural, political and ideological conditioning.  This is not an individual task but a collective one.  A social change must come about to allow equal participation for both men and women.

Female liberation does not mean imitating men or falling into their same errors.  Whoever understands it this way is mistaken.  Female liberation involves a social change that does not exclude women from a fair wage, a change in the law that almost always protects and defends men, as well as in the social and family norms and customs that encourage sexual prejudice against women.