Thanks for pointing out the prescribed male gender role, which I feel is often overlooked, and by being overlooked makes the argument seem more radical than it probably is. I usually leave discussions of phallocentrism unsure of myself (for I do want to be perceived as manly (said the skinny kid), and I'm proud of my many manly impulses). I usually look back at my work (at my life) to find signs of the ever-present penis (or is phallus the more correct term? Sorry if I offend) to eradicate them, lest I be accused of the sexism (see also: racism, classism, ismism, etc…) that I have been trained to fear through the university and the workplace. God knows I'm trying (said the atheist). I'm a nice guy. I love everybody (with a few notable exceptions). I wrote a strong female character, stronger even than the male. We're cool then, right? Am I accepted then into the enlightened, new-age (a term no longer new, but in a Dr. Phil kind of way applicable) guy club? I honestly want to do right by everyone (because I value the impossible), but sometimes this shit is more limiting than that most crippling of desires: to write good (well). I sometimes feel guilty before I've even begun. The middle-class white boy does not want to be misconstrued as in favor of the dominant discourse (damn the man), but I often feel unwelcome in the conversation. “[Phallocentrism] occurs when the not necessarily comparable differences between [the two sexes] are reduced to a similarity, which renders them commensurable, and, not surprisingly, positions woman as man's inferior” (Grosz 174). Viva la Difference (pardon my French).

Just please don't be mad if I say something stupid.


Works Cited

Grosz, Elizabeth. Jacques Lacan: A Feminist Introduction. New York: Routledge, 1990.

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