GUEST COLUMN: "Creating a new standard"

Nijmie Dzurinko says women must create their own culture, rather than trying to achieve success and fulfillment within the existing male system. Confused, intimidated, afraid, timid, unfortunate, in need of rescuing, helpless -- these are the attributes of women that the makers of feminine culture and their pawns, models of all sorts, communicate to society. The values of "femininity" have a negative effect on women. As soon as women begin learning to be "beautiful," they have to squelch natural and inherent freedoms: bodily space and comfort, physical growth and activity, creative energy, spontaneity, excitement and interest and curiosity. All of these natural inclinations are diverted or perverted in various directions. Confidence and affection for one's body becomes shame and hatred. The body becomes a huge palette, and no part is beyond reformation. The maintenance of culturally defined beauty requires much time, effort, pain and money on the part of the woman. But no price is too great. For "masculinity" and the positive values associated with it to remain firm, "femininity" by definition has to be a diametrically opposed system of values and action. This male/female dichotomy is dangerous for both men and women. It is frightening to realize that the reason for the stigmatization of gay men -- the characteristic of their being that results in hatred and wrath from so many heterosexual men -- is the perception that gay men have denied their masculinity and become "feminine." Here we can see the underlying hatred that men really bear for the concept of the "feminine." Unfortunately, the world of feminine culture would have us assume that the realm of beauty is an appropriate one for giving vent to creativity, gaining self-control and feeling self-worth. Think of what a limited and pathetic sphere this is. Infomercials contain panels of women talking seriously about the viability of a certain skin-care product, but women artists and composers and writers are painfully few. Women lead a deformed and perverted cultural existence, re-informed by the history of female repression. The foundation of our cultural heritage has not only excluded women but also debased and enslaved them. The historical figures who we revere and admire for their cultural and intellectual contributions were operating on sexist beliefs. Women have been left with an anemic and aggravating heritage. No matter what "advances" women are making today, we are still centuries behind culturally and intellectually. The only way to change the course of history is to reclaim our humanity. That very word is encoded with sexism. The positive values it suggests -- the ability to think, reason, create and love to a degree to which no other animal is capable, are ascribed to man, not woman. Female reclamation cannot be accomplished by retaining our programmed allegiances to socialized norms. Women have to be brave enough to create new definitions, not just conform to old standards. We have to be willing to find self-worth in new places, and to think independently and often in ways contrary to what we have been taught and what is reinforced all around us. It is evident that feminine culture succeeds in stunting the growth and humanity of women. Few of us can escape its grasp altogether. At times we are vain and vengeful, with a fetishistic attachment to objects and a staggering materialism. For many of us, our greatest sphere of control is our own bodies, and we engage in endless unspoken competition with all other women in the ridiculous game of attraction. We are estranged from both younger women and older women by jealousy and fear. This condition does not promote growth. Women should be searching not for a redefinition of femininity, but for a redefinition of humanity itself. We shouldn't strive to combine elements of the dichotomy -- such as trying to be smart and feminine -- but to eclipse the opposing pairs altogether in an affirmation of humanness. It is up to women to help lead human beings to a new consciousness -- not by more of us ascending to the rank of CEO, but by bringing into question the very societal structures that males have created and maintained. The gaining of rights doesn't only involve winning at men's games and learning to control the power structures that they have developed. If we are committed to asserting that male power and oppression, which for so many centuries has held women as its prime target, is wrong, then now that the restraints have been eased, we must challenge the systems that men have controlled. We must have an outlook that reaches farther than our own economic security, to increasing the possibilities for human beings to find true worth, self-expression and social justice. Our victories in the realm of men are hypocritical because they serve to endorse systems that automatically require the subjugation of the weakest. It is obvious that we must use what we can in order to truly gain the positive power that we need, but we must look on our ascension as a mere concession to a system that is already in place, not one that we desire to promote and continue. And, as some power does shift into the hands of women, we should not ignore the possibility that we may unwittingly be taking over the role of oppressor.