Body Politics and Gender in Women's Poems in Tamil
Mubeen Sadhika
• The journey of women's writing started in 300BC with Sangam Literature. In the ancient
Sangam literature there were two directions of writing. One is the inner layer and the other one
is the outer layer. These writings naturally exhibit the freedom, and liberation in their
expression. There was hardly any women's writing in the epics period which followed after the
Sangam literature. During that time the femininity was defined and demarcated by the writings
of men. After which in the period of virtue, few women writers emerged with the writings on
ethics and morality. Then came the colonial period in which women writers started writing
novels. Though there were not many in numbers only a few of them wrote some notable novels.
In the nineties after the liberalization of the country's economy, the feminist activism saw a new
high and lots of women poets came to write. Their thinking reflected radical feminism. Some of
them started experimenting postmodern feminism too. The body politics is a concept formed to
counter the view of seeing women as bodies. Body Politics is formed to break the rules under
which sexuality was expressed. The biased approach towards femininity has been straightened
by the concept of Body Politics. The Sangam literature had this sort of thinking quite naturally.
In Tamil, women's writings also adapted the concept of body politics to fortify the feeling of
subjugation. In the nineties, women wrote about body politics deliberately showing the assertion
of feministic ideology.
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In the ancient Tamil literature, namely the Sangam literature, there were two main concepts
divided the content. One is Agam or the endo or the interior and the other one is Puram or the
exo or the exterior. The Tamil literature got developed in the areas of, agam(endo) and
puram(Exo) as love had retained the space of agam and the space of puram was occupied by
Bhakti(devotion), caste and politics. So the journey of writing itself started with these two
definite directions. In the case of women's writing also the same directions followed but with
female consciousness and subjectivity. We can analyze the female consciousness under two
propositions:1.Body Politics 2.Gender
1.Body Politics
-Feminine Language
-Phallocentric Language
2.Gender
-Transcending the Gender
-Language of the Self
Body Politics
Body politics, in fact, determined the language which forced the feminine subjugation. To
neglect women's body as having a lack and considering the fulfilment would come through the
"other" namely man's hegemony made feminists put forward women's body like a weapon. The
politics which presents women as bodies were conquered by opposing it through the same kind
of politics. The body politics is a concept which opposes seeing women as biological bodies. The
physiological view negates the space to feminine consciousness. The mind and body dualism led
to regard women as commodities. So the writing on women-centric literature sounds an
expression against the oppression that women had undergone. It somehow appears to have an
eye on the consequence rather than on the source of the problem. The feminine occurrence
happens when mind as body and body as mind connected together. By describing the need of a
woman's body just like man's body, treating the equality as freedom, supposing liberation as
going beyond limits of the body also constructed a definite type of language called feminine
language.
Feminine Language
Though the language has no difference for masculine or feminine the difference between the
oppressed and the oppressor definitely shows the characteristics of the feminine language. The
feminine language always mirrors the "other". The feminine language is conscious of the lack or
the deficiency of the feminity. The lack is defined as something in short of the completeness
compared to male subjectivity. But the feminine language so far had shown such characteristics
it is time to get rid of such rancour in language and create an awareness of feminine gender. For
e.g in Sangam Literature, one song goes like this. This is sung by Avvaiyar, this poem expresses
the feminine language in an open manner:
Kurunthogai meaning Short Anthology, Avaiyar:
Will I hit? Will I attack?
I do not know what to do!
Will I scream ‘Ah’ and ‘Oh’
citing some reason?
The breeze swirls and sways,
and this town sleeps, not
aware of my painful disease of lust
This type of feminine language continues in the women's writings even to this day. The feminine
language here openly expresses the pain that a woman body could undergo. The culture has
made the obscure mode of presentation for women and when that barrier got broken, the
expression gives pleasure to the male community who were part of the camouflaged campaign
and would start enjoying that as it was for their consumption too. The feminine language also has
such drawbacks but it was the only way for female consciousness to intend the meaning.
Phallocentric Language
The subjectivity based on heterosexuality puts forth the femininity taking masculinity as its base.
As the masculinity dominates all the domains, the feminity has to counter the hegemony as well
as have to search for the uninfluenced language. The male subjectivity forms the phallocentric
language but the female consciousness gets adapted to the masochistic requirements and fulfils it
effectively when gets suppressed. But the language against to that has not established as a unique
mode of presentation. The phallocentric language anesthetise the scene of creation so the
feminine language struggles to find a new path. Instead, it falls prey to the phallocentric pressure.
For e.g., let us see what Meenakshi's poem tells about phallocentric language.
Tearing our tops
Drilling the skin coat
Casting of the cat
Vision becomes the hands
Hands become stings
Are carried by our co-passengers
That we noticed
After a long time
We looked inside
-written by R.Meenakshi, in the beginning of 20th century titled as "We looked inside," the
society's Phallocentric attitude in language is criticised in this poem. The phallocentric language
is cited here in a subtle manner and it opposes it with a search for the right self. Moreover, it
subjugates the language to self-analysis.
Gender
Gender is constructed by the society. Gender is not a casual consequence of sex. It is not an
authentication of sex. Sex and culturally constructed gender are basically not connected. Gender
is known through the institution of heterosexuality. Femininity, masculinity, and other genders
are constructed through difference. It is an assumption to fix these in a body. The body is
common. It is a mixed collection of all genders. Gender is constructed because the
heterosexuality produces all discourse and power. If this understanding is to be followed then the
gender trouble can be avoided in writing.
Feminism is not opposing men. If gender is described using the ideology of Julia Christeva it
will become clear in detail. When the child was served by the mother its subjectivity was not
formed completely. While learning the language, while the need for forming the subjectivity
arises, while pressurized by the culture, the crisis occurs to choose the gender from the language
of culture. With the help of mother's vision the baby could observe everything, now it has to see
with its own subjectivity. It seeks the other to construct its own self. At that time it chooses the
gender in the cultural language. From that moment the performance of gender starts. This is how
the gender is constructed through society. The first challenge is to identify the gender orientation.
Transcending the Gender
After the introduction of modern literature, the rise of feminism influenced many women writers
in Tamil. They started to transcend the gender which gave the freedom to break all the barriers of
culture. It is possible by becoming conscious of the construction of the society and the formation
of the language for them.
Mystique horse
For friend, the body was a show-piece
a continuing maze, for sister
and mother its an eternal sanctity, dirt of the God
for the father it a currency to be kept and safe and secure
when the body was get caught feeding the fish in the tank
my body had opened
they stole my genitals and started playing with it
under the lotus leaves rolling it again and again
claiming that it was like a diamond cusp
grandmother had told that the body was her ornament
for the tiger, its body was its jungle
for my kid, it was an unwearable sun
for the lover, it was a lotus pond
for me, it was my body the mystique horse that I climbed
the bring back the body parts that flew away
for me, it was my body the mystique horse that I climbed
not a woman, not a man not in a woman
not in a man the mystique horse that I have been bringing up.
This poem erases the gender difference by describing the feminine and masculine genders in the
same body. In fact, it attributes the characteristics of masculine gender to feminine too. The
neutral body becomes the exploration of mixed feelings of both genders.
Language of the self
As Simone de' Beauvoir has told, "Woman is not born but becomes one," the making or
becoming is not an activity that transforms a state into other. Its a kind of transformation which
occurs to specify the self more prominently. The feminine body had a low value in the culture
and to oppose those sorts of expressions a language was created. The language was exaggerated
in overtly writing the body and the politics behind it.
For e.g let us see Leena Manimekalai's poem.
One Day
I removed my skin and flung away
I stripped my hair
The blood was dripping in the holes
I turned out to be a bald woman and called for love
Lovers came
With their black eyes
They were clever in weaving the cobweb
They made the blood as thread and spun
They spread the eight legs
with reddish criss-cross web
the sun in the evening fell in the red
at that time also I told
I am a thoroughly loved person
Again I am
The first beautiful woman in this world
The poem tries to explain that in spite of removing the features of the woman, the body remains
as the political space for the self and its expression. The self here becomes the body and declares
that the body or the self always remains "beautiful". The beauty here doesn't mean the physical
one. It shows the transparent nature of the language of the self. To overcome the block of
phallocentric construction of the self, creative works with shock value were produced. To defy
that the women's life was filled with lust, many poems were written with exaggerated lust.
• The awareness of next level of thinking in feminism by writers and theorists had been stalled
in a big way. So the feministic poems have also become stagnant. The body politics has to be
echoed in a right manner to explore the preference of the sexual attitude. The feminine language
should not suffice the male consciousness. The gender as a performative should get aware in the
consciousness of all the genders. The transcending of the gender is possible only when the
process of socialisation could be understood. The subjectivity has been deeply rooted in the
culture and the socialization guides it to behave with the appropriate gender makes today's
poems echo the heterosexual search as a normal attitude. The subjectivity oscillates between the
individual desire and the cultural framework of inhibition. Though feminism has been in vogue
the discourse among the sexes still determined by the heterosexual preference. Hence the strong
opposing voice has been slightly toned down.
Bibliography
1.Butler, Judith, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity, Routledge, March
1990, New York
2. Davis Kathy, "Embody-ing Theory: Beyond Modernist and Postmodernist Readings of the
Body" in K.Davis (ed.) Embodied Practices, Sage,1997, London
3. Emily Martin, The Woman in the Body. A Cultural Analysis of Reproduction, Beacon Press,
1987, Boston
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Name:Mubeen Sadhika S K B
Designation:PhD Scholar
Institution:New College, Chennai
Contact No. 98840 52075
Email Id:[email protected]
