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Summary:
Throughout time, women have demonstrated amazing capabilities of adaptation to deal with the constraints of society in order to preserve their sexual pleasure and to adapt their feminity to fashion, moral, aesthetics, ethics, political evolution of the time. Thus feminity was bound to meet with feminism that advocates equal rights with men. Feminity based on motherhood must redefine itself on the ground of women's work and contraception. Within half a century, the pill has helped get rid of the disgrace from which female organs suffered. Gynecology, considered a degrading activity, was an anathema to the Church, the art of giving birth was not taught in Medical Schools for centuries. Contraception is a major step forward in the evolution of societies and has shed a new light on most social phenomena. Women, no longer fearing pregancy thanks to contraception, and economically independent thanks to work can now choose to exist through their redefined feminity and in a history shared with men. Feminity has evolved since it tasted values which until now were masculine : sexual, freedom, professional success and financial autonomy. It has been in feminism in order to overcome it and to blossom. It defines the women of the end of the century with all contradictions. Throughout time, women have demonstrated amazing capabilities of adaptation to deal with the constraints of society in order to preserve their sexual pleasure and to adapt their feminity to fashion, moral, aesthetics, ethics, political evolution of the time. Thus feminity was bound to meet with feminism that advocates for equal rights with men.
Feminity based on motherhood must redefine itself on the ground of women's and contraception. Within half a century, the pill has helped get rid of the disgrace from which female organs suffered. Gynecology, considered a degrading activity, was an anathema to the Church, the art of giving birth was not taught in Medical Schools for centuries. Contraception is a major step forward in the evolution of societies and has shed a new light on most social phenomena. Women, no longer fearing pregancy thanks to contraception, and economically independent thanks to work can now choose to exist through their redefined feminity and in a history shared with men. Freedom, sexuality, contraception
Separating sexuality from procreation marked the advent of sexuality as a game of pleasure and desire with a partner of choice. Contraception reinforced the feminine identity and the dominant-dominated relationship is replaced by a more egalitarian one. Men have lost their power over procreation, they are no longer decision makers, the penis has lost its symbolic value. The idea of the couple is shaken by freedom of sexuality not only within the couple but also outside of the couple, and adds a new dimension that the couple can no longer disregard, that is, the possibility to accept the absence of desire of the act, to express it and to hear it expressed. Thus the intra-uterine device is, according to Freud, where the male adult once dreamt a fantasy entry into the mother's womb. But the IUD is already there and is therefore blamed for all sorts of unpleasant sensations, pricking, possibily mutilation, the problem of castration comes back leading to less pleasure, early ejaculation and even impotency in some extreme cases. Experienced as a foreign body that replaces the sacred child, it can trigger a psychological intolerance and becomes the bad object that the woman wishes to expel. In the old days women used contraception to limit the number of pregnancies, a child if I want and when I want. Today, women use it in most cases in the name of freedom and sexuality.
The propositions in terms of contraception must be varied and adapted to each case. The monolithic discourse of the beginnings of contraception can no longer be heard by a well informed population who relies as much on the media as on the physician. This discourse must evolve step by step during the women's genital life. Thus, a survey concerning 400 women aged 16-45 between February and March 1995 in the three countries - France, Germany and Great Britain -, indicates thats 26 % of women use no contraception, one quarter of young women (20-24 years old) prefers condoms (due to VD). All ages included, 43 % are on the pill, but most of all women change their contraceptive method during their genital life. Between 25 and 34, 46 % are on the pill, 10 % use the IUD, 17 % use condoms. Between the age of 35 and 45, 25 % are on the pill, 17 % use IUD and 12 % use condoms. According to the INED, INSEE survey in 1994, the main contraceptive method in France are the pill and the IUD, the rate of use being equal for the 35-38 year old women. Thus, contraception did not liberate women as such but gave them the opportunity to think their lives differently. Thanks to contraception, sexuality was able to express itself, and enabled each and every one to talk about what they desire, feel and also what they believe in. Feminity and society
According to Lacan, "woman does not exist, she does not belong to the definable dimension" ; according to the French dictionary Larousse, "feminity is the set of features specific to women". If so, identified by whom ? By man for man for whom nothing is definable. The freedom to take contraception or not is a language to be deciphered. Freud says : "sexuality needs obstacles, risk adds spice to sex, an obstacle-free, conflict-free sexuality is asthenic". Does sexual spice find its reality in the fear of pregnancy ? Freedom is to choose, to choose is to think. To quote Freud once more, the first sexual organ is the brain. So what is to be understood from the acceptation of contraception ?
It contributes to improving the relationship of the couple and makes it possible to plan the birth if the couple wishes so. It can be used to normalize cycles, to treat functionnal disorders (dysmenorrhea, acne, menometrorarhagia, PMS, pains, etc.), and thus improve sexuality. But what about the refusals, the interruptions or frequent forgettings, the wish to have a child, the esthical or religious reason, the feeling of being ill-at-ease (desire for a child not shared by the partner, the pill badly tolerated related to the lack of tolerance for sexuality, an expression ot the couple's problems, etc.) There could be other reasons for such refusals : lack of information, fear about hormones, fear of putting on weight, of becoming sterile, frigid, etc. There could also be some concern vis-à-vis normality (verification of its normality as a source of abortion). When analyzing the behaviour of women faced with contraception, emphasis must be placed on the impotance that the physician cares not only for the woman but also for the couple in such a request. Thus, G. Marvani reports on a survey concerning the first hundred visits for contraception in a specialized centre.
Women who are either frigid or who do not master their genitality tend to favor the pill (oral way) : the pill makes it possible to ignore the sexual organ and maintains that ambiguity. N. Grafeille explains how in a pratice the IUD is experienced and why it can be badly accepted, in three years of experience, within a sexology consultation in the gynaecology department. Indeed, the symbolism of the IUD brings back old fears and fantasies repressed not only by the women but also by their partners. "To become a woman is to accept not to be a man, absence of penis, guilt, self-denial, sacrifice", says Freud.
Women will be saved only it they forget their feminity, according to Simone de Beauvoir, in her book The Second Sex, published in 1949. According to Perla Servan-Schreiber, feminity can be defined in a more positive way, as a choice of a way of life, an intimate experience which is based on the concern for the other, for a conciliation strategy, with love and happiness as the prime elements. Feminity expresses its truths in sexuality, pleasure to cause desire and to desire in turn and to give and have pleasure, sexuality is the expression of the body and soul made one. Eroticism, freeedom to experience sensual fantasies within the couple is a recent acquisition, says Willi Pasini, and this translates the evolution of feminity, towards more freedom in the body, and more freedom in the social codes. The psychoanalytical hypothesis according to which any human being is in an unconscious dimension both masculine and feminine in its variable relations to each individual, and women in their fight for equality have allowed their masculine dimension to emerge. Contraception has enabled women to appropriate their bodies and express their desire ; work has enabled them to appropriate their time and space. Feminism denounced sexual violences and enabled politicans to vote laws to defend women. The shamed single girl with a child has been transformed into the single mother, the first was guilty, the second is responsible. Finally, sexuality ignores the past and sexuality knows all about the seventies. It seems that aroud year 2000, when freedom will shift to safety (VD), love will take a larger place. To make love without risk can lead to love without love and thus to love without pleasure. If rights carry hope for pleasure, they cannot help desire.
Happiness and feminity
Happiness is a state of total satisfaction, it is the loyal enjoyment of the self, according to Montaigne. More freedom, more choice, more mobility do not necessarily provide more happiness. It is undeniable that feminity has gained undignity of life, but it has also discovered the contradictions between political and private life, duration and freedom, desire and duration. In this turmoil, the legitimacy of the couple comes from the pleasure of being together. To satisfy the desire of the other is a sign of freedom, to identity oneself with of the other is a sign of slavery. But for a long time feminity has been incapable of acknowledging its own desire for want of a desire means of appropriating one's before appropriating one's body. It was necessary to access sexual and economical autonomy before accessing inner freedom, which is a sign of the birth of the new feminity. Feminity means that to live is to choose and to choose means to make sacrifices, no longer just the sacrifice of the self which used to define traditional feminity, but rather sacrifice for the Self to achieve choices which range from freedom to happiness. The path which goes from freedom, political ambition of feminism to happy intimate experience of feminity is an art of life, an adventure where the body, work, motherhood, sexuality and the couple take on a new meaning based on desire. Conclusion
Feminity has evolued since it tasted values which until now were masculine : sexual freedom, professional success and financial autonomy. It has been able to take in feminism in order to overcome it and to blossom, it defines the woman of the end of the century with all its contradictions.