Feminine Identity and Aesthetic Contemplation
Feminine Identity and Aesthetic Contemplation

Summary/Abstract: I have often wondered whether or not I am a feminist. The only conclusion that I have reached so far is that I am still looking for my identity. But what does being a feminist mean? Basically, it used to mean fighting for the same rights as men (this mentality marks modern feminism). Now it has led to fighting for the right to be different in the context of equality. Unfortunately, Romania is facing the coexistence of both meanings of the term “equality”, since Romanian women still suffer from a wide range of abuses. In this paper I will explore the multiple ways (ranging from undesirability of feminization in antiquity, to the fashioning of bodies) in which patriarchy confirms the conjunction of femininity with an aesthetic and sometimes with death. I will proposition to illustrate that the female body as an object of aesthetic contemplation is also bound up with a certain violence towards femininity and, thus, towards women. Furthermore, I argue that the construction of feminine illustrates a displacement in a gendered way of thinking from the aesthetic to the metaphysical. This mental patteren enables even the best of women to become strongly misogynic.

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