What do Women Want?

by Charlotte Blades in Philosophy, January 11, 2009

Sigmund Freud famously failed to answer the question ‘What do women really want?’ and since this many have tried to alternately answer this eminent question. Many texts have since been written over the years that some theorists may suggest slightly answer the inevitable question.

Sigmund Freud famously failed to answer the question ‘What do women really want?’ and since this many have tried to alternately answer this eminent question. Many texts have since been written over the years that some theorists may suggest slightly answer the inevitable question. After reading a wide range of novels based upon the gender and sexuality issue, and covering a lot of material based upon this subject I found that certain women characters do make it explicitly clear about what they want, however are their specific needs general to what all women want. I have decided to focus on three particular texts; Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, Virginia Woolf’s Orlando and Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar. I believe that these three novels are the best choice (if any) to clarify the issues raised by Freud. This is because through each novel it simply shows the downfall of each female protagonist as they strive for what they really want, whether it be blue eyes, to be rich, powerful and beautiful or to not have to keep conforming to society’s regulations.
Toni Morrison wrote The Bluest Eye between 1962 and 1965, yet the novel was set back in the 1940s. The Bluest Eye is set in the town where Toni Morrison grew up, and it is told from the perspective of a nine-year-old girl, the age Toni Morrison would have been the year the novel is set. The novel certainly portrays autobiographical aspects from Toni Morrison’s childhood, and it is said to have been a young girl Morrison met at school that sparked Morrison on to write this dramatic and compelling novel years later. I think that this particular book is a good choice to relate back to Freud’s question of ‘What women want’ because the whole story of Pecola is set her around her longing for blue eyes and to be beautiful. Of course what Pecola believes to be beautiful is only what society has implanted in her head as beauty. Society in the 1940s has made Pecola, and all other black coloured skin people, believe that white skin and blue eyes is true beauty, and so if white is beauty then black must be ugly. Of course it wasn’t just black children that the notion of beauty was thrown upon, white children also taunted Pecola because she was darker, and didn’t have blue eyes. Pecola however was a lot darker than some of the other black children and consequently some of them used their own insecurities to bully Pecola, “Black e mo. Black e mo. Yadaddsleepsnekked. Black e mo black e mo…” (Morrison, P. 50). When Morrison was writing this novel it was at the time when black was seen as beautiful, the Black is Beautiful movement was working to reclaim African-American beauty, yet Morrison was still thinking about the little black girl years ago whom longed for blue eyes. Toni Morrison set herself quite a challenge of contrasting two very different decades with very different views on colour and racism. The whole text of The Bluest Eye is about Pecola getting what she wants, hence being beautiful with blue eyes, and I believe that underneath the story of Pecola, Claudia and Frieda is Toni Morrison’s story of what she really wants; for women to be accepted equally by society regardless of the colour of skin. I feel that her points and wants are well and truly put across through Pecola, as it is society in The Bluest Eye that caused all the heartache for Pecola. It was due to society that she was bullied. It was due to society that her father treats her the way that he did and raped her, and it was due to society that Pecola eventually started to lose her mind and ended up the way she did. “Morrison’s argument is how influential society can be on an individual and how strongly it’s ideas and views are impressed upon that individual.” (Mellage). Morrison is simply describing to her audience how individual people’s racism destroyed lives back in the 1940s, and how the one true thing black people, in particular black women, wanted was for society to not view only white as beautiful but to see black people as human beings too. Morrison is saying that women didn’t only want blue eyes but that they just wanted to be accepted and seen as beautiful regardless of the colour of their eyes. Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye isn’t the only feminist novel that has the female protagonist wanting something different than to keep conforming to society and its expectations. In Virginia Woolf’s Orlando the character of Orlando, whether man or woman, is sick of having to change his/her actions in regards to his/her gender.
“Once she has experienced what it is like to be a woman, Orlando does not want to give this up, yet she longs for the freedom she had as a man. Here, Woolf suggests that perhaps society is too rigid with regard to the roles it forces men and women to play. Because they are so alike underneath their clothes, the genders should be allowed more freedom in their actions.”
(http://www.freebooknotes.com, 2006)

Of course as well as Orlando being about the want for societies expectations to change, it is also about the want for genders to be seen as one. At the time this book was written any novels that were based around lesbianism would not be published, and so Woolf found a way around this by writing about female lovers while one (Orlando) is in the body of a man. As well as Orlando being a fictional novel, it is also perceived as a biographical piece of writing on the life of Vita Sackville-West, a lover at one point to Virginia Woolf. Vita Sackville-West’s son Nigel Nicholson also referred to the text as a love letter written from Woolf to West. With so many hidden meanings behind the novel/biography and so many symbolic references to Vita Sackville-West it would be hard for anyone not to realize that this novel is solely about what women want, of course it is all conveyed through Woolf’s words and so the protagonists motif in the novel is perhaps a way for Woolf to express what she wants to say but feels she can not. Of course in 1992 Sally Potter directed her version of Orlando. I feel that this ‘adaptation’ of Woolf’s novel is not entirely in keeping with the actual theme of Woolf’s words. I understand that Potter wanted to put her own mark on this film rather than completely just act out the book, however in my opinion she seems to have missed out the important part of Orlando representing West and instead just concentrated on the androgyny, Potter just directed a variation of one theme. In my opinion the whole matter of the sex change is irrelevant, yet that seems to be the point that most people focus on. The androgyny in the novel is merely there for a way for Woolf to show that people should be treated the same, as deep down they are the same person regardless of their appearance to others. It was also the only way for Woolf to show a woman in love with another woman via text. Orlando still felt the same for Sasha even after she had woken up as a woman; after all she was still the same person.
“Now, the obscurity, which divides the sexes and lets linger innumerable impurities in its gloom, was removed, and if there is anything in what the poet says about truth and beauty, this affection gained in beauty what it lost in falsity. At last, she cried, she knew Sasha as she was, and in the ardour of this discovery, and in the pursuit of all those treasures which were now revealed, she was so rapt and enchanted that it was as if a cannon ball had exploded at her ear…” (Woolf, P.115)
It is hard to depict exactly what Woolf is trying to show in Orlando however no matter whether you read the book as biographical, a love letter or a novel (or even watch the film) the point that is always conveyed is that Woolf and Orlando want society to be more accepting and realise that a person is a person no matter what body they are in. A woman or a man is still a human being. In this sense Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye and Virginia Woolf’s Orlando are both perhaps clarifying that women do seem to want the same as both of these novels seem to be showing that women just want to be accepted by society.
Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar is another novel that is based around societies views and expectations towards women. The Bell Jar is also seen to be autobiographical of Plath’s life as it is based on her own summer, fall and winter of 1953-1954. Plath created a superficial character to express her feelings and anxieties through, and the title of The Bell Jar is a metaphor for where Plath feels herself, and so Esther Greenwood, are being sucked into, “…Esther can not keep the airless bell jar of depression and despair from descending over her.” (Harper Collins Incorporated Publishers, 2006). Society makes Esther feel that she needs to be the best at everything, and in order to do so she must first be sexually experienced, Esther tries to fulfil this need and consequently leading her in and out of depression. “She has become more desperate in her search for what she thinks might be normalcy. She wants to write but thinks she cannot write until she has had sex.” (BookRags Book Notes. ©2000-2006). Much like Morrison and Woolf, Plath is writing her own experiences and feelings through the protagonist of her novel. All the problems that Esther tried to overcome were simply problems that Plath herself had encountered. Both became depressed, tried to commit suicide and were admitted to a psychiatric hospital where they underwent electro shock treatment. Finally after being allowed to leave the ward Esther meets Irwin and sleeps with him, she feels she is on the way to becoming the woman she wants to be. I think for the time that this novel was written Plath was trying to create a dominant character who was successful, however in a male dominant society it was just too hard to succeed, thus driving her to depression and suicide attempts. Through her poems as well Plath seems to be showing that she wants more from life than she what she had. “…In 1958, Plath wrote a poem called ‘I want, I want,’ and we are struck with the idea that Plath wanted much from life and she wanted it quickly.” (Inness). Like Woolf and Morrison, Plath seems to have issues with society also, as she doesn’t feel like she fits in they way she should and so she strives to stand out form society. Yet it is because of this that she also, like Pecola, is driven further out of societies standards. All three novels have such strong issues behind the narrative and show that no matter how hard you try to be like everyone else it just makes you unhappy and resent yourself.
Sigmund Freud famously tried to answer the question ‘What do women want?’ and never seemed to come up with an answer despite all the theories and psychoanalysing he did do throughout his lifetime. There is no one answer to that notorious question, and despite looking at three female authors and three female protagonists I still don’t feel that I am any closer to any sort of answer. As individual authors and characters I do feel that I understand what they wanted out of life as women. One major theme that occurred in the novels, despite the fact that they were all set in completely different eras, is the theme of how society treats individuals. Society led Pecola to insanity, Orlando felt like she/he didn’t fit in and Esther was led to depression and attempted suicide. Morrison, Woolf and Plath all felt that society was to blame for the way that people of a different colour, sex and class were made to feel worthless in their own upbringing and society. If you had to set each character aside individually then the initial want of each women is that Morrison’s Pecola wanted to have blue eyes and be beautiful, Woolf’s Orlando wanted society to allow freedom of gender equally and Plath’s Esther wanted to feel loved and be the brightest, richest and most beautiful woman. Each woman’s want seems very superficial but when it is understood through the context of each narrative then it is society that has implanted these shallow needs upon each person. If it weren’t for society then Pecola would probably feel beautiful with her colour, eyes and body. Again if it wasn’t for society then Orlando would probably feel comfortable being him/herself in a man and a woman’s body. Finally if it wasn’t for society then Esther might feel that she didn’t have to strive to so much in life, and consequently Sylvia Plath may have felt the same and not have committed suicide just after The Bell Jar was published. As much as each of the novels do spread light on the issues raised by Freud’s question of ‘What do women want?’ I feel that the conclusion I have come to is only specific to the actual women I have written about. It is too vague to say that all women feel society is wrong and that they want different coloured eyes. Freud was probably unable to answer that question because there is no real one answer, even if he tried to answer the question of ‘what do men want?’ then he would probably come to the same conclusion as men are just as individual as women, and as Woolf’s novel Orlando proved men are the same as women just in a different body, and they too don’t like having to conform to societies standards.