9/11 The Emasculation of Our Culture

Paper Summary:

The paper uses the works of Luce Irigaray to explore the twin towers tragedy as a symbol for the "de-gendering" of our society. The paper discusses the twin towers representing a phallic symbol and the planes crashing into the towers representing castration or emasculation.

From the Paper:

"Seen through this phallologcentric lens, the events of 911 become re-envisioned as a profoundly visual and profoundly sexual enactment of the "theatricality of tragic events" (Cixous, 42). How many times did each of us watch the replays (the iteration of an objectifying gaze) of the planes plunging into the towers as onlookers screamed in horror at the act itself? It was also, as Irigaray would suggest, a contestation of "linguistic codes" (2002, 79) that culminates, she would challenge, in the kind of essentialist reductionism practiced by Carla in her roundtable contribution. "

Sample of Sources Used:

• Brodribb, Somer. Nothing Mat[t]ers: A Feminist Critique of Postmodernism.Toronto: James Lorimer, 1993.
• Cixous, Helene. "The Towers: Les tours." Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 28.1 (2002): 41-3.
• Freccero, Carla. "'They are all sodomites'." Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 28.1 (2002): 64-6.
• Gallop, Jane. "The Body Politic." Thinking It Through the Body. New York: Columbia UP, 1988. 91-118.
• Irigaray, Luce. Ethiques de la difference sexuelle. Paris: Minuit, 1984.

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