Feminist Manifesto
Feminist Manifesto is an interesting letter written by Mina Loy during her lifetime. Even though the letter was never published during her lifetime, it did come out years later. Mina Loy demanded sexual freedom for women and urged women to embrace maternity. I find that the letter that Mina Loy wrote was written with passion, anger, and there is no doubt that she demanded freedom. I found it interesting how she would highlight, underline, and capitalize some words. Maybe she did this because she wanted to stress the importance of what she was saying in some of these words. For example, when she writes that professional and commercial careers were opening up for women at the bottom of page 1502 she then asks the question if that is all they want? Another example is when she writes about women and men inequality. She clearly states that woman and man is not equal. It is clear that Mina Loy was very feminist and I liked the way that she told women to look within themselves and seek what they really were. Mina Loy also encouraged women to make their own decisions, to gain independence, and to not rely on men. She wanted women to destroy the desire to be loved and I believe that this is because she thought that wanting to feel loved, hindered women from gaining certain rights. Mina Loy mentions this herself in a passage on page 1504. She states that a woman gains many rights from a man when she offers her virginity, but what about those that don't have that “advantageous” bargain? Those that don't have that bargain were debarred from maternity and this is something that deeply bothered Loy.
Mila Loy firmly believed that every woman had a right to maternity because she felt that women in general had superior intelligence and didn't need to rely on men. She didn't want women to rely on men and wanted them to lead their own lives in an independent way. She stated that women had to lose the desire of honor, sentimentality, and pride. At the same time, she stated that women had to lose jealousy, sentimentality and grief. Finally she stated that there was nothing impure in sex and that people saw sex as impure simply because it was a mental issue. Mila Loy did a great job in writing this letter and many things that she wrote about are easy to agree with. Women don't have to rely on men, they do deserve the same rights as men, and in this case they deserve the right to engage in maternity. This is her race responsibility and it is something that Loy believed should not be taken away, regardless of the situation that a woman was in.
I thought it was interesting how you said, "people saw sex as impure simply because it was a mental issue." I read that part totally differently, but your interpretation makes more sense than mine did.
ReplyDelete