Shaming Women into Men

The woman has always been a complex figure in the Western world. As a subservient being to the male species in society, women have always been denied the equal attributions of tangible and direct lines of power and privilege that men have possessed in what is currently a male-dominated society. The recognizance of a woman, based on the simplistic and sexist nature of the chauvinistic male perspective, has been that of the anatomy-having breasts (preferably big), a shapely figure (preferably with 36-24-36 measurements), and a small-lipped vagina (preferably shaved these days). To say that women have been eye candy and negotiation pieces for which man is better than the other is understated, yet the understatement implies that the woman must measure up to standards of what is a patriarchal purity.

The women that measures up to such purity would usually possess the aforementioned features, but there are women whose physical characteristics lead to what might be considered a patriarchal failure of standards. Any negative aspects having to do with the above parts would lead one to infer that failure is guaranteed in such women, but specifically women with external sexual organs that are "different" are categorically seen as inferior, or simply "not right". The leading example of such a "condition" would be the female with an enlarged clitoris-such studies show that those individuals are frequently persuaded to augment their organ, as to not remind the societal male collective that it represents a like part-the penis. Such a natural occurrence has shown to be corrosive to the female identity, which is then zoomorphized to the hyena identity. Anna Wilson details the female hyena physiology in "Sexing the Hyena: Intraspecies Readings of the Female Phallus":

To the human eye, the female (spotted hyena) is indistinguishable from the male in the field because they are not sexually dimorphic, although adult females tend to be somewhat larger than adult males. ...females have a "male-like" "pseudo-penis" and "pseudoscrotum." Visually, this is to say, the female spotted hyena's clitoris is hard to distinguish from the male's penis, being about the same size and capable of erection. (Wilson 766)

From such research, the female hyena takes on the appearance of a man, which becomes quasi-parallel to women's possessions of enlarged clitorises. A problem can resonate not only from the unfair, unequal, largely male-dominated, scientific comparison between human women and female hyenas, but the perceived sexual deviance of the hyena, in nature. Wilson cites the historical plight of the hyena, by way of Clement, a third-century Christian commentator, followed by commentary:

"'(The hyena) is extremely lewd, it has grown under its tail...a fleshy appendage, in form very like the female genitalia. This same thing occurs in the case of both the male hyena and female, because of their exceptional passivity.'...Clement's doctrinal focus is on the use of an animal analogy to illustrate human failures to measure up...the hyena aspires simultaneously to penetrate and be penetrated...male and female switch and blur in a shimmer of undifferentiated excess." (Wilson 760)

In this description, the male perspective of what the woman should appear to be, in relation to animals, can take on social and scientific pressures of goodness. As the female hyena's parts (indeed, her nature) is depicted as a perversion, the likeness of an enlarged human clitoris becomes, in effect, a natural sin in a male-dominated society. Women with like parts are then demonized for their anatomy and looked down upon in medical science, as cosmetic surgery as taken on the role as the "quicker fixer-upper." Females with clitorises similar to the pseudo-penis become less feminine and thus become a threat to society for the supposed imperfection. This is supported by Jennifer Terry's assertion that "the mannish woman was characterized as a threat to the private realm of the family-nothing short of a woman on strike against marriage and motherhood." (Terry 274) While Terry's context is in relation to homosexual women, both the imperfectly endowed woman and the lesbian are seen as "less than", therefore they share the equal ground of condescension.

The question is whether science is the societal marker of what is male and female. Is it fair to compare a human being to a beast? to judge a female woman to a female hyena? The hidden message of comparison is that the female hyena, having like parts of its male counterpart and in some ways displaying dominant social characteristics, and the woman with enlarged genitals, are masculine by nature-they become societal and scientific invalids-disruptions in nature. If science is being used by the Western patriarchal institutions to augment natural forms of the female body and to shame women's collective femininity, then the role of scientific research will be compromised in favor of archaic paternalism.

"Biology is not destiny...male and female roles are learned-indeed that they are male political constructs that ensure power and superior status for men." (Terry 280 [Koedt 1973, 248])

Sources cited: Anna Wilson, "Sexing The Hyena"; Jennifer Terry