Allan insists that in order to read from behind, we must procure a blend of theoretics to shift our optics from our
phallocentric trainings to this very ground zero from which he asks us to peek.
Most recently I found a copy of a candy pink Carl Sagan book about intelligent life in the universe; dozens of vintage sci-fi pulp paperbacks with titles like Brigands of the Moon, Calling Captain Future and Galactic Derelict--all with illustrations of alien femme fatales tempting brawny spacemen; Miniature Lamps II, because Miniature Lamps I wasn't enough; a
phallocentric art how-to, Kokigami--The Intimate Art of the Little Paper Costume, complete with a warning sticker that it should not be used as a contraceptive; the curiously titled An Introduction to Political Astrology, and a deeply personal journaling of heartbreak on the margins of an Abraham Lincoln biography.
Some link the low female representation to the broader nature of the music industry where men historically have called the shots and the
phallocentric motto of sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll shaped the culture.
Le Guin constantly challenged racial assumptions in fiction; she refused to be tied to the traditions of
phallocentric heroic fantasy literature, constantly asserted that gender was not binary and created worlds with the freedom of an imagination that knew no bounds at all.
Due to the
phallocentric tradition of Western constructions of self and identity, this performative mimesis is problematised for women.
Accordingly, burdened by her gender and position in society, Susan introduces herself to Cruso as 'a woman, alone' (10) assigning herself victim-like and vulnerable roles within obviously
phallocentric systems.
Yet, for all her feminist fervour in liberating female sexuality from a
phallocentric world, what she conveniently overlooks apart from a brief reference to culture, is the extent to which both religion and culture have played a role in suppressing any scientific enquiry on sex for ages.
(16) Essentializing the female body was a problem because women were consistently represented as lacking the higher, male qualities championed by a
phallocentric tradition.
In Vienna, the ghost of Actionism appears at regular intervals--whether in the form of pride in this homegrown avant-garde or disdain for its
phallocentric ways.
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, feminist critics revolutionized the genre as they began to examine the
phallocentric thrust of both traditional novels of formation and the literary criticism that dealt with them.
As a result of their sexual and social impotence, they perform asexual, unsuccessful masculinities according to
phallocentric patriarchal ideology.