Patriarchal society has presided over the oppression of women

In her essay, Throwing Like a Girl: A Phenomenology of Feminine Body Comportment Motility and Spatiality, Iris Marion Young’s thoughts continue to ignite insightful discussions throughout the world, including here in South Africa.

Citing a study by S Straus, of a five-year-old girl and a boy of the same age, Young’s paper makes an observation in the manner the two throw the ball.

She writes: “The girl does not make any use of lateral space.

“She does not stretch her arm sideward; she does not twist her trunk; she does not move her legs, which remain side-by-side.

“All she does in preparation for throwing, is to lift her right arm forward to the horizontal and to bend the forearm backward in a pronate position.

“The ball is released without force, speed, or accurate aim.”

The boy approaches the ball differently. Observes Young: “A boy of the same age, when preparing to throw, stretches his right arm sideward and backward; supinates the forearm; twists, turns and bends his trunk – moving his tight foot backward.

“From this stance, he can support his throwing almost with the full strength of his total motorium.

“The ball leaves the hand with considerable acceleration; it moves toward its goal in a long flat curve.”

Young argues that the source of difference between the girl and the boy is neither in anatomy, nor physiology. Says Young: “Rather, they have their source in the particular situation of women as conditioned by their sexist oppression in contemporary society.

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“Women in sexist society are physically handicapped.

“Insofar as we learn to live out our existence in accordance with the definition that patriarchal culture assigns to us, we are physically inhibited, confined, positioned and objectified.

“As lived bodies we are not open and unambiguous transcendences, which move out to master a world that belongs to us, a world constituted by our own intentions and projections.

“For the most part, girls and women are not given the opportunity to use their full bodily capacities in free and open engagement with the world, nor are they encouraged as much as boys to develop specific bodily skills.

“Girl play is often more sedentary and enclosing than the play of boys.

“In school and after school activities, girls are not encouraged to engage in sport, in the controlled use of their bodies in achieving well-defined goals.”

Surely, given the same opportunities by society, girls and women can perform better in traditionally male-dominated spheres of work and sport?

We have been accustomed to regarding females as a fragile species – people who need special attention, to be confined to domestic work – nothing heavy.

Ironically, it is the same patriarchal society that has presided over the oppression of women, if the country’s frightening daily statistics on femicide, rape and unintended child pregnancies is anything to go by.