Though Doane suggests in her piece on the masquerade that "womanliness is a mask which can be worn or removed," it seems that in these cases at least, the option for removal are limited. Her discussion of women as being overly identified with their images finds an echo in Judd's column. Judd writes: "The dialogue is constructed so that our bodies are a source of speculation, ridicule, and invalidation, as if they belong to others."
What about the woman's face, however? Though it falls under the possession and manipulation of others (as mask), does the face, as the site and maker of meaning, of discernible identity, exceed this claim to ownership by others in some way? How might we think about a film like Shirin, which gives us (nearly) only women's faces to make sense, however limited, of the "story," or Martin Arnold's Jeanne installation, which purges the overriding narrative altogether and leaves only Falconetti's enigmatically signifying face?
Interesting to note, too, how the tone that Judd sets in her piece is one that rails against the misogyny that women internalize in complicity with patriarchy. Again, we might think of Cixous's assertion that écriture feminine can be written by men, just as dominant literature can also be and frequently is authored by women. Here's Judd again: "That women are joining in the ongoing disassembling of my appearance is salient. Patriarchy is not men. Patriarchy is a system in which both women and men participate. It privileges, inter alia, the interests of boys and men over the bodily integrity, autonomy, and dignity of girls and women. It is subtle, insidious, and never more dangerous than when women passionately deny that they themselves are engaging in it."
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