Male versus Female

I didn't get a chance to bring this up in class yesterday because by the time I'd finished fleshing out my thought the conversation had already moved on to a different topic. But in response to a prompting question I was thinking about the difference between the narrator's sexual relations with men and with women. Sure one can make the argument that men have abused the narrator up to this point and women for the most part have not. But I think Andrea is making a less obvious distinction as well. With her description of Rebecca comes a sense of inspiration. "Her freedom's on me, around me, climbing inside me". The narrator admires Rebecca because she is so free. Despite having been abused and jailed herself, Rebecca is free in her soul. This is the distinction the narrator makes between male and female. We know that the men in the narrator's society are free, but Rebecca is free too. Men are capable and free to do what they want. But this is the first time the narrator comes across a female who is free and who does what she wants. This inspiration, this freedom, this attitude is something the narrator hasn't felt and is something the narrator desires to embody starting at the point when she has relations with Rebecca. Furthermore the narrator feels that Rebecca does free her; freedom riddles the pages from 108 to 110, but it says on 110 that with men it's "an ignorant meanness" and with a woman "you're whole and you're free." Also men are linked to death and destruction - ripping the narrator's body, using knives, causing pain. Women on the other hand are now linked with life – a wild woman, a free spirit – "she's like the placenta, you breathe in her." This may be Andrea's own attitude showing via the attitude of the narrator, as we've discussed Andrea's pro-lesbian paradigm. But the images used to describe Rebecca are linked to enjoyment of life. Yes, men are bad to the narrator throughout the story in a way that women are not. But I think the main distinction we are supposed to grasp up to this point in the novel is that men are powerful and abusive and torturous while women are empowering and rebellious and ambitious.