--- title: "Meaning & Key Takeaway of: Women must write through their bodies…" description: "\"Women must write through their bodies, they must invent the impregnable language that will wreck partitions, classes, and rhetorics, regulations and co..." image: "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/94d/h-l-ne-cixous-3823_body_women-must-write-through-their-bodies-th_1482464.jpg" --- # Women must write through their bodies, they must invent… ![“Women must write through their bodies, they must invent the impregnable language that will wreck partitions, classes, and rhetorics, regulations and codes, they must submerge, cut through, get beyond the ultimate reverse-discourse, including the one that laughs at the very idea of pronouncing the…” quote by Helene Cixous](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/94d/h-l-ne-cixous-3823_body_women-must-write-through-their-bodies-th_1482464.jpg) [Download](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/94d/h-l-ne-cixous-3823_body_women-must-write-through-their-bodies-th_1482464.jpg) [Open image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/94d/h-l-ne-cixous-3823_body_women-must-write-through-their-bodies-th_1482464.jpg) > “Women must write through their bodies, they must invent the impregnable language that will wreck partitions, classes, and rhetorics, regulations and codes, they must submerge, cut through, get beyond the ultimate reverse-discourse, including the one that laughs at the very idea of pronouncing the word "silence"...In one another we will never be lacking.” [Helene Cixous](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/h-l-ne-cixous/) ## About This Quote This interpretation was drafted with AI assistance. It is one reading of the quote, not the author's own explanation. Women must use their physical experience to create a radical language that disrupts social hierarchies and silencing structures. **In simple terms:** Use bodily expression to break oppressive codes. Key Takeaway Create disruptive language through embodied writing. Themes feminism language resistance identity power Mood defiant empowering Type theoretical poetic When to use this quote - artistic practice - activist writing - academic workshops - social movements Key Concepts embodiment subversion discourse intersectionality Questions to Reflect On - How can bodily expression be translated into concrete political action? - What barriers exist to adopting a disruptive language? A Different Perspective May be seen as abstract, difficult to operationalize in everyday activism. ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ No ratings yet [Bodies Invent](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/bodies-invent-5406004/) [Body](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/body/) [Class](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/class/) [Code](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/code/) [Cutting](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/cutting/) [Discourse](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/discourse/) [Empowerment](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/empowerment/) [Ideas](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/ideas/) [Lacking](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/lacking/) [Language](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/language/) [Language Wreck](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/language-wreck-5406005/) [Laughing](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/laughing/) [Partition](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/partition/) [Programming](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/programming/) [Regulation](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/regulation/) [Reverse](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/reverse/) [Reverse Discourse](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/reverse-discourse-548101/) [Rhetoric](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/rhetoric/) [Silence](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/silence/) [Ultimate](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/ultimate/) [Women Write](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/women-write-449084/) [Wrecks](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/wrecks/) [Write Bodies](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/write-bodies-3990396/) [Writing](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/writing/) ## Related quotes > [“there are these places on your poem, / where I want to write bodies.”](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/mikl-paul/there-are-these-places-on-your-poem-where-i-want-to-write-bodies/) [Mikl Paul](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/mikl-paul/) > [“The effort to identify the enemy as singular in form is a reverse-discourse that uncritically mimics the strategy of the oppressor instead of offering…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/judith-butler/the-effort-to-identify-the-enemy-as-singular-in-form-is-a-reverse/) [Judith Butler](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/judith-butler/) > [The appearance in nineteenth-century psychiatry, jurisprudence, and literature of a whole series of discourses on the species and subspecies of homosexuality, inversion, pederasty, and…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/michel-foucault/the-appearance-in-nineteenth-century-psychiatry-jurisprudence-and/) [Michel Foucault](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/michel-foucault/) > [Men like women who write. Even though they don't say so. A writer is a foreign country.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/marguerite-duras/men-like-women-who-write-even-though-they-don-t-say-so-a-writer-is-a/) [Marguerite Duras](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/marguerite-duras/) > [There are many women who write as they think they should write - to imitate men and make a place for themselves in literature.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/marguerite-duras/there-are-many-women-who-write-as-they-think-they-should-write-to/) [Marguerite Duras](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/marguerite-duras/) > [I feel like women very often do write differently than men, but women write things that men can't write.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/molly-ringwald/i-feel-like-women-very-often-do-write-differently-than-men-but-women/) [Molly Ringwald](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/molly-ringwald/) > [Paradoxically, the most constructive thing women can do is to write, for in the act of writing we deny our muteness and begin to…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/dale-spender/paradoxically-the-most-constructive-thing-women-can-do-is-to-write/) [Dale Spender](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/dale-spender/) > [People don't think of writers as sex objects. The women who write to me and suggest that we ought to have sex usually turn…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/dave-barry/people-don-t-think-of-writers-as-sex-objects-the-women-who-write-to/) [Dave Barry](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/dave-barry/) > [Not all women write the same. But I don't understand why the model is that you're supposed to write like a man, and that…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/molly-ringwald/not-all-women-write-the-same-but-i-don-t-understand-why-the-model-is/) [Molly Ringwald](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/molly-ringwald/) > [“You must go around the states lecturing to women. And the inoffensive writers who've never dared lecture anyone, let alone women-they are frightened of…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/dylan-thomas/you-must-go-around-the-states-lecturing-to-women-and-the-inoffensive/) [Dylan Thomas](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/dylan-thomas/) > [I think women write more fully and honestly than men about heart and home.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/prue-leith/i-think-women-write-more-fully-and-honestly-than-men-about-heart-and/) [Prue Leith](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/prue-leith/) > [Let women write horror. Let women write darkness, let women write trauma, without having to carve out their own trauma to justify it.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/leigh-bardugo/let-women-write-horror-let-women-write-darkness-let-women-write/) [Leigh Bardugo](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/leigh-bardugo/) > [The great thing about fiction is that I don't have to settle on an answer to any troubling question, or even a solution. I…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/bonnie-jo-campbell/the-great-thing-about-fiction-is-that-i-don-t-have-to-settle-on-an/) [Bonnie Jo Campbell](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/bonnie-jo-campbell/) > [The greater part of what women write about women is mere sycophancy to man.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/madame-de-stael/the-greater-part-of-what-women-write-about-women-is-mere-sycophancy/) [Madame de Stael](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/madame-de-stael/) > [Turkey is a complex country. Most readers are women, of all generations, and they are passionate about books. However, the written culture is mostly…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/elif-safak/turkey-is-a-complex-country-most-readers-are-women-of-all-generations/) [Elif Safak](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/elif-safak/) ## More by Helene Cixous > [“(Because Jonah’s real story is the one never told: never was he as stupendously happy as during those three days and three nights of…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/h-l-ne-cixous/because-jonah-s-real-story-is-the-one-never-told-never-was-he-as/) [Hélène Cixous](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/h-l-ne-cixous/) > [“I, too, overflow; my desires have invented new desires, my body knows unheard-of songs. Time and again I, too, have felt so full of…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/h-l-ne-cixous/i-too-overflow-my-desires-have-invented-new-desires-my-body-knows/) [Hélène Cixous](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/h-l-ne-cixous/) > [What happens: events interiors, snatch them from the cradle, from the source. I want to watch watching arrive. I want to watch arrivances. I…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/h-l-ne-cixous/what-happens-events-interiors-snatch-them-from-the-cradle-from-the/) [Helene Cixous](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/h-l-ne-cixous/) > [“And I? I drink, I burn, I gather dreams. And sometimes I tell a story. Because Promethea asks me for a bowl of words…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/h-l-ne-cixous/and-i-i-drink-i-burn-i-gather-dreams-and-sometimes-i-tell-a-story/) [Hélène Cixous](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/h-l-ne-cixous/) > [“The author of what I describe is not myself, it is the Other. First of all it is you, it is the woman, it…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/h-l-ne-cixous/the-author-of-what-i-describe-is-not-myself-it-is-the-other-first-of/) [Hélène Cixous](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/h-l-ne-cixous/) > [Perhaps what I do not manage to operate rapidly enough is the passage between the outside and the inside.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/h-l-ne-cixous/perhaps-what-i-do-not-manage-to-operate-rapidly-enough-is-the-passage/) [Helene Cixous](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/h-l-ne-cixous/) > [“To fly/steal is woman’s gesture, to steal into language to make it fly.”](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/h-l-ne-cixous/to-fly-steal-is-woman-s-gesture-to-steal-into-language-to-make-it-fly/) [Hélène Cixous](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/h-l-ne-cixous/) > [“Those I love go in the direction of what they call the last hour—what Clarice Lispector calls, “the hour of the star,” “the hour…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/h-l-ne-cixous/those-i-love-go-in-the-direction-of-what-they-call-the-last-hour-what/) [Hélène Cixous](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/h-l-ne-cixous/) > [“...and this morning I am without fire, my marrow is ash, I am very sad.”](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/h-l-ne-cixous/and-this-morning-i-am-without-fire-my-marrow-is-ash-i-am-very-sad/) [Hélène Cixous](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/h-l-ne-cixous/) > [Me too, I make do, I anoint what cannot be fixed.](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/h-l-ne-cixous/me-too-i-make-do-i-anoint-what-cannot-be-fixed/) [Helene Cixous](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/h-l-ne-cixous/) > [“Writing, in its noblest function, is the attempt to unerase, to unearth, to find the primitive picture again, ours, the one that frightens us.”](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/h-l-ne-cixous/writing-in-its-noblest-function-is-the-attempt-to-unerase-to-unearth/) [Hélène Cixous](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/h-l-ne-cixous/) > [“Here I am now. And it is hell. Paradise? Yes, I still am here, but who? only myself, with my small waist, my small…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/h-l-ne-cixous/here-i-am-now-and-it-is-hell-paradise-yes-i-still-am-here-but-who/) [Hélène Cixous](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/h-l-ne-cixous/) > [“Knowledge from experience: the heart goes blind because the need is stronger than anything else. Your ego is blind, your id is eager. It…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/h-l-ne-cixous/knowledge-from-experience-the-heart-goes-blind-because-the-need-is/) [Hélène Cixous](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/h-l-ne-cixous/) > [“I see nothing. I do not move. It is an empty time, animal time, vigilant, I am submerged, under the earth and under time.…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/h-l-ne-cixous/i-see-nothing-i-do-not-move-it-is-an-empty-time-animal-time-vigilant/) [Hélène Cixous](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/h-l-ne-cixous/) > [“Go, fly, swim, bound descend, cross, love the unknown, love the uncertain, love what has not yet been seen, love no one, whom you…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/h-l-ne-cixous/go-fly-swim-bound-descend-cross-love-the-unknown-love-the-uncertain/) [Hélène Cixous](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/h-l-ne-cixous/) [Explore all 121 Helene Cixous quotes ](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/h-l-ne-cixous/) ## More Body quotes > [Most of us are convinced that we are our egos, which is who we think we are. 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