The Feminine Subject E-Book

Susan J. Hekman

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 342

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2014

Beschreibung

In 1949 Simone de Beauvoir asked, “What does it mean to be a woman?” Her answer to that question inaugurated a radical transformation of the meaning of “woman” that defined the direction of subsequent feminist theory. What Beauvoir discovered is that it is impossible to define “woman” as an equal human being in our philosophical and political tradition. Her effort to redefine “woman” outside these parameters set feminist theory on a path of radical transformation. The feminist theorists who wrote in the wake of Beauvoir’s work followed that path.
 
Susan Hekman’s original and highly engaging new book traces the evolution of “woman” from Beauvoir to the present. In a comprehensive synthesis of a number of feminist theorists she covers French feminist thinkers Luce Irigaray and Helene Cixous as well as theorists such as Carol Gilligan, Carole Pateman and Judith Butler. The book examines the relational self, feminist liberalism and Marxism, as well as feminist theories of race and ethnicity, radical feminism, postmodern feminism and material feminism. Hekman argues that the effort to redefine “woman” in the course of feminist theory is a cumulative process in which each approach builds on that which has gone before. Although they have approached “woman” from different perspectives, feminist theorists has moved beyond the negative definition of our tradition to a new concept that continues to evolve.
 
The Feminine Subject is a remarkably succinct yet wide-ranging analysis which will appeal to all feminist scholars and students as well as anyone interested in the changing nature of feminism since the 1950s.

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

Title page

Copyright page

Acknowledgments

1: Simone de Beauvoir and the Beginnings of the Feminine Subject

I.  Introduction

II.  TheEthics ofAmbiguity

III.  TheSecondSex

IV.  Interpreting Beauvoir

V.  Conclusion

2: Difference I: The “French Feminists”

I.  Introduction

II.  Irigaray

III.  Kristeva

IV.  Cixous

V.  Conclusion

3: Difference II: Radical Feminism and the Relational Self

I.  Introduction

II.  Radical Feminism

III.  The Relational Subject: Object Relations Theory

IV.  Gilligan and the Different Voice

V.  After the Different Voice

VI.  Gilligan's Radical Displacement

4: Continuing the Tradition: Liberalism and Marxism

I.  Liberalism

II.  Marxism

5: From Difference to Differences: Postmodernism, Race, Ethnicity, and Intersectionality

I.  Postmodernism

II.  Race and Ethnicity

III.  Intersectionality

6: The Material Subject

I.  The New Materialism

II.  Body Studies

III.  Posthumanism

IV.  The Ontology of the Subject

V.  Butler's Material Subject

VI.  Defining the Feminine Subject

Bibliography

Index

Copyright © Susan Hekman 2014

The right of Susan Hekman to be identified as Author of this Work has been asserted in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

First published in 2014 by Polity Press

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Acknowledgments

This book began at the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Studies in Wassenaar, Netherlands, in the fall of 2010. It is hard to imagine a more perfect setting for scholarly work. Scholars from an array of disciplines in the social sciences and humanities are housed in an idyllic setting in a small town near The Hague and the North Sea. I was greatly enriched by the intellectual interaction with a diverse group of international scholars in residence at NIAS. I am deeply grateful for the experience.

The book was completed during a Faculty Development Leave from the University of Texas at Arlington in the fall of 2013. Along the way portions of the book were presented at conferences in Los Angeles, Stockholm, Utrecht, and Umea, Sweden. My thanks to the scholars who commented on my work at these conferences.

Throughout the years I have been sustained by the friendship and scholarly support of a group of close friends at UTA. Laurie Porter, Wendy Faris, and, particularly, Stacy Alaimo helped me through a difficult time in my life as well as encouraging my work. My sincere thanks to them. But my deepest thanks go to John for giving me a new life. Together with our equine companions, Pepper and Shiner, as well as our canine friends, Honey and Glory, we have created a life together that is rich and full. In gratitude I dedicate this book to them.

1

Simone de Beauvoir and the Beginnings of the Feminine Subject

I.  Introduction

The recent re-translation of Simone de Beauvoir's The Second Sex begins with a simple declarative sentence: in 1946 Simone de Beauvoir began to outline what she thought would be an autobiographical essay explaining why, when she tried to define herself, the first sentence that came to mind was “I am a woman” (Thurman 2010: ix). In the course of writing the book Beauvoir soon discovered that trying to explain what it meant to be a woman was far from simple. Somewhat to her surprise, what started as an autobiographical essay turned into a two-volume, nearly 800-page analysis that ranges widely over a disparate group of elements that define “woman” in society. It made Simone de Beauvoir both famous and infamous, and is commonly described as launching the contemporary feminist movement.

It is hard to imagine that anything new can or should be written at this point either on Simone de Beauvoir or The Second Sex. The book and its author excited intense interest, both positive and negative, after its initial publication. Since then its reception among feminists has gone through several phases. From the outset feminists recognized the book as the first radical statement of the situation of women. As the feminist movement matured, however, many feminists had second thoughts about Beauvoir. She was accused of masculinism, blind acceptance of Sartrean existentialism, even a rejection of the female body and maternity. Then, beginning in the late 1980s, a spate of books and articles re-evaluating Beauvoir and The Second Sex brought the book back into the feminist limelight. Many of these works are attempts to define Beauvoir's philosophical orientation and to place her work in a more positive light than that of the previous commentaries.

My goal in the following is not to evaluate, one more time, Beauvoir's work in general and The Second Sex in particular. Nor is it to refute all the previous interpretations of her work. It is, rather, to go back to Beauvoir's original question and evaluate her work in light of the answer that she gave to it. Beauvoir asked the question that has and must orient feminist theory: what, really, does it mean to say “I am a woman”? How do we go about answering that question and where does that answer lead us? What I want to emphasize in the following is that the question of the identity of “woman” is the central question in the tradition of feminist theory that has evolved in the wake of Beauvoir's work. Beauvoir, obviously, has much to say about this question. And so do all the feminist theorists that follow her. The identity of “woman” is at the center of all the feminisms that have developed in the 60 years since The Second Sex. From liberal to psychoanalytic, to socialist, to postmodern, to the current rage, material feminism, “woman” hovers over each one of them. Each begins and ends with an understanding of the identity of woman both philosophically and socially. In other words, Beauvoir asked the question that would define the tradition of feminist theory that she quite literally initiated.

It is misleading, however, to characterize feminist theory since Beauvoir as a simple linear development following in the footsteps of her theory. It would be more accurate to describe feminist theory since Beauvoir as attempts to get “woman” right and, in the process, to show the errors of previous theories. As feminism evolved, the proponents of each new iteration of “woman” claimed that previous attempts to define “woman” were, at the very least, seriously flawed and that the definition of “woman” now being advanced has, finally, gotten it right. I think that this approach is seriously wrong-headed. It is much more productive and, I would argue, incumbent on feminist theorists to look at the last 60 years of theories about “woman” as a positive cumulative enterprise, each theory building on the one that went before and adding to our understanding of “woman.” I do not think that feminist theorists should be in the business of refuting previous feminist theorists but should, rather, be looking for elements in their work that have added to our understanding of “woman.” Our goal, in other words, should not be to, finally, get “woman” right but, rather, to explore in contemporary terms what we can contribute to our understanding of this central concept, an understanding grounded in previous theories.

Much of the commentary on Beauvoir and The Second Sex revolves around placing her philosophically, examining her reliance, or lack thereof, on the philosophical currents of her time. I am going to advance a different thesis here. Although it is undeniable that Beauvoir was deeply influenced by the philosophies of her day, I will argue that in taking on the question of “woman” Beauvoir encountered an obstacle that effectively exploded the boundaries of these philosophies. The question of “woman” did not fit into the vocabularies of any of the philosophical positions that were available to her. As a consequence she had to make her own way, to forge a new method in order to deal with the unique question of woman, a question that the tradition of western philosophy had hitherto avoided. I am not going to claim that Beauvoir's method was flawless or even that she articulated her rejection of previous philosophies clearly. But I am going to claim that what Beauvoir proposes is unique and, most importantly, that she articulated a position that would define feminist theory in the aftermath of The Second Sex: the introduction of “woman” into the philosophical tradition requires a radical change in method, a change that alters the tradition of philosophy as we know it.

Another way of putting this is that many feminist theorists have lost sight of the radical nature of Beauvoir's thought. We tend to get caught up in the heated arguments between the proponents of different approaches. Those who espouse a particular approach to the subject spend too much of their theoretical energy trying to prove their opponents wrong. We do not see the forest but get lost in the trees. What we lose sight of is that Beauvoir invites us to enter, in Althusser's words, a new continent of thought. Although throughout the course of feminist theory we have approached this project from different perspectives, our goal is the same: transforming “woman.”

In subsequent chapters this understanding of Beauvoir's work will ground my examination of the evolving tradition of feminist theory. In chapter 2, I look at the French feminists that came after Beauvoir. I interpret them not, as they sometimes claim, as repudiating her conception of “woman,” but as continuing to explore how “woman” explodes the categories of philosophical thought. Despite the differences between the work of Beauvoir and that of Irigaray, Cixous, and Kristeva, and their differences from each other, they are continuing Beauvoir's legacy. Irigaray's concept of “jamming the theoretical machinery” summarizes not only her work, but the course of feminist theory that is emerging. In chapter 3, I interpret the emphasis on difference that characterizes radical feminism and the relational self in the same light. The “difference feminists” were, in a Beauvoirian spirit, exploring a definition of “woman” outside the boundaries of the masculine paradigm and, in so doing, adding new dimensions to the concept. I focus specifically on the work of Carol Gilligan, a theorist who has been, I think, unfairly pushed to the sidelines in contemporary feminism. Gilligan accomplishes an amazing feat: redefining the basis of western moral theory. I do not believe she has received full credit for this. In addition, her work on the development of adolescent girls is pathbreaking. Beauvoir suggested that it is in adolescence that girls acquire the sense of inferiority that characterizes the feminine. Gilligan's research proves this to be the case.

In chapter 4 I take a different tack. I argue that feminists who attempted to fit “woman” into the traditions of liberalism or Marxism effectively proved Beauvoir's thesis that “woman” does not fit into masculine traditions. Despite the valiant efforts of these feminists, they failed in their attempts to find a common ground with these theories. In both cases, introducing “woman” into these theories necessarily changes their fundamental assumptions. We have learned an important lesson from the efforts of these theorists: no tweaking of the tradition will suffice; we have to move beyond the parameters of western thought to redefine “woman.”

The era of differences I examine in chapter 5 presents distinctive challenges. Previous feminists, including Beauvoir, assumed that they were trying to define a unitary conception of “woman.” Postmodern feminists, theorists of race and ethnicity, and those who embrace intersectional analysis challenged this assumption. They argued that “woman” is multiple, that no one definition will fit all women. For some feminists this was a difficult transition, but it soon became clear that it was necessary to accommodate the diversity of women's lives. It also became clear that there was no going back to the era of difference.

I conclude with a discussion of the present era in which feminists are returning to the material after the linguistic turn of postmodernism. A widespread understanding of this approach is that it corrects the over-emphasis on the linguistic that defines postmodernism. Although this is not inaccurate, it also over-simplifies the relationship. A better characterization is that the turn to the material brings in issues, most notably the body and biology, that were sidelined in the linguistic turn. This approach has made a significant contribution to feminist theory. It has opened up new avenues of research that will enhance our understanding of the feminine subject.

My analysis of all of these theorists is driven by three theses. First, our exploration of the subject is a radical project that explodes the boundaries of previous theories. Beauvoir began this project by asking “what is ‘woman’ ”? and we are still exploring this question. Second, our effort is cumulative – each theory builds on what has gone before rather than repudiating previous theories. My third thesis is closely related: we should not assume that our goal is to, once and for all, get “woman” right. Looking for essences is a central aspect of masculinist thought that we should abandon. The search for “woman” is an ongoing process begun by Beauvoir that continues to evolve.

II.  TheEthics ofAmbiguity

Beauvoir first expresses the ideas that will guide her discussion of women in The Second Sex in her collection of essays, The Ethics of Ambiguity.1 Her concern in these essays is to get at the essence of the human subject, what it means to be a human being. At the beginning of the first essay she states that:

This privilege, which he alone possesses, of being a sovereign and unique subject amidst a universe of subjects, is what he shares with all his fellow men. In turn an object for others, he is nothing more than an individual in the collectivization on which he depends. (1948: 7)

She goes on to assert that as long as men have lived they have felt this “tragic ambiguity of their condition” (1948: 7), ambiguity that, she later asserts, we must assume (1948: 9). To attain his truth, man must not attempt to dispel the ambiguity of his being, but, on the contrary, accept the task of realizing it (1948: 13).

These statements set the tone for the analysis that follows, an analysis that, at least initially, follows the lines of Sartrean existentialism. The first implication of man's ambiguous status is that there are not “foreign absolutes,” no “inhuman objectivity” but, rather, it is human existence that makes values spring up in the world (1948: 14–15). Another way of expressing this ambiguity is that the fact of being a subject is a universal fact; the Cartesian cogito expresses both the most individual experience and the most objective truth, but the ethics of ambiguity denies that separate existents can be bound to each other and their individual freedom can forge laws valid for all (1948: 17–18).

So far so good. Life, and particularly ethics, is ambiguous in that we are both separate and collective beings. But, as Beauvoir works through her theory, this ambiguity gets more complicated. Freedom is the source from which all signification and values spring. To will oneself moral and to will oneself free are one and the same decision. This theory places all human beings on a moral plane as seekers of freedom. But, as Beauvoir develops her theory, problems arise for this neat formulation. There are, Beauvoir asserts, exceptions to this principle. There are beings whose life slips by in an infantile world because, having been kept in a state of servitude and ignorance, they have no means of breaking the ceiling which is shielded over their bodies. Beauvoir first cites the example of women and slaves to illustrate her point, but as her argument progresses she turns her attention exclusively to women. Women in western countries, she asserts, lack an apprenticeship in freedom and, what is worse, consent to their servitude (1948: 37–8).

Women, in short, present a problem for the theory she is advancing. They do not fit neatly into the parameters of the ethics of ambiguity. In this context, however, Beauvoir seems unwilling to deal with this problem and pulls back from the difficulties it poses. Instead she plunges into the issue of freedom and what it means for this theory. Freedom, she asserts, must project itself toward its own reality through a content whose value it establishes. It is not necessary for the object to seek to be, but it must desire that there be being. To will oneself free is to will that there be being as one and the same choice; they both imply the bond on each man with all others. It follows that “To will that there be being is also to will that there be men by and for whom the world is endowed with human significations…To make being ‘be’ is to communicate with others by means of being” (1948: 71). Freedom cannot will itself without aiming at an open future.

It follows, Beauvoir asserts, that existentialism is not solipsism: “Man can find a justification in his own existence only in the existence of other men” (1948: 72); “To will oneself free is also to will others free” (1948: 73). It also follows that there is a concrete bond between freedom and existence. To will man free is to will there to be being; it is to will the disclosure of being in the joy of existence (1948: 135).

In later years, Beauvoir described The Ethics of Ambiguity as the book that irritated her the most (Moi 2008: 168). Reading the book today from the perspective of The Second Sex is irritating because the position she articulates here lacks the clarity she will achieve in TSS. A number of things, however, are clear at this stage. First, Beauvoir is distinguishing her position from the implicit solipsism of early Sartrean existentialism. As many commentators have pointed out, Beauvoir's concept of subjectivity and freedom in The Ethics of Ambiguity is specifically social; we cannot be without the being of others (Kruks 1990: 93; Tidd 1999: 15). Second, it begins to emerge that the key to this social identity of “man” is his existence, the specifics of his individual place in the society that gives him his being and his freedom. This point will become a major focus of the analysis in The Second Sex. What will then be identified as “situation” will take center stage in the analysis, whereas here it is still on the margins.

What is not clear, however, is how women fit into this scenario. In her commentary on The Ethics of Ambiguity, Toril Moi claims that for Beauvoir the human condition is characterized by ambiguity and conflict and that women embody this more than men. Thus, women incarnate the human condition more fully than men (2008: 195). I agree, but I think that the problem goes deeper than this. I think that what Beauvoir is beginning to realize is that women change everything. Yes, women do not fit into the philosophical position she is developing, but at this point she does not realize what follows from this. The philosophical position she is espousing cannot be adjusted to meet this problem. Women lack an apprenticeship in freedom. They cannot fit into the definitions of freedom and existence that Beauvoir is so carefully laying out in The Ethics of Ambiguity. And the reason for this failure lies in women's unique situation, what she here calls their “infantile world.” In The Ethics of Ambiguity Beauvoir essentially sidesteps this problem. She mentions women, makes her central point regarding the sociality of human existence, and moves on. It is not until The Second Sex that she is forced to confront the problem of women directly. And there it becomes clear that the “ambiguity” of women's situation is of an entirely different order from that of men. It also becomes clear that dealing with the “problem” of women will necessitate a radically different approach.

III.  TheSecondSex

Following in the footsteps of many feminist critics of Beauvoir, I initially dismissed her approach as masculinist and epistemologically inconsistent. Focusing on her concept of the Other as it is presented in The Second Sex, I argued that Beauvoir's claim that the One/Other relationship is primordial and that the One is gendered masculine precludes women from full subjectivity. Women cannot be the One, the fully human transcendent subject, and therefore Beauvoir in effect denies woman full subjectivity (Hekman 1999).

It is very easy to read Beauvoir this way. The first few pages of The Second Sex present the One/Other relationship as a fundamental and an inescapable aspect of the human condition. Read outside the context of the rest of the book, it is not difficult to come to the conclusion that this relationship holds out little hope for women. There we learn that man represents both the positive and the neuter. Masculine and feminine are not symmetrical. Men, who define themselves in opposition to women, are the One, the positive pole. But men are also the neutral standard that defines humanness itself; woman is both a negative and a lack: “[woman] is the inessential in front of the essential. He is the Subject; he is the Absolute; she is the Other” (2010: 6). The category of the Other is as original as consciousness itself: alterity is the fundamental category of human thought (2010: 6); “the subject posits itself only in opposition, it asserts itself as the essential and sets up the Other as inessential, as the object” (2010: 7).

Women's position in this scenario is unambiguously inferior. Women do not posit themselves essentially as subjects. Worse, they do not protest male sovereignty; they are complicit in their definition of Other, they have done nothing to bring about a change. They have more in common with the men of their class than with other women. Furthermore, women derive advantages from this status as Other; to decline to be Other would be to renounce those advantages. The division of the sexes, Beauvoir concludes, is a biological given, not a moment in human history: “Their opposition took place in an original Mitsein, and she has not broken it.” The fundamental characteristic of woman is that “she is the Other at the heart of a whole whose two components are necessary to each Other” (2010: 9).

I, and many other feminists, read these passages as an assessment of the hopeless condition in which women find themselves. “Fundamental” and “primordial” seem to offer no escape for women. Beauvoir herself declared that the purpose of her book was to assess the condition of women. These passages go a long way toward doing just that, revealing the underlying cause of women's inferiority in society. But there is another way to read these passages, an interpretation that is more consistent with the subsequent arguments in the book and with Beauvoir's overall approach to the problem of “woman.” What if we read these passages not as a brutally accurate description of the roots of woman's inferiority in society, but rather as the challenge that women must meet and transcend? What if Beauvoir is saying, in effect, that the One/Other dichotomy gives women no way out, and thus it is incumbent on us to develop a new approach – a feminist approach – to find that way out? And, finally, what if Beauvoir is saying that the tradition of philosophy in the west fails to provide a way out, that introducing women into philosophy entails radical changes and reveals the poverty of those philosophical conceptions?

I think that Beauvoir is arguing precisely this, although she does not say so directly in this or any other context. But discussions of the Other that recur with frequency throughout The Second Sex point in this direction. Early on she asserts that the perspective she will adopt is one of existentialist morality, a perspective that assumes that every subject posits itself concretely through projects:

It accomplishes its freedom only by perpetually surpassing toward other freedoms; there is no other justification for present existence than its expansion toward an infinitely open future. Every time transcendence lapses into immanence there is a degradation of existence into ín-itself, of freedom into facticity; this fall is a moral fault if the subject consents to it; if the fall is inflicted on the subject, it takes the form of frustration and oppression; in both cases it is an absolute evil. Every individual concerned with justifying his existence experiences his existence as an infinite need to transcend himself. (2010: 16–17)

This, then, defines the situation into which woman is thrust. The uniqueness of woman is that she discovers and chooses herself in a world where men force her to assume herself as Other: “Woman's drama lies in this conflict between the fundamental claim of every subject, which always posits itself as an essential and the demands of a situation that posits herself as an inessential” (2010: 17).

Beauvoir then asks a number of questions. How in the feminine condition can a human being accomplish herself? How can she find independence with dependence? Answering these questions, Beauvoir claims, is the task of the analysis ahead. But although she does not make the argument explicit in this context, the logic of her argument compels the reader to ask further questions. Do the presuppositions of the philosophical approach Beauvoir has articulated make it impossible to “solve” the question of women? Does the topic of woman necessitate jettisoning this philosophy and, indeed, all previously articulated philosophical approaches? Does “woman” change everything and necessitate something entirely new?

Beauvoir returns to the concept of the Other frequently in the course of The Second Sex.2 Some of these comments are consistent with the discussion of the Other that opens the book. Thus she states that woman emerged as the inessential who returned to the essential. But as the absolute Other she lacked reciprocity (2010: 160). This is then followed by the statement that “the more women assert themselves as human beings, the more the marvelous quality of Other dies in them” (2010: 162). She concludes, however, that it exists today in the hearts of all men. But then another theme emerges: ambiguity.

And her ambiguity is that of the very idea of Other: it is that of the human condition as defined in its relation with the Other. It has already been said that the Other is Evil; but as it is necessary for the Good, it reverts to the Good…through the Other, I accede to the Whole, but it separates me from the Whole; it is the door to infinity and the measure of my finitude. (2010: 163)

Again, there are various ways to read this passage. In The Ethics of Ambiguity Beauvoir told us that all human life is ambiguous; thus we should not find it surprising that woman's life is also ambiguous. But it is also possible to read this passage as a critique of the philosophical presuppositions of the Other. Woman doesn't fit into the One/Other schema; she violates its boundaries, ruptures its ethics. Good becomes evil and evil good. Later, in discussing the myth of femininity that has defined women's condition, Beauvoir comments that “There is no question of expressing eternal truths here, but of describing the common ground from which all singular feminine existence stems” (2010: 279). This entails an even more radical critique. What is the point of philosophy except to seek eternal truths? Without the goal of eternal truth philosophy loses much of its meaning. What Beauvoir seems to be suggesting in these remarks is that the question of women does not fit within the parameters of the philosophical positions she has been espousing. What this entails is that the question of woman requires a radically new approach that jettisons previous philosophical methods.

This conclusion is born out in the introduction to volume II that begins with the famous line, “One is not born but rather becomes a woman” (2010: 283). It is unfortunate that most commentators stop with this sentence. The following sentences, however, supply the context of Beauvoir's famous statement and throw a different light on its meaning:

No biological, psychic or economic destiny defines the figure that the human female takes on in society; it is civilization as a whole that elaborates this intermediary product between the male and the eunuch that is called feminine. Only the mediation of another can constitute an individual as an Other. (2010: 283)

Beauvoir's point here is clear: in order to understand woman and, particularly her constitution as Other, we need to look at the broad array of factors that contribute to that constitution. No one factor defines her destiny; their interaction and interdependence construct her identity. It follows that to understand – and overthrow – the status of Other we need to examine all of these factors. And, most importantly, we must consider woman in interaction with others.

Examining these elements occupies Beauvoir's attention in the course of the book. I will not provide a survey of these factors here, but rather concentrate on a number of issues that impinge on my investigation of Beauvoir's subject. First is the question of method. Beauvoir never defines her method explicitly. But as she moves through the elements of her analysis – the biological, the psychoanalytic, the historical, the economic – her method emerges in practice if not in theory. At the end of her chapter on biology she states that “we will clarify the biological data by examining them in light of ontological, economic, social, and psychological contexts” (2010: 48). What Beauvoir calls woman's enslavement to the species is, she declares, of extreme importance. Woman's body is one of the essential elements of the situation she occupies in the world. “But” (and this but has great significance in this context) “her body is not enough to define her; it is a lived reality only as taken on by consciousness through actions and within a society” (2010: 48). Biology alone does not define women but neither do psychology or economics. As Beauvoir analyzes psychoanalysis, history, and historical materialism, she consistently rejects a monistic approach. Her method is composite. Woman is not defined by one thing but by the confluence of elements that constitute her place in society.

These statements not only define Beauvoir's method in The Second Sex; they also effectively refute the biological essentialism of which she has been accused by some interpreters (Evans 1985: 61–2). Part I, chapter 1 of volume I of The Second Sex is “Biological Data.” But Beauvoir makes it clear from the outset that woman not only is not defined by her body, but the body is not a fixed entity. However we want to regard the differences between men and women, she asserts, they do obviously exist (2010: 41). Woman is different biologically from man but it doesn't follow from this that her biology is her destiny. In a series of arguments that is consistent with the rejection of universals throughout the book, Beauvoir agrees that woman, like man, is her body, but claims that her body is something other than herself (2010: 41). Woman is not a fixed reality, but a becoming (2010: 44). This aspect of Beauvoir's work is immensely important, not only in her work but in subsequent feminist analyses. She is countering the abstraction that is at the center of the western philosophical tradition and opposing it with an understanding of woman as located, particularly in her body, without presupposing essentialism.

Beauvoir has much to say about the stages of woman's life: childhood, adolescence, marriage, motherhood. Many feminists have condemned her for her apparent disdain for traditional female activities. But it is worth noting that much of what Beauvoir argues in these sections of The Second Sex became the basis for subsequent feminist theory and practice. Beauvoir's discussion of girls' development, for example, has striking parallels to that articulated by Carol Gilligan in the 1980s. Like Gilligan, she identifies a crucial stage in girls' development in which they have to give up their childhood independence and embrace femininity, what Gilligan calls hitting the wall of western culture. The dilemma for the girl, Beauvoir argues, is that “she spontaneously grasps herself as the essential: How will she decide to become the inessential? If I can accomplish myself only as the Other how will I renounce my Self?” She is suspended between the moment of childish independence and feminine submission (2010: 348). It is significant that Beauvoir's discussion here not only presages much second-wave feminist thought, but is also disturbingly current.3

Toward the end of the book, in a chapter on women's situation and character, Beauvoir states:

The woman does not positively think that the truth is other than what men claim: rather, she holds that there is no truth. It is not only life's becoming that makes her suspicious of the principle of identity, nor the magic phenomena surrounding her that ruin the notion of causality: it is at the heart of the masculine world itself, it is in her as belonging to this world, that she grasps the ambiguity of all principles, of all values, of all that exists. She knows that when it comes to her, masculine morality is a vast mystification. (2010: 651)

This is pretty strong stuff. Taken out of context, it offers an almost perfect proof of the thesis that I am advancing regarding Beauvoir: that her consideration of woman compels her to jettison masculine philosophy and adopt a radically different approach. But, unfortunately for the neatness of my thesis, this is not an accurate interpretation of this particular passage. The context of Beauvoir's remarks is a discussion of the powerlessness women experience at the hands of men, the degree to which their lives are totally controlled by masculine institutions. It is a condemnation of particular practices rather than an overall indictment of the poverty of masculine thought. It is an indication, however, of the direction of Beauvoir's thought concerning masculinist philosophies. Although she does not state her position as clearly as we might like, she is beginning to question the validity of all philosophical systems for understanding the position of women.

In the conclusion to the book Beauvoir reverts to the philosophical position that she, at least ostensibly, employed throughout the course of her analysis. She begins with a summary of what that analysis has established: that there is no “original curse” that condemns men and women to tear each other apart or a psychological destiny imposed on women (2010: 753). She then turns to an assessment of women today and their hopes for a life of equality with men, an assessment cast in the philosophical terminology with which she began the book. Woman today, she claims, seeks to emerge into the light of transcendence. But she stands in front of man not as a subject, but as an object paradoxically endowed with subjectivity. She assumes herself as both self and other, which is a contradiction with disconcerting consequences. The vicious cycle is difficult to break out of because each sex is victim both of the other and of itself (2010: 754–5).

Change will come, Beauvoir concludes, not from individual women, but from society itself: girls and boys must be raised by the same standards. What will this change bring about? Men and women will recognize each other as subjects while at the same time remaining an other for the other. Reciprocity will not do away with the “miracles” that the division of human beings into two separate categories engenders (2010: 766). Thus, when the slavery of half of humanity is abolished, the division of humanity will reveal its authentic meaning and the human couple will discover its true form. And, finally, to unequivocally affirm their “brotherhood,” the relation of man to woman will emerge:

It therefore reveals the extent to which man's natural behavior has become human or the extent to which the human essence in him has become a natural essence – the extent to which his human nature has come to be natural to him. (2010: 766)

It is hard to take these passages seriously. It seems as if Beauvoir has lapsed into romantic dreams of a better world that have little relationship to her preceding analysis. But, again, another interpretation is possible. The fact that these passages verge on incoherence once more suggests that Beauvoir realizes the impossibility of the philosophical position she claims to espouse. The terminology of subject and object leaves us in the impossible position in which men and women are both and neither. Surely this is not the solution that Beauvoir is seeking. This is borne out in the final passage in which Beauvoir suggests an intriguing possibility that has not previously surfaced in her discussions: the collapse of the natural/human dichotomy. What Beauvoir seems to be saying here is that we should stop looking for the natural essence that grounds human existence and accept that human nature is natural. This has all kinds of echoes in contemporary thought, but even aside from this it once more leads to the conclusion that Beauvoir is looking beyond the categories of her philosophical heritage. Even though Beauvoir stubbornly clings to that philosophical heritage, the import of her book is to reveal its inability to deal with the advent of women into philosophy.

IV.  Interpreting Beauvoir

How Beauvoir's extensive writings should be assessed has been a controversial issue since they first came to the attention of feminists. Even if one focuses on the philosophical writings, as I do here, it is difficult to sort through the different waves of criticism that have emerged over the years. It is obvious to anyone who wades through these criticisms that feminists have not arrived at a consensus on her work. My intent in the following is not to establish the true meaning of Beauvoir's corpus but to try to make sense out of what Beauvoir has to say about the feminine subject and how that understanding has shaped ours.

One of the recurring themes in Beauvoir criticism is the charge of masculinism. Beauvoir, it is claimed, uncritically adopts the philosophical heritage of her contemporaries, particularly that of Sartre, and, most importantly, fails to contest the masculinism that pervades these philosophies. On one level this criticism is irrefutable. Beauvoir clearly starts from the basic premises of existentialism and phenomenology to frame her discussions. But, as I have tried to illustrate above, this is only one aspect of her approach. She begins with the basic terminology of these masculinist philosophies but, in the course of her analysis, finds them wanting. What emerges from this is by no means clear-cut. It does not result in a definite rejection of her philosophical heritage or her articulation of an alternative, but, rather, a destabilizing of the assumptions and categories of the original philosophies.

Much of the discussion of Beauvoir's philosophical position revolves around an analysis of where she stands relative to the influential philosophies of her day. Lundgren-Gothlin, for example, argues that The Second Sex should be interpreted from the perspective of Sartrean philosophy, but also as influenced by Hegelianism, Marxism, and phenomenological existentialism (1996: 3). Thus, there is much discussion in the Beauvoir literature about her relationship to these various schools of thought, noting the elements in her work that relate to each respectively.4 Again, there is a sense in which these commentaries are correct; the influence of these philosophical positions is irrefutable. What is significant about Beauvoir's work, however, is how she departs from the masculinist philosophical tradition, not how she conforms to it. This departure is, I am arguing, at the heart of Beauvoir's approach.

It should not be surprising that many commentators on Beauvoir and The Second Sex focus on her relationship to Sartrean existentialism. Here there does seem to be a consensus of sorts: that Beauvoir has moved away from the strict existentialist ontology that Sartre articulated. There is a veritable chorus of critics who place Beauvoir outside of Sartrean existentialism. Pilardi claims that The Second Sex “greatly weakens existential ontology” (1991: 148). Grosholz asserts that Beauvoir's consideration of women's oppression “draws her out of existentialism” (2009: 202). Karen Vintges goes so far as to claim that Beauvoir's departure from Sartre places her close to the postmoderns (1996: 5).5

What these critics claim, in short, is that Beauvoir starts with Sartrean existentialism but she does not end with it. What is important about these criticisms is what the critics identify as the locus of Beauvoir's departure from Sartre. Beauvoir finds a particular aspect of Sartre's ontology wanting: the abstract subject. At the heart of Sartre's existentialism, particularly as articulated in Being and Nothingness, is an isolated consciousness who is the source of knowledge.6 It is this aspect of Sartre's ontology that Beauvoir comes to reject. For her, subjects are situated (I will have more to say about this later), and necessarily connected to other subjects. The subject that emerges from the analysis of The Second Sex is situated, connected, and embodied, not isolated and alone. Sonia Kruks states this very forcibly: “The embodied subject of The Second Sex