| SIMONE DE BEAUVOIR (1908 - 1986) Existentialist, Marxist, Feminist by Sandra LaFave The Second Sex (1949) — De Beauvoir’s magnum opus — is a fundamental work of second-wave feminism.
DIALECTIC, MARXISM, SARTRE, EXISTENTIALISM Hegelian Dialectic: Becoming replaces Being The basic idea in Hegelian dialectic is that everything is already “situated” and “becomes,” via interaction with Others (persons and things — whatever isn’t me) over time. Something new emerges from the interaction. The initial state is the thesis; the Other is the antithesis; the result of their interaction is the synthesis, which becomes the next thesis. The process continually repeats itself. Conscious beings, too, develop dialectically; i.e., they change as a result of their interaction with other persons and things. According to Hegel, it’s all going toward the optimal synthesis — the full realization of the Universal Spirit. A synthesis is a better synthesis if it is more developed and therefore closer to full realization. Alienation — the Result of a Dialectical Process Alienation characterizes what Hegel calls “dead” relationships and institutions. You can tell a relationship or institution is dead, in Hegel’s sense, when people conform to its norms outwardly, but inwardly feel constrained and oppressed. An alienated person looks inward and thinks, “I behave like a zombie and I don’t stop. I go through the motions. I am here but not here.” Marx describes the alienation of the worker under capitalism in much the same way. That alienation results from a dialectical process. As a conscious being interacts with the Other, it “projects” or “alienates” itself in the Other. I notice “I am NOT the Other.” I alienate myself “in” the Other when I (thesis) identify with the Other (antithesis) looking back at me. The alienated self is the synthesis: both me (pretending to be the Other) and not-me (the Other) simultaneously. It becomes the new thesis. Feuerbach (1804-1872), in The Essence of Christianity, says the idea of God is the result of the alienation of primitive humans in menacing nature; the resulting God is a sadistic bully, contemptuous of humanity. Dialectical Materialism Both De Beauvoir and Sartre are Marxists. For more about Marxism, see my notes on Ethics and Ideology, Marxist Economics, and Marxism and Consumer Culture. According to Marx, social and economic relations, too, arise by dialectical process of class struggle. According to Marx, capitalism causes workers to become “alienated laborers.” If you’re a worker, you alienate yourself in a comforting fantasy of self-objectification (“I am this drone and there’s nothing I can do”). At work, you feel better if you see yourself through the boss’s (or God’s) eyes, not your own; so you pretend to be on the boss’s team, to share the power of the boss (or God) vicariously. But you have a “false consciousness.” You can be your genuine authentic self only when you exercise your “animal functions.” Marx says workers are alienated from themselves as part of nature, from their bodies, from other workers, from their intellects, from full human being. For more about this, see here. Your alienation becomes untenable when (if) you “recover” yourself as an autonomous subject; but since it’s painful to realize your true condition, you resist thinking about it (you might have to act). Capitalism encourages you not to think — especially not to imagine radical options: it tries to distract you so you’ll direct your energies toward buying new stuff. Bad schools and religion also help keep you unaware of your real situation. Propaganda (e.g., “You can accumulate great wealth if you work hard enough”) is pervasive. You hear this so long and so often you don't question it; and then when you stay poor, you blame yourself (“I should have worked even harder”). Jean-Paul Sartre (1905 - 1980): Some Basic Existentialist Ideas De Beauvoir presupposes much of Sartre’s thinking and occasionally uses Sartre’s terminology. Intentionality is the property of consciousness such that a conscious being has goals, purposes, intentions, wants, etc. I exhibit intentionality when I say “I want,” “I prefer,” “I wish,” “I should,” “I must,” etc. The object of your want, preference, wish, etc., is its referent: we say intentionality “refers” or “points to” its object. The essential characteristic of human (and probably some animal) consciousness is intentionality. Sartre noticed that when we exhibit intentionality, the object of our intention does not exist, i.e., has no being. When I act, I intend some result, and by my intention, I bring into being some desideratum: some object or goal that does not currently exist. I don’t want what already is. I want what is not (yet). Unconscious things do not exhibit intentionality. An unconscious thing exists only “in-itself” (the French for this is en soi). It has no point of view. An unconscious thing never points or refers to anything; it is pure being; it just is. It does not act. Its being is complete. De Beauvoir usually uses the term “object” instead of “in-itself”. On the other hand, goals, purposes, wants, etc. all “point to” something other than the self. A conscious being exists “for-itself” (French is pour soi), in that its choices and actions always originate from a particular subjective perspective. A conscious being has a unique point of view. De Beauvoir usually uses the word “subject” instead of “for-itself”. Many elements of human being can’t be changed; these comprise our facticity. However, we also find ourselves having to act. When we act, we intend some result that currently has no being. The essential characteristic of human (and probably some animal) consciousness is to conceive of what isn’t. When I have a goal, purpose, intention, want, etc., I necessarily “reveal non-being”. As a For-Itself, then, I am that “through which non-being comes into the world.” And in my freedom I myself am impredicable — that is, no attributes can be honestly attached to “I am" considered as For-Itself. For example, I can never say of myself, as if speaking a permanent truth, that “I am honest” or “I am reliable” etc., since as For-Itself, my freedom makes these statements temporary at best. And if I attempt to convince myself that I am anything (honest, reliable, etc.) — knowing all along in my heart of hearts that I am not anything — I live in what Sartre calls bad faith. At best, I can say “I choose honesty for the time being.” I myself — in my terrible freedom — am never anything but free: that is, I am always free to be dishonest or unreliable. This is why as For-Itself (i.e., free), I have no permanent attributes. In my essence as For-Itself, I am “a nothingness that gives rise to nothingness”. (If these ideas make sense to you, you might want to read Sartre"s magnum opus, appropriately titled L'Être et le néant, or, in English, Being and Nothingness.) Atheistic Existentialist Dialectics Most previous philosophers thought that reason is the most important thing about human being; reason, they say, is what makes humans special, different from other animals and different from mere unconscious things. But for existentialists, the most salient fact about being For-Itself is freedom, not reason. Because we are free and God is dead, no life choices are objectively warranted by reason. We are thus absurdly free but also (absurdly) responsible for our choices: while no choice is “objectively” better than any other, we must choose. So life is absurd and freedom is painful. In our anguish and terror we try to flee from our radical incompleteness by alienating ourselves from our true selves: we pretend we are some thing(s). For example, we pretend to be what the Other thinks we are, i.e., we “alienate” ourselves in the gaze of the Other. For the For-Itself, alienation is a constant, almost irresistable compulsion; but alienation is, after all, a variety of bad faith. The only way out of bad faith is “authenticity”.
De Beauvoir says that for Man, the Other is Woman, who sees him as
Essential; he flees by pretending he is Essential (and in patriarchal
systems, other things being equal, a powerful Man doesn’t even have to pretend much).
Man sees Woman as inessential
because Woman in fact lacks power and opportunities. In the same way that Woman is inessential — a thing
to be used by Man — less powerful men (workers), Third World people,
people of different races, — in general, any persons with less power than Man — are
also inessential things to be used by Man.
For Woman, the Other is Man. She flees from her freedom by
pretending she is what Man (or "God") thinks she is: inessential, merely decorative, less rational, less mature, etc.
Under capitalism, then, women and working-class men and Third World people — anyone Man sees as Inessential —
experience similar oppression. Thus, the
liberation of women and men requires the complete eradication of the categories "Man" and "Woman".
The categories exist partly because of the gross imbalance of power between men and woman under capitalism. Thus,
for both Sartre and de Beauvoir, the emanicipation of both men and women can happen
only when the power balance is restored, under true communism.
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DE BEAUVOIR’S VIEW OF WOMEN’S SITUATION The Situation of Every Subject/(For-Itself) Every normal conscious human, man or woman, wants the impossible: to be simultaneously both a subject and an object. That is, humans want simultaneously to be free (i.e., impredicable, i.e., nothingness) and unfree (a thing, something that has being). You want the freedom and mystery and respect that accompanies freedom; and you want to escape your freedom with its accompanying anguish; you want to be a thing. But you cannot escape time. You cannot be both subject and object in time. Time imposes change and change implies dialectic, becoming through time.
The Myth of Woman/Other For Man (i.e., conscious male humans) in flight from his freedom — trying (vainly) to be something (in-itself) — there must an Other to define himself over against. The Other is what Man is not. Woman and Third World peoples “naturally” become the Other, as a result of economically-based dominance relations within human society at most stages in the dialectic of history.
Man wants to possess Woman as both Subject and Object: in her freedom, as an equal companion, and as a passive slavish "Ideal Woman”. This creates impossible demands for woman’s behavior. If she acts like a human being, a free subject, she’s scary, castrating, unwomanly, bitch, lesbian, (but interesting); if she acts like a passive doll, she’s childish, inferior, contemptible, and boring. A man becomes himself by his activity in the world; a woman typically acquires her identity (in bad faith) by passively waiting to be noticed by the Man and thereby brought into being. That is, for women, there’s a fundamental conflict between being and doing; for men, there’s no conflict at all! Women’s Work Women’s work doesn’t change the world; it aims simply to maintain what already is, namely the species. In this respect, women’s work is exactly what animals do. Women’s knowledge is techne; women tend to know how but not why. So clever women are at best technicians, never theoreticians. They think small. They live in time, bound by natural rhythms. Women know how to wait. Women’s early life is spent waiting to be chosen by a man, and women’s work consists largely in waiting: for the child to be born, for the soufflé to rise, for the garden to grow, for her husband to return from his life in the world. Women’s work resembles work within bureaucracy: always the same. Woman’s Character According to De Beauvoir, many of the unflattering stereotypes of women are accurate. “Woman’s character” is the result of her situation: it’s true that she often gives up easily, is insincere, vain, shallow, superstitious, etc. De Beauvoir says "Woman's characteristics are the characteristics of slavish people ” (in Nietzsche's sense). Woman flees from her freedom by “becoming” (in bad faith) Earth, product (e.g., Pygmalion), child, slave, irresponsible, passive, untrustworthy, ever-changing and also unchanging (“the Eternal Feminine”), inessential, unknowable, mysterious, supernatural (angel/devil), morally excessive (saint/slut), an “it”, etc. De Beauvoir says women’s character is the result of her situation: it’s true that she typically thinks small, resigned to fate, bitter, cynical, mediocre in her achievements, sordidly materialistic, calculating, credulous, naïve, frivolous, obstinate, servile, masochistic, basely utilitarian, prickly, fickle, parasitic, morbidly religious, etc. De Beauvoir’s response: yes, and you Men certainly would also behave “like women” (i.e., like slaves) if you weren’t allowed to learn or do anything interesting, or couldn’t make enough money on your own to live, if your whole future depended on being chosen by a man, or your only friends were other slaves, and even your God tells you you’re inferior. De Beauvoir, unlike Nietzsche, at least recognizes that slavery is not always cravenly chosen; it is also a social phenomenon caused by an economic substructure. Women "Fated for Adultery" De Beauvoir, following Engels (in The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State), says the debasement of women was an essential step in human history. The enslavement of women was a natural consequence of women’s biology, reproductive captivity, inferior strength (so women can’t gather any prestige from tool use), patriarchy, patrimony, etc. For Woman, in her flight from her freedom, there also must be an Other. The “natural” Other for Woman, at this stage in the dialectic of history, is Man. Man defines himself as the Essential and Woman as the Other. Woman can escape her freedom by letting Man define her — as Other! So she can escape her freedom by turning herself into the Changeless Ideal Woman/Thing. All she has to do is give over her person and subject herself to her husband (or God) in a marriage, religious vocation, or other traditional woman’s work. But this solution is not completely satisfying because she still, in her heart of hearts, possesses a will to power. She wants to act, even though most action is forbidden her. Thus, with no other outlets for her freedom — no ways to do anything — she is, in marriage, “fated for adultery” (like Madame Bovary and Anna Karenina). The essential attitude of Man toward Woman is thus ambivalence at best, fear and contempt at worst. Women’s Liberation is Men’s Liberation Man uses Woman and other Others in his vain quest to be something; and Woman allows herself to be used in her own vain quest. There’s blame both ways. The solution might be Kantian, for both men and women: in your freedom, try as much as possible to treat Others with respect, as subjects, not objects. As Marxists and existentialists, De Beauvoir and Sartre see the solution as “authenticity”, i.e. resisting bad faith. But material conditions — the “situation” of both women and men — make authenticity almost impossible for women (and lower-class men, and Third World people) until they have truly fulfilling and productive work. Therefore, for De Beauvoir and Sartre, the liberation of women is tied to the liberation of the international working class. In recent years, I think ordinary lower- and middle-class men — of every race — have begun to realize that they have lost much of their power, and they are not happy about it. Such men see the writing on the wall: they see that their jobs are threatened (or already lost) to immigrants and third world cheap labor, the "global economy", huge faceless corporations taking over everything, etc. They think the mainstream media lies to them, and they mistakenly blame immigrants, or Jews, or leftists for their current unease. No one listens to them anymore. Men’s oppression now has now begun to approach that which women have known all along. Men have become more oppressed, and have themselves been “emasculated”; men now often “act like women”: they are powerless and furious, but their manifestations of power and fury are often ill-thought-out, impulsive, misdirected and often violent.
VICIOUS CIRCLES, SELF-FULFILLING PROPHECIES When men flee from their freedom by persistently seeing Woman as Other, and when women persist in fleeing from their freedom by seeing themselves as Other, ordinary life for most women requires participation in vicious circles like those described in this section. Because these circles are seen as natural and inevitable, life goes on, and nothing changes. The self-replicating nature of loops keep people trapped. But if there is freedom as described by the existentialists, nothing is inevitable. These loops are circular. You can (and according to DeBeauvoir, you should) attempt to live authentically. Hopefully, authenticity will enable you to break out of the loops at any point. De Beauvoir’s book is full of examples like these. |
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1. THE WORK AND MARRIAGE LOOP 2. THE DEPENDENCY LOOP 3. THE UNDERACHIEVEMENT LOOP 4. THE ""NATURAL WOMAN" vs THE "WOMAN-ON-THE-JOB"" LOOP
5. THE "SHE LIKES IT THIS WAY" LOOP
6. THE "WOMAN MUST PLEASE MAN" LOOP
Questions or comments? |