Woman and the Other
SIMONE DE BEAUVOIR
"What is
a woman?" (Beauvoir, 1949:p. 305) this is a question raised by the French
existentialist, writer, and social essayist Simone de Beauvoir in an article
under the title: Woman and the Other, which is originally an extract
from the introduction of her book The Second Sex, a work of feminist philosophy
which can be considered the starting point of second-wave feminism. The extract
is published within a collection of critical articles and documents under the
title of Literature in the Modern World edited by Dennis Walder and
published by Open University. In this article, De Beauvoir sheds light on the
deep rooted concept of femininity in the mentality and unconsciousness of humanity
and the way this contributes to complicating women's problems of gender
inequality and discrimination. She also questions women's position in the world
at the time of writing her book and the future awaiting them.
De Beauvoir questions the word woman; she
argues that femininity is a concept holding within it certain qualities that
society prescribes to women; the presence or lack of these qualities in a woman
decide the degree of her femininity. If a woman has these qualities then she is
what De Beauvoir defines as "the eternal feminine" (305) while if
these qualities are missing, that woman is not considered feminine or she is
not a real woman, as she argues:
All agree in recognizing the fact that females exist in the human
species; today as always they make up about one half of humanity. And yet we
are told that femininity is in danger; we are exhorted to be women, remain
women, become women. (305)
From the beginning
of the article, De Beauvoir expresses her disappointment at the feminist movements
of the nineteenth century; she believes that a lot of time and energy had been
wasted on the subject of feminism without being able to approach the subject properly,
as she states "the voluminous nonsense uttered during the last century
seems to have done little to illuminate the problem" (305).
De Beauvoir observes
that although science had proven that the qualities ascribed to being feminine
are not biologically inherent in women, in the unconsciousness of mankind the
word woman still holds some conceptual meanings within it. De Beauvoir observes
that it is a denial of reality when some feminist activists refuse to be called
women because in De Beauvoir’s opinion, this kind of attitude is not going to
make the conceptual meanings the word holds disappear. In some cases, this attitude
only reveals those feminists’ sense of lacking and fragility as she suggests
"the attitude of defiance of many American women proves that they are
haunted by a sense of their femininity" (306), to support the previous
statement, De Beauvoir provides an example about a "well-known" woman
writer, whose name she does not provide, who refused to allow her portrait to
be published among a series of photographs specified for women writers; however,
this woman writer used her husband's authority to enable her to have her
picture published among the pictures of the men writers. (306)
De Beauvoir
discusses the situation and position of women in the world; as an example, she
refers to language pointing out how in language the word man can represent all humanity
while the word woman cannot do that. She claims that women are not regarded as
independent beings with an identity of their own but they are rather defined in
accordance with the rules of men. To support this claim, she quotes from
Michelet who wrote "Woman, the relative being" (307). As De Beauvoir
suggests, in the world man comes first and woman comes last; man represents all
the good and acceptable values of humanity while woman is the representative of
all that is evil, fragile, corrupt and incomplete; therefore, men and women are
not regarded as equals; man is the origin of humanity while woman comes as an
accessory or as some entity subordinate to him:
the relation of the two sexes is not quite like that of two
electrical poles, for man represents both the positive and the neutral, as is
indicated by the common use of man to designate human beings in general;
whereas woman represents only the negative, defined by limiting criteria,
without reciprocity. (306-307)
De Beauvoir observes
that it is very familiar to find women viewed with prejudice by men only
because the male dominant society holds strong beliefs that to be a female is
to be lacking a number of very significant qualities. De Beauvoir also refers
to different cultures, beliefs and philosophies that define women as evil
creatures or incomplete beings with numerous flaws, such as Aristotle whom she
quotes from: "a female is a female by virtue of a certain lack of
qualities" (307) she also quotes from St Thomas who defined woman as
"an imperfect man", "an incidental being" (307). Thus, De Beauvoir argues that a woman's mere
function in this world is considered to be satisfying the man's sexual needs as
De Beauvoir says, "And she is simply what man decrees; thus she is called
‘the sex’, by which is meant that she appears essentially to the male as a
sexual being" (307)
The author
then moves to the subject of the other; she states that women willingly
fill the role of the other in the male-female relationship. She observes
that naturally in all conflicts that occur between people of different
nationalities, beliefs and so on each side considers themselves the right side
or the one while they consider the opposite side to be the other,
i.e., no side is willing to play the role of the other, still, as De
Beauvoir suggests, women seem to have accepted to play this role willingly and
here she questions the reasons and factors that led to this obedience and submissiveness.
She brings forth a number of factors that can lead to this; however, she
excludes each one of them providing explanations for that. For instance, the
Jews or American Negros have been abused and exploited within the white or
Western communities for many years because they were a minority and did not
have the power to stand up for their rights, but this factor cannot be applied
to women because they have never been a minority in this world, in fact, women
have always formed half of the world's population. De Beauvoir concludes this
argument by stating that it might appear to one that submissiveness is inherent
in women, yet, she adds that nothing is permanent in this world and change is
possible because an abused fraction of humanity such as the proletarians
managed to start a revolution in Russia and fight against class differences,
yet, women remain submissive and thus they are abused only because they are not
taking serious action to change their situation. Regarding the rights women had
gained at the time of writing her book, De Beauvoir claims: "but the
women’s effort has never been anything more than a symbolic agitation. They
have gained only what men have been willing to grant; they have taken nothing,
they have only received." (309) this statement suggests that the rights
gained by women are not the outcome of serious struggle and hardship but rather
they were obtained because men were willing to give them away.
De Beauvoir
draws a comparison between the situation of the Negroes in North America and
that of women in the world in terms of how similar both cases are. She observes
that both are enslaved and discriminated based on some false assumptions
whether it be the "black soul" or "the eternal feminine"
(310). She notes that the social class in power is the one that fabricates some
terms and excuses in order to justify its exploitation of the other; it is striving
to guarantee that the excuses it fabricates are convincing enough to abort the
other's attempts to obtain their basic human rights. A good example of these
excuses includes considering a woman who is relatively rebellious and disobedient
as a woman lacking femininity.
De Beauvoir
concludes that women cannot achieve change in their situation like the rest of
the abused fractions of humanity such as the Negros or the Jews because they
lack the required unity to help them work together for their cause. The reason
for this is that they are scattered among the men of the specific social class
or group they belong to as subordinate beings. De Beauvoir argues that it is an
undeniable fact that at present women are inferior to men; however, the article
leaves the readers with an open question through which De Beauvoir suggests that
this situation needs to end some day in the future:
Yes, women on the whole are today inferior to men; that is, their
situation affords them fewer possibilities. The question is: should this state
of affairs continue? (310)
References:
De Beauvoir,
S. (1990), "Woman and the Other" in Walder , D., (ed), Literature
in the Modern World, Oxford: Open University, pp. 305-310.
