Existentialism and Feminism: the Rhetoric of Biology in the Second Sex

Abstract

For a feminist today The Second Sex is in many ways a deeply embarrassing document: a pioneering study of women's oppression which apparently relies entirely for its emancipatory impact on Sartre's philosophy. Feminist theorists have long criticised Sartrean existentialism for its inherent anti-feminism. How then does Beauvoir carry off her feminist project? Does she really manage to transform existentialist discourse into a rhetoric of liberation or do we have to reject The Second Sex as an awkward reminder of the inevitable limitations of a feminist analysis conducted in isolation, without the support of a broad political movement? Beauvoir's analysis of the oppression of women in The Second Sex is based on two fundamental principles: (1) Woman in patriarchal society is defined as man's Other. She is immanence (passivity, objectification) and he is transcendence (activity, striving, subject-being). (2) There is no such thing as a female nature, no essence of womanhood. All theories of the 'ewig Weibliche' or 'eternel feminin' are patriarchal mystifications. As it stands Beauvoir's analysis would seem to be entirely under the sway of Sartrean ontology. But although it is true that she never exp/icity distances herself from his abstract idealism, already the introduction to her essay demonstrates her swerve away from his master text Being and Nothingness. Already in her opening pages Beauvoir can be seen surreptitiously trying to tack a form of materialism on to Sartre's tragic ontology. There is a specific reason for this move: Beauvoir needs a materialist framework for her theory of woman as the Other in order to avoid the absurd conclusion that all