The Eclipse of Gender

Abstract

In critical passage of introduction his Birth of Clinic, Michel Foucault suggests that we belong age of criticism whose lack of primary keeps us distance from an original (Foucault 1973, xv) and dooms us to patient construction of about discourses (xvi). Thus for Foucault comment is to admit by definition an excess of signifier over signified; necessary, unformulated of thought that language has left in shade-a that is very essence of that thought, driven outside its secret-but comment also presupposes that this unspoken element also slumbers within speech, and that by superabundance proper signifier, one may, in questioning it, give voice content that was not explicitly signified (ibid.). It will be my contention that in thebirth of modern we find nuanced discourse about gender that has for far too long been left in shade. Eclipse of Simone de Beauvoir For those of us who have followed history of modern from its inception, contribution of Simone de Beauvoir philo sophical question of gender is unformulated remainder that is yet be explicitly signified. For while Simone de Beauvoir explicitly sought give body and substance (materiality) Sartre's existential philosophy of Other by way of instance of gender (Le Doeuff, 1989, 52; Le Doeuff 1981), that substance has become so deeply buried in fabric of contemporary about that we do not even talk about it anymore. Indeed Simone de Beauvoir, sole heir philosophical tradition that seems have died with Jean-Paul Sartre,' has been buried along with him. difficulty of course is that she has, all intents and purposes, been buried alive. It is in this that case of Simone de Beauvoir presents us with hermeneutical puzzle in its own right. On one hand she is hailed as prophetess extraordinaire (O'Brien 1981, 65) and Mother of Us All (Ascher 1987; qtd. in Dietz 1992, 74), the emblematic intellectual of twentieth century (Moi 1994, 1), the greatest feminist theorist of our century (Moi 1994, 2), author of the definitive analysis of sexism (Firestone qtd. in Dietz 1992, 74), the classic manifesto of liberated woman (Dietz 1992.74), on other, we have dismissed her (work) even before we have encountered it. As Mary Dietz has recently pointed out: The Bible of contemporary American Second Sex seems have been worshipped, often quoted, and little read (Dietz 1992, 78). Even with re-situation of academic feminist theorizing,2 break with what Rosi Braidotti calls a crusade against feminism (Braidotti 1991, 168), we have not seen an end feminist neglect of her thought as some suggest we have (Dietz 1992, 81). For those of us still locked into looking for Simone de Beauvoir in first stage of feminism, leap into recuperation is less than clear; particularly as it depends on prior appreciation of her workthe allegedly Beauvoir-style feminism-that still remains enigmatic, if only because it is so fundamentally untheorized and undivulged. For she is equally absent from pages of Sartrean existentialism and phenomenology that, at very least, she is (by feminists) given belong3 and faithful follower eventually bumps up against what Margaret Simons describes as the nearly universal failure of contemporary American phenomenologists acknowledge contribution of Beauvoir in Second Sex phenomenological analysis of social world (Simons 1983, 563). Whatever happened Simone de Beauvoir? How did she slip so unmentionably past us? In short discussion that follows, I propose do some digging unearth some of that life that vibrates today more than ever before in what Michele Le Doeuff calls tremendously well-hidden philosopher June philosophe formidablement cachee] (qtd. …