It's a man's world; it is men, with their desires, their hopes, their fears, who create the conditions that women try to combat on their path to ascendancy.[...]Every man hopes to be recognized as having power and superiority, and such recognition can only come from an individual who is inferior to him: to feel he has power, he needs objects ready to obey him. Certainly, he has the right to possess and dominate flora and fauna, but plants and animals are silent and inert, and do not tear him from his solitude. Woman is at once Nature and consciousness; she is a flower, a fruit, a bird, a precious stone; she is human, capable of love and will. She must therefore appear "naturally inferior" so that it is possible to dominate her without committing an injustice. In relation to women, men like to assume the role of valiant knights ready to fight to defend them. But to deserve this generosity, woman must be fragile or a prisoner. It is possible to free Andromeda only if she is chained, it is possible to awaken Sleeping Beauty only if she lies asleep. Man considers woman as a projection of his own desires, as the fulfillment of his will to power. If woman had achieved total independence, if her union with the opposite sex were based on perfect equality, then man would feel deprived of a part of sweetness. Man is aware of this, and it is his reluctance admitted or denied that raises the greatest obstacle that woman must overcome in the world and in her own heart.
Femininity constructed, reified and subjugated in favor of male privilege and vanity , therefore.Thus ends "Femininity , a Trap," an article published in Vogue (!) on March 15, 1947 which, however short, contains in essence all the fundamental themes that Simone de Beauvoir would develop fully in The Second Sex , published two years later. The article touches on four main points: after an introduction on the "feminine condition," defined in other texts as situated femininity , de Beauvoir offers a brief review of the myths through which femininity is culturally and socially constructed. She then focuses on the growth of women from childhood, subjected to models and precepts, and finally arrives at the aforementioned conclusion, which is both a point of arrival and departure, an extreme synthesis and a bold opening of the gaze on the world.
«If it is true that all conscious and free human beings have the same value, the same dignity, it is also true that context and opportunities determine the problems that each[male and female]must face.» This is the situated femininity of the existentialist Simone de Beauvoir. But what is "femininity"? What is the "feminine condition"? Who is "the woman"? From a situated perspective , it is not fruitful to ask these questions in an essentialist sense, but only in an existentialist one: what does it mean to be a woman here, now, in these relations of production, in these relations of power, in these relations between genders, classes, human groups of every type, composition, and size? In 1928, Virginia Woolf gave two lectures on "Women and the Novel": «The title[...]could mean[...]women and what they are; or women and the novels they write; or again, women and the novels in which they are protagonists; or it could imply that the three things are in some way inextricably linked[...]. But when I began to consider the subject from this latter point of view,[...]I soon had to realize that[...][t]he only thing I could do was to offer you an opinion on a minor aspect of the subject if a woman is to write novels she must have money and a room of her own . Which, as you will see, leaves unsolved the great problem of the true nature of woman and that of the true nature of the novel.» I believe that de Beauvoir's article and Woolf's lectures, which later became A Room of One's Own , are two strongly related texts, to be read as an imaginary dialogue in which the two authors and their works confront and illuminate each other.
Femininity is always situated, and is constructed.
Of the myths through which femininity is constructed, de Beauvoir considers the «most irritating and most false» that of the eternal feminine. A myth, that of the eternal feminine, which sees women as "intuitive, charming, and sensitive" some people today call it "benevolent sexism," but there's little "benevolent" about it, apart from the candor and subtle kindness that often convey it. A myth: nothing natural, innate, or unchangeable; nothing naive, innocent, or casual; everything cultural, functional, and instrumental. The inferiority of women due to the superiority of men. There is no superior without an inferior. Moreover, the identity of the superior, of the Self, is modeled on the identity of the Other (of the Other ).) and thus, then, effectively and instrumentally reinforced. This mechanism permeates not only the construction of gender, but any relational and social dynamic where two (or more) poles interact and consolidate their identity in asymmetrical patterns of power. Absolute and Relative.
"For centuries, women have served as mirrors with the magical and delightful power of reflecting the figure of a man magnified up to twice its normal size. Whatever their use in civil societies, mirrors are indispensable to every violent and heroic action.[...]This serves to partly explain the need that men so often have for women. And it also serves to explain why men become so restless when criticized by a woman[...]. Because if she begins to tell the truth, the figure in the mirror shrinks; the male capacity to adapt to life is diminished. How could he continue to pass judgment, civilize natives, promulgate laws, write books, dress elegantly and deliver speeches at banquets, if he were no longer able to see himself at breakfast and dinner, magnified at least twice his own size? This is again Virginia Woolf.
The Self and the other, it was said. The Absolute and the relative. But also the Universal Man and then the particular, the woman. The rule, the "ideal human type" quoting de Beauvoir which is the male man, the exception which is the woman. Myths abound. Woman as a failed man. Woman as a diminution of male perfection. Woman as matter, body, man as form, mind. The subjectivity of female theories, the objectivity and scientific nature of male ones. "Penis envy."
But also the eternal feminine present, the masculine future. Reproduction, doubly alienating, and production, usually alienating but potentially creative: "Every housewife is Penelope, undoing at night the work done during the day," writes de Beauvoir. She continues: "Whether or not, in this condition of radical dependence, women have been able to find happiness is a superfluous question; it's like asking whether men were happier before machines existed. The point is that machines exist today. The point is that today, for various reasons, women must and want to work, which is another way of saying they want independence from men. What we're trying to define is how they experience this new effort. In mythology, in the fairy tales we read to children, we always assign women the same roles. They are Ariadne abandoned, Penelope at the loom, Andromeda in chains. They are Cinderella, or Sleeping Beauty waiting to be rescued by Prince Charming. She is the one who waits, who can find her place in the world only through the love of a man. Try to imagine what would have happened if Shakespeare had had a sister as gifted as he. Lacking culture and independence, she could have expressed herself only through crazy adventures that would most likely have ended tragically." And again Virginia Woolf also wonders about a hypothetical life of a hypothetical Shakespeare sister with a vocation and literary talent read A Room of One's Own to discover how, in her narrative, this imagined life ends.
The woman, says de Beauvoir, "has never been given a chance." From a young age, she learns to admire (even adore) the men around her and the heroes of fairy tales, myths, and traditions, and "often feels only pity and contempt for her mother's miserable domestic life[...]. The figure of the father, on the other hand, is magnificent; he represents strength, power, a window onto the world, onto life, and onto the future. The little girl desires to identify with him, and in this way she recognizes and admits the superiority of the man over the woman she is destined to become." What is encouraged in this little girl? "Her power of seduction. To be graceful, well-dressed, well-mannered.[...]A vicious circle begins to develop: the more she docility conforms to the ideal imposed on her, the less she develops her personal potential and the fewer resources she will find within herself." The little girl is raised to be the boy 's vassal , to use de Beauvoir's words. As a woman, she will be the man's vassal. I think of Mary Wollstonecraft, of Elena Gianini Belotti.
This is how femininity was constructed, this is the model of femininity that has shaped entire generations. And with ever greater force and brutality, that ultimate deception, the Myth of Beauty, acts within and outside of us, a modern and partially reworked version (to better disguise itself as emancipation) of the myth of the eternal feminine that was so irritating to de Beauvoir. I think of Naomi Wolf, a theorist who is as attentive to the Myth of Beauty as to one of its most successful products, the caricature-like image, almost a mythological creature, of the Ugly Feminist. Thus, returning to de Beauvoir, women "end up accepting the world. Their effort consists only in seeking a place on this earth. Why? Because women fear that by losing this sense of inferiority
, they may also lose what values them in the eyes of men." Femininity , a trap. The Ugly Feminist: disheveled, unshaven, "undignified" (as we proudly claim) the more the merrier dares to shout in the streets, dares to demand rights, dares to organize in networks of political cooperation that may diverge from usual political practices. How far is she from the eternal feminine of submissiveness, compliance, and meekness? How frightening is she?
Women sometimes, perhaps, still today "end up accepting the world." But only until they encounter other women, solidarity , sisterhood. Only until they practice transfeminism, care, growth as blossoming. Until they read those who came before them, those who are often overlooked in history and philosophy books but who nevertheless exist, even within us.
S.
https://umanitanova.org/simone-de-beauvoir-la-femminilita-una-trappola/
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Source - A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
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