Fiftieth Anniversary of the Second Sex
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Conference Report FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF THE SECOND SEX Paris, 19±23 January 1999 This conference, celebrating the work of Simone de Beauvoir, was the most impressive conference I have attended for several years. Christine Delphy and Sylvie Chaperon gathered together more than 100 speakers, from all over the world, for an audience of 500 participants, to discuss Le DeuxieÁme Sexe. The lucky ones had registered in time, others had been refused subscription because the accommodation could simply not ®t in any more people. During the months of preparation the conference had been extended by two days, because there was so much interest in the event. The result of all these efforts was impressive: ®ve days full of scienti®c work and feminist thinking. The combination of philosophical analyses, `oral history', homage to Simone de Beauvoir and a strong impetus for (re)reading and for reconsidering feminist engagement was a rare balance. Michelle Perrot chaired the opening session. At the conference, her contribution illustrated how `we' have analysed women's systematic labelling as `The Other' during history, and how `we' have altered that position during the last decades. In an interview in the Paris newspaper LibeÂration, published on the opening day of the conference, she said: `Her [Simone de Beauvoir] thinking became a weapon and a reality' and she summarized the modernity of Simone de Beauvoir. All around us at the confer- ence, we felt an atmosphere of actors exchanging ideas and memories; no vibrations of `victims' or `grumblers'. It was an excellent initiative to bring together philosophical contributions about the lasting value of Simone de Beauvoir as a philosopher, stories and memories about the history of the (French) women's movement, analysis of the reception of Simone de Beauvoir's work in different parts of the world and also a bit of nostalgia and creative ways of commemorating a very inspiring woman. `Work of Memory of Women', Michelle Perrot called it in the interview in LibeÂration. We were together because of the cinquantenaire or ®ftieth anniversary of Simone de Beauvoir's Le DeuxieÁme Sexe; and it was to the conference speakers' credit that they respected this fully: they addressed the topic of the conference, and did not use Simone de Beauvoir as an alibi to present papers of general feminist interest. SIMONE THE BEAUVOIR AS A PHILOSOPHER There remains a huge interest in the question: Was Simone the Beauvoir an original philosopher, and where did she ®nd the inspiration to go her own way? It is the main question in the work of Karen Vintges. Several speakers at the conference addressed this question again, from different perspectives, including The European Journal of Women's Studies Copyright # SAGE Publications (London, Thousand Oaks and New Delhi), Vol. 6, 1999: 363±368 [1350-5068(199908)6:3;363±368;009529] 364 The European Journal of Women's Studies 6(3) Eva Lundgren-Gothlin's (Sweden) `The Philosophical Origins of Simone de Beauvoir's Le DeuxieÁme Sexe and Sara HeinaÈmaa's (Finland) `Simone de Beauvoir's Philosophy of Sexuality'. Hegel and Sartre, Merleau-Ponty and to a lesser extent Heidegger are the main philosophers that inspired de Beauvoir. It materialized that the research about the philosophical contextualization of Simone de Beauvoir differs a lot, from country to country. The thematic dimension is more important than the exact (always male) sources of inspiration. The following questions and themes were discussed: . Is emancipation/liberation possible for women, if one uses Simone de Beau- voir's interpretation from Hegel? . What are the implications for women of the fact that Simone de Beauvoir leaned a lot on the work of Merleau-Ponty? Her phenomenology is overtly sensorial, which gives it a gender sensitivity lacking in most of the other phenomenolo- gies. Simone de Beauvoir made ethics a part of her existentialism. The relevance of `Esquisse d'une morale de l'ambiguiteÂ' is now seen as greater than was recognized for many years previously. The recognition of its value emerged in the recent revival of ethical interests. This revival was pushed forward by the feminist discussion about ethics. This is important. It becomes clear that de Beauvoir offered an existentialist ethical theory, while other existentialist authors did not. The philosophy of de Beauvoir is a praxiology. In working out this approach, she rede®ned philosophy, In the special issue of the French newspaper LibeÂration (15 April 1986), on the occasion of de Beauvoir's death the day before, several commentators predicted that the impact of Simone de Beauvoir would be more lasting than Sartre's. `Et si le plus philosophe des deux n'eÂtait pas celui qu'on croit?' one of the articles was titled, implying that Simone de Beauvoir, as a philosopher, was more outstanding than Sartre. During the whole conference the dialogue between the participants was of fact- ®nding importance. For instance, in one country a Hegelian reading of de Beauvoir is self-evident, while in another country it still has to gain recognition. This kind of contextualization of reading traditions of philosophical texts appears to work better in life situations than in publications. However, the fact that `reading' these texts can differ so much always confuses me: is there a philosophi- cal reading or analysis of methodology or not? Second, a very legitimate question (not receiving a satisfying answer from the conference speakers) was posted from the public: What are the criteria you use to call an author a `philosopher'? In other words: what is the de®nition of `philos- ophy' used, when including or excluding the work of Simone de Beauvoir? The American researcher Meryl Altman delivered a highly appreciated contri- bution about the roots of Simone de Beauvoir. The title of her lecture was `Unhappy Bodies: The Frigid Women in The Second Sex'. She focused on the use Simone de Beauvoir made, in The Second Sex, of the work of Stekel. In the original French edition of Le DeuxieÁme Sexe Stekel is mentioned 62 times, in quotes and/or references. In the English translation Stekel appears more sporadically. De Beauvoir wanted to use psychoanalysis, but not the Freudian frame of reference. So, she chose Stekel. All the criticism later feminists formulated against Freud already played a role in the resistance of de Beauvoir. Simone de Beauvoir had Conference Report 365 dif®culty working with the frame Freud proposed, among other things, because of the fact that in a Freudian perspective `transparency' is not achievable. Meryl Altman's contribution revealed more than just the facts about de Beauvoir's interpretation of Stekel. Her contribution discussed the methodology of Simone de Beauvoir and the refutable quality of the English translation of The Second Sex. Methodology Despite the immense admiration I have for the creative work achieved by Simone de Beauvoir in The Second Sex, the methodology used to write ± or compile ± The Second Sex is no longer feasible today. It is written with personal analyses, arguing with examples, pieces from the social sciences, fragments of philosophy and excerpts of supportive authors, while skipping others, without systemizing the search and selection mechanisms. The use Simone de Beauvoir makes of Stekel illustrates this very well. It leads to important insights; it works, but in our own teaching practice today we would hardly accept it from our doctoral students. De Beauvoir's writing methods were impressively illustrated by a presentation by Catherine Violet at the conference. She is studying the manuscripts of de Beauvoir. With sheets of the originals, she showed the way Simone de Beauvoir used to work. De Beauvoir needed two typists, because it was dif®cult the follow the speed of her writing. And, the typists were dif®cult to ®nd, because of Simone's almost illegible handwriting. Those are the spicy anecdotes. What is more surprising, today, is the seemingly loose character of her associations, inserts, corrections, or quotes. Besides the manuscripts no other texts seem to have been found to reveal the way Simone de Beauvoir did her research. Violet's contribution impressed the audience, not least because of the personal ± even indiscreet ± touch she brought to it. With hundreds of feminist researchers in the hall, one could hear their breath stopping as they looked at the overhead projections of Simone de Beauvoir's manuscripts. We entered, hesitatingly, into the intimacy between the author's mind, her pen, her folios. Translations The English translation of The Second Sex has been extremely important. It is well known that the biggest in¯uence of the book, in Europe, was provoked not by the ®rst, French publication of it, but by the comments and analyses resulting from the English reception of it. It was very interesting to hear, together in one session at the conference, a paper by Yolanda Patterson on her archive work concerning the English translation and her study of the letters between the translator and the editor; and a critical analysis of the English translation by Elizabeth Fallaize. Overall, the conclusion was that the English translation is simply not `true' enough. Despite the total dedication of the translator, the English version cut the original text so much (under instructions by the editors, as we learnt from the letters Patterson has studied) that the English public lived with a different Second Sex than did the French-reading public. Fallaize presented a speci®c critique on the chapter about `housework'. It is of historical importance that the version the English and American feminists have read differs so much from the original French version. All the paragraphs about the sensual, tactile, repetitive and addictive aspects of housekeeping, shopping and caring are missing in the English version. Not only did the English translation receive attention during the conference, The 366 The European Journal of Women's Studies 6(3) Second Sex has been translated into many other languages too.