Studies, Volume 12, 1995 139 : inessential as opposed to the essential. He [Man I is the .Subject, he is the Absolute -- She is the DIFFERENTLY Other"(1949, I, p. 15). 4 OR OTHERLY DIFFERENT? Why is it then that woman has been made not just into an Other, but into the paradigmatic CELINE T. LEON Other -- so much so, in fact, that Beauvoir had initially thought of titling her epochal book GROVE CITY COLLEGE L 'Aum!! In her opinion, two essential differences mark the otherness of women as radically Sexual is one of the major philoso­ different from that of other Others, and even less phical issues, if flOt the issue, of our age. explainable: According to Heidegger, each age has one issue to think through, and one only. Sexual difference (1) In the case of the "second sex," domination is probably the issue in our time which could be and alienation cannot be accounted for in terms of our "salvation" ifwe thought it through. 1 contingency, such as a discrepancy in numbers where the majority imposes its rule on the INTRODUCTION minority (the American Blacks, the Jews), or a historical event (the Diaspora, the introduction of Within the perspective of existentialist slavery), or of social change (the development of ethics and ontology -- the perspective explicitly a proletariat in industrialized ). embraced by Simone de Beauvoir -- the contradiction, the conflict between subjectivity (2) Women are, at least potentially, subjects, and objectivity, transcendence and immanence, hence capable of opposition, and yet, unlike other freedom and , for-itself and in-itself is true Others -- Jews, Blacks workers, etc. -- they do of all human beings torn between self-realii.ation not set up a reciprocal claim, that is, do not and bad faith. Quoting Dumezil and Levi-Strauss contest the practical and moral subjugation that in her introduction to Le Deuxieme Sexe, the men have imposed on them ( 1949, I, p. 17). French existentialist contends, as they do, that the fundamental and primary dimension of This discrepancy Beauvoir attributes -- at least in consciousness -- one found in the most primitive part -- to the fact that women, scattered across all societies, in the ancient mythologies - is the social groups, tend to feel solidarity with men in duality of the Self and the Other (1949, I, pp. 15- their own social group rather than with others of 16). 2 Since Otherness is ineluctably bound up their sex. with human thought, since the identity of any Inasmuch as the different Otherness of the group is linked to the ability of the One to set "second sex" does not stem from a predetermined himself up as the essential/ the Subject by posing nature of sexual difference, what must be exposed the different as the inessential/ the Other, history are the mechanisms, the processes (sanctions, and social reality are predictably laden with taboos, prescriptions) which lie behind the Others -- Blacks, Jews, workers, etc. elaboration of the concept of a "feminine reality." Simone de Beauvoir quotes the now (1949, I, p. 32) But in a world where a "second famous remark where Julien Bencla3 shows the (man-made) nature" has been made to supplant dependence which has traditionally linked woman nature itself, it is not always easy to discern to man's definition of her function and existence: whether Beauvoir, when she reproduces what '"Man can think of himself without woman. She patriarchal structures have done to women, is cannot think of herself without man"' (1949, I, p. subconsciously complicitous with or consciously 15). Although Beauvoir disapproves of Benda's breaking with the existing ideology. Where do assessment, she recognizes that, insofar as facts stop? Where does (male) fiction begin? woman is divided between a transcendent Whether Beauvoir appropriated, with intent to consciousness and a distorted self-image, the correct, or misappropriated the world which scenario of her alienation is not very different surrounded her, however, it is incontrovertible from that of other Others: \\bman too is "the that, beyond the debate with which she opened up Simone de Beauvoir Studies, \k:Jlume 12, 1995 140 her Deuxieme Sexe, to wit, that of the difference body, she is undeniably reproducing the Freudian of woman's difference, she propounded.-- most paradigm. But what other theory of sexual forcefully in the book's conclusion -- the difference was available in 1946, at the time when possibility of an ethical mode of being with the she embarked on her research for The Second Other within a context of reciprocity: Since then, Sex(1949, I, 90)? neo-feminist writers, Luce Irigaray in particular, As Luce Irigaray explains in "La have offered alternative paradigms that challenge Question de l'autre," a recently published article hierarchy and recognize the heterogeneity where she compares her own position to as well as the homogeneity of each one in Beauvoirs on the issue which concerns us here: him/herself and in relation. But are these new "The reason why Freud's theory is machiste is expressions likely to displace the heterosexual because it reproduces the surrounding matrix propounded by Beauvoir? In effect, how sociocultural order: Freud did not invent truly apart are the position which advocates machisme, he took notice of it." ( 1995, p. 41, my cultivation of the otherly different and that which translation) urges removal of the negative connotations To a large extent, Charlene Haddock inherent in being differently other? Seigfried is correct in her claim that "[Beauvoir's] Since what will be true in this instance descriptions of biological data incorporate value will definitely obtain in the case of less inflexible judgments." (1990, p. 308) Yet what makes the facts, let us begin with an investigation of the case of Beauvoir interesting is that, even when "nature" of these (apparently) most immutable she mimics the speech of the Same, she data - those of biology - particularly as they delineates its arbitrary and contingent character. manifest themselves, from very early on, as What matters to her is to show that, since the aspects of the sexual difference. image which individuals have of themselves is largely exogenous, sexual difference is condi­ THE OTHERING DATA OF BIOLOGY: tioned by representation, just as representation is FACTS OR MALE FICTIONS'? conditioned by sexual difference. Or, to put it somewhat differently, sexual difference is not Beauvoir, mostly because of the dim light constitutive of alienation, alienation is constitutive in which she casts her data of biology, has often of sexual difference. Thus, if the young girl reads been accused of being in collusion with the her difference as inferiority, it is not because, situation she describes. But is it true that, when deprived of a penis, she considers herself a she refers to the various stages in a woman's life eunuch, a male manque It is instead because she (sexual desire, pregnancy, childbirth, etc.) as discovers that only males wield power in the "happenings" unrelated to consciousness, as world and that hierarchical structures have always events which, unbeknownst to a woman, unfold put the feminine in a position of exploitation and within her, she - in the words of Toril Moi - has of exclusion: "She sees that it is not the women, "become [so] thoroughly ensnared in the very but the men who control the world. This revela­ patriarchal categories which she set out to tion - much more than the discovery of the penis describe" as to reproduce them unwittingly -- irresistibly alters her conception of herself." (1994, p. 173)? (1949, II, p. 38) According to Freud, the difference Later in life, the young girl is further between the sexes cuts back through early alienated and divided against herself by the childhood, where it trenchantly divides up education she receives. When she reaches functions and sexual roles: "Maleness combines adolescence, not only is she presented with a [the characteristics of) subject, activity, and destructive and degrading body image, but also, possession of the penis; femaleness takes over since sexual desire is intertwined with social fthose of] object and passivity" (1964, 19:145). constructs, she is made to identify with and Thus, when Beauvoir makes the distinction confonn to a concept of femininity detrimental to between, on the one hand, the duality and her aspirations. As mirrors of and for man, sameness with which the little boy is invested by women, without their knowing or willing it, have virtue of his having a penis, and, on the other, the to deal with a situation which they inherit and by monism of the little girl identified with her entire which they have always already been misshapen.