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Simone De Beauvoir's Phenomenology of Sexual Difference 6LPRQHGH%HDXYRLULV3KHQRPHQRORJ\RI6H[XDO'LIIHUHQFH 6DUD+HLQDPDD Hypatia, Volume 14, Number 4, Fall 1999, pp. 114-132 (Article) 3XEOLVKHGE\,QGLDQD8QLYHUVLW\3UHVV DOI: 10.1353/hyp.2005.0029 For additional information about this article http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/hyp/summary/v014/14.4heinamaa.html Access provided by Osaka University (3 Nov 2014 21:38 GMT) 114 Hypatia Simone de Beauvoir’s Phenomenology of Sexual Difference SARA HEINÄMAA The paper argues that the philosophical starting point of Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex is the phenomenological understanding of the living body, developed by Edmund Husserl and Maurice Merleau-Ponty. It shows that Beauvoir’s notion of philosophy stems from the phenomenological interpretation of Cartesianism which emphasizes the role of evidence, self-criticism, and dialogue. Simone de Beauvoir is not usually considered a philosopher, and her works, including The Ethics of Ambiguity (Pour une morale de l’ambiguïté 1947) and The Second Sex (Le Deuxième sexe 1949), are not usually studied as philosophical.1 Beauvoir is read as a novelist and essayist, and her nonfictional works are taken as sociohistorical studies—popular rather than scholarly, moral rather than ethical. This common view is fundamentally mistaken. I show that Simone de Beauvoir is a philosopher and that she herself considered her work to be phi- losophical. Her understanding of philosophy, however, was specific, and this specificity is the theme of my paper. My claim is that the philosophical context in which Beauvoir operated is the phenomenology of body that Edmund Husserl initiated and Maurice Merleau-Ponty further developed. So I argue against the traditional under- standing according to which Beauvoir’s philosophical notions stemmed from Jean-Paul Sartre’s works; but I also question the more recent argument that Beauvoir based her views on Martin Heidegger’s work. I want to show that at the core of Beauvoir’s writing about sexuality and ethics is a particular un- derstanding of the philosopher’s practice and task, and that she shared this understanding with Husserl and Merleau-Ponty. In the case of The Second Sex, I argue that Beauvoir’s main interest is not in Hypatia vol. 14, no. 4 (Fall 1999) © by Sara Heinämaa Sara Heinämaa 115 explaining women’s subordinate position, nor in defending their rights. In- stead of putting forward a sociohistorical theory or a liberalist thesis, Beauvoir presents a phenomenological description. The phenomenon that she describes is the reality named woman, and her aim is to analyze the meanings involved in this reality. Her work includes a radical problematization of our ideas of femaleness, femininity, and women’s subordination, as well as those of sexual- ity, embodiment, and the self-other relationship. To realize the phenomenological nature of Beauvoir’s problem setting, it is necessary to understand the nature of phenomenological philosophy—its tasks and methods. This paper begins with a short excursion into phenomenol- ogy as presented by Husserl and Merleau-Ponty.2 PHENOMENOLOGY: A FOUNDATIONAL SCIENCE Husserl defines phenomenology as a study of phenomena, that is, the ways in which the world appears, or presents itself, to us in experience. It is often claimed that phenomenology, thus defined, is a return to introspective phi- losophy, but this is a gross misunderstanding. Husserl argues again and again that phenomenology is not about the internal processes or activities of the human mind. It is about the ways in which we relate to the world and its be- ings.3 The phenomenologist takes a step back from the world; he suspends his belief in the reality of the world and its beings. The aim, however, is not to ex- amine oneself, but to become aware of one’s involvement in the reality of the world, that is, in the constitution of the meaning of reality, and one’s attach- ments to this reality. Merleau-Ponty’s description of the phenomenological stand is illuminating: “Reflection does not withdraw from the world towards the unity of consciousness as the world’s basis;—it slackens the intentional threads which attach us to the world and thus brings them to our notice” (Mer- leau-Ponty 1993, viii). In The Crisis of the European Sciences (Die Krisis der europäischen Wissenschaf- ten und die transzendentale Phänomenologie 1954), Husserl gives a set of phe- nomenological problems for future study: he refers to the problems of death and birth, the problem of the unconsciousness, and the problems of historici- ty and social life (their “essential forms”). And then, he states, “there is the problem of the sexes” (Husserl 1954, 192). The phenomenologist’s task is to study the meanings of these phenomena, their constitution as different kinds of realities and objectivities, that is, entities, occurrences, processes, events, facts, etc. So the questions concerning death, for example, are not, What is death? How does death happen? What is its mechanism? Rather the question is, How does it happen that we experience death as an occurrence (Vorkomm- niss)? Similarly, we can ask, Why is the sexual relation experienced as a dif- ference and an opposition? Is this necessary? Can the experience have some other structure? The relevant experiences to be studied are not just erotic de- 116 Hypatia sires but all actions and passions in which the other is perceived as a man or a woman (Fink 1988, 274). Husserl’s phenomenology involves a strong view of the relation between philosophy and the empirical sciences. Philosophy, understood as phenom- enology, is a foundational science in that it studies the basis of the empirical sciences, the ideas that empirical sciences need to rely on: the ideas of nature, history, society, and humanity—mind and body. This does not mean that philosophy is independent or autonomous. Hus- serl points out that the sciences and philosophy have a common root in the theoretical attitude that suspends the practical interests of everyday life and studies the universe as a whole. The scientist-philosopher is not just interested in the actualities (the present) but also in the possible. When he constructs a theory of sexuality, for example, he does not describe merely this or that sex- uality, but tries to grasp sexuality in all its complexity and variation. His de- scription should aim at including all possible sexualities as well as the actual forms of our sexual life. The important difference between the scientist and the philosopher is in the radically critical nature of philosophy. Husserl characterizes this difference by saying that the task of philosophy is to ask the ultimate questions. The phi- losopher turns back to investigate the foundations of the theoretical enter- prise, the hidden assumptions and engagements that it depends on. His task is to pose the radical questions about the conditions of the possibility of sci- entific thinking, about the ideas of truth, reality, objectivity, and universality. The interest of his study is thus not practical, nor purely theoretical, but crit- ical.4 The philosophical questions cannot be answered in the same way as em- pirical questions can be answered. Instead of being solved, they might lead us to new problems and paradoxes (Merleau-Ponty 1996). This does not entitle us to bypass them. Although there are no final solutions, philosophical ques- tioning is indispensable: it alone can make us conscious of our involvement in the constitution of reality, of the meanings of being and real (Merleau-Ponty 1964, 142). BEAUVOIR’S PHENOMENOLOGICAL STARTING POINTS When studying Beauvoir’s relation to phenomenological philosophy, the most interesting sources are the philosophical sections of her autobiography and her ethical essays.5 These texts show that Beauvoir not only studied Hus- serl’s texts in detail but also found his notion of philosophy most appealing. Beauvoir gives significant information about her relation to phenomenol- ogy in her autobiography. In Prime of Life (La Force de l’âge 1960), she tells us that, when studying Husserl’s lectures on time consciousness she felt that she was “getting closer to truth than ever” (Beauvoir 1995a, 231). Further she Sara Heinämaa 117 explains her relation to phenomenological philosophy by comparing her own attitude to that of Sartre: Sartre claimed that I comprehended philosophical doctrines, that of Husserl among others, faster and more accurately than he did. In fact, he tended to interpret philosophies according to his own schemata; for him it was very difficult to forget himself and to adopt without reservations a strange point of view. But I did not have such resistance to fight; my thoughts adapted im- mediately to the thought I tried to understand. I did not accept it passively; even when I agreed, I also noticed gaps and inco- herencies, and explored possible elaborations. If a theory con- vinced me, it did not remain exterior to me, it changed my re- lation to the world, colored my experience. In short, I had a sound capacity to adopt, a critical sense to develop; for me phi- losophy was a living reality. (Beauvoir 1995a, 254) Beauvoir’s ethical essay, The Ethics of Ambiguity (Pour une morale de l’am- biguïté 1947) testifies to her capacities and engagement. It shows that Beau- voir’s understanding of the aims and methods of Husserl’s phenomenology was deep and fruitful. This is clear in Beauvoir’s comparison between her ethical stance and the phenomenological attitude. She follows Husserl and Merleau-Ponty in insist- ing that the aim of the phenomenological suspension (mettre entre parenthèses) is not to turn towards oneself but to become conscious of our true existence, that is, our relations with the world and others (Beauvoir 1947, 20–21). Fur- ther, Beauvoir emphasizes that the suspension does not “contest” the reality of the world, it only refuses to take this reality as an absolute and unproblematic given.
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