SAMPLE PREP-SHEET on DE BEAUVOIR

Sample “prep-sheet” created for Phi 383W, Spring 2002.

SAMPLE “PREP-SHEET” on DE BEAUVOIR

(see syllabus re. “Prep-sheets”)

DE BEAUVOIR:
The Question: “What is woman?” How can we understand what being a woman is, in a way that also allows us to understand why women as a group have been so seriously oppressed for such a long time.
The Answer: Woman is "the Other," the nonessential, in relation to the male as the essential; the objective in relation to the male as subjective and transcendent.
The thought-steps (the “argument”):
There is a long history of women’s subordination. Also, “othering” (differentiation) is basic to consciousness. However, consciousness being what it is, this process sets up a reciprocity between two consciousnesses—as in, e.g., Hegel’s Master-Slave story. The interesting thing about the case of Woman as Other is that this reciprocity seems to fail: Woman seems not to claim the subject position that would make the male the other, the object, in turn. The question, then, is why? De Beauvoir answers that the condition that encourages women’s subordination is their reproductive biology as child-bearers, which tends to place them in a less powerful social status. This has been the case for a very long time. Still, why don’t women come together and rise up against oppression, as other groups have done (e.g the working class, or racial groups)? Why don’t women function as “we” and act in group solidarity?
The reason is in part simply that male and female do form “a totality whose components are necessary to each other” (p.16). Furthermore, women may well find themselves without survival resources if they challenge their attachment to and dependence of men. And, indeed, women obtain benefits from attachment to men—benefits they may have to give up if things change. Thus women are in a paradoxical position: like every human being, they have a desire for “transcendence” from thinghood to full personhood. However, given their subordination historically, they also, and with reason, fear loss of such benefits as do accrue to acceptance of their status as Object, as Other.
Strength of the argument: The internal logic is basically good—no egregious fallacies. However, there are conceptual problems she shares with some of the thinkers on whom she draws, e.g., Hegel. Demarcation, differentiation, may indeed be a fundamental operation of consciousness. Why should we assume, however, (a) that the basic articulation is binary, and (b) that the basic relation, even if binary, is a subject-object relation, rather than, e.g., a subject-subject relation? ... or, better yet, a triadic subject-object-subject relation?
Significance of the argument: This work was groundbreaking and led the way for many women to find their voices and be heard. Why? De Beauvoir simultaneously (i) named oppression for what it is, and (ii) placed the burden of initiating change on women themselves, asking them to assert their own agency. ... It is important to note that this piece came out shortly after WWII, and that the language (some of the expressions may be unfamiliar) draws on the technical terminology of "Existentialism," a philosophy that attracted much attention (from professionals and lay persons alike) in the post-War period.
Reflections: From this short excerpt, one might question whether de Beauvoir achieves an adequate balance between the psychological and the structural dimensions of oppression. Having said that, however, I’d add that at least she does acknowledge the structural dimension, although her focus in this excerpt is on the structure of consciousness as the root of the phenomenon of oppression.