On Womanly Nihilism

boundary 2 ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 47 (1) ◽  
pp. 43-64
Author(s):  
Robyn Marasco
Keyword(s):  
Close Reading ◽  
Simone De Beauvoir ◽  
Second Sex ◽  
The Feminine ◽  
Professional Class ◽  
Compulsion To Repeat

This essay borrows the term “womanly nihilism” from an antifeminist misreading of Simone de Beauvoir in order to better understand her politics and philosophy and rethink her legacy for contemporary feminism. Through a close reading of The Ethics of Ambiguity and key chapters from The Second Sex, I argue that Beauvoir shares a critique of nihilism, though she gives the term more analytic precision and political purchase than those who would use the term against her. For Beauvoir, womanly nihilism—or the feminine will to nothingness—is paradoxically expressed in the desire for everything, or “having it all.” Wanting it all, says Beauvoir, must be considered in connection with the conditions under which women are permitted too little. She shows how the desire for all is a nihilistic compulsion to repeat and re-create the conditions of one’s injury, exclusion, and oppression. As corporate feminist icons encourage women to lean in, as “having it all” becomes the popular slogan for the feminism of the professional class, Beauvoir’s portrait of womanly nihilism provides an occasion to take stock of her lasting significance for us.

What Can Literature Do? Simone de Beauvoir as a Literary Theorist

PMLA ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 124 (1) ◽  
pp. 189-198 ◽  
Author(s):  
Toril Moi
Keyword(s):  
Feminist Theory ◽  
Psychoanalytic Theory ◽  
Feminist Criticism ◽  
Literary Studies ◽  
Simone De Beauvoir ◽  
Ecriture Feminine ◽  
The Past ◽  
Second Sex ◽  
The Feminine ◽  
State Of Affairs

The past twenty years have seen a beauvoir revival in feminist theory. Feminist philosophers, political scientists, and historians of ideas have all made powerful contributions to our understanding of her philosophy, above all The Second Sex. Literary studies have lagged somewhat behind. Given that Beauvoir always defined herself as a writer rather than as a philosopher (Moi, Simone de Beauvoir 52–57), this is an unexpected state of affairs. Ursula Tidd's explanation is that Beauvoir's existentialism is theoretically incompatible with the poststructuralist trends that have dominated feminist criticism:Viewed as unsympathetic to “écriture féminine” and to feminist differentialist critiques of language, Beauvoir's broadly realist and “committed” approach to literature has been deemed less technically challenging than experimental women's writing exploring the feminine, read through the lens of feminist psychoanalytic theory.(“État Présent” 205)

scholarly journals Simone de Beauvoir para além da França: Como o livro “O Segundo Sexo” influenciou diversas gerações em diferentes locais do Mundo?

2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (9) ◽  
pp. 282
Author(s):  
Ana Carolina De Montmorency Pestana Varizo
Keyword(s):  
Present Article ◽  
Simone De Beauvoir ◽  
Second Sex ◽  
The Feminine ◽  
Feminine Role

Simone de Beauvoir foi autora de um dos primeiros livros questionando o papel feminino construído pela sociedade, levantando neste uma série de questões e influenciando fortemente o pensamento da época.  Tendo isso em vista, o presente artigo pretende abordar como, apesar de ser muito criticada pelas gerações seguintes, a figura de Simone de Beauvoir se mantém presente no imaginário das mulheres feministas durante todas as ondas do movimento, de 1949 até o momento. Utilizando o livro “O Segundo Sexo” para apresentar a perspectiva da autora em ênfase e outras fontes como documentários, filmes e livros de outras autoras, buscarei demonstrar a influência do estudo da autora e sua contribuição ao redor do mundo.Palavras chave: Simone de Beauvoir; feminismo; patriarcado. AbstractSimone de Beauvoir was the writer of one of the first books which questioned the feminine role created by society, raising on that lots of questions about feminism and strong influencing thoughts about it at her time. Keeping this in mind, the present article is going to approach how, besides the critics she acquired of the following generations, the portrayal of Simone de Beauvoir stays present in the feminists' foresight on every surge of the movement so far. Using the book “The Second Sex” for the present perspective of the author and others references as documentaries; movies and books from another author, pointing how her studies influencied and contribuied around the world.Key-words: Simone de Beauvoir; feminism; patriarchate.

Simone de Beauvoir's Philosophy of Individuation

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura Hengehold
Keyword(s):  
Lived Experience ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
Sexual Difference ◽  
Gilles Deleuze ◽  
The Other ◽  
Simone De Beauvoir ◽  
Second Sex ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The World

Most studies of Simone de Beauvoir situate her with respect to Hegel and the tradition of 20th-century phenomenology begun by Husserl, Heidegger, and Merleau-Ponty. This book analyzes The Second Sex in light of the concepts of becoming, problematization, and the Other found in Gilles Deleuze. Reading Beauvoir through a Deleuzian lens allows more emphasis to be placed on Beauvoir's early interest in Bergson and Leibniz, and on the individuation of consciousness, a puzzle of continuing interest to both phenomenologists and Deleuzians. By engaging with the philosophical issues in her novels and student diaries, this book rethinks Beauvoir’s focus on recognition in The Second Sex in terms of women’s struggle to individuate themselves despite sexist forms of representation. It shows how specific forms of women’s “lived experience” can be understood as the result of habits conforming to and resisting this sexist “sense.” Later feminists put forward important criticisms regarding Beauvoir’s claims not to be a philosopher, as well as the value of sexual difference and the supposedly Eurocentric universalism of her thought. Deleuzians, on the other hand, might well object to her ideas about recognition. This book attempts to address those criticisms, while challenging the historicist assumptions behind many efforts to establish Beauvoir’s significance as a philosopher and feminist thinker. As a result, readers can establish a productive relationship between Beauvoir’s “problems” and those of women around the world who read her work under very different circumstances.

The Attempt to Author the World: How Intellectualism Denies the Individual

2012 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth R. Wheelock
Keyword(s):  
Marxist Theory ◽  
Personal Relationships ◽  
Simone De Beauvoir ◽  
Human Interactions ◽  
Second Sex ◽  
Existential Theory ◽  
Feminist Scholar ◽  
The World ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Existential Issues

Although primarily known as a feminist scholar and author of such works as She Came to Stay and The Second Sex, Simone de Beauvoir contributed heavily to French existential thought. The two writings upon which this paper focuses, The Ethics of Ambiguity and The Woman Destroyed, deal with the existential issues involved in human interactions and personal relationships. The Ethics of Ambiguity, famous as an exploration of the ethical code created by existential theory, begins with a criticism of Marxism and the ways in which it deviates from existentialism. Similarly, the first of the three short stories that make up de Beauvoir’s fictional work The Woman Destroyed follows the French intelligentsia and their similarities and digressions from Marxist and existential thought. In this paper, I seek to analyze Simone de Beauvoir’s criticism of Marxist theory in The Ethics of Ambiguity and its transformation into the critique of intellectualism found twenty years later in The Woman Destroyed. I will investigate Marxism’s alleged attempts to constrain the group it wishes to lead and the motivation behind these actions. Finally, I conclude with a discussion of the efficacy of fiction as a medium for de Beauvoir’s philosophy.

scholarly journals Navigating Gendered Space with Special Reference to Lil Bahadur Chettri’s Mountains Painted with Turmeric

2019 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
pp. 149-160
Author(s):  
Tamishra Swain ◽  
Shalini Shah
Keyword(s):  
Gender Identity ◽  
Special Reference ◽  
Judith Butler ◽  
Female Identity ◽  
Simone De Beauvoir ◽  
Second Sex ◽  
Gendered Space ◽  
Long Time ◽  
Gender Trouble

It is rightly put by the French philosopher Simone De Beauvoir in her book ‘Second Sex’ that “one is not born but made a woman”. So, women are treated secondary as compared to men for a long time. Similar view has been propounded by Judith Butler in her book ‘Gender Trouble’ that female identity has been created by repetitive performances and further, gender identity is not fixed rather it is created. There are certain agencies through which these ideologies came in to function. One of such agencies is “space” which is not necessarily physical and fixed but can be mental/psychological and fluid. This space can also use as subversive technique to control certain part of the society. This paper tries to analyze a Nepali fiction ‘Mountains Painted with Turmeric’ by Lil Bahadur Chettri to understand the subversive practices of space and how it controls gender identity.

Introduction

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Margaret A. Simons
Keyword(s):  
Simone De Beauvoir ◽  
Second Sex ◽  
Dramatic Form ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Philosophical Questions ◽  
Insight Into

This introductory chapter presents the literary writings of Simone de Beauvoir (1908–86), the renowned French existentialist author of The Second Sex. Such insight into her own thought is often provided by Beauvoir's prefaces to works by other authors. For instance, Beauvoir's 1964 “Preface” to La Bâtarde has been described as more reflective of her philosophy than of author Violet Leduc's life. Beauvoir's confrontation with her critics is another source of drama in this study. A criticism that spans the decades of these texts is the charge that an existential novel, with its focus on action and philosophical questions, forsakes the aesthetic function of literature. Yet, for Beauvoir, the true mission of the writer is to describe in dramatic form the relationship of the individual to the world in which he stakes his freedom.

scholarly journals Michèle Roberts: Female Genius and the Theology of an English Novelist

Text Matters ◽  
2011 ◽  
pp. 61-75
Author(s):  
Alison Jasper
Keyword(s):  
Christian Theology ◽  
Historical Survey ◽  
Simone De Beauvoir ◽  
Female Desire ◽  
Disciplinary Boundaries ◽  
Interdisciplinary Field ◽  
Second Sex ◽  
Women's Lives ◽  
Problematic Issue

Since Simone de Beauvoir published The Second Sex in 1949, feminist analysis has tended to assume that the conditions of male normativity—reducing woman to the merely excluded "Other" of man—holds true in the experience of all women, not the least, women in the context of Christian praxis and theology. Beauvoir's powerful analysis—showing us how problematic it is to establish a position outside patriarchy's dominance of our conceptual fields—has helped to explain the resilience of sexism and forms of male violence that continue to diminish and destroy women's lives because they cannot be seen as questionable. It has also, I would argue, had the unintended consequence of intensifying the sense of limitation, so that it becomes problematic to account for the work and lives of effective, innovative and responsible women in these contexts. In order to address this problematic issue, I use the life and work of novelist Michèle Roberts, as a case study in female genius within an interdisciplinary field, in order to acknowledge the conditions that have limited a singular woman's literary and theological aspirations but also to claim that she is able to give voice to something creative of her own. The key concept of female genius within this project draws on Julia Kristeva's notion of being a subject without implicitly excluding embodiment and female desire as in normative male theology, or in notions of genius derived from Romanticism. Roberts' work as a writer qualifies her as female genius in so far as it challenges aspects of traditional Christianity, bringing to birth new relationships between theological themes and scriptural narratives without excluding her singular female desires and pleasures as a writer. This paper—as part of a more inclusive, historical survey of the work of women writers crossing the disciplinary boundaries between literature and Christian theology over the last several centuries also asks whether, in order to do proper justice to the real and proven limitations imposed on countless women in these fields across global and historical contexts, we need, at the same time, to reduce the Christian tradition to something that is always antithetical or for which women can take absolutely no credit or bear no responsibility.

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