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Simone de Beauvoir's Phenomenology of Sexual Difference Author(s): Sara Heinämaa Source: Hypatia, Vol. 14, No. 4, The Philosophy of Simone de Beauvoir (Autumn, 1999), pp. 114-132 Published by: Wiley on behalf of Hypatia, Inc. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3810830 Accessed: 15-07-2016 14:18 UTC

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Simone de Beauvoir's Phenomenology of Sexual Difference

SARA HEINAMAA

The paper argues that the philosophical startingpoint 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'ambiguite 1947) and The Second Sex (Le Deuxieme 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 Heinamaa

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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 europtiischen Wissenschaf-

ten und die transzendentale Phanomenologie 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-

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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 turs 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'age 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

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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- biguite 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 parentheses) 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. She explains that the phenomenologist does not reject the reality of the world, its facts and events, but questions its "mode of reality" (mode de realite') (1947, 21).

The most direct evidence of Beauvoir's phenomenological engagement is found in The Second Sex. There she tells us that the basic concepts of her work-the concepts of body and sexuality-are taken from the phenomeno- logical tradition of thinking. She emphasizes repeatedly that her discussion of sexual difference is based on the concept of the living body (Leib, corps vivant, corps vecu).6 Husserl first introduced this concept in his lectures on objectivity and spatiality, Ding und Raum, in 1907. Six years later Husserl gave it an ex- tensive explication in the second part of his Ideas (Ideen). This work remained unpublished for a long time, but Merleau-Ponty studied it in the Husserl ar- chives in Louvain in 1937, and he refers to them repeatedly in his Phenome- nology of Perception (Phenomenologie de la perception 1945) when developing his notion of the body.7

The core of Husserl's concept of the living body (Leib) is that it differs es-

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sentially from the material objects (Korper) that we manipulate in our every- day dealings and scientific practices. Husserl makes this far-reaching distinc- tion by pointing out that the body presents itself to us in two different ways: as the starting point of all our activities (Leib) and as a passive or resistant ob- ject (Korper). He then argues that the living body is primary and that it ap- pears essentially as the expression and instrument of the spirit. It is not a sep- arate reality, but it is the horizon of all our activities, both everyday dealings and scientific idealizations (Husserl 1952, 157, 281; Merleau-Ponty 1993, 106-13).

The existentialists applied and developed further Husserl's analysis of the living body. Merleau-Ponty in particular submitted the living body to an ex- tensive and thorough study in the second part of his Phenomenology of Percep- tion. Beauvoir knew this work well; she reviewed it for Temps modernes in 1945,

and she refers to it repeatedly when presenting her understanding of embodi- ment in The Second Sex.

Beauvoir starts her review of Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology by writing: "one of the great merits of phenomenology-is in its abolishing of the oppo- sition between the subject and the object. It is impossible to define an object apart from the subject by whom and for whom it is the object; and the subject reveals itself only in relation to the objects that it is engaged with" (Beauvoir 1945a, 363).

These statements may sound trivial, Beauvoir remarks, but they have far- reaching philosophical implications: one can develop a genuine ethics only by taking the phenomenological understanding of the subject-object relation as the basis (Beauvoir 1945a, 363). According to Beauvoir, such an understand- ing is necessary for a sincere and total ethical commitment.

Beauvoir sees the main value of Merleau-Ponty's work here. For Merleau- Ponty, she writes, the personal consciousness "is not a pure for-itself, nor a gap in being, as Hegel wrote, and Sartre repeated, but it is 'a curve, a folding that can be unfolded'" (1945a, 367). She explains further that Merleau-Ponty rejects Sartre's opposition between the for-itself and in-itself and describes the bodily subject in its concrete existence; her sympathies are clearly with Mer- leau-Ponty (1945a, 366). For her, Merleau-Ponty's phenomenological descrip- tions of the body, its spatiality, movement, sensations, speech, and sexuality are a "rich" and "convincing" source. Their additional merit is that they are not "violent": on the contrary, they suggest that we should adopt the move- ment of life itself (Beauvoir 1945a, 367).

The review testifies to Beauvoir's commitment to phenomenology. It also shows that Beauvoir clearly saw the difference between Merleau-Ponty's and Sartre's interpretations of Husserl's work, and that she considered Merleau- Ponty's nondualistic modification more promising on account of its ethical implications (Beauvoir 1945a, 367).

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Beauvoir's original and far-reaching innovation was to pose the question of sexual difference within and in terms of a phenomenology of body.8 The Second

Sex gives us a rich description of the living sexual body, its bodily and spiritual aspects, and its relations to other bodies and to the world as a whole. Thus it implies the fundamental question of the sexuality of philosophy itself. In Beau- voir's understanding, sexuality is not a detail of being but an element that runs through our whole existence-including our philosophical reflections.

THE PHILOSOPHER AND THE WRITER

We may wonder why so many interpreters have neglected Beauvoir's ex- plicit philosophical statements. One reason for this neglect is that Beauvoir's works are usually studied in the context of her personal life, and her personal life is almost always reduced to her relationship with Sartre.9 Here the com- mon comparison is between "Beauvoir-the novelist" and "Sartre-the phi- losopher." Such representations usually refer to an interview that Beauvoir gave in 1979, published in Feminist Studies. There she stated: "Sartre is a phi- losopher, I am not" (Benjamin and Simons 1979, 330-45). The prevailing conclusion is that Beauvoir did not have any philosophical, or for that matter phenomenological interests, and that her works can be interpreted and evalu- ated without any reference to philosophical concepts or methods.

This conclusion is a mistake. Beauvoir's relation to philosophy is much more complex than such simple oppositions lead one to believe. In her auto- biogaphy, she characterizes her philosophical interests and activities in seve- ral different sections. She clarifies her philosophical engagements by rejecting certain approaches and affirming others. She gives a clear picture of her in- tellectual abilities and her weaknesses, and she expresses her enthusiasm and her love (see, for example, Beauvoir 1997b, 220-22, 324). Further, Beauvoir explains how her novels take part in the philosophical discussions of the self- other relation and the relation between universals and particulars (1997a, 92- 98; 1995a, 625-29). The simple picture of the female novelist and the male philosopher ignores the rich evidence that Beauvoir offers of her philosophi- cal life.

But what is more problematic-at least philosophically more problematic -is that the picture is based on a naive notion of philosophy, and what is worse, one that Beauvoir herself did not approve: the philosopher is seen as a system builder, as an original inventor and creator who works independently of the intellectual tradition, or even against it.

Beauvoir presents a different view of philosophizing, an alternative notion of philosophy. In her writing, philosophical activity is seen primarily as the search for truth and evidence, and as questioning and communication with others. Her autobiography makes this notion quite explicit and argues for it.

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When describing, for example, how she tried to study Hegel's system and fi- nally started to comprehend it, Beauvoir is careful to distinguish between com- prehension and affirmation:

I went on reading Hegel, and started to understand him better; the richness of details dazzled me, and the system as a whole made me feel giddy.-But the more modest movements of my heart refuted such speculations: hope, anger, expectation, anxi- ety asserted themselves against all such transcendings [depasse- ments]. The flight to the universal was only a passing episode in the personal adventure of my life. I went back to Kierkegaard, which I had been reading with passion; the truth that he as- serted defied doubt as victoriously as the Cartesian evidence. Neither System, nor History could, any more than the Mali- cious Demon, cancel the living certainty of "I am, I exist, at this

place and this moment, me." (Beauvoir 1995a, 537)

Beauvoir contrasts the Hegelian system to her own passions. This is not a rejection of philosophical thinking; it is a challenge to a certain understand- ing of philosophy: Beauvoir questions Hegel's and Sartre's philosophical doc- trines by appealing to the evidence of her living experience (see also Beauvoir 1997b, 341; 1995a, 498-99,627-28; 1947,104-05,158-59).10 We should not take the statement as testifying to a focus on personal life or on everyday af- fairs. By challenging philosophical systems in the name of intuition and pas- sion, Beauvoir presents a philosophical statement, a statement about the na- ture of philosophical thinking. She affirms the Cartesian notion that gives priority to present evidence, and this leads her to reject all philosophical the- ories and all "finalities of history" that fail to justify themselves with such evi- dence (Beauvoir 1947, 145-46).11

The context of Beauvoir's work is in the continental tradition of philoso-

phy, which gives much credit to Rene Descartes's radicalism. In this tradition, Descartes is not just criticized as a dualist but also appreciated as a critic of habitual thinking. The most relevant sources are Descartes's methodological text, where he suggests that we must-at least once in our lifetime-question all our convictions. The point is not to become involved in criticizing others; rather, the aim is to question one's own preconceptions, to take responsibility for one's own beliefs and convictions through such self-criticism.

When specifying her philosophical attitude, Beauvoir refers to S0ren Kier- kegaard, Husserl, Merleau-Ponty, and Heidegger, who all developed further the Cartesian notion of philosophy as radical thinking. In the phenomenolog- ical-existential movement, Descartes's idea of philosophical radicalism is in- tensified so that it becomes the requirement of recurrent self-criticism. The philosopher's work is never completed; he/she has to return from the clear and distinct focus of his/her reflection to its ambiguous, dark margins. This

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radical Cartesianism is the core of Beauvoir's idea of philosophical activity and practice.

In addition to criticism and evidence, Beauvoir emphasizes the role of lan- guage. She sees philosophy as an attempt to reach for truth by radical ques- tioning, but she does not think that this can be accomplished or even practiced in solitude. Thinking is not an internal monologue, it is cooperation, and as such it depends essentially on others, on their thoughts expressed in words and texts. For Beauvoir, philosophy means a dialogue, a discussion with others by means of speech and writing. In her autobiography, she states that writing is the only place (lieu) in which intersubjectivity and transcendence can be real- ized (1995b, 242; 1996, 498).

Thus the contrasts Beauvoir makes between philosophy and literature is not a rejection of philosophy for art, but a rejection of philosophies that do not

pay attention to living experience and its expression in language. To summarize, Beauvoir did not think that the most important aspect of

philosophy is realized in solitary system building. Instead, she emphasized the role of questioning, problematizing, and dialogue. When she stated that she is not a philosopher, she meant that she is not a system builder or a theory constructor. This does not imply that her work lacked philosophical interests. On the contrary, Beauvoir tried to realize in her own writing the open self- critical attitude that she considered the living core of all philosophy and that she found in the phenomenological tradition of modern thought.

This is my interpretation of Beauvoir's idea of philosophy. In what follows, I argue that we should take the idea seriously and use it as our key when trying to unlock Beauvoir's complex work on sexuality. The following sections offer a close reading of the first pages of The Second Sex, where Beauvoir lays out the

conceptual and methodological basis for her study. My aim is to show that Beauvoir starts her work by posing a series of phenomenologico-philosophical questions. She is not putting forth an empirical investigation, nor is she in- terested in declaring rights. Instead, she wants to question the basic ideas that we presuppose when we discuss and argue about sexual relations.

THE QUESTION ON WOMAN

Beauvoir begins The Second Sex, not by putting forth a thesis, but by posing a question. In the first words of the book, she tells us that for a long time she has

thought about writing a book on woman (sur la femme), but instead of starting by defining and describing her subject matter, she then asks what the question should be, how it should be posed: "What is the problem, is there one?" (Beau- voir 1993, 11).

The accepted interpretation assumes that Beauvoir takes the notion of woman as given and proceeds to explain the existence and situation of this being called "women." But in fact, Beauvoir starts by problematizing the topic

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of feminist and antifeminist arguments. She notes that the question on wom- an is not a well-defined problem; it has different meanings, and even its sense and relevance can be doubted. The formulation of the question is thus part of the problem to be studied, and this is why we must start by examining different

questions.12 First, Beauvoir presents a series of questions about being and existence. She

asks, Are there women, really? and further, Do women still exist, will they always exist, and is it desirable that they should exist? (1993, 11). We can take these questions as ordinary factual questions about subjects in the world, and then we can answer them by "yes" or "no," depending on our experiences, interests, and use of words. We can also take Beauvoir's questions in a philo- sophical sense, as questions about the meanings of being and reality, and I sug- gest that this was part of Beauvoir's purpose.13 She is not attempting to prove (or disprove) the reality and existence of women, but aims primarily at posing fundamental questions on woman's way of being: How does she exist? Is her being real? and, What is meant by reality when it is stated? If we follow this line of thinking, then the problems cannot be solved simply by referring to our experiences; we must also study the basis and meanings of experiences.

So the first pages of Beauvoir's book present us with questions about being, but leave them unsolved: the reality of women is neither affirmed nor denied. Thus, the focus is shifted to fundamental ontological inquiries into the mean- ing of being. Beauvoir proceeds by asking for a definition of woman, namely, What is meant by this reality?

But not even this question is answered directly. Instead of defining her subject matter, Beauvoir goes into studying the possibility of different defini- tions. She distinguishes first among three different realities-femaleness, fem- ininity, and womanhood-and introduces a provisional definition: "Not ev- ery female human being is necessarily a woman; in order to be a woman, one must participate in the mysterious and threatened reality which is femininity" (1993, 11).

This amounts to claiming that femaleness is necessary but not sufficient to make a woman. In addition, one must have the vague quality of femininity. So

the question becomes, What is the nature of this quality? And: Is it a quality at all, or rather some other kind of reality? It is important to get this question

straight. Beauvoir is not searching for the content of femininity; she wants to study its ontological status: how does femininity exist, how does it present it- self to us, what is its mode of being. Here again, Beauvoir considers several alternatives. She asks if femininity is a product of the imagination or an ideal reality. Or is it a model or a goal for action and behavior? (Beauvoir 1993, 12).

It is sometimes stated that Beauvoir denies the reality of femininity. But if we study her book carefully, it becomes clear that this is a misinterpretation. Beauvoir formulates most of her questions and descriptions in terms of femi- nine existence. Instead of referring to women's writing, to women's sexual

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experiences, or to women's world, she speaks about "feminine literature" (la litterature feminine 1993, 30), "feminine eroticism" (l'erotisme feminin 1991, 176), and "the feminine world" (le monde feminin 1993,30). What is more im- portant is that when she sets out her descriptive task she uses the concept of feminine existence (existence feminine), not the concept of woman: "The point here is not to proclaim eternal verities, but rather to describe the common basis

that underlies every singular feminine existence" (1991, 9; see also 1993, 13). The introduction to the book sets the question of the nature of feminin-

ity in terms of the controversy between universalism and particularism. Beau- voir presents the Medieval alternatives of conceptualism and nominalism and hints also at the Platonic solution. She does not, however, consider these al- ternatives as philosophically satisfying. The book is an attempt to defend a mediative view that does not postulate eternal unchanging essences but does not fall into particularism or nominalism either (Beauvoir 1993, 13). Beauvoir does not reject the reality of femininity even though she does not accept it as a static, unchanging essence. She thinks about it in dynamic terms: to be a woman-to take part in the common, general reality of femininity-is not to be subsumed under a concept or a general rule, and it is not to instantiate an eternal idea or a Platonic essence. To be a woman is to have become a wom-

an (Beauvoir 1993, 25). For Beauvoir, woman "is not a fixed reality but a be- coming" (1993, 73).14

We can understand this idea only if we take seriously Beauvoir's commit- ment to the phenomenological understanding of the living body. As shown above, for Beauvoir, the body is not a thing but a way of relating to things, a way of acting on them and being affected by them. It is "our grasp upon the world and the outline of our projects" (Beauvoir 1993, 73).

As such, the body is an opening, more like a melody than a stable solid structure. Its earlier realizations do not determine its future manifestations,

but they do suggest and motivate different alternatives, and open up horizons of possible actions. Beauvoir emphasizes that the human condition is indefi- nite and ambiguous: it allows for different variations and modifications (1995a, 21). Its generality is not that of a concept or a fixed idea; it does not reside with-

in the particulars nor above them, but resides in the relations between the par- ticulars. In Force of Circumstance (La Force des choses 1963), she states her view

quite explicitly: "... the dimension of human enterprise is neither finite not infinite but the indefinite: this word cannot be enclosed within any fixed lim- its, the best way of approaching it is to follow its possible variations" (Beau- voir 1997a, 97-98).

For Beauvoir, feminine bodies and masculine bodies are not two kinds of

entities, but different variations of human embodiment. They both realize and recreate "in their different ways" the human condition, which is characterized by fundamental ambiguity (Beauvoir 1947, 11-12). In the end of The Second Sex, she writes: "To tell the truth, man, like woman, is flesh, and therefore a

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passivity-. And she, like him, in the midst of her carnal fever, is a consenting, a voluntary gift, an activity; they live in their different ways the strange am- biguity of existence made body" (1991, 658; see also 1947, 11-15).

Understood in this way, femininity is like a musical theme: it is not deter- mined by its earlier performances but is living and evolving in the environ- ment created by them. It does not reside in any specific organs, persons, or practices, but resides among them. So it manifests and develops in the whole of actions and passions, and its specificity is in its mode of changing.

OTHERNESS AND SUBORDINATION

We have seen that Beauvoir starts her book with a series of radical ques- tions, ontological questions, and questions of definition. But this is not all. The discussion of femininity is followed by a series of new questions, questions

about questioning. Beauvoir asks, Who is she to pose the question of wom- an? Why is she asking the question? What is her motivation?

These self-critical questions lead Beauvoir to introduce and study the no- tions of otherness and subordination. She notes that a man would never write

a book on "the particular situation that males have in humanity" (1993, 14). Thus, the relation between man and woman is not symmetrical. Man repre- sents both the positive and the neutral aspects of humanity, woman represents only the negative (Beauvoir 1993, 14). Man describes himself in his theories and histories of humanity, woman remains in silence. He stands both for the normal and for the ideal, she for the deviant. Beauvoir comments by putting forth her well-known thesis: "He is the Subject, he is the Absolute, she is the Other" (1993, 15).

Beauvoir's statement is usually taken as an affirmation of the Otherness of women.15 But if we read carefully, keeping in mind her philosophical interest, we can see that her discussion involves a radical problematization of these ba- sic notions, both the idea of women's Otherness and the notion of their sub- ordination. In the following, I follow her discussion and study these ideas sep-

arately. I first focus on the way Beauvoir problematizes the idea of woman's Otherness and then discuss her notion of subordination.

When studying Beauvoir's notion of sexual difference it is extremely im- portant to notice that the paragraph that describes woman as Other is not Beauvoir's last word on the subject. She adds a footnote to explain that this is a definition given by a man (1993, 15-16, 403). She refers to a particular text, Emmanuel Levinas's Time and Other (Temps et l'autre 1933), where Levi- nas suggests that "otherness reaches its full flowering in the feminine, a term of the same rank as consciousness but of opposite meaning" (Levinas 1933, 77). Beauvoir answers this critically by arguing that Levinas overlooks the fact that woman, too, is a consciousness for herself. She summarizes: "man defines woman not in herself but as relative to him" (Beauvoir 1993, 15).

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To understand this argumentation, we must once again return to Husserl's texts because Levinas's discussion of femininity is largely based on Husserl's work. It is a critique of the analysis Husserl presents in his fifth Cartesian Med- itation (Meditations cartesiennes 1931; Cartesianische Meditationen 1950) of the

self-other relation. There Husserl studies the simple case of perceiving the oth- er. He points out that to see another conscious being, another person, is to see somebody who is able to see you, somebody who is similar to you in his/her seeing. So reciprocity, according to Husserl, is a necessary condition for relat- ing to the other: to see the other requires that you see him/her as seeing (Hus- serl 1950, 122).16 Beauvoir repeats this idea in her analysis: "There can be no presence of an other unless the other is also present for himself: which is to say that true alterity is that of a consciousness separate from mine and identical with mine" (Beauvoir 1993, 237).

When Levinas asks if there is a case of absolute Otherness, he is asking if it is possibile to experience the other without presupposing the identity of activities, for example, seeing. And when he states that femininity represents the absolute Other (to him) he suggests that sexual difference is a specific re- lation in that there the other is experienced without any possibility of iden- tification. The sexual relation is a third kind of way of relating to the world: the

other is not perceived as a material object, totally without experiences, ac- tions, and passions, but it is not experienced as an alter ego either, with activ- ities similar to our own. The sexual other is different in a way that is qual- itatively specific.

Beauvoir attacks Levinas's analysis: "he deliberately takes a man's point of view, disregarding the reciprocity of subject and object" (1993, 16). Here she seems to misinterpret at least part of Levinas's claim. For her, Levinas denies feminine subjectivity and reduces the feminine other to the status of object and matter (1993, 17).17 But Levinas's statement can be understood in the op- posite way: instead of compromising the difference between two sexual sub- jects, it exaggerates the difference. The feminine is experienced as an other, but not as an alter ego, not another consciousness, a different species of the same genus. Rather the feminine appears as radically and forever unknowable.

My aim here is not to take a stand on the controversy between Beauvoir and Levinas. I only want to make it explicit and show its indebtedness to Husserl's phenomenology. Beauvoir does not accept Levinas's idea of radical sexual dif- ference. For her, women and men are two variations of human embodiment.

This leads Beauvoir to the questions of reciprocity and subordination: How is it that the similarity and reciprocity of the sexes has not been recognized? How is it that one of the contrasting terms is set up as the sole essential, and the other is defined as pure Otherness? "Whence comes this subordination in the case of women?" (Beauvoir 1993, 18).

What follows is a discussion of the nature of woman's subordination. What

is remarkable and important is that Beauvoir does not proceed by presenting

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causes or effects. Instead she focuses on the nature of the phenomenon and clarifies it by pointing out that it is not a result of any social change, nor is it an effect of any historical occurrence or event (evenement): "Throughout his- tory they [women] have always been subordinated to men, and hence their de- pendency is not the result of a historical event or a social change-it was not something that occurred [arriver]" (1993, 18).

Beauvoir's point is not to deny subordination. She does not claim that sub- ordination "did not happen," but suggests that its reality is not in the order of happenings and events. So it is not as if Beauvoir first posits women's subor- dination as an event, and only then denies its reality. Instead she questions its status as a happening, as a contingent, accidental event. She points to the spe- cific, peculiar nature of this subordination, its "seeming" necessity and natural- ness (1993, 18). Women's subordination is not a contingent fact nor a nec- essary structure; its way of appearing, its ontological meaning, is somehow between these two extremes.

Here again, Beauvoir refers to Merleau-Ponty's Phenomenology of Percep- tion. There, in the end of the chapter on sexuality, Merleau-Ponty writes that "human existence requires us to revise our ordinary ideas of necessity and con- tingency because it is the transformation of contingency to necessity by the act

of repeating" (Merleau-Ponty 1993, 199; Beauvoir 1993, 39-40). He explains further: "Existence has no fortuitous attributes, no content which does not

contribute towards giving it form; it does not admit any pure fact because it is the movement by which facts are drawn up" (Merleau-Ponty 1993, 198).

Merleau-Ponty argues that sexuality cannot be described as a fact, because it characterizes our existence already on that basic level of experience that functions as the foundation for the constitution of facts. According to him, sexuality is as fundamental to human existence as mortality or embodiment. Beauvoir accepts this, but she argues that the sexual relation does not need to have the structure of subordination or even difference (Beauvoir 1991, 189).

These forms of experience are not necessary in the same way, or in same sense, as mortality and embodiment. This is because, she states, it is easier to imagine "a society that reproduces parthenogenetically or consists of hermaphrodites" than to think about an immortal or disembodied human being (1993, 40).

The context of this discussion between Beauvoir and Merleau-Ponty is in Husserl's method of imaginary variation (freie variation der Phantasie). The phenomenologist starts from a particular example and aims at unveiling the necessary, essential structures of all experience. According to Husserl, this can be carried out by varying the experience in the imagination and by studying its relation to other cases, actual and possible. Here the phenomenologist gets help from the descriptions of historians and artists. Husserl notes that espe- cially the poet can help the phenomenologist imagine unusual, extraordinary possibilities (Husserl 1913, 16-17, 163).

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Beauvoir and Merleau-Ponty agree that sexuality is a basic structure of human existence, comparable to mortality. Merleau-Ponty suggests that every experience of another human being is an experience of a man or a woman (see also Fink 1988, 274). Beauvoir, on the other hand, points to the possibili- ty of imagining a society without sexual differentation (differenciation sexuelle)

(Beauvoir 1993, 40). Here the aid given by literature is indispensable: science fiction and anthropological studies help us detach ourselves from our own ex- perience and imagine strange possibilities.18

Sexual difference might be more deeply embedded in our experience of per- sons and human beings than, for example, skin color or other "racial" differ- ences. One could at least argue for this by pointing out that societies exist that do not make the distinction between black and white, but there is no known culture that does not make the distinction between women and men. Never-

theless, Beauvoir seems to be right in insisting that not all experience of per- sonhood needs to involve sexual differentation.

In summary, Beauvoir offers us three definitions when introducing the prob-

lem of woman. First, she presents the idea that being a woman means being both female and being feminine. Secondly, she states that woman is the Other. Thirdly, she introduces the idea of subordination. So her work clearly involves definitions, but it is crucial to realize that it does not affirm any of them: all defining terms-femininity, Otherness, and subordination-are further prob- lematized. Thus, the accepted interpretation that reads the introduction of the book as a definition of woman is based on a misunderstanding. Later in her work, Beauvoir makes her attitude quite clear when stating that "in her core, she [woman] is even for herself quite undefinable" (1993, 400). The Second Sex does not offer us a general theory of women or a definition of them. Its main

interest and merit is in its uncompromising attempt to question and test all definitions and theories.

Beauvoir writes: "The fact is that she would be embarrassed to decide what

she is; the question has no answer; but this is not because the hidden truth is too vague to be discerned; it is because in this domain there is no truth" (Beau- voir 1993, 401).

NOTES

I am grateful to Juha Himanka, Momy Joy, Timo Kaitaro, Johanna Oksala, Mar- tina Reuter, Anna Rotkirch, Marja Suhonen, and Dan Zahavi for their critical insights and helpful suggestions.

1. Please note that in deference to Hypatia style requirements, I cite only the contemporary reprint/translation dates for texts; in the reference list I provide dates for

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the original French and German texts. I give my own translations in this paper, because prevailing translations are often misleading and even false.

2. I have argued for Beauvoir's phenomenological interests in my earlier work (Heinamaa 1995, 1996a, 1996b, 1997), but I develop my argument further here by focusing on Beauvoir's idea of philosophy. For other interpretations that indicate or explicate Beauvoir's phenomenological interests, see Simons (1983), Butler (1986), Kruks (1990), Vintges (1996), and Bergoffen (1997).

3. The retreating or arresting movement of the phenomenologist is sometimes described as detachment. Husserl, however, used the German term ausschalten, which

has the meaning "separation," but can also be understood as "switching off" (1913,65- 66). When the word is taken in the latter meaning, then the phenomenological step does not require that we break off our connections to the world but only that we in- terrupt our natural and habitual activities.

4. For a more detailed study of Husserl's notion of philosophy and science, see Heinamaa (1998b).

5. See Pyrrhus et Cineas (Beauvoir 1944) and Pour un morale de l'ambiguite (Beau- voir 1947). On the philosophical and ethical relevance of Beauvoir's novels, L'invitee (1943), Le Sang des autres (1945b), and Tous les hommes sont mortels (1946), see Beau- voir (1995a, 618-29; 1997a, 92-100) and Merleau-Ponty (1966).

6. The German noun Leib is related to the verb leben, which means "to live." The

term has been translated into English in several different ways. David Carr uses "living body" in his translation of Krisis; for Korper he uses both "body" and "physical body," depending on the context (Husserl 1988, 50). Richard Rojcewicz and Andre Schuwer use the term "Body" (capitalized) for Leib, and the term "body" for Korper, in their translation of the second part of Husserl's Ideen (Rojcewicz and Schuwer 1989, xiv).

Merleau-Ponty's discussion of corps vivant or corps vecu (Leib) is often translated with the term "lived body." I do not follow this convention because my intention is to illuminate the methodological and conceptual connections among Husserl, Merleau- Ponty, and Beauvoir. So I follow Carr's procedure and use the term "living body" for both the German Leib and the French corps vecu.

7. On Husserl's discussion of the living body, see Zahavi (1994). 8. Some feminist thinkers claim that Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology of body is

androcentric (Butler 1989, Grosz 1994). For a counterargument, see Heinamaa (1997), Stoller and Vetter (1997), Waldenfels (1998, 186-95), and Stoller (1999).

9. For a wider view, see Simons (1986), Le Dceuff (1991), Kruks (1990, 1991), Lundgren-Gothlin (1992, 1995), Heinamaa (1996b), and Fullbrook and Fullbrook (1994).

10. On Beauvoir's relation to Hegel's philosophy and its different interpretations, see Lundgren-Gothlin (1992), and O'Brien-Ewara (1999).

11. In The Second Sex, Beauvoir argues against Sigmund Freud's system on similar lines: "The [Freudian] idea of'passive libido' is disconcerting, since the libido has been defined, on the basis of the male, as a drive, an energy; but one would do no better to think a priori that the light could be at once yellow and blue-what is needed is the intuition of green" (Beauvoir 1993, 92-93). Beauvoir's argument here is methodologi- cal: she points out that Freud was unable to understand woman's desire (desir femelle) because he defined sexual desire a priori as a purely active principle. Beauvoir's phe-

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nomenological critique is that instead of sticking to traditional concepts, Freud should have relied on what he saw and heard, that is, on expressions of a different kind of desire (green), not analyzable in terms of activity and passivity (yellow and blue).

12. Nancy Bauer (1997) argues interestingly that Beauvoir's radical questioning and her critical argumentation is analogical to Descartes's in his Meditations on First Philosophy.

13. The phenomenological research starts with the distinction between factual questions about reality and being, on the one hand, and phenomenological questions about the meanings of reality and being, on the other hand. Eugen Fink argues in his "Die phanomenologische Philosophie Edmund Husserls in der gegenwartingen Kritik" (Fink 1933) that phenomenological reduction is not a solution to precedent problems nor a method of solving them but a starting point for a new way of questioning. Later writers repeat the idea: Heidegger starts his Being and Time (Sein und Zeit 1927) by distinguishing between factual "ontic" questions about entities and facts, and "onto- logical" questions about the meaning of Being. Merleau-Ponty makes a similar distinc- tion between factual and philosophical questions in the third chapter of his late work The Visible and the Invisible (Le Visible et l'invisible 1964). See also Merleau-Ponty (1998, 123-42; 1989).

14. I have argued elsewhere that the accepted view that identifies Beauvoir's no- tion of becoming to the process of socialization is mistaken (Heinamaa 1996a, 1996b, 1997).

15. The terms other and otherness are capitalized when used in Levinas's absolute

sense, which excludes reciprocity. It is remarkable that critics do not question the basis of this interpretation even when it leads them to state that Beauvoir was guilty of simple contradictions. See, for example, Hekman (1990, 74-76), and Chanter (1995, 48, 73).

16. On Husserl's understanding of the self-other relation and intersubjectivity, see Zahavi (1996a, 1996b), and Fisher (1998).

17. It is, of course, possible that there is a genuine disagreement, not a misunder-

standing. Beauvoir was arguing for atheistic humanistic ethics, and in this paragraph, she might be just rejecting the theistic model that Levinas was developing for other- ness on the basis of the Judeo-Christian tradition (Beauvoir 1993, 242-43, 295-96).

18. Beauvoir ends her essay on Sade by writing: "The supreme value of his tes- timony lies in his ability to disturb us. It forces us to re-examine thoroughly the basic problem which haunts our age in different forms: the true relation between man and

woman" (Beauvoir 1990, 64). For other disturbing descriptions of sexual difference and non-difference, see, for example, Woolf (1998) and Garreta (1986).

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