A-Infos (en) Italy, FAI, Umanita Nova #21-26 - Simone de Beauvoir: Femininity, a Trap (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

It's a man's world; it is men, with their desires, their hopes, their 
fears, who create the conditions that women try to combat on their path 
to ascendancy.[...]Every man hopes to be recognized as having power and 
superiority, and such recognition can only come from an individual who 
is inferior to him: to feel he has power, he needs objects ready to obey 
him. Certainly, he has the right to possess and dominate flora and 
fauna, but plants and animals are silent and inert, and do not tear him 
from his solitude. Woman is at once Nature and consciousness; she is a 
flower, a fruit, a bird, a precious stone; she is human, capable of love 
and will. She must therefore appear "naturally inferior" so that it is 
possible to dominate her without committing an injustice. In relation to 
women, men like to assume the role of valiant knights ready to fight to 
defend them. But to deserve this generosity, woman must be fragile or a 
prisoner. It is possible to free Andromeda only if she is chained, it is 
possible to awaken Sleeping Beauty only if she lies asleep. Man 
considers woman as a projection of his own desires, as the fulfillment 
of his will to power. If woman had achieved total independence, if her 
union with the opposite sex were based on perfect equality, then man 
would feel deprived of a part of sweetness. Man is aware of this, and it 
is his reluctance admitted or denied that raises the greatest obstacle 
that woman must overcome in the world and in her own heart.
Femininity constructed, reified and subjugated in favor of male 
privilege and vanity , therefore.
Thus ends "Femininity , a Trap," an article published in Vogue (!) on 
March 15, 1947 which, however short, contains in essence all the 
fundamental themes that Simone de Beauvoir would develop fully in The 
Second Sex , published two years later. The article touches on four main 
points: after an introduction on the "feminine condition," defined in 
other texts as situated femininity , de Beauvoir offers a brief review 
of the myths through which femininity is culturally and socially 
constructed. She then focuses on the growth of women from childhood, 
subjected to models and precepts, and finally arrives at the 
aforementioned conclusion, which is both a point of arrival and 
departure, an extreme synthesis and a bold opening of the gaze on the world.
«If it is true that all conscious and free human beings have the same 
value, the same dignity, it is also true that context and opportunities 
determine the problems that each[male and female]must face.» This is the 
situated femininity of the existentialist Simone de Beauvoir. But what 
is "femininity"? What is the "feminine condition"? Who is "the woman"? 
From a situated perspective , it is not fruitful to ask these questions 
in an essentialist sense, but only in an existentialist one: what does 
it mean to be a woman here, now, in these relations of production, in 
these relations of power, in these relations between genders, classes, 
human groups of every type, composition, and size? In 1928, Virginia 
Woolf gave two lectures on "Women and the Novel": «The title[...]could 
mean[...]women and what they are; or women and the novels they write; or 
again, women and the novels in which they are protagonists; or it could 
imply that the three things are in some way inextricably linked[...]. 
But when I began to consider the subject from this latter point of 
view,[...]I soon had to realize that[...][t]he only thing I could do was 
to offer you an opinion on a minor aspect of the subject if a woman is 
to write novels she must have money and a room of her own . Which, as 
you will see, leaves unsolved the great problem of the true nature of 
woman and that of the true nature of the novel.» I believe that de 
Beauvoir's article and Woolf's lectures, which later became A Room of 
One's Own , are two strongly related texts, to be read as an imaginary 
dialogue in which the two authors and their works confront and 
illuminate each other.
Femininity is always situated, and is constructed.
Of the myths through which femininity is constructed, de Beauvoir 
considers the «most irritating and most false» that of the eternal 
feminine. A myth, that of the eternal feminine, which sees women as 
"intuitive, charming, and sensitive" some people today call it 
"benevolent sexism," but there's little "benevolent" about it, apart 
from the candor and subtle kindness that often convey it. A myth: 
nothing natural, innate, or unchangeable; nothing naive, innocent, or 
casual; everything cultural, functional, and instrumental. The 
inferiority of women due to the superiority of men. There is no superior 
without an inferior. Moreover, the identity of the superior, of the 
Self, is modeled on the identity of the Other (of the Other ).) and 
thus, then, effectively and instrumentally reinforced. This mechanism 
permeates not only the construction of gender, but any relational and 
social dynamic where two (or more) poles interact and consolidate their 
identity in asymmetrical patterns of power. Absolute and Relative.
"For centuries, women have served as mirrors with the magical and 
delightful power of reflecting the figure of a man magnified up to twice 
its normal size. Whatever their use in civil societies, mirrors are 
indispensable to every violent and heroic action.[...]This serves to 
partly explain the need that men so often have for women. And it also 
serves to explain why men become so restless when criticized by a 
woman[...]. Because if she begins to tell the truth, the figure in the 
mirror shrinks; the male capacity to adapt to life is diminished. How 
could he continue to pass judgment, civilize natives, promulgate laws, 
write books, dress elegantly and deliver speeches at banquets, if he 
were no longer able to see himself at breakfast and dinner, magnified at 
least twice his own size? This is again Virginia Woolf.
The Self and the other, it was said. The Absolute and the relative. But 
also the Universal Man and then the particular, the woman. The rule, the 
"ideal human type" quoting de Beauvoir which is the male man, the 
exception which is the woman. Myths abound. Woman as a failed man. Woman 
as a diminution of male perfection. Woman as matter, body, man as form, 
mind. The subjectivity of female theories, the objectivity and 
scientific nature of male ones. "Penis envy."
But also the eternal feminine present, the masculine future. 
Reproduction, doubly alienating, and production, usually alienating but 
potentially creative: "Every housewife is Penelope, undoing at night the 
work done during the day," writes de Beauvoir. She continues: "Whether 
or not, in this condition of radical dependence, women have been able to 
find happiness is a superfluous question; it's like asking whether men 
were happier before machines existed. The point is that machines exist 
today. The point is that today, for various reasons, women must and want 
to work, which is another way of saying they want independence from men. 
What we're trying to define is how they experience this new effort. In 
mythology, in the fairy tales we read to children, we always assign 
women the same roles. They are Ariadne abandoned, Penelope at the loom, 
Andromeda in chains. They are Cinderella, or Sleeping Beauty waiting to 
be rescued by Prince Charming. She is the one who waits, who can find 
her place in the world only through the love of a man. Try to imagine 
what would have happened if Shakespeare had had a sister as gifted as 
he. Lacking culture and independence, she could have expressed herself 
only through crazy adventures that would most likely have ended 
tragically." And again Virginia Woolf also wonders about a hypothetical 
life of a hypothetical Shakespeare sister with a vocation and literary 
talent read A Room of One's Own to discover how, in her narrative, this 
imagined life ends.
The woman, says de Beauvoir, "has never been given a chance." From a 
young age, she learns to admire (even adore) the men around her and the 
heroes of fairy tales, myths, and traditions, and "often feels only pity 
and contempt for her mother's miserable domestic life[...]. The figure 
of the father, on the other hand, is magnificent; he represents 
strength, power, a window onto the world, onto life, and onto the 
future. The little girl desires to identify with him, and in this way 
she recognizes and admits the superiority of the man over the woman she 
is destined to become." What is encouraged in this little girl? "Her 
power of seduction. To be graceful, well-dressed, well-mannered.[...]A 
vicious circle begins to develop: the more she docility conforms to the 
ideal imposed on her, the less she develops her personal potential and 
the fewer resources she will find within herself." The little girl is 
raised to be the boy 's vassal , to use de Beauvoir's words. As a woman, 
she will be the man's vassal. I think of Mary Wollstonecraft, of Elena 
Gianini Belotti.
This is how femininity was constructed, this is the model of femininity 
that has shaped entire generations. And with ever greater force and 
brutality, that ultimate deception, the Myth of Beauty, acts within and 
outside of us, a modern and partially reworked version (to better 
disguise itself as emancipation) of the myth of the eternal feminine 
that was so irritating to de Beauvoir. I think of Naomi Wolf, a theorist 
who is as attentive to the Myth of Beauty as to one of its most 
successful products, the caricature-like image, almost a mythological 
creature, of the Ugly Feminist. Thus, returning to de Beauvoir, women 
"end up accepting the world. Their effort consists only in seeking a 
place on this earth. Why? Because women fear that by losing this sense 
of inferiority
, they may also lose what values them in the eyes of men." Femininity , 
a trap. The Ugly Feminist: disheveled, unshaven, "undignified" (as we 
proudly claim) the more the merrier  dares to shout in the streets, 
dares to demand rights, dares to organize in networks of political 
cooperation that may diverge from usual political practices. How far is 
she from the eternal feminine of submissiveness, compliance, and 
meekness? How frightening is she?
Women sometimes, perhaps, still today "end up accepting the world." But 
only until they encounter other women, solidarity , sisterhood. Only 
until they practice transfeminism, care, growth as blossoming. Until 
they read those who came before them, those who are often overlooked in 
history and philosophy books   but who nevertheless exist, even within us.

S.

https://umanitanova.org/simone-de-beauvoir-la-femminilita-una-trappola/
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