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diff --git a/home/src/pages/second_sex.clj b/home/src/pages/second_sex.clj new file mode 100644 index 0000000..97b7602 --- /dev/null +++ b/home/src/pages/second_sex.clj @@ -0,0 +1,696 @@ +(ns pages.second-sex + (:require [components :refer [page blockquote]] + [borkdude.html :refer [html]])) + +(defn second-sex [] + (page + (html + [:<> + [:h1 "The Second Sex: Select Excerpts"] + [:p "One of my goals for 2025 was to finally crack the spine on Simone de +Beauvoir's " [:em "The Second Sex"] ". Having now achieved that goal, I can say +that it is without a doubt one of the most transformative books I have ever +read." [:p "This page includes various excerpts that spoke to me for one reason +or another, taken from the 2011 edition translated by Constance Borde and +Sheila Malovany-Chevallier. (Note: I transcribed these by hand; please shoot me +a note if you find any errors.)"]] + [:p "I have decided to publish this snippet of my personal marginalia mostly to +encourage others to pick up her masterpiece and give it a read. It is a challenging +book that asks a lot of its reader, but I promise it is worth the effort. As my partner +pointed out to me, " [:em "The Second Sex"] " can be understood as the first major +effort to build a comprehensive history and philosophy of women's place in the +world. Particularly in an era of regressive politics, " [:em "The Second Sex"] + " serves as an important reminder of just how oppressive women's condition +was prior to the sexual revolution. I fear that many of today's conservative +voices are pushing an antifeminist narrative on young women who may not +understand just how much they have to lose."] + [:hr] + (blockquote + (html + [:p + "Insofar as woman is concerned the absolute Other, that is–whatever magic +powers she has–as the inessential, it is precisely impossible to regard her as +another subject. Women have thus never constituted a separate group that posited +itself " [:em "for-itself"] " before a male group; they have never had a direct or +autonomous relationship with men. \"The relationship of reciprocity which is the +basis of marriage is not established between men and women, but between men by +means of women, who are merely the occasion of this relationship\", said +Lévi-Strauss. Woman's concrete condition is not affected by the type of lineage +that prevails in the society to which she belongs; whether the regime is +patrilineal, matrilineal, bilateral, or undifferentiated (undifferentiation +never being precise), she is always under men's guardianship; the only question +is if, after marriage, she is still subjected to the authority of her father or +her oldest brother–authority that will also extend to her children– or of her +husband. In any case: \"The woman is never anything more than the symbol of her +lineage. Matrilineal descent is the authority of the woman's father or brother +extended to the brother-in-law's village.\" She only mediates the law; she does +not possess it. In fact, it is the relationship of two masculine groups that is +defined by the system of filiation, and not the relation of the two sexes."]) + [80 81]) + [:hr] + (blockquote + (html + [:p + "Here is an important fact that recurs throughout history: abstract rights +cannot sufficiently define the concrete situation of woman; this situation +depends in great part on the economic role she plays; and very often, abstract +freedom and concrete powers vary inversely."]) + [100]) + [:hr] + (blockquote + (html + [:p + "\"Woman is a possession acquired by contract; she is personal property, and the +possession of her is as good as a security–indeed, properly speaking, woman is +only man's annexe.\" Here [Balzac] is speaking for the bourgeoisie, which +intensified its antifeminism in reaction to eighteenth-century license and +threatening progressive ideas. Having brilliantly presented the idea at the +beginning of " [:em "They Physiology of Marriage"] " that this loveless institution +forcibly leads the wife to adultry, Balzac exhorts husbands to rein in wives to +total subjugation if they want to avoid the ridicule of dishonor. They must be +denied training and culture, forbidden to develop their individuality, forced to +wear uncomfortable clothing, and encouraged to follow a debilitating dietary +regime. The bourgeoisie follows this program exactly, confining women to the +kitchen and to housework, jealously watching their behavior; they are enclosed +in daily life rituals that hindered all attempts at independence. In return, they +are honored and endowed with the most exquisite respect. \"The married woman is +a slave who must be seated on a throne,\" says Balzac; of course men must give +in to women in all irrelevant circumstances, yielding them first place; women +must not carry heavy burdens as in primitive societies; they are readily spared +all painful tasks and worries: at the same time this relieves them of all +responsibility. It is hoped that, thus duped, seduced by the ease of the +condition, they will accept the role of mother and housewife to which they are +being confined. And in fact, most bourgeois women capitulate. As their education +and their parasitic situation makes them dependent on men, they never date to +voice their claims: those who do are hardly heard. It is easier to put people in +chains than to remove them if the chains bring prestige, said George Bernard +Shaw. The bourgeois woman clings to the chains because she clings to her class +privileges. It is drilled into her and she believes that women's liberation +would weaken bourgeois society; liberated from the male, she would be condemned +to work; while she might regret having her rights to private property +subordinated to her husband's, she would deplore even more having this property +be abolished; she feels no solidarity with working-class women; she feels closer +to her husband than to a woman textile worker. She makes his interests her own."]) + [129 130]) + [:hr] + (blockquote + (html + [:p + "Abortion was officially recognized, but only for a short time, in Germany +before Nazism and in the Soviet Union before 1936. But in spite of religion and +laws, it has been practiced in all countries to a large extent. In France, every +year 800,000 to 1 million abortions are performed–as many as births–and +two-thirds of the women are married, many already having one or two children. In +spite of the prejudices, resistance, and an outdated morality, unregulated +fertility has given way to fertility controlled by the state or individuals. +Progress in obstetrics has considerably decreased the dangers of childbirth; +childbirth pain is disappearing; at this time–March 1949–legislation has been +passed in England requiring the use of certain anesthetic methods; they are +already generally applied in the United States and are beginning to spread in +France. With artificial insemination, the evolution that will permit humanity to +master the reproductive function comes to completion. These changes have +tremendous importance for woman in particular; she can reduce the number of +pregnancies and rationally integrate them into her life, instead of being their +slave. During the nineteenth century, woman in her turn is freed from nature; +she wins control of her body. Relieved of a great number of reproductive +servitudes, she can take on the economic roles open to her, roles that would +ensure her control over her own person."]) + [138 139]) + [:hr] + (blockquote + (html + [:<> + [:p + "[Of man:] But he does not like difficulty; he is afraid of danger. He has +contradictory aspirations to both life and rest, existence and being; he knows +very well that \"a restless spirit\" is the ransom for his development, that his +distance from the object is the ransom for his being present to himself; but he +dreams of restfulness in restlessness and of an opaque plenitude that his +consciousness would nevertheless still inhabit. This embodied dream is, +precisely, woman; she is the perfect intermediary between nature that is foreign +to man and the peer who is too identical to him. She pits neither the hostile +silence of nature nor the hard demand of a reciprocal recognition against him; +by a unique privilege she is a consciousness, and yet it seems possible to +possess her in the flesh. Thanks to her, there is a way to escape the inexorable +dialectic of the master and the slave that springs from the reciprocity of +freedoms."] + [:p + "[...] [Woman] emerged as the inessential who never returned to the +essential, as the absolute Other, without reciprocity. [...] She is nature raised +to the transparency of consciousness; she is a naturally submissive +consciousness. And therein lies the marvelous hope that man has often placed in +woman: he hopes to accomplish himself as being through carnally possessing a being +while making confirmed in his freedom by a docile freedom. No man would consent +to being a woman, but all want there to be women. [...] Appearing as the Other, +woman appears at the same time as a plenitude of being by opposition to the +nothingness of existence that man experiences in itself; the Other, posited as +object in the subject's eyes, is posited as in-itself, thus as being. Woman +embodies positively the lack the existent carries in his heart, and man hopes to +realize himself by finding himself through her."]]) + [160 161]) + [:hr] + (blockquote + (html + [:p + "The apologue of the caterpillars provides the key to this attitude: whatever +his hidden intention, hit is significant in itself. Pissing on caterpillars, +Montherlant takes pleasure in sparing some and exterminating others; he takes a +laughing pity on those that are determined to live and generally lets them off; +he is delighted by this game. Without the caterpillars, the urinary stream would +have been just an excretion; it becomes an instrument of life and death; in +front of the crawling insect, man relieves himself and experiences God's +despotic solitude, without running the risk of reciprocity. Likewise, faced with +female animals, the male, from the top of his pedestal, sometimes cruel, +sometimes tender, sometimes fair, sometimes unpredictable, gives, takes back, +satisfies, pities, or gets irritated; he defers to nothing but his own pleasure; +he is soverign, free, and unique. But these animals must not be anything but +animals; they would be chosen on purpose, their weaknesses would be flattered; +they would be treated as animals with such determination that they would end up +accepting their condition. In similar faction, the blacks' petty robberies and +lies charmed the whites of Louisiana and Georgia, confirming the superiority of +their own skin color; and if one of these Negroes persists in being honest, he +is treated even worse. In similar fashion, the debasement of man was +systematically practiced in the concentration camps; the ruling race found proof +in this abjection that it was of superhuman essence."]) + [222 223]) + [:hr] + (blockquote + (html + [:<> + [:p + "As for Stendhal, we saw that woman barely takes on a mythical value for him: he +considers her also being a transcendence; for this humanist, it is in their +reciprocal relations that freedoms are accomplished; and it is sufficient that +the " [:em "Other"] " is simply another for life to have, according to him, a little spice; +he does not seek a stellar equilibrium, he does not nourish himself with the +bread of disgust; he does not expect miracles; he wishes to concern himself not +with the cosmos or poetry but with freedoms."] + + [:p "That is, he also experiences +himself as a translucent freedom. The others–and this is one of the most +important points–posit themselves as transcendents but feel they are prisoners +of an opaque presence in their own hearts: they project onto woman this +\"unbreakable core of night\". In Montherlant there is an Alderian complex where +heavy bad faith is born: these pretensions and fears are what he incarnates in +woman; the disgust he feels for her is what he fears to feel for himself; he +intends to trample in her the ever possible proof of his insufficiency; he asks +scorn to save him; woman is the ditch in which he throws all the monsters that +inhabit him. Lawrence's life shows us that he suffered from an analogous complex +but more purely sexual: woman in his work has the value of a compensatory myth; +through her is found an exalted virility of which the write was not very sure; +when he describes Kate at Don Cipriano's feet, he believes he has won a male +triumph over Frieda; nor does he accept that his female companion challenges +him: if she contested his aims, he would probably lose confidence in them; her +role is to reassure him. He asks for peace, rest, and faith from her, just as +Montherlant asks for the certitude of his superiority; they demand what they +lack. Self-confidence is not lacking in Claudel: if he is shy, it is only the +secret of God. Thus, there is no trace of the battle of the sexes. Man bravely +takes on the weight of woman: she is the possibility of temptation or of +salvation. For Breton it seems that man is only true through the mystery that +inhabits him; it pleases him that Nadja sees that star he is going toward and +that is like a \"heartless flower\"; his dreams, intuitions, and the spontaneous +unfolding of his inner language: it is in these activities that are out of the +control of the will and reason that he recognizes himself: woman is the tangible +figure of this veiled presence infinitely more essential than her conscious +personality."] + + [:p + " As for Stendhal, he quietly coincides with himself; but he needs +woman as she does him so that his dispersed existence is gathered in the unity +of a figure and a destiny; it is as for-another that the human being reaches +being; but another still has to lend him his consciousness: other men are too +indifferent to their peers; only the woman in love opens her heart to her lover +and shelters in its entirety. Except for Claudel, who finds a perfect witness in +God, all the writers we have considered expect, in Malraux's words, woman to +cherish in them this \"incomparable monster\" known to themselves alone. In +collaboration or combat, men will come up against each other in their +generality. Montherlant, for his peers, is a writer, Lawrence a doctrinaire, +Breton a leader of a school, Stendhal a diplomat or a man of wit; it is women +who reveal in one a magnificent and cruel prince, in another a disturbing +animal, in still another a god or a sun or a being \"black and cold...like a man +struck by lightning, lying at the feet of ths Sphinx,\" and in the other a +seducer, a charmer, a lover. "] + + [:p + "For each of them, the ideal woman will be she +who embodies the most exactly the " [:em "Other"] " able to reveal him to himself. [...] +[The] only earthly destiny reserved to the woman equal, child-woman, sould +sister, woman-sex, and female animale is always man. Regardless of the ego +looking for itself through her, it can only attain itself if she consents to be +his crucible. In any case, what is demanded of her is self-forgetting and love. +[...] Feminine devotion is demanded as a duty by Montherlant and Lawrence; less +arrogant, Claudel, Breton, and Stendhal admire it as a generous choice; they +desire it without claiming to deserve it; but–except for the astonishing +" [:em "Lamiel"] "–all their works show they expect from woman this altruism that Comte +admired in and imposed on her, and which, according to him, also constituted +both a flagrant inferiority and an equal superiority."] + + [:p + " We could find many more +examples: they would always lead to the same conclusions. In defining woman, +each writer defines his general ethic and the singular idea he has of himself: +it is also in her that he often registers the distance between his view of the +world and his egotistical dreams. [...] [In all cases, woman] as other still +plays a role inasmuch as even to transcend himself, each man still needs to take +consciousness of himself."]]) + [263 265]) + [:hr] + (blockquote + (html + [:p + "Certainly fidelity is necessary for sexual love, since the two lovers' desire +encompasses their singularity; they do not want it contested by outside +experiences, they want to be irreplaceable for each other; but this fidelity has +meaning only as long as it is spontaneous; and spontaneously, erotic magic +dissolves rather quickly. The miracle is that it gives to each of the lovers, in +the instant and in their carnal presence, a being whose existence is an +unlimited transcendence: and " [:em "possession"] " of this being is undoubtedly +impossible, but at least each of them is reached in a privileged and poignant +way. But when individuals no longer want to reach each other because of +hostility, disgust, or indifference between them, erotic attraction disappears; +and it dies almost as surely in esteem and friendship; two human beings who come +together in the very moment of their transcendence through the world and their +common projects no longer need carnal union; and further, because this union +has lost its union, they are repelled by it [...] Eroticism is a movement toward +the " [:em "Other"] ", and this is its essential character; but within the couple, spouses +become, for each other, the " [:em "Same"] "; no exchange is possible between them +anymore, no giving, no conquest."]) + [466 467]) + [:hr] + (blockquote + (html + [:p + "Throughout her childhood, the little girl was bullied and mutilated; but she +nonetheless grasped herself as an autonomous individual; in her relations with +her family and friends, in her studies and games, she saw herself in the present +as a transcendence: her future passivity was something she only imagined. Once +she enters puberty, the future not only moves closer: it settles into her body; +it becomes the most concrete reality. It retains the fateful quality it always +had; while the adolescent boy is actively routed toward adulthood, the girl +looks forward to the opening of this new and unforeseeable period where the plot +is already hatched and toward which time is drawing her. As she is already +detached from her childhood past, the present is for her only a transition; she +sees no valid end in it, only occupations. In a more or less disguised way, her +youth is consumed by waiting. She is waiting for Man."]) + [341]) + [:hr] + (blockquote + (html + [:p + "At about thirteen, boys serve a veritable apprenticeship in violence, +developing their aggressiveness, their will for power, and their taste for +competition; it is exactly at this moment that the little girl renounces rough +games. [...] [The] attitude of defiance, so important for boys, is unknown to +them; true, women compare themselves with each other, but defiance is something +other than these passive confrontations: two freedoms confront each other as +having a hold on the world whose limits they intend to push; climbing higher +than a friend or getting the better in arm wrestling is affirming one's +sovereignty over the world. These conquering actions are not permitted to the +girl, and violence in particular is not permitted to her. [...] The male has +recourse to his fists and fighting when he encounters any affront or attempt to +reduce him to an object: he does not let himself be transcended by others; he +finds himself again in the heart of his subjectivity. [...] In the South of the +United states, it is strictly impossible for a black person to use violence +against whites; this rule is the key to the mysterious \"black soul\"; the way +the black experiences himself in the white world, his behavior in adjusting to +it, the compensations he seeks, his whole way of feeling and acting, are +explained on the basis of the passivity to which he is condemned. [...] In the +same way, for the adolescent boy who is allowed to manifest himself imperiously, +the universe has a totally different face from what it has for the adolescent +girl whose feelings are deprived of immediate effectiveness; the former +ceaselessly calls the world into question, he can at every instance revolt +against the given and thus has the impression of actively confirming it when he +accepts it; the latter only submits to it; the world is defined without her, and +its face is immutable. This lack of physical power expresses itself as a more +general timidity: she does not believe in a force she has not felt in her body, +she does not dare to be enterprising, to revolt, to invent; doomed to docility, +to resignation, she can only accept a place that society has already made for +her. She accepts the order of things as a given."]) + [343 344]) + [:hr] + (blockquote + (html + [:p + "There is an obscene paradox in the superimposing of a pompous ceremony on a +brutally real animal function. The wedding presents its universal and abstract +meaning: a man and a woman are united publicly according to symbolic rites; but +in the secrecy of the bed it is concrete and singular individuals who confront +each other face-to-face, and all gazes turn away from their embraces. [...] It +is stupid and barbaric to want to put it all into one night; it is absurd to +transform an operation as difficult as the first coitus into a duty. The woman +is all the more terrorized by the fact that the strange operation she is +subjected to is sacred; and that society, religion, family, and friends +delivered her solemnly to the husband as to a master; and in addition, that the +act seems to engage her whole future, because marriage still has a definitive +character. This is when she feels truly revealed in the absolute: this man to +whom she is pledged to the end of time embodies all of Man in her eyes; and he +is revealed to her, too, as a figure she has not heretofore known, which is of +immense importance since he will be her lifelong companion. However, the man +himself is anguished by the duty weighing on him; he has his own difficulties +and his own complexes that make him shy and clumsy or on the contrary brutal; +many men are impotent on their wedding night because of the very solemnity of +marriage. [...] Too much impetuousness frightens the virgin, too much respect +humiliates her; women forever hate the man who has taken his pleasure at the +expense of their suffering; but they feel an eternal resentment against the one +who seems to disdain them, and often against the one who has not attempted to +deflower them the first night or who was unable to do it. [...] The \"wedding +night\" transforms the erotic experience into an ordeal that neither partner is +able to surmount, too involved with personal problems to think generously of +each other; it is invested with a solemnity that makes it formidable; and it is +not surprising that it often dooms the woman to frigidity forever. The difficult +problem facing the husband is this: if he \"titillates his wife too +lasciviously,\" she might be scandalized or outraged; it seems this fear +paralyzes American husbands, among others, especially in college-educated +couples, says the Kinsey Report, because wives, more conscious of themselves, +are more deeply inhibited. But if he \"respects\" her, he fails to waken her +sensuality. This dilemma is created by the ambiguity of the feminine attitude: +the young woman both wants and rejects pleasure; she demands a delicateness from +which she suffers."]) + [458 462]) + [:hr] + (blockquote + (html + [:<> + [:p + "A normal man considers objects around him as instruments; he arranges them +according to the purpose for which they are intended; his \"order\"–where woman +will often see disorder–is to have his cigarettes, his papers, and his tools +within reach. [...] But to find a home in oneself, one must first have realized +oneself in works or acts. Man has only a middling interest in his domestic +interior because he has access to the entire universe and because he can affirm +himself in his projects. Woman, instead, is locked into the conjugal community: +she has to change this prison into a kingdom. Her attitude to her home is +dictated by this same dialectic that generally defines her condition: she takes +by becoming prey, she liberates by abdicating; by renouncing the world, she +means to conquer a world."] + [:p " She regrets closing the doors of her home behind +herself; as a young girl, the whole world was her kingdom; the forests belonged +to her. Now she is confined to a restricted space; Nature is reduced to the size +of a geranium pot. [...] But she is going to make every attempt to refuse this +limitation. She encloses faraway countries and past times within her four walls +in the form of more or less expensive earthly flora and fauna; she encloses her +husband, who personifies human society for her, and the child who gives her the +whole future in a portable form. [...] Especially at evening time, when the +shutters are closed, woman feels like a queen; the light shed at noon by the +universal sun disturbs her; at night she is no longer dispossessed, because she +does away with that which she does not possess; from under the lamp shade she +sees a light that is her own and that illuminates her abode alone: nothing else +exists."]]) + [470 471]) + [:hr] + (blockquote + (html + [:p + "Logic in masculine hands is often violence. Chardonne explained this kind of +sly oppression well in " [:em "Epithalaminum"] ". Older, more cultivated, and more +educated than Berthe, Albert uses this pretext to deny any value to opinions of +his wife that he does not share; he untiringly " [:em "proves"] " he is right; for her +part she becomes adamant and refuses to accept that there is any substance in +her husband's reasoning: he persists in his ideas, and that is the end of it. +Thus a serious misunderstanding deepens between them. He does not try to +understand feelings or deep-rooted reactions she cannot justify; she does not +understand what lives behind her husband's pedantic and overwhelming logic. He +even goes so far as to become irritated by the ignorance she never hid from him, +and challenges her with questions about astronomy; he is flattered nonetheless, +to tell her what to read, to find in her a listener he can easily dominate. In a +struggle where her intellectual shortcomings condemn her to losing every time, +the young wife has no defense other than silence, or tears, or violence."]) + [498]) + [:hr] + (blockquote + (html + [:<> + [:p + "Many young couples give the impression of perfect equality. But as long as the +man has economic responsibility for the couple, it is just an illusion. He is +the one who determines the conjugal domicile according to the demands of his +job: she " [:em "follows"] " him from the provinces to Paris, from Paris to the provinces, +the colonies, abroad; the standard of living is fixed according to his income; +the rhythm of the days, the weeks, and the year is organized on the basis of his +occupations; relations and friendships most often depend on his profession. +Being more positively integrated than his wife into society, he leads the couple +in intellectual, political, and moral areas. Divorce is only an abstract +possibility for the wife, if she does not have the means to earn her own living: +while alimony in America is a heavy burden for the husband, in France the lot of +the wife and mother abandoned with a derisory pension is scandalous. But the +deep inequality stems from the fact that the husband finds concrete +accomplishment in work or action while for the wife in her role as a wife, +freedom has only a negative form. [...]"] + [:p " It is also true that the man is more +defenseless than previously against this despotism; he recognizes his wife's +abstract rights, and he understands that she can concretize them only through +him: it is at his own expense that he will compensate for the powerlessness and +the sterility the wife is condemned to; to realize an apparent equality in their +association, he has to give her more because he possesses more. But precisely +because she receives, takes, and demands, she is the poorer. The dialectic of +the master and slave has its most concrete application here: in oppressing, one +becomes oppressed. Males are chains by their very sovereignty; it is because +they alone earn money that the wife demands checks, because men alone practice a +profession that the wife demands that they succeed, because they alone embody +transcendence that the wife wants to steal it from them by taking over their +projects and successes. [...]"] + [:p " The situation has to be changed in their common +interest by prohibiting marriage as a \"career\" for the woman. Men who declare +themselves antifeminist with the excuse that \"women are already annoying enough +as it is\" are not very logical: it precisely because marriage makes them +\"praying mantises,\" \"bloodsuckers,\" and \"poison\" that marriage has to be +changed and, as a consequence, the feminine condition in general. woman weighs +so heavily on man because she is forbidden to rely on herself; he will free +himself by freeing her, that is, by giving her something " [:em "to do"] " in this world."]]) + [522 523]) + [:hr] + (blockquote + (html + [:p + "Very often the kept woman interiorizes her dependence; subjected to public +opinion, she accepts its values; she admires the \"fashionable world\" and +adopts its customs; she wants to be regarded according to bourgeois standards. +She is a parasite of the rich bourgeoisie, and she adheres to its ideas; she is +\"right thinking\"; in former times she would readily send her daughters to a +convent school, and as she got older, she even went to Mass and openly +converted. She is on the conservative's side. She is too proud to have made her +place in this world to want to change. The struggle she wages to \"arrive\" does +not dispose her to feelings of brotherhood and human solidarity; she paid for +success with too much slavish compliance to sincerly wish for universal freedom. +615"]) + [615]) + [:hr] + (blockquote + (html + [:p + "In the United States, the influence of venerated \"Moms\" is strong; this is +explained by the leisure time their parasitic existence leaves them; and this is +why it is harmful. \"Knowing nothing about medicine, art, science, religion, +law, sanitation\", says Philip Wylie, speaking of the American Mom, \"she +seldom has any especial interest in " [:em "what"] ", exactly, she is doing as a member of +any of these endless organizations, so long as it is _something.\" Their effort +is not integrated into a coherent and constructive plan, it does not aim at +objective ends: imperiously, it tends only to show their tastes and prejudices +or to serve their interests. They play a considerable role in the domain of +culture, for example: it is they who buy the most books; but they read as one +plays a game of solitaire; literature takes its meaning and dignity when it is +addressed to individuals committed to projects, when it helps them surpass +themselves toward greater horizons; it must be integrated into the movement of +human transcendence. [...] Not being specialized in politics or economics or any +technical discipline, old women have no concrete hold on society; they are +unaware of the problems action poses; they are incapable of elaborating a +constructive program. Their morality is abstract and formal, like Kant's +imperatives; they issue prohibitions instead of trying to discover the paths of +progress; they do not positively try to create new situations; they attack what +already exists in order to do away with the evil in it; this explains why they +are always forming coalitions against something–against alcohol, prostitution, +or pornography–they do not understand that a purely negative effort is doomed to +be unsuccesssful, as evidenced by the failure of prohibition in America or the +law in France voted by Marthe Richard. As long as woman remains a parasite, she +cannot effectively participate in the building of a better world."]) + [635 636]) + [:hr] + (blockquote + (html + [:p + "The \"feminine world\" is sometimes contrasted with masculine universe, but it +must be reiterated that women have never formed an autonomous and closed +society; they are integrated into the group governed by males, where they occupy +a subordinate position; they are united by a mechanical solidarity only insofar +as they are similar: they do not share that organic solidarity upon which any +unified community is founded; they have always endeavored–in the period of the +Eleusinian mysteries just like today in clubs, salons, and recreation rooms–to +band together to assert a \"counter-universe,\" but it is still within the +masculine universe that they frame it. "]) + [638]) + [:hr] + (blockquote + (html + [:<> + [:p + "The notion of miracle differs from the idea of magic: from within a rationally +determined world a miracle posits the radical discontinuity of an event without +cause against which any thinking shatters, whereas magic phenomena are united by +secret forces of which a docile consciousness can embrace the continuous +becoming–without understanding it. The newborn is miraculous for the demigod +father, magic for the mother who has undergone the ripening in her womb. Man's +experience is intelligible but full of holes; that of the wife is, in its own +limits, obscure but complete. This opacity weighs her down; the male is light in +his relations with her: he has the lightness of dictators, generals, judges, +bureaucrats, codes, and abstract principles. This is undoubtedly what the +housewife meant when, shrugging her shoulders, she murmured: \"Men, they don't +think!\" Women also say: \"Men, they don't know; they don't know life.\" As a +contrast to the myth of the praying mantis, they juxtapose the symbol of the +frivolous and importunate bumblebee."] + + [:p "It is understandable why, from this +perspective, woman objects to masculine logic. Not only does it not have bearing +on her experience, but she also knows that in men's hands reason becomes an +insidious form of violence; their peremptory affirmations are intended to +mystify her. They want to confine her in a dilemma: either you agree or you +don't; she has to agree in the name of the whole system of accepted principles: +in refusing to agree, she rejects the whole system; she cannot allow herself +such a dramatic move; she does not have the means to create another society: yet +she does not agree with this one. Halfway between revolt and slavery, she +unwillingly resigns herself to masculine authority. He continuously uses force +to make her shoulder the consequences of her reluctant submission. He pursues +the chimera of a freely enslaved companion: he wants her to yield to him as +yielding to the proof of a theorem; but she knows he himself has chosen the +postulates on which his vigorous deductions are hung; as long as she avoids +questioning them, he will easily silence her; nevertheless, he will not convince +her, because she senses their arbitrariness. Thus will he accuse her, with +stubborn irritation, of being illogical: she refuses to play the game because +she knows the dice are loaded."] + + [:p " The woman does not positively think that the +truth is " [:em "other"] " than what men claim: rather, she holds that there " [:em "is"] " no +truth. It is not only life's becoming that makes her suspicious of the principle +of identity, nor the magic phenomena surrounding her that ruin the notion of +causality: it is at the heart of the masculine world itself, it is in her as +belonging to this world, that she grasps the ambiguity of all principles, of all +values, of all that exists. "]]) + [650 651]) + [:hr] + (blockquote + (html + [:p + "There is a justification, a supreme compensation, that society has always +been bent on dispensing to woman: religion. There must be religion for women as +for the people, for exactly the same reasons: when a sex or a class is condemned +to immanence, the mirage of transcendence must be offered to it. It is to man's +total advantage to have God endorse the codes he creates: and specifically +because he exercises sovereign authority over the woman, it is only right that +this authority be conferred on him by the soverign being. [...] Woman adopts an +attitude of respect and faith before the masculine universe: God in his heaven +seems barely farther from her than a government minister, and the mystery of +Genesis matches that of an electrical power station. But more important, if she +throws herself so willingly into religion, it is because religion fills a +profound need. In modern civilization, where freedom plays an important +role–even for the woman–religion becomes less of an instrument of constraint than +of mystification. The woman is less often asked to accept her inferiority in the +name of God than to believe, thanks to him, that she is equal to the male lord; +even the temptation to revolt is avoided by pretending to overcome injustice. +The woman is no longer robbed of her transcendence, since she will dedicate her +immanence to God; souls' merits are judged only in heaven and not according to +their terrestrial accomplishments; here below, as Dostoevsky would have said, +they are never more than occupations: shining shoes or building a bridge is the +same vanity; over and above social discriminations, equality of the sexes is +reestablished."]) + [659]) + [:hr] + (blockquote + (html + [:p + "An authentic love should take on the other's contingence, that is, his +lacks, limitations, and originary gratuitousness; it would claim to be not a +salvation but an inter-human relation. Idolatrous love confers an absolute value +on the loved one: this is the first lie strikingly apparent to all outsiders: +\"" [:em "He"] " doesn't deserve so much love,\" people whisper around the woman in love; +posterity smiles pityingly when evoking the pale figure of Count Guibert. It is +a heartrending disappointment for the woman to discover her idol's weaknesses +and mediocrity. [...] Even if the chosen one is worthy of the deepest +attachment, his truth is earthbound: it is not he whom the woman kneeling before +existence; her bad faith erects barriers between her and the one she worships. +She flatters him, she bows down before him, but she is not a friend for him, +since she does not realize he is in danger in the world, that his projects and +finalities are as fragile as he himself is; considering him the Law and Truth, +she misunderstands his freedom, which is hesitation and anguish. This refusal to +apply a human measure to the lover explains many feminine paradoxes. The woman +demands a favor from the lover, he grants it: he is generous rich, magnificent, +he is royal, he is divine; if he refuses, he is suddenly stingy, mean and cruel, +he is a devilish being or bestial. One might be tempted to counter: If a yes is +understood as a superb extravagance, why should one be surprised by a no? If the +no manifests such an abject egotism, why admire the yes so much? Between the +superhuman and the inhuman is there not room for the human? "]) + [694 695]) + [:hr] + (blockquote + (html + [:p + "[...] The woman will be able to find her joy in this enrichment she + brings to her loved one; she is not All for him: but she will try to + believe herself indispensable; there are no degrees in necessity. If he + cannot \"get along without her,\" she considers herself the foundation of + his precious existence, and she derives her own worth from that. her joy + is to serve him: but he must gratefully recognize this service; giving + becomes demand according to the customary dialectic of devotion. And a + woman of scrupulous mind asks herself: Is it really " [:em "me"] " he needs? The + man cherishes her, desires her with singular tenderness and desire: But + would he not have just as singular feelings for another? Many women in + love let themselves be deluded; they want to ignore the fact that the + general is enveloped in the particular, and the man facilitates this + illusion because he shares it at first; there is often in his desire a + passion that seems to defy time; at the moment he desires this woman, he + desires her with passion, he wants only her: and certainly the moment is + an absolute, but a momentary absolute. Duped, the woman passes into the + eternal. Deified by the embrace of the master, she believes she has + always been divine and destined for the god: she alone. But male desire + is as fleeting as it is imperious; once satisfied, it dies rather + quickly, while it is most often after love that the woman becomes his + prisoner."]) + [699]) + [:hr] + (blockquote + (html + [:p + "Authentic love must be founded on reciprocal recognition of two + freedoms; each lover would then experience himself as himself and as the + other; neither would abdicate his transcendence; they would not mutilate + themselves; together they would both reveal values and end in the world. + For each of them, love would be the revelation of self through the gift + of self and the enrichment of the universe."]) + [706]) + [:hr] + #_(blockquote + [:<> + "Antifeminists draw two contradictory arguments from examining history: (1) +women have never created anything grand; (2) woman's situation has never +prevented great women personalities from blossoming. There is bad faith in both +of these assertions; the successes of some few privileged women neither +compensate for nor excuses the systematic degrading of the collective level; and +the very fact that these successes are so rare and limited is proof of their +unfavorable circumstances."] []) + (blockquote + (html + [:p + "Women–except in certain abstract gatherings such as conferences–do not use +\"we\"; men say \"women\", and women adopt this word to refer to themselves; but +they do not posit themselves authentically as Subjects. [...] Women's actions +have never been more than symbolic agitation; they have won only what men have +been willing to concede to them; they have taken nothing; they have received. It +is that they lack the concrete means to organize themselves into a unit that +could posit itself in opposition. they have no past, no history, no religion of +their own; and unlike the proletariat, they have no solidarity of labor or +interests; they even lack their own space that makes communities of American +blacks, the Jews in ghettos, or the workers in Saint-Denis or Renault factories. +They live dispersed among men, tied by homes, work economic interests, and +social conditions to certain men–fathers or husbands–more closely than to other +women. As bourgeois women, they are in solidarity with bourgeois men and not +with women proletarians; as white women, they are in solidarity with white men +and not with black women. The proletariat could plan to massacre the whole +ruling class; a fanatic Jew or black could dream of seizing the secret of the +atomic bomb and turning all of humanity entirely Jewish or entirely black: but a +woman could not even dream of exterminating males. The tie that binds her to her +oppressors is unlike any other. The division of the sexes is a biological given, +not a moment in history. [...] The couple is a fundamental unit with the two +halves riveted to each other: cleavage of society by sex is not possible. This +is the fundamental characteristic of women: she is the Other at the heart of a +whole whose two components are necessary to each other. "]) + [8 9]) + [:hr] + [:p "Other bookmarked pages, mostly for my own memory: 109, 137, 160, 254, 257, 365, 405, 412, 514-515, 564, 568, 612-613, 630, 661-662, 674, 693, 731, 739, and 742-743."]]))) |