The Second Sex's Continued Relevance for Equality and Difference Feminisms

European Journal of Women’s Studies Copyright © 2009 SAGE Publications(Los Angeles, London, New Delhi, Singapore and Washington DC), 1350-5068Vol. 16(1): 11–31; http://ejw.sagepub.com DOI: 10.1177/1350506808098532

The Second Sex’s ContinuedRelevance for Equality andDifference Feminisms

Nadine ChangfootTRENT UNIVERSITY

ABSTRACT This article argues that Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex continues toteach academic feminismwhy difference feminism holds productive and generativepotential for feminists and why equality feminism has been consistently subject tocriticism since the second wave of feminism. Using Hegel’s master–slave dialecticas a lens to interpret subjectivity in The Second Sex, this text reveals an aspect ofequality feminism that relies upon masculine subjectivity, a subjectivity that inher-ently constitutes otherness. This reliance on masculine subjectivity is anathema todifference feminism because the otherness inherently constituted by such subjectiv-ity simultaneously and paradoxically constitutes women’s ongoing subordination.In assuming equality with men by adopting masculine subjectivity, women are notimmune to constituting (other) women as other. Difference feminisms, on the otherhand, start from where women are as they choose to see themselves socially, eco-nomically, racially, sexually. The Second Sex reveals that difference feminisms imag-ine freedom in order to identify the difference that would empower women, notstrictly towards sex equality with a stable referent (such as the contested referent ofthe white, middle-class, able-bodied, heterosexual woman or man), but towardsemancipatory projects that make a difference for women themselves. The Second Sexportends that such imagined freedom has not been actualized, thus the presentremains circumscribed by power that subordinates the difference(s) in question.When read alongside The Second Sex, the tension between equality and differencefeminisms can still be read as feminisms that coexist with one another, each withtheir limitations, each with productive potential and cautionary rejoinders.

KEY WORDS agency � Simone de Beauvoir � difference feminisms � equality fem-inism � freedom � G.F.W. Hegel � identity/difference � masculine subjectivity �

The Second Sex � women’s subordination

In 1999, Karen Vintges described equality and difference feminisms asbeing in a dialectic relationship that could be reconciled when sociopoliti-cal equality was understood as the precondition for difference; that is, new

identities expressed by women (Vintges, 1999: 140). As we approach theend of the first decade of the 2000s, Vintges’s astute observation of equal-ity and difference prior to 2000 can be updated in light of current feministdirections. At present, equality and difference feminisms continue on theirrespective paths. The academic debates between them over whichapproach is efficacious and the problems each presents for women’s equityare in a holding pattern where there appears to be a grit-your-teeth yethealthy political acceptance of each other. One key source of tension lies intheir respective conceptions of sociopolitical equality. Difference femi-nisms are cautious of making demands in the name of sociopolitical equal-ity because such equality, as they see it, largely harbours a patriarchal andphallogocentric legacy within the institutions where equality is sought.Instead, difference feminisms seek to make an emancipatory difference forwomen in their lived experiences where demand for sexual equality doesnot adequately address the situation of women concerned. For differencefeminisms, equality feminism largely remains attached to a western liberalprinciple of equality that, if not politically, could theoretically overridedemands of difference for women, particularly when those demands areviewed by equality feminists to result in or continue subordination.Just as The Second Sexwas a beacon for equality feminism during second

wave feminism, it now continues to teach academic feminism the underly-ing reasons for the tensions between equality and difference feminisms andthe limitations of each approach. This article outlines the key fissuresbetween equality and difference feminisms that emerged and came to ahead in the late 1990s and early 2000s, having to do with difference femi-nisms’ quarrels with liberalism underwriting equality feminism. UsingHegel’s master–slave dialectic as a lens to interpret subjectivity in TheSecond Sex, this text reveals an aspect of equality feminism that relies uponmasculine subjectivity, a subjectivity that inherently constitutes otherness.This reliance on masculine subjectivity is anathema to difference feminismsbecause the otherness inherently constituted by such subjectivity simulta-neously and paradoxically constitutes women’s ongoing subordination.The Second Sex also reveals how crucial an imagined difference is to realizean incremental difference in freedom. Read in the present, The Second Sexshows how equality and difference feminisms each will continue to makeclaims that come into conflict.

EQUALITY/DIFFERENCE

The debate between equality and difference feminism emerged in the1970s at a time when equality feminism, also known as liberal feminism oregalitarian feminism, predominated. The rise of equality feminismoccurred as women discovered, became conscious of and took action to

European Journal of Women’s Studies 16(1)12

rectify their inequalities with men, especially their access to postsecondaryeducation, pay equity and entry into male-dominated occupations andelected office. Thinkers such as Simone de Beauvoir (1989 [1949]) and BettyFriedan (2001 [1963]) provided women frameworks and language toexpress their economic, social, political and sexual subordination to men.These thinkers became beacons of second wave feminism determined tofight for and achieve equality for women as a social class with men inwestern advanced industrial societies. Mainly middle-class, white, hetero-sexual women became active in actions and organizations reported bymainstream media within the public sphere; they pressed for change onthe basis that women andmenwere equal to one another as human beings,and thus, women should be equal with men in the workplace, in electoralinstitutions and in the family.1 Yet, at the same time, dissenting voicesagainst this early strategy of equality feminism emerged within academicfeminism and the feminist movement. Socialist feminists argued thatequality strategies benefited middle-class women without addressing theneeds of working-class and poor women. Unlike equality feminists, whodid not question capitalism as a system of oppression, socialist feministscould not exclude capitalism from its critique of patriarchy; they rejectedthe possibility of women’s equality within existing capitalism withoutchanging the structure of capitalism itself (Hartmann, 1981). Women ofcolour argued that the strategy of equality deployed primarily by whitewomen not only ignored but also perpetuated racism and poverty that dis-proportionately affected visible minority women. Critical race theory fem-inists saw equality strategies so immersed in colonialism that they felt itlargely impossible to bring about equality for visible minority women aslong as western liberalism and colonial power remained insufficientlyuninterrogated and intact (Minh-Ha, 1989; Mohanty, 2003; Mohanty et al.,1991). Lesbian feminists felt marginalized and hostility from within a het-eronormative movement. Queer feminism argued the need for equalityfeminism to interrogate its heterosexual assumptions in its conceptualiza-tion of gender equality (Butler, 1999; Wittig, 1975, 1980). In each of theirown ways, these feminisms argued that pursuing a strategy of equalitymeant the needs and interests of working-class women, women of colourand lesbian women were largely subordinated to those of middle-class,Eurocentric and heterosexual women, who were at the time central tofeminist organizing on behalf of western women writ large.There were also feminisms that focused on sexual difference as key to

understanding women’s subordination. French feminism and maternalfeminism insisted on privileging the feminine, but in different ways.French feminism focused on a specific feminine rationality that had beeneffaced by the phallogocentrism of masculine rationality. This femininerationality could be recuperated through a specific feminine ecriture(Cixous, 1980, 1981), mimesis of masculine rationality to expose its excess

Changfoot: The Second Sex’s Continued Relevance 13

(Irigaray, 1985, 1992) and resistance of feminine abjection (Kristeva, 1981).For French feminism, the difference between women and men was inher-ently phallogocentric, meaning that the very structure of thinking, i.e.rationality, was masculinist. Consequently, feminine expression wasunable to manifest sufficiently and freely on its own terms within patri-archal institutions and language because they inherently suppressed thefeminine. Maternal feminism focused on the caring aspects of women’sdesire and experience (Chodorow, 1978; Ruddick, 1990). The ‘ethics ofcare’ took the moral differences found between girls and boys as a basisfor feminist norms and practices (Gilligan, 1993). Feminisms of sexual dif-ference inspired the view that for women to experience true equality,women would have to explore femininity distinct from existing male-created institutions, norms and practices, often without men. The pursuitof women-exclusive spaces and institutions became a hallmark of radicalfeminist practice inspired by French and maternal feminisms.2

Difference feminism(s), then, comprised a wide-ranging group of femi-nisms that sometimes were in coalition together, sometimes in friction withone another especially when it came to issues of class, Eurocentric and het-erosexual premises; common to them was their realization that formalequality-seeking was neither sufficient for the achievement of women’sfull participation in society nor substantive equality. Even though equalityfeminists would respond that women’s equality would also change themeaning of equality as well as social, economic and political structures andsystems (Eisenstein, 1981; Okin, 1979), difference feminists were highlysceptical and critical of the possibility of both structural and attitudinalchange from equality demands because existing power structures and atti-tudes were highly resistant to change. That is why a specific aspect of sex-ual difference had to be recognized that often intersected with class, raceand sexuality. As well, existing power often delegitimated women’sclaims, not to mention the women making the claims themselves. Therewould always be a difference associated with women that would be usedto justify, often tacitly, women’s inequality either in comparisons madewith men, and even with women. Equality feminism’s conceit, from a dif-ference feminist perspective, was that it often assumed universalism onthe basis of a set of particular norms, frequently middle-class, heteronor-mative and colonial, that in turn produced unacknowledged hierarchieswhere poor women, women of colour, lesbian women and disabledwomen were excluded from the subject of equality. Difference feministsmade enormous efforts to point out these exclusions circulated under thelanguage of the universal, while equality feminism would respond bymaking painfully clear that universals were capable of incorporating dif-ference under the right communicative and procedural conditions.Conversely, equality feminism’s concern with difference feminism wasthat sexual difference could be used to reinforce domestic responsibilities


for women and establish their natural difference from men, but differencefeminismmade clear that this was a familiar strategy of subordination anddid not preclude the demand to recognize difference, indeed, the justifica-tion of inequality on the basis of difference was all the more reason toaffirm difference (Bryson, 2003: 149). According to difference feminisms,resistance had to go beyond closing gender gaps and attaining equal rightsbetween women and men; they saw these strategies as emblematic of themethod ‘add women and stir’ and largely rejected them.In the 2000s, difference feminisms continued to see equality feminism’s

tendency to subordinate difference to western liberal norms especiallywhen cultural practices, including religious practices, went against the lib-eral grain of equality feminists. SusanMoller Okin’s work was an exemplarof equality feminism during this period (Okin, 1998, 1999). In particular, shedisagreed with the practice of polygamy and female circumcision in minor-ity communities because in her view they subordinated women withinthose communities and denied them equality with women outside the cul-tural minority. Okin was criticized for the following: framing visible minor-ity women as having false agency when they supported the very practicesthat Okin said was a source of their subordination; demonstrating inade-quate knowledge over the practices of polygamy and various forms offemale circumcision; and implicitly treating as aberrations the same prac-tices carried out in her own United States, thus implying an inherent infe-riority to racialized peoples both inside and outside the US.3 In response,difference feminists such as al-Hibri (1999), Honig (1999), Norton (2001)and Parekh (1999) asserted that, yet again, equality feminism harbouredcolonialism, Eurocentrism and heteronormativity that justifies the subordi-nation as well as inadequate consideration of difference(s).

THE SECOND SEX

How does The Second Sex contribute to understanding the tension betweenequality and difference feminisms? I answer this question by focusing on themeaning of freedom offered within this text, building on previous feministresearch.Much has beenwritten on de Beauvoirean freedom. For example, deBeauvoir is an antecedent of performative gender agency (Butler, 1986, 1989),anti-essentialism (Arp, 1995), a theorist of agency in contexts of extreme con-straints and/or oppression (Kruks, 1995; Vintges, 1999), both ontological andpractical freedom (Linsenbard, 1999), erotic generosity (Bergoffen, 1997), eroticembodiment as a relation to oneself and the world (Deutscher, 2001), recipro-cal recognition towards gender equality (Bauer, 2001), an ethics of ambiguityregarding sexual difference (Heinämaa, 2002) and ethics and political libera-tion via maternity and the otherness within as a guide (Scarth, 2004). I do notdebate these contributions nor is it my purpose to develop a de Beauvoirean


theory of freedom. Rather, the discussion that follows looks at freedom in TheSecond Sex to shed light on equality and difference feminisms respectively. Ifocus on two locations of freedom in The Second Sex. The first resides in amas-culine subject who has propelled the development of western society throughhistory-making activity. This is the subject that, de Beauvoir avows, has beencriticized for doing so, and recognizable in equality feminism as the subjectwho canwill itself to equality withmen. The second occurs in a future not yetand in a subject conscious of differences that need to be reconciled into a rela-tionship of equality for women with men. This is a subject conscious of, first,differences and the power they produce, and second, how power in the exist-ing context largely refuses to acknowledge and recognize the differences thatcould expand freedom for women. Each location of freedom produces twokinds of freedom that are in tension with one another. The first sense of free-dom resonates with Jean-Paul Sartre’s conception of freedom.4 This freedomreproduces the Cartesian cogito and locates it in the subject’s potential andactual will regardless of her situation. This subject assumes that the cogitodetermines one’s freedom. Even when an external force constrains the body,be it a law, regulation, convention, norm or another body, the Sartrean subjectcan still posit freedom in and through her mind. Feminists have criticized deBeauvoir, alleging that she uncritically appropriates the Sartrean subject as aworkable model for women.5 The result of this appropriation assumeswrongly, according to de Beauvoir’s feminist critics, that women have thesame desires as men and envisage freedom in the same ways as men.Feminists have also claimed that she puts forward a subject distinct fromSartre’s. De Beauvoir’s subject is always ‘becoming’ in resistance to existingsubjugating conditions and thus distinct from being a merely constitutedother. Supporters of this version of de Beauvoir’s subject state that the femalesubject is cognizant of being produced by the oppressive processes of patri-archy.6What these feminists neglect to say, however, is that the transformationsuggested from this becoming is more incremental than a completed actual-ization of freedom in the present. Indeed, in The Second Sex, such a completedtransformation is not fully actualized because the conditions of patriarchypresent themselves as limits at the outset. This is why within The Second Sex,the location of women’s (and men’s) completed freedom takes place in thefuturewhere existing limits have been surmounted andwhere the recognitionof differences can be resolved, indeed fraternally (de Beauvoir’s wording)sometimes with conflict, into freedom for both women and men. In light ofthese two locations of freedom, gender equality is discernible inThe Second Sexpremised, on the one hand, upon a rational woman equal and striving forequality with men, and, on the other hand, upon differences already recog-nized by women and men in the future. Within the text, their coexistenceoccurs outside history.In what follows, I trace the nature of de Beauvoir’s masculine subject,

the criteria of freedom that de Beauvoir develops for such a subject, and


using Hegel’s master–slave dialectic as an interpretive lens, show howthis subject undergoes a critical reversal and reveals domination asinherent in its makeup.The first position of masculine subjectivity emphasizes the kind of free-

dom de Beauvoir wants for women that implicitly men already have. Justas men are conscious of their sovereignty and capacity to act in the world,so are women.

In claiming himself sovereign, he [man] comes up against [rencontre] thecomplicity of woman herself: because she is also an existent, she has the ten-dency for transcendence and her project is not repetition but transcendencetoward a different future; in the heart of her being she finds the confirma-tion of masculine pretensions. (de Beauvoir, 1989: 64)

Just as men are aware of themselves as sovereign subjects, women aretoo. De Beauvoir suggests that women realize they have been consignedto ‘repetition’, or motherhood, in the past, but women have alwayssought to define themselves and their freedom through the creation andexecution of their own projects via a rationality similar to men, yet, at thesame time distinct from men and yet unknown. Men have made womensubordinate and claimed power over them, but this does not mean thatwomen do not want the power men already possess. In actual fact, deBeauvoir says women do desire freedom, albeit a freedom that for her hasbeen mostly manifest by the male body and masculine consciousness.7

De Beauvoir’s The Ethics of Ambiguity helps elucidate this conception offreedom as it relates to the idea of project. In The Ethics of Ambiguity, free-dom begins with the self-recognition of not being a free subject in thepresent and the desire to transcend one’s current situation by reachingtowards the attainment of one’s truer potential through a willed actionthat involves creation and making one’s mark in and on one’s environ-ment, i.e. history-making. When one acts in a willed and creative way, oneis taking on projects that surpass one’s present existence. One surpassesoneself by expanding one’s will and knowledge: that is, creating andchanging the landscape of one’s external surroundings. The kind of effortthat would constitute such activity remains abstract in The Ethics ofAmbiguity, but becomes more specific in the form of art, letters and archi-tecture in The Second Sex. There is also an ethical aspect to this endeavourbecause the attainment of freedom entails the expansion of the freedom ofothers: ‘the freedom of other men must be respected and they must behelped to free themselves’ (de Beauvoir, 1997: 60). ‘The man . . . whose endis the liberation of himself and others, who forces himself to respect thisend through the means which he uses to attain it . . . is a genuinely freeman’ (de Beauvoir, 1997: 60–1).In The Ethics of Ambiguity, de Beauvoir speaks of women sparingly and

when she does, she presents women, along with slaves, as ‘beings whose


life slips by into an infantile world because, having been kept in a state ofservitude and ignorance, they have no means of breaking the ceilingwhich is stretched over their heads’ (de Beauvoir, 1997: 37). However, inThe Second Sex, de Beauvoir strongly suggests that because women havenot been fully conscious of their subordinate status and constructed pas-sivity, they have not rebelled against patriarchal circumstances. DeBeauvoir wants women to confront men to gain recognition and socialchange for their improved condition. This freedom premised upon themale body and masculine consciousness that together renders masculinesubjectivity, however, becomes compromised because of the very consti-tution of masculine subjectivity.Unacknowledged by de Beauvoir is the domination that undergirds the

masculine subjectivity she advocates. Instead, she focuses on the strongagency of the masculine subject to the point where she views this subjectas having succeeded in carving out the definitive path towards freedom.However, while purporting to result in a progressive mode of freedom-producing outcomes, this subject does not do so. Hegel’s master–slavedialectic helps to explain the failure for men andwomenwhen dominationunderlies subjectivity. Passing references to the master–slave dialectic inThe Second Sex have been the subject of feminist analysis. Three main inter-pretations of de Beauvoir’s use of Hegel’s master–slave dialectic in femi-nist scholarship are as follows. First, woman is positioned analogous to theslave and man to the master (Jaggar and McBride, 1985; Mills, 1996;Mussett, 2006; Sandford, 2006; Seigfried, 1985). Second, woman is not posi-tioned in the dialectic: woman does not enter into a struggle to the deathwith man because she is absolutely othered (Gauthier, 1997; Hutchings,2003; Lundgren-Gothlin, 1996; O’Brien, 1981).8 Third, Hegel’s master–slavedialectic facilitates the goal of reciprocal recognition between the sexes inthat de Beauvoir transforms the dialectic towards gender equality throughmutual vulnerability (Bauer, 2001), erotic generosity (Bergoffen, 1997) andan ethics of otherness within (Scarth, 2004). Inspired by this third group-ing, which uses Hegel’s master–slave dialectic as a site of transformationfor the dialectic, I read The Second Sex using Hegel’s master–slave dialecticas a lens to reveal an inadvertent and implicit acknowledgement in TheSecond Sex that masculine subjectivity is unworkable for women (andmen), because such subjectivity, like Hegel’s master, remains blind to theparadox that domination does not bring about freedom. This is the subjectthat closely resonates with the subject of equality feminism.In Hegel’s master–slave parable, the subject’s consciousness of its power

over (an)other is made possible by the slave’s submission in exchange forhis (the slave’s) life after the struggle to the death. However, the victory isalso pyrrhic because the master’s dominance, according to Hegel, requiresrecognition by another equal to himself. At the outset, the confrontationbetween two subjects is that of potentially two masters, but the fight to the


death renders one a slave. In Hegel’s view, the slave was always destinedto be subjugated, especially given that Hegel was narrating a story of thedevelopment of subjectivity from a perspective of power. The slave’srecognition of the master’s dominance renders a reversal of power for themaster. The master requires recognition by an equal but he does notachieve this by virtue of his victory over the slave, who is now revealed tobe unequal, thus he does not gain what he desired, a complete sense of selfas victor. There is a missing element of what he thought he could be as asubject, thus there is continued domination over the slave to reinitiate themoment of victory that ironically also repeats the failure of a completedself (Hegel, 1977). The Second Sex contains this aspect of Hegel’s mas-ter–slave dialectic. Woman is made other and becomes other, analogous tothe slave, but ironically, man does not achieve the freedom he claimsbecause his putative freedom is not recognized by an equal and it comes atthe expense of an(other). Thus, this cannot be a genuine freedom on deBeauvoir’s terms.9 Yet, this failure remains implicit, unspoken, within TheSecond Sex. By speaking this failure, the implications of women taking onthe subject position of masculine subjectivity can also be spoken. In thefollowing, I provide a reading of gender relations in The Second Sex thatfollows the subjectivity of the master in Hegel’s master–slave dialectic.In The Second Sex, women are subordinated by men in the very consti-

tution of women’s subjectivity as a consciousness not completely theirown. Early in the text, de Beauvoir alludes to men creating the conscious-ness of women as inferior and subordinate without legitimate justifica-tion. Really, men hold no unique claim to the processes attendant tosurvival, according to de Beauvoir, they have made such a false claim, andin so doing, declared that maternity is woman’s purview and have triedto keep her bound to that task:

In truth women have never set up female values in opposition to male val-ues; it is men who, desirous of maintaining masculine prerogatives, haveinvented that divergence. Men have pretended to create a feminine domain –the principle of life, of immanence – only in order to lock up women therein.(de Beauvoir, 1989: 65, translation altered)

Men have created a false sense of their own identity through femininitythey have produced and devalued.Whenmen look to women for their ownaffirmation, they will only see an inessential consciousness or a conscious-ness of their own creation that is unable to provide the basis for their self-certainty for freedom, precisely because from such a subject position of ‘theone who creates’ they have reduced women to a conception of other, madethem into dependent and subordinate subjects. Men have been able to cre-ate the differences between the sexes that imprison women in the name ofsexual difference. Yet, men become dependent upon women’s recognition,a recognition that will always fail because he has made women’s identity


incapable of the recognition he needs. This is the operation of masculineconsciousness especially present in de Beauvoir’s Chapter IX, ‘Dreams,Fears, Idols’. Man sees woman as the incarnation of his dream, yet mascu-line self-consciousness must reach out to this other in order to complete hissense of self (de Beauvoir, 1989: 140). Ironically, man’s individual need forrecognition cannot be met by an(other), who is already subject to his will.In the quotation below, de Beauvoir describes man attempting to imposehis will upon ‘Nature’ as woman. He can bend and mould her to his will,but there is a fundamental opposition that leads to failure:

Man encounters Nature; he has some hold upon her, he endeavors to moldher to his desire. But she cannot fill his needs. Either she appears simply asa purely impersonal opposition, she is an obstacle and remains a stranger;or she submits passively to man’s will and permits assimilation, so that hetakes possession of her only through consuming her – that is, throughdestroying her. In both cases he remains alone; he is alone when he touchesa stone, alone when he devours a fruit. (de Beauvoir, 1989: 139)

De Beauvoir does not elaborate upon what she means when she saysthat man ‘remains alone’ in the attempt to possess woman as he has influ-enced her subjectivity and as woman has been produced through hispower. ‘Remaining alone’ suggests that the masculine subject does notattain the freedom assumed to be within his grasp. An isolated and soli-tary existence is not the freedom that de Beauvoir celebrates and affirms.And, unlike the freedom that produces the other’s freedom, followingwhat she says of freedom in The Ethics of Ambiguity, men have failedbecause they consciously subordinate women. This collective subordina-tion does not bring about a ‘fraternity’ between women and men; instead,men remain individually alone and incapable of releasing themselvesfrom such a deficient situation. Men do not secure the recognition theyseek and depend upon from women. Instead, masculine consciousnessproduces only a solitary self that is not what he claimed to be – neitherhistory-maker, nor free subject among other free subjects (de Beauvoir,1989: 141).10 De Beauvoir does not acknowledge this reversal, but the soli-tary and incomplete life men create reflects this reversal when she statesmen make women the other and when women as the other remain astranger or disappear as individuals within men’s presence.That de Beauvoir does not ruminate upon this unacknowledged critical

reversal indicates an attachment to the masculine subject as the role modelfor freedom. Even though her vision of freedom does not aim to repeat thepower relation of domination, it would seem that true equality, at best,would be remotely possible because masculine subjectivity requires dom-ination over an(other) for its very being. Even if such subjectivity werecapable of admitting to its inherently oppressive impulses, its need to sub-ordinate an(other) for self-preservation takes precedence. She elides the


need for this admission at the end of The Second Sex, when she writes ‘it isfor man to establish the reign of liberty in the midst of the world of thegiven’ (de Beauvoir, 1989: 732), perhaps because she either recognizes or isunaware that, according to her view, men will not have any incentive toapprentice women or train them in freedom. De Beauvoir needs to main-tain that men have the ‘power’ to attain their own freedom so that they, asfreedom-producing beings, can share their knowledge with women. DeBeauvoir cannot concede that men are incapable of attaining freedom,otherwise she would need to question masculine subjectivity she assumesto produce freedom. In contrast, my focus on the failure of the masculinesubject in The Second Sex to manifest freedom anticipates that women willbe unable to secure their freedom on the basis of masculine subjectivityproposed and maintained in the text.11 They too, will embody these samelimits because women will be blind to the subordinating power relationscreated by masculine subjectivity itself.

IMPLICATIONS FOR EQUALITY FEMINISM

De Beauvoir’s narrative of masculine subjectivity suggests significant limi-tations for equality feminism, but for reasons different than those identifiedby feminists that take umbrage against her attachment to the male bodyand consciousness (e.g. Chanter, 1995; Léon, 1995; Lloyd, 1993; Okely, 1986).These feminist critics argued that the male body was an unacceptable stan-dard for defining women’s equality, but they did not identify the criticalreversal in masculine subjectivity that casts doubt on the putative freedomachieved by men. Reading men’s freedom through this critical reversal,such freedom is an illusion because it depends upon making women other,a consequence that preempts the achievement of freedom since one’s free-dom must also produce the freedom of others. In de Beauvoir’s outline ofmasculine subjectivity, she clearly shows that the pursuit of men’s freedomcomes at women’s expense; however, she does not explore the implicationthat this means men’s freedom remains truly unrealized. Further, sheremains committed to the history-making activity and the subjectivity thatcreates it as a path of freedom for women. Implicitly, in adhering to mascu-line subjectivity, de Beauvoir consigns women to continued subordinationbymen, and ironically, the possibility of women subordinating others givenher view that women need to adopt this subjectivity. What would makewomen immune from the same dynamic of domination when adoptingmasculinist subjectivity? As discussed earlier, women who have beenothered within feminism have made their exclusions known: women ofcolour, poor women, lesbian women andwomenwith disabilities have crit-icized demands for equality made by women embodying and acting fromEurocentric, heteronormative, middle-class and able-bodied norms. The


Second Sex anticipates this kind of othering because the masculinesubjectivity that underlies equality-seeking inherently produces domina-tion in wide-ranging forms.For equality feminism, women need to fight to seek equality with men,

but do not always consider the implicit, darker consequences having to dowith the very subjectivity of equality-seeking. Indeed, de Beauvoir sayswomen need to enter into a struggle with men for the purpose of equality-seeking and they need to develop the kind of consciousness and institu-tional power to do so. Given masculine subjectivity, however, my readingof de Beauvoir anticipates the possibility of pyrrhic victories for women.Equality won for women, while substantive in the moment, could beshort-lived especially in the context where masculine subjectivity predom-inates and its inherent constitutive dynamic predicts a relentless dynamicthat ‘others’ women. For women to adopt the kind of subjectivity deBeauvoir would have them embody suggests the trap where women areup against power that will reassert itself through the othering process. Thisresonates with moments where women have fought hard and won equal-ity with men only to realize that the victory was insufficient for substan-tive equality (e.g. the vote, equality rights). This does not mean to say thatthe victory itself is meaningless, but rather that masculine subjectivityrestores itself to dominance very quickly and resists the extension andsharing of power in ways, like de Beauvoir, women had hoped.Just as masculine subjectivity has a blind spot to its power relation of

domination, equality feminism also has a blind spot in its power relationover women it others in the process of making equality claims. DeBeauvoir’s outline of masculine subjectivity as the model for seekingwomen’s equality foreshadows the criticism made by women who note theexclusions that accompany such demands as have occurred regarding sanc-tions against the hijab, polygamy and female circumcision. The otheringprocess inherent in masculine subjectivity occurs when women adopt itbecause such subjectivity involves domination, even if unconsciously. Thus,the limits of equality feminism occur at two moments: first, when otheredwomen disagree with the political demands made by women who speak ontheir (othered women’s) behalf (e.g. the criticisms made of Okin). Such amoment cannot be avoided, following de Beauvoir, because subjectivityinherently assumes a power relation between self and other. The secondmoment occurs when masculine subjectivity embodied in and deployed bypatriarchal institutions dismisses or delegitimates women’s equality claims.Yet, in a world where women compared to men earn less, own less, are

more likely to be working part-time, be single parents, less educated, poorin their old age and do more unpaid domestic labour, demands for equal-ity are vital. Indeed, in western industrial societies there have beenimprovements in women’s socioeconomic standing in terms of access toeducation, women’s increased presence in male-dominated occupations in


law, business, postsecondary education and sciences, and improvementsin pay equity. Middle-class women, especially, have benefited from theequality demands made by first and second wave feminism. Political par-ties and institutions, however, remain consistently impervious to women’sfuller participation. As well, immigrant women, women with disabilities,poor women, indigenous women and importantly, women in the globalSouth are making demands that have to do with basic human rights. Theliving conditions of many of these women arguably often fall short of basicneeds; they often face serious issues of access to participation in civil soci-ety, let alone the formal political process, and substandard working condi-tions relative to the laws in place for the general population, especially inthe case of imported domestic labour.Thus, demands for equality continue to be made. But, de Beauvoir

inadvertently shows feminism that the logic of equality contains within itan inherent subordinating dimension. Having outlined the inherent rela-tion of domination in the subjectivity that de Beauvoir avows, equality-seeking feminism would need to become aware of and develop processesof self-reflexivity. That is, anticipating the exclusions inherent in makingclaims of equality in relation to men, equality-seekers could seek feedbackfrom the groups on whose behalf they make claims to get a sense of theimplications of their claims and demands. This implies a commitment todemocratic consultation in a meaningful way that takes time, in the formof dialogue and face-to-face contact that can seek and better understandconflicting points of view.12

DIFFERENCES AND THE IMAGINATION

Masculine subjectivity, along the lines de Beauvoir describes, suggests thatfreedom is always on the horizon. In the absence of freedom in the pres-ent, de Beauvoir introduces in the conclusion of The Second Sex a worldwhere women andmen are equal and capable of living a fulfilled freedom,however, the arrival of this time is unspecified. The free woman canappear only when the economic, moral, social, cultural and other condi-tions enable her to appear. A paradox emerges: women have not been freeand they will not be free until they are. In de Beauvoir’s words, ‘thisexplains why the woman of today is torn between the past and the future’(de Beauvoir, 1989: 725). What is the nature of this being torn? Women areliving in the past of unfreedom, a place of discomfort and suffering,acknowledging that the understanding of woman remains intimately con-stituted within patriarchal society and bymyths of femininity. Women alsolive in the future, knowing the possibility of freedom. Yet, the possibilityof being an emancipated woman remains unrealized, because whereverone is a woman or defined a woman there will be a present conditioned by


patriarchal power in varying degrees as a constitutive power. There isconsciousness that one is not free, that one’s project defined as one’s free-dom, in fact, becomes assimilated to an otherness that one thought couldbe transcended or transformed in the very doing of the project. And now,this knowledge is inflected with tacit failure. De Beauvoir writes:

She appears most often as a ‘true woman’ disguised as a man, and she feelsherself as ill at ease in her flesh as in masculine garb. She must shed her oldskin and cut her own new clothes. This she could do only through a socialevolution. No single educator could fashion a female human being todaywhowould be the exact homologue of the male human being; if she is raisedlike a boy, the young girl feels she is an oddity and thereby she is given anew kind of sex specification. (de Beauvoir, 1989: 725)

The newness of each sense of womanhood fashioned by a womanherself is not a completed freedom, whether it is as a woman who hasbecome equal with a man in a professional role or a girl who feels at oddswith herself in relation to other girls because she has not had the samekind of upbringing. The resulting change is ambiguous because ‘woman’and ‘girl,’ in de Beauvoir’s examples, are becoming something other thanwhat the past definitions of femininity prescribed and produced. At thesame time, even the new ‘becomings’ embody patriarchal norms of mas-culinity through the experience of a female body and still feminine mindthat is not independent of male consciousness, hence, the freedomremains ill-fitting. To the extent that it is uncomfortable and not com-pletely defined by women and girls themselves, it is not wholly freedom-producing, the very freedom de Beauvoir wants for women. Themasculine model of freedom she adopts as the model for women to copyremains contained within the paradoxical production of freedom andsubordination. But, the difference between the unsatisfactory present andemancipated future is that the latter remains a place of possibility. In theexisting context, masculine subjectivity and patriarchy constrain and con-tain emancipatory efforts: this is the limit for equality feminism. The start-ing point for change will always be within patriarchal conditions andmasculine subjectivity will assimilate and circumscribe transformativeacts and action to such conditions. There needs to be another space forimagining freedom. This is the world of the future where freedom isalready achieved in the imagination so it can be read into the present. Inthis future present, oppressions produced by masculine subjectivity willhave stopped because masculine subjectivity either disappears orbecomes something else; it becomes a different kind of subjectivity, onethat is amenable to difference, specifically gender differences. This is atonce the possibility and limitations of difference feminisms.Indeed, a different kind of subjectivity is required, one that does not harbour

an inherent drive of domination over an(other) and one that produces the


freedom of others as it does for oneself. ‘But if we imagine, on thecontrary, a society in which the equality of the sexes would be concretelyrealized, this equality would find new expression in each individual’ (deBeauvoir, 1989: 726). A whole new world of gender relations would openup revealing new possibilities as well as transforming certain patriarchalmyths. De Beauvoir invites her reader to visualize a time when subjectivityis not inherently focused on domination over an(other). Subjectivity wouldnot be constitutively masculine inflected with domination; it would beunburdened of this need to subordinate an(other). What a new subjectivitywould require and offer is a capacity to recognize the incompleteness ofoneself in either the male or female body. Instead of having to fulfil oneselfby dominating an(other), de Beauvoir suggests that individuals would beable to accept their respective incompleteness and in so doing also acceptthat this is sufficient for recognizing oneself and the other in mutual reci-procity. Hegel’s master–slave dialectic would require transformation into adialectic of difference, where difference requires, on the one hand, honour-ing what is deficient in oneself to become a complete subject, as well as, onthe other hand, honouring the other in their inability to provide such com-pleteness.13 Confrontations between women and men would continue tooccur; however, the patriarchal dimension of domination would be dif-fused because domination would be rendered unnecessary for one’s senseof freedom, one that would be false at the outset, and meaningless amongwomen andmen who understand their respective lack as itself the momentof subjectivity’s completion. Both women and men would be able to giveone another the recognition needed to fulfil their respective desires withoutthe creation of an other:

In those combats where they think they confront one another, it is reallyagainst the self that each one struggles, projecting into the partner that partof the self which is repudiated; instead of living out the ambiguities of theirsituation, each tries to make the other bear the abjection and tries to reservethe honor for the self. If, however, both should assume the ambiguity witha clear-sighted modesty, correlative of an authentic pride, they would seeeach other as equals and would live out their erotic drama in amity. (deBeauvoir, 1989: 728)

The Second Sex shows that difference(s) need to be acknowledged sincedifference is the basis of both unfreedom and emancipation. The subordi-nating effects of diverse forms of oppressive power (sexism, racism, cap-italism, colonialism, heteronormativity, etc.) hinge upon the repression ofdifference; the recognition of difference holds the possibility of an eman-cipatory effect. This anticipates feminisms that focus on difference such ascultural feminism, maternal feminism, French feminism, postcolonialfeminism, black feminism, mestizo feminism and queer feminism. Allconcentrate on aspects of difference in resistance to patriarchal, white,


Eurocentric, middle-class, heteronormative and able-bodied norms andargue for the deconstruction, revaluation and incorporation of ideas andpractices into the body politic for meaningful social and political systemsand participation. The cautionary for feminisms of difference is that theimagined ethical incorporation of difference, while it facilitates a fullyrealized freedom, is a freedom nonetheless that remains in the realm ofthe imagination. Still, recognition of difference in women’s lived experi-ences does represent an emancipation, even when it is partial comparedto a fully imagined one. As well, in the very attempt to recognize differ-ences socially and politically, any specific difference can be used to justifywomen’s subordination based on so-called natural differences, for exam-ple, such as those between women and men. This is the concern of equal-ity feminism. But, as The Second Sex shows, imagined freedom is distinctfrom that which tends to predominate in the present. Thus, differencefeminism remains ‘torn’ between the present and the future. The presentrepresses difference and the future recognizes difference.

CONCLUSION

The Second Sex offers a rich exploration of issues of subjectivity related toequality and difference feminisms. Equality feminism resonates with mas-culine subjectivity, aspects of which were avowed by de Beauvoir in TheSecond Sex, i.e. a subject whose freedom was expressed in history-makingactivities that produced arts, letters, architecture and nation building. Thetext encourages the idea of women fighting for equality on the basis ofmen’s existing political and socioeconomic power and the possibility ofwomen’s own history-making production. Yet, The Second Sex demonstratesthe problems associated with reliance on masculine subjectivity as a pri-mary model for either men’s or women’s freedom. Using a Hegelian lens,The Second Sex reveals that men do not realize freedom because such sub-jectivity inherently constitutes relations of domination. Similarly, womenempowered by such subjectivity will fall short of freedom because suchsubjectivity is inherently oppressive and it does not realize the freedomof others. The inherent oppression manifests when women declare thatcertain equality feminist projects marginalize women who are othered.The Second Sex also clarifies the rise of difference feminism, in that de

Beauvoir acknowledges differences among women that need to beaddressed by men and women in order for a truer equality to manifest.The space of difference is one where difference can be identified and rec-onciled in an untroubled imaginary. This suggests that a complete eman-cipation is always in the future and emancipation requires freedomconstituted by a freedom-producing subjectivity. This limitation helpsexplain why a completed freedom, following a close reading of The Second


Sex, occurs only outside the experience of embodied subjects in animagined space where the very problem of masculine subjectivity can betranscended through its transmutation into a freedom-producing agent. Inthe end, a more complete freedom exists outside lived experience in themind of one who yearns for an existence no longer produced by relationsof dominance. Nonetheless, what makes this freedom promising is thefocus on differences and different socioeconomic conditions required tomake possible such an imagined future. As well, that imagined futurewhere freedom lies does not discount any emancipatory effects in the pres-ent. Through The Second Sex, de Beauvoir implicitly shows feminism thatemancipation is an ongoing endeavour, one that understandably cannot becompleted as a project in the present. Contrary to this being a cynical ordepressing moment, de Beauvoir’s turn to focus on difference at the end ofThe Second Sex continues the possibility of the feminist goal of women’sequality even when both equality and difference feminisms predictablywill experience the limits of power under current conditions.

NOTES

I would like to gratefully acknowledge the support of the Social Science andHumanities Research Council of Canada and thank Wendy Brown and ElaineStavro for their comments on earlier drafts. All errors are my own.

1. For accounts of second wave feminism in North America, see SusanBrownmiller (1999), Flora Davis (1991) and Judy Rebick (2005).

2. De Beauvoir supported the women’s liberation movement in France in the1970s, but she was hostile to separatism and rejected the revaluation ofwomen’s differences. See Mary Dietz (2002: 93), Mary Caputi (1991: 102–21)and Jo-Ann Pilardi (1995: 32–4).

3. See Azizah Y. al-Hibri (1999), Homi Bhabha (1999), Bonnie Honig (1999),Bhikhu Parekh (1999) and Anne Norton (2001).

4. Some feminists (Heinämaa, 1997; Kruks, 1992) see de Beauvoir’s theory offreedom inspired by Maurice Merleau-Ponty.

5. See Tina Chanter (1995: 47–79), Céline T. Léon (1995: 137–60), GenevieveLloyd (1993: 86–102) and Judith Okely (1986). For readings that argue deBeauvoir was more independent of Sartre than conventionally thought, seeElaine Stavro (1999: 263–80), Joseph Mahon (1997), Toril Moi (1994, 2002),Margaret A. Simons (1986: 165–97) and Linda Singer (1990: 323–35).

6. Yet, even though the subject is produced by patriarchal power, she still haspersonal agency to resist the normalizing processes of femininity ‘as a dailyact of reconstitution and interpretation’. Recent readings of de Beauvoir byButler (1986, 1989), Kruks (1992, 1995, 2001) and Zerilli (1992) emphasize therole of personal agency within a context of constraint and oppression, stillnonetheless produced within patriarchal conditions.

7. For de Beauvoir, there have been a small number of exceptions where womenhave gained economic independence and produced culture as heitaras (culti-vated courtesans in ancient Greece) and artists (de Beauvoir, 1989: 90, 101).


8. Susan James (2003) argues that complicity and slavery in The Second Sex iscloser to 17th-century philosopher Malebranche than Hegel.

9. De Beauvoir writes in The Ethics of Ambiguity: ‘The man . . . whose end is theliberation of himself and others, who forces himself to respect this endthrough the means which he uses to attain it . . . is a genuinely free man’ (deBeauvoir, 1997: 60–1).

10. Judith Butler (1986: 43–4) sees a different Hegelian reversal in de Beauvoir.11. Feminist scholarship overwhelmingly does not focus on man’s failed tran-

scendence in The Second Sex.12. For an in-depth discussion on what such a possibility could look like, see

Bruce Baum (2004).13. For variations on how such transformation could occur, see Bauer (2001),

Bergoffen (1997), Changfoot (2004) and Scarth (2004). For a phenomenologi-cal transformation, see Heinämaa (2002).

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Nadine Changfoot is assistant professor in the Department of Politics at TrentUniversity, Peterborough, ON, Canada. Her main research interests are social andpolitical thought (Simone De Beauvoir, G.W.F. Hegel, social movement theory, rec-onciliation discourse) from within a North American context, exploring commu-nity arts as a social movement, and envisioning new meanings of disability anddifference with women through arts-based interventions. Address: TrentUniversity, Department of Politics, 1600 West Bank Drive, Peterborough ON,Canada K9J 7B8. [email: [email protected]]

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The Second Sex's Continued Relevance for Equality and Difference Feminisms

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