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Toward a Phenomenology of Sexual Difference: Husserl, Merleau-Ponty, Beauvoir
Simone de Beauvoir's Le Deuxième Sexe has been studied extensively since its appearance in 1949. Through the years, certain passages have taken on prestige; others are seen as unimportant to understanding Beauvoir's argument. In Toward a Phenomenology of Sexual Difference , Sara Heinämaa rediscovers those neglected passages in her quest to follow Beauvoir's line of thinking. Heinämaa, like some other recent philosophers, finds that Le Duexième Sexe is a philosophical inquiry, not the empirical study it is commonly thought to be.
Others who view Beauvoir's masterpiece as a work of philosophy argue it is a criticism not only of Sartrean phenomenology, but of phenomenology as a whole. Heinämaa thinks differently. She finds that Beauvoir's starting point is the Husserlian idea of the living body that she found developed in Merleau-Ponty's Phénoménologie de la perception . So when Beavoir wrote Le Duexième Sexe , she was writing not as Sartre's pupil, but as a scholar in the tradition of Husserl and Merleau-Ponty.
Others who view Beauvoir's masterpiece as a work of philosophy argue it is a criticism not only of Sartrean phenomenology, but of phenomenology as a whole. Heinämaa thinks differently. She finds that Beauvoir's starting point is the Husserlian idea of the living body that she found developed in Merleau-Ponty's Phénoménologie de la perception . So when Beavoir wrote Le Duexième Sexe , she was writing not as Sartre's pupil, but as a scholar in the tradition of Husserl and Merleau-Ponty.
- GenresPhilosophyFeminism
182 pages, Paperback
First published March 1, 2003
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
June 8, 2018
This is a curious book, starting from the misleading title. This is a book about a book, specifically about the reception of Simone de Beauvoir’s Second Sex. It’s not a phenomenology (outside of an interesting passage about labor and childbirth), it is not about sexual difference as such, and it is only about Husserl and Merleau-Ponty in the service of tracing what Beauvoir is up to.
Heinämaa’s thesis is that Beauvoir’s The Second Sex should be read as a phenomenology of female(-bodied?) experience, rather than as an empirical investigation of women’s lives. Specifically, she situates Beauvoir relative to Merleau-Ponty and Husserl, rather than Sartre, and she claims that reading Beauvoir in this way dissolves many of the puzzling contradictions that seem to appear in the Second Sex. Her claims about Beauvoir are convincing, although they may have become less urgent now that a more philosophical translation of Beauvoir’a text has changed how we read it.
Unfortunately, the first several chapters set up exegesis for the argument about Beauvoir, while the last two chapters seem to abandon the thesis in favor of examinations of specific, non-phenomenological parts of Beauvoir’s text. This means it’s a bit stuck in between: not substantive enough to hang together as a series of essays, and not cohesive enough to deliver as a book-length argument.
Parts I liked particularly: the insights into Kierkegaard’s influence on Beauvoir’s concept of ambiguity, the considered argument about Beauvoir’s reading of Levinas in Ch. 4, and the overview of phenomenology of the body that is a good crash course for those without that background. It’s clear that Heinämaa knows her stuff, it’s just almost as though she tried to shoehorn too many different pieces of writing into this text, without acknowledging that its only sensible audience is readers of the Second Sex.
Heinämaa’s thesis is that Beauvoir’s The Second Sex should be read as a phenomenology of female(-bodied?) experience, rather than as an empirical investigation of women’s lives. Specifically, she situates Beauvoir relative to Merleau-Ponty and Husserl, rather than Sartre, and she claims that reading Beauvoir in this way dissolves many of the puzzling contradictions that seem to appear in the Second Sex. Her claims about Beauvoir are convincing, although they may have become less urgent now that a more philosophical translation of Beauvoir’a text has changed how we read it.
Unfortunately, the first several chapters set up exegesis for the argument about Beauvoir, while the last two chapters seem to abandon the thesis in favor of examinations of specific, non-phenomenological parts of Beauvoir’s text. This means it’s a bit stuck in between: not substantive enough to hang together as a series of essays, and not cohesive enough to deliver as a book-length argument.
Parts I liked particularly: the insights into Kierkegaard’s influence on Beauvoir’s concept of ambiguity, the considered argument about Beauvoir’s reading of Levinas in Ch. 4, and the overview of phenomenology of the body that is a good crash course for those without that background. It’s clear that Heinämaa knows her stuff, it’s just almost as though she tried to shoehorn too many different pieces of writing into this text, without acknowledging that its only sensible audience is readers of the Second Sex.
August 29, 2018
Heinamaa's project is to help us see how Simone de Beauvoir's "The Second Sex" is actually not misogynistic. Hurray! She does this by giving a history of Beauvoir and her arguments, putting her work in conversation with contemporaries, and rebutting main critiques of "The Second Sex". A key critique that Heinamaa refutes is the apparent contradiction where Beauvoir says that sex is constructed but that there is also an essential nature of womanhood. Heinamaa emphasizes how Beauvoir argues that gender is constructed, but her point about essentiality refers to femininity rather than female or womanness.
On top of all that, there are many pithy concepts that were readily applicable and enlightening.
On top of all that, there are many pithy concepts that were readily applicable and enlightening.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews