Toril Moi (Duke University)
from 10 May 2022 at 17:00 to 13 May 2022 at 18:45
Aula Specola and ONLINE
Simone de Beauvoir published The Second Sex in 1949. How does it speak to the situation of women today, almost 75 years later? Fifty years later, I published “What Is a Woman?” (1999), an essay in which I show that Beauvoir’s pathbreaking work of feminist philosophy does not in fact argue for the sex/gender division as it came to be constituted in the 1960s and later, a distinction that was also fundamental to the then dominant poststructuralist theory of sex and gender. Instead it argues that the body is a situation. Once we understand what that entails, Beauvoir’s work provides a powerful alternative understanding of sex, gender and the body. My essay ends with a discussion of U.S. cases concerning what we would now call non-binary and transgender people. Is my use of Beauvoir still useful? What does it tell us about the effects of Beauvoir’s philosophy in new and different situations? Does Beauvoir’s work still speak to major concerns in feminism today? I am particularly thinking of the debates in the wake of the “me too” movement, and the often-acrimonious quarrels over transgender rights. To bring out Beauvoir’s particular kind of universalism, we will study the implications of her idea that the goal of feminism must be to give women access to the universal as the different and diverse women they are.
The seminar will focus on these two texts. The goal is to give students a strong understanding of the fundamental philosophical ideas of The Second Sex, so as to enable them to use it for their own analysis of contemporary feminist issues. To reach this goal, it is important that students participate freely in classroom discussion.
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Students should have access to two books. Although I refer to English translations here, students should feel free to read Beauvoir in French or Italian.
Simone de Beauvoir, Beauvoir, Simone de. Le deuxième sexe. Paris: Gallimard (Coll. Folio), 1949. Trans as The Second Sex, by Constance Borde, and Sheila Malovany-Chevallier (New York: Knopf, 2010).
Toril Moi, “What Is a Woman?” Read it either in Toril Moi, What Is a Woman? And Other Essays (Oxford University Press, 1999), pp. 3-120, or in Toril Moi, Sex, Gender, and the Body: The Student Edition of What Is a Woman? (Oxford University Press, 2005), pp. 3-120. The pagination is the same in both editions.
Although I refer to the English translation below, students should feel free to read Beauvoir in French or Italian. I have given chapter titles to help you find the right passages. My selections are minimal. The more you can read in The Second Sex, the better.
Beauvoir, Preamble and “Part 2,” in Pyrrhus et Cinéas (Paris: Gallimard, 1944). English translation: “Pyrrhus and Cineas,” In Philosophical Writings, edited by Margaret A Simons, Marybeth Timmermann, and Mary Beth Mader (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2004, pp. 90-91, and 116–141.
Beauvoir, “Introduction,” The Second Sex, pp. 3-17.
Beauvoir, The first section of Chapter 1 in the “Myths” section, The Second Sex, pp. 159-163.
Beauvoir, Chapter 3 in the “Myths” section, The Second Sex, pp. 266-274.
Beauvoir, “Biological Data,” The Second Sex, pp. 21-48
Moi, “What Is a Woman?” pp. 3-30;
Moi, “The Body as Background,” from the essay “I am a Woman,” in What Is a Woman?/ Sex,
Gender, and the Body, pp. 190-207
Optional reading: pp. 30-59 (on poststructuralism)
View in class: “What Is a Woman?” A15 minutes live action movie by the Norwegian director Marin Haskjold (in Norwegian and Swedish, with English subtitles).
Beauvoir, “Conclusion,” The Second Sex, pp. 753-766.
Moi, “What Is a Woman?”section V: pp. 83-112
Beauvoir, “The Independent Woman,” The Second Sex, pp. 721-751
Moi, “You Say That Because You Are a Woman,” from the essay “I Am a Woman,” in What Is
a Woman?/ Sex, Gender, and the Body pp. 207-226.
Moi, “I Am Not a Woman Writer’: About Women, Literature and Feminist Theory Today,”
Feminist Theory 9, no. 3 (2008): 259–71.