PHIL332 Existentialism
that the individual lives as such ” and “ yet what legitimates this life as male or female is its inscription within meanings already in progress and other ’ s ability to recognise ” this ( Blum , 2018 : 573 ). A female human ’ s “ becoming a woman ” thus only makes sense in a social context . In “ becoming woman ”, we are ontologically free , but in defining manhood as transcendence and womanhood as immanence , we are failing to be morally free . It is this distinction which provides Simone de Beauvoir with her feminist ethics .
Judith Butler is one of the “ few interpreters of Beauvoir who sees the radical implications of her work ” ( Hekman , 2015 : 147 ). She attempts to show how Beauvoir ’ s “ account of becoming a gender reconciles the internal ambiguity of gender as both project and construct ” ( Butler , 1986 : 37 ). As Butler argues , that one is not born but rather becomes a woman , “ does not imply that this becoming traverses a path from disembodied freedom to cultural embodiment ” ( Butler , 1986 : 39 ). Gender is thus not just a cultural construction imposed on identity but it is also a “ process of constructing ourselves ” ( Butler , 1986 : 36 ). In what sense , then , do we become our genders ? a woman ” ( Butler , 1990 : 45 ). We can see this when Beauvoir quotes Merleau-Ponty : “ woman is not a completed reality , but rather a becoming ” ( De Beauvoir , 1949 : 68 ). Gender then , is a “ set of repeated acts within a highly regulatory frame that congeal over time ” ( Butler , 1990 : 45 ). Gender isn ’ t traceable to a definitive origin but is an “ originating activity incessantly taking place ” ( Butler , 1986 : 39 ).
This existential view of gender has been criticised by Michele le Doeuff for putting forward a form of voluntarism which blames the oppressed for choosing their situation ( Le Doeuff , 1980 : 278 ). De Beauvoir isn ’ t saying , however , that oppression is a mere result of human choice . Oppression for De Beauvoir is not some “ self-contained system which either confronts individuals as a theoretical object or generates them as its cultural pawns ” ( Butler , 1986 : 41 ). It is rather a “ dialectical force which requires individual participation ” ( Butler , 1986 : 41 ). In order to properly unpack the radical implications of Butler ’ s reading of De Beauvoir , it is worth looking at the allegation that De Beauvoir is imploring women to take up the masculine project of transcendence .
As Butler argues , it is , “ for Beauvoir , never possible finally to become
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Lloyd argues that since transcendence is , by definition ,