PaRCha - JNU - AISA material - 2012 ID-29463
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There is a good principle which created order, light and man, and an evil principle which created chaos, darkness and woman-Pythagoras Woman, the other of man has been historically and socially viewed as the darkness as this quote depicts. The identity of female is marked by the absence. The qualities which are attributed on man like virility, intellect, courage etc, female is defined by the absence of them. It is an originary absence in the sense that the encounter with ones own self is always mediated through the dominant-hegemonic social structures. Simone writes in the Second Sex, Man thinks himself without the body of the woman, whereas the womans body seems devoid of meaning without reference to the male
she is nothing other than what man decides. She determines and differentiates herself in relation to man
She is the Other. The alterity which is ascribed to female brings about a different conception of the self which is not absolute or abstract but which is very much embedded in the concrete and subtle social forces. As a feminist, the question before Simone is the analyses of this situated self of the female. She analyses it through unfolding the social forces which mark the body of female into the dominant patriarchal social order. She therefore is not born but made as woman. The objectification of female through patriarchy converts her into an entity where the meaning and values of her existence are derived by the norms and ideals of patriarchal order. The images of Seeta and savitri and other chaste women in Indian society which remains encoded in the patriarchal framework and ingrained in the psyche of girls through various institutional mediums like family, religion becomes the sort of Superego for the females. So female has to assume the role models provided by the patriarchal set up otherwise it results in the guilt, a loss of the sense of the self. Simone points out at this predicament when she says, she discovers and chooses herself in a world where men force her to assume herself as Other: an attempt is made to freeze her as an object and doom her to immanence, since her transcendence will be forever transcended by another essential and sovereign consciousness. The present talk will discuss the various issues which remains crucial even after her demise. .
1-The life as acknowledged by her in autobiography, interviews and letters and the life as lived by her which she has not acknowledged yet we can delve into it through other sources. .
2-The dialectics of engagement with Jean Paul Sartre, her life partner. Whether she is the thinker who is influenced by Sartre as she herself acknowledged or she is an independent thinker from whom Sartre has taken the many insights and later appropriated them? .
3-Feminism as existentialism or otherwise? .
There was once a man who lost his shadow. I forget what happened to him, but it was dreadful. As for me, I've lost my own image. I did not look at it often; but it was there, in the background, just as Maurice had drawn it for me. A straightforward, genuine, "authentic" woman, with out mean-mindedness, uncompromising, but at the same time understanding, indulgent, sensitive, deeply feeling, intensely aware of things and of people, passionately devoted to those she loved and creating happiness for them. A fine life, serene, full, "harmonious." It is dark: I cannot see myself anymore. And what do the others see? Maybe something hideous. .
. Simone de Beauvoir, The Woman Destroyed 14 April this year commemorated the 26th death anniversary of French feminist and existentialist Simone de Beauvoir. She expounded major existential themes in her novels and writings, demonstrating her conception of the writers commitment to the time: It is in the knowledge of the genuine conditions of our lives that we must draw our strength to live and .
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PaRCha - JNU - AISA material - 2012 ID-29463
.
There is a good principle which created order, light and man, and an evil principle which created chaos, darkness and woman-Pythagoras Woman, the other of man has been historically and socially viewed as the darkness as this quote depicts. The identity of female is marked by the absence. The qualities which are attributed on man like virility, intellect, courage etc, female is defined by the absence of them. It is an originary absence in the sense that the encounter with ones own self is always mediated through the dominant-hegemonic social structures. Simone writes in the Second Sex, Man thinks himself without the body of the woman, whereas the womans body seems devoid of meaning without reference to the male
she is nothing other than what man decides. She determines and differentiates herself in relation to man
She is the Other. The alterity which is ascribed to female brings about a different conception of the self which is not absolute or abstract but which is very much embedded in the concrete and subtle social forces. As a feminist, the question before Simone is the analyses of this situated self of the female. She analyses it through unfolding the social forces which mark the body of female into the dominant patriarchal social order. She therefore is not born but made as woman. The objectification of female through patriarchy converts her into an entity where the meaning and values of her existence are derived by the norms and ideals of patriarchal order. The images of Seeta and savitri and other chaste women in Indian society which remains encoded in the patriarchal framework and ingrained in the psyche of girls through various institutional mediums like family, religion becomes the sort of Superego for the females. So female has to assume the role models provided by the patriarchal set up otherwise it results in the guilt, a loss of the sense of the self. Simone points out at this predicament when she says, she discovers and chooses herself in a world where men force her to assume herself as Other: an attempt is made to freeze her as an object and doom her to immanence, since her transcendence will be forever transcended by another essential and sovereign consciousness. The present talk will discuss the various issues which remains crucial even after her demise. .
1-The life as acknowledged by her in autobiography, interviews and letters and the life as lived by her which she has not acknowledged yet we can delve into it through other sources. .
2-The dialectics of engagement with Jean Paul Sartre, her life partner. Whether she is the thinker who is influenced by Sartre as she herself acknowledged or she is an independent thinker from whom Sartre has taken the many insights and later appropriated them? .
3-Feminism as existentialism or otherwise? .
There was once a man who lost his shadow. I forget what happened to him, but it was dreadful. As for me, I've lost my own image. I did not look at it often; but it was there, in the background, just as Maurice had drawn it for me. A straightforward, genuine, "authentic" woman, with out mean-mindedness, uncompromising, but at the same time understanding, indulgent, sensitive, deeply feeling, intensely aware of things and of people, passionately devoted to those she loved and creating happiness for them. A fine life, serene, full, "harmonious." It is dark: I cannot see myself anymore. And what do the others see? Maybe something hideous. .
. Simone de Beauvoir, The Woman Destroyed 14 April this year commemorated the 26th death anniversary of French feminist and existentialist Simone de Beauvoir. She expounded major existential themes in her novels and writings, demonstrating her conception of the writers commitment to the time: It is in the knowledge of the genuine conditions of our lives that we must draw our strength to live and .
.