Feminist Interpretations of Jean-Paul Sartre (review)

Feminist Interpretations of Jean-Paul Sartre. Edited by Julien S. Murphy. University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press. 1999.

While reading Feminist Interpretations of Jean-Paul Sartre, one is convinced that Sartre's theories, after all, can be of interest to feminist philosophers; to demonstrate this point is the task of the book. The volume provides ample ground to extract from the early and later writings of the French philosopher concepts and phenomenological descriptions such as the look, the distinction between series and group, and the importance of the body that have become important for a feminist viewpoint. In addition, the themes of freedom, consciousness, bad faith, and authenticity are themes raised in the book that are of concern to both women and men. Yet, women's specific issues, such as that of equality between the two sexes and the problem of oppression, are at the margin of Sartre's thought, as it is to be expected from the perspective of a masculine Imaginary that stresses male transcendence as opposed to sheer immanence. As Simone de Beauvoir reminded us, a more limited amount of freedom is granted to women, so that it is reasonable to ask oneself whether feminists can afford to be Sartreans. The present volume suggests that we can, but with some caution.

Feminist Interpretations of Jean-Paul Sartre shows, in fact, that Sartre's thought is potentially useful to feminism. Therefore, this is not simply a good introduction to his major works from Being and Nothingness (1966), Notebooks for an Ethics (1992), to Critique of Dialectical Reason (1960, 1985); it is a detailed account of the most relevant themes of these works, and in addition, an interpretation and assessment of de Beauvoir's by now legendary Second Sex (1952). It is to be expected, then, that this volume examines the possible and likely similarities between de Beauvoir and Sartre on freedom, immanence, and bad faith, just to mention a few of the topics that acquire a meaning different in the case of women from that in the case of men. The volume edited by Julien Murphy indeed raises the question of how much the two philosophers owe to each other—who was more original, and in what ways. There is no doubt that de Beauvoir was original just by writing on history, freedom, and consciousness from a decisive feminist perspective; and whether she was encouraged by Sartre in this task is almost irrelevant, to the extent that we want to pay tribute to a courageous step in the direction of feminism, especially at a time of great conformism. Of course, this does not mean that it is irrelevant, or insignificant, to try to ascertain the respective influences from a historical point of view, as this volume does in some of its articles.

As to the question of whether and how much Sartre's philosophy is amenable to a feminist interpretation, the various authors of this volume give different perspectives, but the overall conclusion is that Sartre's earlier work, Being and Nothingness (1966), is less suited to a feminist reading because of its emphasis on an abstract, existentialist notion of freedom and choice, than are the later works, in which Sartre attenuated this stance to give prominence to the collective aspects of society without abandoning the idea of freedom. In this way the idea of freedom could become useful for political action.

In asking questions about Sartre's bad faith or good faith on feminist issues, this book raises several points, one of which concerns how original a feminist philosophy must be and how legitimate it is for feminists to use nonfeminist philosophers, or even anti-feminists, to extract something of value from their theories. This is a question worthy of being posed in the case of Sartre, who never developed a truly feminist philosophy and who even talked disparagingly of women at least in some points of his oeuvre. However, Sartre was a progressive thinker, and because of that, as the book...