Simone deBeauvoir

Indulge me for a moment.  I would like to thank all my fans ;)  Your emails, comments, and conversations have only increased my enthusiasm for this study.  I have looked forward to this afternoon of study and writing, knowing that I’ve reserved the Sabbath for this venture, as a way to set the day apart. 

As I have talked with many of you, I have been overwhelmed at the number of directions this blog could take.  There are so many resources that could help me in this study.  For the sake of my sanity, I will focus on Mary Kassian’s The Feminist Gospel.  However, I will build a reading list of books and articles, so feel free to comment or send me an email with suggestions. 

I have realized, even in sitting down this afternoon to write this post, that I am truly engaging in an academic study.  I have spent lots of time just fact-checking before I put these ideas into writing.  I ask you all to be gracious as I write.  If I make a mistake or misunderstand something, please correct me, but do so kindly.    

All that being said, here’s my first academic post.

Kassian began with a quick overview of the first wave of feminism.  I got excited because she mentioned Olympe de Gouges’ “Declaration of the Rights of Women” (a response to the French Revolution’s “Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen”).  I study this declaration with my students when we read A Doll’s House (Ibsen).  So I guess I’ve done a micro-study of feminism.  Huzzah!  Actually, A Doll’s House has come up quite a bit in my first section of study.  If you haven’t read it, you should.  It’s short, it’s engaging, it offers a plethora of pet names for your significant other, and it’s pretty good fodder for debate. 

Kassian moves quickly into an overview of the second wave of feminism.  This is where she settles for a time.  She focuses first on Simone deBeauvoir, then on Betty Friedan.  So far, I have read what she has to say about deBeauvoir.    

DeBeauvoir’s book The Second Sex (1949) is grounded in existentialism, which assumes that the world is uncertain and purposeless.  Any man or woman seeking to understand himself/herself in an existential world must create meaning. 

Christians have a different presupposition.  Christians believe that the world and human existence do have a purpose.  “Good little Christians” memorize this question from the Westminster Shorter Catechism at a young age.  Hopefully it becomes more than just a canned answer as they grow older and develop their worldview:

                         Q: What is the chief end of man?

                         A: Man’s chief end is to glorify God and enjoy him forever.

Christianity believes that God built a purpose into men and women in his design.  Men and women are built to worship.  In the perfect creation, they worshiped God perfectly.  That gets complicated by our fallen world.  However, the purpose already exists.  Men and women just have to seek after it.    

DeBeauvoir’s thesis, as state by Kassian, is that “women as a group were assigned to second-class status in the world.  Woman was ‘defined and differentiated with reference to man and not he with reference to her.’”  I think it would be hard to look at the history of the world and argue with that premise.  Women have been, and still are in some places, considered the weaker and lesser sex.  I spend a lot of time talking with my students about the ways women are treated in cultures around the world.  Is this what God intended?

Genesis tells us that man was created first and that woman was created out of man.  Man and woman are both made in God’s image.  They are equal in dignity.  They are set apart from all of the other animals on this earth (no suitable helper was found for Adam from among the animals).  They have been given dominion over the earth.  Nowhere in this creation set-up did God say that women would only be defined as wives and mothers. 

So why doesn’t the world function the way God designed it?  Why do men and women not experience equality?  Sin.  When sin entered the world, the relationship between men and women was severely affected.  This is where the inequality comes from. 

So Christians and feminists can agree that inequality between men and women is a problem.   What is the solution?

DeBeauvoir said that women were put into a mold that she called “the eternal feminism,” which caused women to be “frivolous, infantile, irresponsible, and submissive.”  She says that culture essentially created female to be a second-class citizen: to live up to lower expectations than men in terms of duty and consciousness, and so to function as lower citizens.  This is terrible!  But it’s happened.

Reading this turned on my English teacher brain.  A Doll’s House is Ibsen’s examination of the institution of marriage.  The early feminist movement in Europe heralded him as a champion, though he denied having that purpose in mind when he wrote.  His protagonist, Nora, is called “skylark” and “squirrel” by her husband, Torvald, who considers himself to be a role model for his wife in everything – even in teaching her how to dance.  Torvald expects his wife to be a loving mother, to spend his money wisely (though he constantly pokes fun at her for this, her weakness), to oversee the affairs of the house, and to not embarrass him in public.  When Nora asserts that she must learn what it means to be a woman, that she can no longer go on being his “doll wife,” he is taken aback.  Hasn’t he loved her diligently?  Well, the best way he knew how.  But she has only been defined in her life as a daughter, then wife, then mother – all terms that name a woman in relationship to someone else.  She has never been simply a “woman.” 

I appreciate Ibsen’s and DeBeauvoir’s advocacy for women in this sense.  Women should know what it means to be a person.  DeBeauvoir states that the dilemma for women is that they have no autonomy, and therefore, have no ability to transcend their existence and consciousness, which is imposed on them by men.  She goes on to state that women must take full responsibility for enacting this change, but notes that it was difficult for them to do so because they lived their lives in isolation from other women.  She pointed to community among women as a powerful tool in helping women break out of their “imprisonment.”

Scripture has a different solution.  As I said before, sin is the problem.  Sin impedes men and women from functioning according to God’s original design.  What is the solution to sin?  Christ.  Galatians 3 addresses this very issue:

“²⁶You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, ²⁷ for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.  ²⁸There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.  ²⁹If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.”

Faith in Christ gives us freedom.  It frees us from old social boundaries.  In the past, Jews were the chosen people, now salvation is extended to anyone who has faith in Christ.  There is not distinction between men and women when it comes to our salvation.  We are still equal in dignity and identity in Christ.  We will all inherit the promises God made to his people generations ago.  We will inherit eternal life with God in heaven. 

In one sense, this is transcendence.  Freedom in Christ allows us to transcend our old, sinful natures and put on the nature of Christ.  This creates purpose and identity.  Isn’t that what deBeauvoir wanted for women?  The difference is that this identity is still attached to a relationship: a relationship with Christ.  Through Christ, I am a Daughter of the King, I am part of Christ’s bride – the church, and I am a spiritual mother to the next generation of Christians.  I fully accept these roles.  As an autonomous, intelligent woman, I want to derive my identity from my relationship with God. 

Both the feminist and the Biblical woman want identity and purpose.  The Christian woman just has a clearer answer of what that purpose in life will be.