From Husserl to Beauvoir

gendering the perceiving subject

Debra Bergoffen

pp. 57-70

in: Linda Fisher, Lester Embree (eds), Feminist phenomenology, Berlin, Springer, 2000

Abstract

Simone de Beauvoir called herself an existentialist before she would call herself a feminist. When asked about her philosophical status, however, Beauvoir insisted that Sartre, not she, was the philosopher. Philosophers took Beauvoir at her word. Bracketing their training in skepticism and suspicion, they either treated Beauvoir's work as an echo of Sartre's or ignored it altogether. Feminists too took Beauvoir at her word. For them, her allegiance to existentialism, especially to Sartre, rendered her both suspect and obsolete.

Cited authors

Husserl Edmund

Sartre Jean-Paul

de Beauvoir Simone