Naslov
Simone de Beauvoir and the Concept of Complicity

Autori
Maskalan, Ana

Vrsta, podvrsta i kategorija rada
Sažeci sa skupova, neobjavljeni rad, znanstveni

Skup
Beauvoir between History, Philosophy And Writing The Self III

Mjesto i datum
Ljubljana, Slovenija, 08.10.2019

Vrsta sudjelovanja
Pozvano predavanje

Vrsta recenzije
Nije recenziran

Ključne riječi
Simone de Beauvoir, complicity, sexual decoys, Hera's complex, feminism

Sažetak
Despite the important philosophical and feminist achievements in the conceptualization of social equality, perpetuation of the system of “otherness” appears as its theoretical and practical obstacle. Borrowing originally Hegel's concept of “the Other” Simone de Beauvoir used it to describe the social establishment of relations between men and women where one sex becomes a universal norm and a basic assumption of the definition of human being. What feminism still has difficulties in addressing is the role that women have in maintaining the status quo i.e. that despite emancipatory practices, women themselves provide the strong resistance to the destruction of existing hierarchical gender relations. This is why de Beauvoir renders women’s position as victims unique, identifying historical women’s consent and support to gender inequality as complicity. Complicity in feminism for many years represented something like a black spot since many feminists have fallen into the essentialist trap of positioning all women in the exclusive roles of victims. Women’s complicity gained its prominence under influence of a postcolonial and critical theory and third wave feminist theory, when difficulties in explaining certain phenomena have arisen. Some of these phenomena include already mentioned modern uprise of right-wing political movements in Europe led by women, quasi-feminism and anti-feminism, as well as the so-called pornification of society. I will present the work on complicity by three feminists: bell hooks, Zillah Eisenstein and Jasenka Kodrnja. Zillah Eisenstein in her work discussed some of the most interesting types of complicity – that of women in places of power – she called them sexual decoys. bell hooks found complicity in feminism, thereby affecting a huge turn towards third-wave feminism. Jasenka Kodrnja searched for metaphysical causes of complicity digging deep into mythology and introducing Hera's complex.

Izvorni jezik
Engleski

POVEZANOST RADA