Gender and Sexuality: Simone De Beauvoir, Judith Butler and Gayle Rubin.

Simone De Beauvoir belonged to a generation of young women in France who for the first time could take up philosophy as a profession (Grosholz). ‘The Second Sex’(1949) is said to have laid the intellectual groundwork for and ignited the second-wave feminism movement as an introduction to the ‘second sex’(Anderson). De Beauvoir argues that ‘one is not born, but rather becomes, a woman’(the second sex pg 283) and that gender is a social-cultural concept saturated by power relations. The method she uses to explain her ideas is that of existential ethics drawing from phenomenology. She asked what is a woman? Being a woman is not defined by biology because to be a women means to have a specific role within society. Nor is being women defined by a feminine essence, essentially there is no female nature but rather a female situation. Men make the fact of their superiority a right. A lot of what we consider neutral within society is implicitly coded as masculine. For example, jeans, which are considered ‘usual’ for all genders to whereas opposed to skirts which are deemed ‘unusual’ for men to wear. This clearly demonstrates this displacement women have in society, because men are recognised as the essential subject. Society fears the power and freedom of women. Women’s erotic power- is bound up with the ‘delights of fluidity, vulnerability, and risk’ (Bergoffen 2011:154) meaning that women will no longer exchange their freedom for a counterfeit docile freedom. That we will know longer accept our place as a privileged other in society for our place as the equal other.

Simone De Behaviour’s ideas have inspired the continued exploration of sex and gender studies. She stated that  ‘the very meaning of division of the species into two sexes is not clear’ (The second sex ,ch1, page 28) ‘When Beauvoir claims that ‘woman’ is a historical idea and not a natural born fact, she clearly underscores the distinction between sex, as a biological facticity, and gender, as the cultural interpretation or signification of that facticity’( Butler 1990: 273). Judith Butler’s theories on gender also emphasize that gender is socially constructed confirming the sex/gender distinction. Sex are biological attributes while gender is a social construct. She argues that gender is not an inherent identity, but a series of actions and performances- a concept known as gender performativity. In the 70’s and 80’s she was part of a movement of people rethinking gender. ‘Queer theory was emerging; it was in a complicated conversation with feminism’ (2024).Judith Butler opposed strands of feminism which presented that women were fundamentally mothers, and that feminism was about sexual difference. She states that Simone De Beauvoir ‘opened up the possibility of a difference between the sex your assigned and the sex you become’ (2024) When she wrote gender trouble, people treated gender as if it was binary and factual, the text presents the theory of gender performativity. Butler envisioned a genderless society.

Gayle Rubin is an anthropologist who wrote a significantly influential article called ‘The traffic in women’ which tried to show that the family was a structure enforced gender stereotypes. She talked about repression going into becoming a man and becoming a woman.  Most known for her essays ‘The Traffic in Women’ (1975) and ‘Thinking Sex’(1984) Gayle Rubin coined the term ‘sex gender system’ to describe how society transforms biological sex into cultural gender. Rubins analysis places marriage and heterosexuality at the heart of the sex gender system. Rubin lays important groundwork for queer theory by critiquing the hierarchical organisation of sexual behaviours. She does this through the charmed circle. In the centre of the circle there are marital, reproductive heterosexuals. Towards the outer edge of the circle are long term gay and lesbian relationships, and at the very edge includes trans people fetishists and sex workers. This emphasises  the discrimination the LBGTQ+ community faces. Rubin makes it clear that  ‘a radical theory of sex must identify, describe, explain and denounce erotic injustice and sexual oppression’ (Deviations pg 145)

All three theorists reject the idea that gender is a biological or fixed essence, however they have different emphases. De Beauvoir is grounded in existential philosophy and concentrated on individual consciousness within the patriarchy. Butler argues that gender is not a pre-existing identity but a cultural performance. Finally, Rubin brings a structural and economic lens, looking at how institutions, labour, and relationships create and enforce gender roles. Collectively, these women shift the feminist discourse to understand gender as a socially, culturally and politically produced phenomenon.

Bibliography

Anderson, Ellie . “Beauvoir’s Second Sex: Introduction.” Www.youtube.com, 2023, www.youtube.com/watch?v=IOdtoyRjOP0.

Beauvoir, Simone de. The Second Sex. Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1949.

Butler, Judith. “Berkeley Professor Explains Gender Theory | Judith Butler.” Www.youtube.com, Big Think, 8 June 2023, www.youtube.com/watch?v=UD9IOllUR4k.

Butler, Judith, and Sarah Salih. The Judith Butler Reader. Malden, Ma, Blackwell, 2004.

Grosholz, Emily. The Legacy of Simone de Beauvoir. Oxford, Clarendon, 2006.

Rubin, Gayle . The Traffic in Women . 1975.

Rubin Gayle . Thinking Sex .  1984.

Rubin, Gayle. Deviations: A Gayle Rubin Reader. Durham, Nc, Duke University Press, 2011.