Toward a Phenomenology of Sexual Difference: Husserl, Merleau-Ponty, Beauvoir

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Simone de Beauvoir's "Le Deuxieme Sexe" has been studied extensively since its appearance in 1949. Through the years, certain passages have come to be recognized as central; other as unimportant to understanding Beauvoir's argument. In "Toward a Phenomenology of Sexual Difference", Sara Heinamaa rediscovers those neglected passages in her quest to follow Beauvoir's line of thinking. Heinamaa, like some other recent philosophers, finds that "Le Deuxieme Sexe" is a philosophical inquiry, not the empirical study that it is commonly thought to be. In making this argument, others have seen Beauvoir's masterpiece as a criticism not only of Sartrean phenomenology, but of the phenomenological movement as a whole. Heinamaa thinks differently. She finds that Beauvoir's starting points are in the Husserlian idea of the living body that she found developed in Merleau-Ponty's "Phenomenologie de la perception". So when Beauvoir wrote "Le Deuxieme Sexe", she was writing not as Sartre's pupil, but as a scholar in the tradition of Husserl and Merleau-Ponty.

Reviews

In her exciting new book, Sara Heinmaa takes Beauvoir scholarship to a new level, a new depth, providing the definitive analysis of Beauvoir's appropriation of Husserlean phenomenology. Heinmaa gives the best analysis I've ever read of Beauvoir's account of women's oppression, solving interpretive riddles that have bothered me for years. It is a great book, one destined to become a classic. -- Margaret Simons, author of Beauvoir and the Second Sex
With great scholarly aplomb, Sara Heinmaa convincingly shows the phenomenological significance of Simone de Beauvoir's work. This is an excellent first book from an emerging philosophical talent. -- Simon Critchley, Hans Jonas Professor, The New School for Social Research
Heinamaa's work is essential reading for its interpreters. Recommended. * CHOICE *
Heinmaa restores to Simone de Beauvoir her place within and beyond philosophy in this elegant and original rereading of her work. Here, Beauvoir comes into her own as a genuine thinker of life in its experienced complexitya philosopher in the best sense of the word. -- Elizabeth Grosz, author of Space, Time and Perversion: Essays on the Politics of Bodies

Author Bio

Sara Heinmaa is senior research fellow in the Department of Philosophy, University of Helsinki, Finland.