64 The dines of eprvbucion rnoture question, 1 sno longer quite so fashionable vo argue fr 2 fred human nature, and sich arguments as do persist have taken 2 woe fal from heavenly Edens to those steamy jungles where sociobiclogss discover thee own srs on the faces of tigers and fut fies. No fet will be made here to argue « theoey of fed human nature ‘What is interesting that sach arguments eve never proves adequate feom eaely days, rale-steam thought has toyed with the noten that san, in fac, has two natures The ntte of ete to natures has Been the subject of endless debate, [t went on in the Athenian pois, aed the notion of “second arure’ is embedded in ordinary language: i i “econd nature” to stop at a red light, vo lve chide, to purse survival, and so forth. In pilesopical ers, the Greek view that man fs dade between his first (boii) ature and his second (uur) nature his remned a enabl proposition. What has never been clea is ‘wither or not women havea secoad nature, Prebubly not: women by ‘ete of their reprodicive fonction, are ‘cle 10 nature, and by Virtue oftheir pasty ave never bothered to develop «second aature. This an important theme. The difference berween man’s fst and second natures is that he makes his own second nature historically. Tnchided in that histrical view of himself his sense of superiocty over women, even though the sociobiolegis are now defensively {rpuing that he is actly aso superior by virtue of his ist (enimal) ature, Our analysts of the dinlctcs ef reproduction suggests & more rete foundation for man’s fat ed fortwo natures: they emerge from his real scraration fom the natural world and from species ‘continuity. This a hypothess which i probably won testing or itis Felted 0 the persivent dualism of male mades of understanding, © which Ihave already refered. The testing ofeach a radical hypohess tall ecuie a gest del of philosophical effort, and no claim is made 0 Fane “prone” it here. Yet ina world in which the need for reintegration vith eters is besornig more and more apparent, it may well be an tirgent task av one for whic integrated female consciousness is pre= ‘mine sited 2 Sorry, we forgot your birthday “There is fail wideepresd agreement tha the Sst trumpet cll of the comtemporary women s movement was scunded in a rverberting and ‘marvellous way by Simone de Beauvoir. Le Devaiome Sexe appeated in Paris in 1949, and shree yeas ner ad been ramlaed into several languages: the Enalich version, The Second Sox, wes published in 1952.' The work became, properly, am insant clssc, and since as publication de Beauvoir fas been perceived asthe prophetess ‘ueraordinare of fein, Yet the homage paid to this fine mind has been, one suspect, a homage whic de Beauvoir herself must regard in ‘an tic way, fortis curiously evasive of both her real ros and her actual achierement. What she was quite clearly up to was the mourning ofa sustained aerpt toy a theorctical foundation for feminism, and for the understanding ofthe ground and history ofthe oppression of women This atm simply has not stimulared a theoretical dialogue ingead, her werk has becn slost immune from the creative srigue for which it cries out, and be subsequent avalanche of feminist writings Jas tended 10 evade the theoretical implications of de Beauvot's work. Shalemith Firestone, whose own Work ve sall examine in a moment, ‘nas rather cifideny hinted that The Second Sex may not quite be the Aefiive work, om the grounds that it is perhaps ‘almost t00 Sophisicated, too knowledgable"? Here, Fuestone is uneasily acknowledging one of tbe real dificlies inherett in the notion of Prat if theory i tobe sel thas tobe intligte toa mde group of scaresses who do not al have a philsepical education. I don't want 19 ply down this problem, but T don’t want, either, to accede to the(66 Sorry, we Jorge your tihday ‘enpliction in Firestone’s remark, which i tba gender relations and their history are relatively uncomplicated afhirs. We can see a comparable and instructive sinution in the socialist movement: the tendency to reduce the prodigious philosophical propositions of Karl Mars to 4 few simple-minded slogans has resulted in the dreary infleibliies of onhodoxs, which offers a troubling concoction of ‘nvllecsal inertia and sider ‘revealed tru. ‘One problem here is the ancient and erroneous assumption that profcund Knowledge is accesible only w elte superior minds, an frplication which Marxists, a6 uncompromising eyalitrans, must ety. The actual stustion is that profound knowiedge tas been, throughout history, a case and gender-bound peerogative prerogative defended bs, among other thing, the ability to contro the institutions, fand subject’ matters of education, andthe access 10 2 puncular ‘vocabulary. The soliton to this problem, howerer, is not sin 10 ‘open up access to edcation, though this certainly helps, nor vo simplify the voeatulary, though this, 100, helps tis doubufl thatthe Leninist rota of 4 ‘vanguard? to lead the working class to the fountains of wisdom and the cerainty of revolution is practcally effective, ether Even if this did work, political ideological control by class sil qualitatively diffrent from male supremacy. In both cases, for feminism and for cecil, there ae historical and epiatemological questions of extraorcinary complexity to be dealt with, tnd ab far as the theoretical comprehension of male cupremacy it encerned, the task certainly is in ite very ear stages. "There is no easy texte into the defended redoubes of male-steam thought: there is nly the way of intellecnal efor and critical practice. Simone de Beauvoir ths never shrune fron such implications, So lt us take de Bosuvoir seriously, and on her own ground, Firestone argues thatthe complesty of the theotetial propositions in The Sevond Sex comes from the fact that these are bogged down in ‘xiteniaist prenocupations. [fi is true, the correct critical appreach would be to speci major exsintast tenets and then subject them to Systematic ertique. Firestone doesnot do this she simply observes that de Benavcir lens too heavily on Sars To be sure, itis a major irony of de Beauvoirs work that she is herself critical of Yomen who accept Linguestioningly the philosophies and ideologies of male associate, iahle she docs rather uncritally embrace Sarre’s brand of So, ace Jorgt your birthday 6 ‘existent philosophy. She does, however, use that philosophy ‘creatively. Neither the German progenitors of this philosophy nor the French connection ever waver in their pursnt of authentic Man Heidegger's Desein never transcends Das Man; under Franz Fanoa’s white musk is ¢ black man’s face, and the presiding but depressinay lusive Mine of existentialist pocsy is Predeich Nieasche’s Superman, Te seems that Man Alone it a figure of profound, trape and noble Philosophical significance, while woman alone is a ueifare problem. De Beauvoir is explicitly in tebelion against the genderic assumpdions of ‘existentialism, but she wats women to share the quest for the authentic human lif rather than question the concept of authenticity itself with its eateme individualist end subjective biases. ‘A farther ambiguity in The Second Sex, which Firestone notes is that de Beauvoir writes a hitory of women based on the fundamental postulate that wornen have 20 history. This is not so contradictory as Firestone thinks, for what de Beawois is actally arguing is that the ‘city of ‘making history, which is also the making of values, is an ‘essential component of authenticity and that women have let men make their history and thei values for ther. The history is shot through with their acceptance of maaculine valos. In the exsteniaist view of things, this consitaes “bad faith’. Bed faith isthe inctvty involved in the telsal 1 ‘make oncill freely and respensbly, preferring the passive acceptance ofthe deiiion of one’s reality proposed by others, ‘None the es, bad faith is something rather more complex than a mere ‘cop-out. It has an ontological foundation resting in the intransigent Avalism perceived as inherent in the human condition, De Beauvoir does not question the acualty of this pervasive novion of dualism, which T have suggested may be a speifically mascline experience, She accepts dualism asa common human expetence, and attempts (0 Ve ‘meaning 10 genderic divisions in the ight of this universal need for tmedition ofthe dualism inherest ia the human contin. She believes thatthe historical and cultural manifesations of human attempts to mediate the dualism of experience are entlogically rooted, are impliit. in what means “wo be’, but that the mediating consciousnesses which have tried to do someing about their fractured realities have been masculine cooscausnesses. Women and thei female consciousneses ae primordially Other, and have been objects of male mediation, ene pole ofthe intransigent dualism of male/female, rather than sabjests(68 Som, forget your birthday actively mediating their own subjectively experienced dusts. If de Beauvoir isto be criticized, itis her model ofa common, dualst but enderically difereriated consciousness which must be’ considered Seriously, and her indstence thet oman ie primordilly Other, an ‘object and never a subyect in her historical development: ore lonely leg ‘of & duslim which she somehow shares with men who have ‘courageously and frely faced up tothe risky jb of mediating their 1wo- leaned existential fate ‘As dualism is perceived at ‘natural’, the mediation which men mast perform to overcome this condition takes the form of resistence 10 nature, and de Beauvoir argues that the significant movement in masculine history is anti-phyis, that male values have been created in the course of a historical strug to overcome manure. Life by itself, without humanly created values, can have mo meaning, ard the re- reation of ifs bat the mindlese urge othe species 10 persist, without even the consciousness of persisting in vime. What stnds between ‘women and the knowing recegaition of the significance of teraporalty 4s, predictably, reproductive process, which makes women dependent ‘on men and obscures their knowledge of themselves as historical being. ‘They remain immored in natural process, by definition irrational ‘De Beauvcit's version ofthe dualism ofthe human condition posts a space between mere biological Kfe and ‘existence’, understood as a unity of responsible creative experience and subjective understanding of this experience. ‘The key concept in understanding this disuncuoa baween life and existence is “transcendence’. Man wanicends his animal nature by his ability for projection, apparenty in its double sense, He devises ‘project and ‘projects”a future, thus developing the sense of time which the nation ofa future implies. He is able 1 do this because he is inventive ard unrestrained by the ‘painful crdeal of childbirth? which to women in prehistoric societies, must have ‘seemed 4 useless or even troublesome accident” Birth, de Beauvoir claims, was never perceived as so important in primitive forms of heman society ae manual labour. This was because the self-evident need 19 provide food and shelter ensured that man was forced into creaive ‘activity, Giving ire, according to de Beauvoir, isnot am activity in the human senie, and carries with it no pride of creation. Further, male activities which wansformed inert brute fe to historical human tnistence were ofien dangerous. in performing such activites men Soy, swe forgot your birthday 69 risked thee lives, and icking one's life is much more prestigious than merely giving life: the former is transcendence, the later mere jmmunence. One is a human cheice, the other + natural burden. Prestige is, of coure, + crested tacal value, and, indeed, this is what transcendence i; the ability to create value and to be recognized by others asco doing. De Beauvoir acknowledges the origin of this analysis in Hepes celebrated philosophical myth of the encounter of master and slave" Ln fact, she claims that in some respects Hegel's arguments apply much better tothe relations of man and woman than to those of master and slave, Hegel's parable has concerns which are multifaceted and ‘cosmological in thee scope: it attempts to encompass factors which are epistemological, anthropological, social, moral and biological. The life- risking confiontation of master and slave is, for Hegel, the beginning of history; a jeurney towards the universal union ofthe rational with the ‘eal. Incorporaed in this formidable vision is Hegel’ citcism of the ‘empiricism ofthe Enlightenment, which had file, in his view, to give 2 satisfactory account of problems about knowledge which had been raised in antiquity. To do ths, Hegel posts self-consciousness as an active mediator between sabject and object, rejecting the notion of a merely passive recepsiviy of experience. Whatever the merits of the raster and sleve parable, Hegel's achievement is profound and important, and sadly unknown to the stimulus/response generation, which are’ content stil 19 gaze atthe squiggles on the ccbuda rasa of human cognition with no interest in how they got there beyond ‘immediate stimuli, This model of consciousness leaves no. space between if and existence to mediate, and incidentally plays havoc with the notion of free will, which its progenitors were much concerned to ‘propagate. Hegel had, of course, taken on the tisk of uafying subject and object in a daleccally structured continuum of rational and historical mediations. Having established the form and the realty of sel-consciousness in the early chapters of The Pheronenology, be bad to make the shift from individual self-consciousness to social life in ‘which fre will and reason could be objected, andthe master and slave parable signifies the movement from undifferentisted to differentiated self-conscioasnesses, illuminted metaphorically in his account of recognition by one self-conscious being of another, and the ensuing straggle for afirmatin of being by self and other. Yet Heel’ scenario