Woman as Other (Group 7)

Paragraph 1-2 Xizi Li

Beauvoir began his argument with the definition of herself as "a woman" because she said there would never be a man to write a book on caring the life condition of Women.She furtherly pointed out the inequality existing between man and women which is man does not need to claim himself as a man that is very obvious when they wrote a book. In many cases, female gained unequal treatment as a kind of discrimination. Given the example of language, in French, man represented positive and neuter as comparing to women which is negative. Beauvoir also mentioned a subtle thing that we almost ignore in daily life, and it was verbal violence that is man always says "You think such and such a thing because you're a woman".And she thought that sort of prejudicial words were a kind of abuse to enable women be eliminated her subjectivity.Moreover, Uriel's Report even negated the importance of female and belittled female as "the other" and the sex""while saying man is essential sexuality as an opinion of patriarchy. In patriarchy, women are immensely denied. The objectivity of female are rejected and shows in the words Beauvoir quoted. In the second paragraph, Beauvoir introduced the history of the category of Other.Originally,the distinctiveness of Self and other were not based on the difference of sex and any empirical given. Some opposite words comes from China, India and Rome such as Sun and moon never contains feminine elements which can be seen as discrimination culturally and historically, women's status never gained promotion.

Paragraph 2-3 Yun Mao

The concept of Self and Other can be traced back to the time when consciousness existed among humans. “The one” and “the other” is defined simultaneously. “The one” always define itself as essential subject and "the other” is defined as inessential object. If people can understand and accept the biological relation and build relationship between each other, the hospitality between the oppositions or differences could be weakened, which is a condition called as “state of culture” by Levi-Strauss.

People always define themselves as "the one" and those who are different from themselves as "the other". Citizens in one country define people from other countries as "the other"; believers in one religion define followers of other religions as "the other". However, the reality is that we are all simultaneously "the one" and "the other". It only depends on the situation and location we are in. It is impossible to define "the one" without "the other"; similarly, "the other" is meaningless without "the one". They are not isolated, just as the correlation between men and women. While in real life, the reciprocity between the sexes are not realized and admitted by most people. Men have been used to the status as "the one"- the dominant status and would like to maintain the status quo. It is hard for women to be aware of and to challenge the current situation that they are subordinate to men. Women do not exist as a pure alterity but an existence depended on "the one".

Comment: Diana Choi

Patriarchal society encourages men to embrace their masculinity, which the society believe is rooted in their biological instinct. Such notion reproduces the sense of entitlement and authoritarianism, which could then result in violence against those whom they perceive to be inferior to them; women. I would like to add on to your argument regarding how women are always perceived in relation to men. Such ideology is reproduced through campaigns like "He for She", which is a solidarity campaign for the advancement of women initiated by UN Women (such as Emma Watson). The campaign asks men to pledge to “take action against all forms of violence and discrimination faced by women and girls". The statement implies that it is men’s role to end gender-based violence/inequalities. It considers sexual assault and domestic violence as the result of male power over women, which tends to reinforce rather than challenge such double standards.

Paragraph 4-5 Rita Qiao Li

As women being called as "other", they have been considered as the "inessential". However, it is men who define women that way, not women themselves do. And women just submit to this view. Even though there are many cases relating to how a dominant group controlled the other, with lots of privilege and inequalities involved, women should not be deemed like this because they are not minority like Black Americans. They are just one type of human, who living on the earth together with men. If one has to say there is a major difference, it must be the biological given. More importantly, women do not successfully bring about the transformation from "other" to "we" by themselves. Even for Blacks or proletarians, they say "we". In their eyes, the bourgeois or whites are "other", and they themselves are "subjects". Since women adopt the word "other" for themselves in relation to men, and they have been subordinated to men for a long time, they still lack a specific way of transforming the "other" view into something that they can be "subjects". However, they do not have strong support to help them clarify the way or do this, as there is no past, no history and so on. They are dependent on men, with their work, their social conditions and their economic interests being determined by some men. In one word, women can never live without the shadow of men.

The circumstance described above can be linked to our contemporary social phenomenon, that many women still do not call themselves "we", and men call them "you women", especially in workplaces. And as this type of view has been lasting and spreading, many women began to have a feeling that they are not capable of competing with men because they are inferior to men, at least for one level. They think that there are many tasks that they cannot do better than men do or they cannot complete them without men's help. Many of the thoughts are not true, but women have ingrained them in their mind. And it can tell that there are indeed more men holding the high positions than women do. In order to change this and make women a stronger "we", they have to abandon the view that they are not as competent as men and try to win back the things that should belong to themselves.