Arms and the Woman
By Jeanne Charles
One of the symptoms of the weakness of the revolutionary movement
today is that it has not yet reached the point of giving birth to
a qualitative and autonomous expression of revolutionary women.
It is known that the degree of development attained by the forces
of negation in existing society finds its unequivocal, decisive
and obvious manifestation in the relations between revolutionary
men and women and in the manner in which the direct and natural
relation of the sexes in conceived.
The division of roles of the sexes in alienated society, inherited
from feudal society and the first stages of industrial society,
can be schematically defined in this way: femininity concentrates
the anti-historical tendencies of alienated life (passivity,
submission to nature, the superstition that follows from this, repetition,
resignation), masculinity its pseudohistorical tendencies
(a certain degraded taste for struggle, arrogance, pseudo-activity,
innovation, confidence in the power of society, rationalism). Femininity
and masculinity are the two complementary poles of the same
alienation. In modern industrial society, these two poles tend,
in losing their material bases, to blend into each other to constitute
the specific traits of the modern proletarian, where the differences
between the sexes are less and less marked.
In all epochs, and according to the nature of those epochs, men
and women have never constituted two pure types. Whatever
their sex, individuals unite, in various ways, the character traits
and behavior of the two sexes. Nevertheless, femininity has up till
now always been the dominant trait of the alienation of women, and
masculinity that of men. But fundamentally, it is the traits of
the old femininity which reappear at present in the generalized
passivity of the reign of the modern economy, although femininity
and masculinity, freed from their material roots, are recaptured
arid used indiscriminately by the two sexes, as modes of spectacular
affirmation.
While in alienated society woman and man find themselves more and
more on a plane of equality (except in the cases where patriarchy
still prevails) because the woman cannot find in her male companion
- who is as unarmed as she is - an admirable and all-powerful protector;
in the modern revolutionary movement, in contrast, the woman begins
by being sharply confronted with her old femininity in the face
of the domination of a certain theoretical prestige. Because, for
the individual who is not involved in theoretical activity,
theory appears as an "ability to write," to "think,"
a product of intelligence, an individual creation full of mystery.
This is the spectacle effect; the fetishism of theory for those
who find themselves outside it. The woman often finds herself forced
to admit that she has "not yet written anything," and
that she has no active role in the elaboraion of revolutionary theory,
in apparent contrast to certain of the men she sees. In matters
regarding theory, her first impulse is to rely on men, who seem
to her "more qualified" than her. She ends up distrusting
her own thought, paralyzed by external criteria. When she happens
to penetrate unexplored terrains, she stops short, thinking that
if it hasn't been done before, it must have been because it wasn't
worth the trouble. Her thought, when in spite of everything she
manages to have some, remains a dead letter: the woman never on
her own follows through to the practical consequences of her thought.
Often, she judges an individual very quickly, making a pertinent,
perceptive critique, even before her male friend or friends; but
in her passivity she stops there. When it comes to practical consequences,
she hides behind men. Her reflections and her critiques are made
in private, leaving masculinity to attend to putting them into
practice.
But in this way she deprives herself of a direct grasp on her social
environment; she never directly influences anything and thus cannot
become a theorist. For theory is the critique of daily life; it
is the operation of each individual conducted in this daily life;
it is a succession of renewed and corrected interventions
in relations with people (which are also the effective terrain
of alienation) and, what amounts to the same thing, it is also a
series of interventions in society. Theory is an undertaking of
revolutionary transformation that implies that the individual
theorist accept his own un-interrupted transformation. Theory lies
therefore in the comprehension of and action on blocks (individual
and social-historical).
If men have an apparently preponderant place in the revolutionary
movement, it is because many among them enter the revolutionary
struggle with the character traits of masculinity - that
is to say, in reality, with as few aptitudes as women, and with
the same unconscious complacence regarding their character
traits as women have regarding femininity - which can create
illusions, since the practice of theory demands imagination,
real struggle, confidence in oneself and in the power of the individual,
aptitudes; which the masculine character possesses in a degraded
form. To convince oneself of this hidden misery of the modern revolutionary
movement, it suffices to note that femininity would not be allowed
to exist in it without the assent of masculinity, or at least would
not be tolerated for long. Feminine passivity has its flip side
in masculine activism. Up till now, it is primarily the passivity
that has been noted, because it is, the most glaring contradiction
in a movement founded on the autonomy of individuals.
Women are only colonized by the spectacle of theory insofar as
they are totally exterior to theory. And it is not the example or
the intervention of men, themselves largely colonized by
this spectacle, that can precipitate women's demystification,
that can make them comprehend in vivo what theory is. Henceforth,
the passivity of women must be criticized, not superficially
because they don't write or don't know how to express themselves
autonomously, but at the root, because they don't have any direct
and practical efficacy; notably in their relations with others.
Equally, it must no longer suffice for a man to "express himself"
abstractly. His writings and his thought must directly have
concrete effects. Masculinity and its activism must no longer have
as a foil femininity and its passivity.
There is an obvious complacence present in the maintenance of these
roles. The alienated individual is reluctant to root out what he
has repressed; and since masculinity and femininity are complementary,
they have all the solidity of natural and inevitable
phenomena. In the refusal to combat these roles, there subsists
in fact the global acceptance of alienated society. Those
who claim to be revolutionaries say that they want to change the
world and their own lives. But in reality these individuals hope
that they will be changed by a revolution. They thus remain
passive individuals, ready to adapt themselves, if they
have to, but who fundamentally fear all change. They
are quite the opposite of situationists.
The resolution of the deficiencies of revolutionary practice at
the beginning of the new epoch now passes directly through
the resolution of the deficiencies of revolutionary women; which
is to say, also through the supercession of a certain limited
masculine practice which has up till now accommodated itself to
these deficiencies and their maintenance. It is an urgent objective
for the critique of daily life to definitively destroy the
inequality of the sexes in revolutionary activity; that is to say,
to destroy the respective roles which both sexes establish
in alienated life, the character structures of femininity
and masculinity and the limitations that they impose on revolutionary
experience.
There are two principal types of women in the revolutionary movement:
the most numerous at present are the women provided with a protector.They
are admitted into the revolutionary milieu with the traits of femininity,
because they are presented by a man. The others present themselves:
they are admitted as the result of a prestigious past which they
have participated in, or for an ideology which they have assimilated
well. These latter are admitted with the traits of masculinity,
as men are.
Some of these women say absolutely nothing in public, contenting
themselves with making remarks in private that they wouldn't otherwise
dare to make; or they don't open their mouths except in response
to the futile sort of questions that are believed to be the only
ones that can be asked of them; or again arbitrarily thrown into
"theoretical discussions," anxiously watching out of the
corner of their eye for the approval of their protector, they won't
dare admit their ignorance of the subject, and entangle themselves
in the confusion of their thoughts, or repeat what they've heard
said, their difficulties in this domain seeming shameful to them;
others openly display their insufficiencies, finding excuses for
themselves in the difficulties they have in writing - but only in
writing, as an inexplicable calamity - implying that they nonetheless
think admirably; or perhaps they recognize in this a feminine
defect, and fancy themselves protected, supposing that their honesty
guards them from any more direct critique; still others express
themselves by means of aggressive demonstrations toward men, to
show that they aren't under any man's thumb and that they think
autonomously. Each time, it is their colonization by, the spectacle
of theory which paralyzes women.
Thus, for the moat part the only relations which remain to women
are amorous ones. There they flaunt their sensitivity, ranting in
private against theory as being something cold and abstract, and
lauding "human relations." Women are often recognized
as having greater sensitivity and subtlety when it comes to judging
people. In addition, men, having a certain minimum of practical
exigence, are considerably more prudent when it comes to critiques
that will entail practical consequences. They prefer to admire their
female companion for such a capacity, which they claim to possess
only in a lesser degree - they had to repress it - and thus justify
their relation with this woman: the passivity and public non-existence
of the woman must be compensated by a greater hidden richness, and
the monogamic justification of the couple is this complementarily
of the man and the woman. If sensitivity is still an attribute of
femininity, it is because theory is not understood for what it is,
since men who are considered to be theorists are considered to lack
sensitivity; whereas in fact theory includes the practical application
of this sensitivity and this subtlety.
The modern revolutionary movement must destroy this opposition
of pleasure/activity, sensitivity/ lucidity, conception/execution,
habit/innovation, etc. The femininity/masculinity opposition corresponds
to a reified stage of human development.
The individuals colonized by the spectacle of a revolutionary theory
are in fact colonized by the need to appear autonomous; they are
subject to appearance. As long as theory continues to be understood
as a product of intelligence, as the individual faculty of "thinking"
and of "writing," and as such, as a possible source of
personal prestige, men will continue to want to "express themselves"
at all costs and women will lament not being able to imitate them.
It is now a matter of understanding theory for what it is. It is
essential that women (and men) no longer accept one's acts being
in contradiction with one's words, and no longer accept the existence
of critiques without consequences. It is essential to restore to
subjectivity all its rights by giving it practical follow-through.
No one should be able to be lucid about others without being lucid
about himself, or lucid about himself without being lucid about
others. The modern revolutionary movement must become unlivable
for masculinity and femininity. It must judge individuals on
their life.
This article, originally entitled "La critique ad mulierem,"
is from the Chronique des Secrets Publics. (Volume 1, June 1975).
Correspondence:
Centre de Recherche sur la Question Sociale
B.P. 218
75865 Paris CEDEX 18 France
Translation: Ken Knabb, Bureau
of Public Secrets, P.O. Box 1044, Berkeley, CA 94701
USA. No copyright, June 1975.
Published in The
Red Menace, Number 5, Summer 1980.
Red
Menace home page
Subject Headings:
Revolutionary
Politics - Women
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