Simone de beauvoir's feminist phenomenology

Abstract

In this article, I will try to show that Simone de Beauvoir's feminist philosophy follows Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology and in this respect, she is a feminist phenomenologist. In Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology, essence refers to an unfixable, intersubjective, and historical meaning; transcendental is nothing but intersubjectivity. In his phenomenology, the Cartesian subject and all other opposing dualities are tried to be overcome. The body becomes our unique means of meaning, action, and existence allowing us to open to the world we share with all other things. Beauvoir follows these parameters while trying to understand what woman is and what she can be. After critically evaluating existing assumptions and theories, Beauvoir focuses on women's experiences. She ultimately shows that the existing woman is not eternal, natural, or absolute, but a socially/politically constituted reality and therefore changeable. This phenomenological reduction and description that Beauvoir shows through the question of woman provides an important philosophical basis for all problems that require social criticism.