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Possessive Power

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 March 2020

Janet Farrell Smith
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Abstract

The concept of possessive power as it manifests in reproduction is the focus of criticism in this paper. The analysis utilizes both positive insights and illustrative mistakes from Beauvoir's account of maternity. An alternative notion of power is proposed to replace possessive power as proprietary control.

Type
Research Article
Information
Hypatia , Volume 1 , Issue 2: Special Issue: Motherhood and Sexuality , Fall 1986 , pp. 103 - 120
Copyright
Copyright © 1986 by Hypatia, Inc.

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References

Notes

1 For a discussion of how a property model, that is, a cluster of rights and interests, affects the family, see my “Parenting and Property (Farrell Smith 1984). In that article 1 argue that a property model is ethically deficient when applied to fathering or mothering.

2 Locke argued that such “paternal power” should cease with adulthood.

3 One difficulty in distinguishing alienability from alienation lies in their frequently overlapping terminology in the English language, e.g. the verb “to alienate” is used for both notions. Nevertheless they are distinct philosophical concepts and should not be conflated.

4 For example, consider Marx's characterization of the worker: “The life he has given to the object confronts him as hostile and alien” (Marx 1967, 290). The notion of alienation here owes much to Hegel, as does, 1 believe, Beauvoir's notion of alienation and the other in The Second Sex. Alienation of persons from themselves and from other persons is the third aspect of alienation in the 1844 Manuscripts.

5 Hereinafter, page references to this work follow in brackets within the text. In the above quote, I have taken the liberty of changing Beauvoir's “whole man” to “whole person”, because I wish to stress the consequences of women as well as men standing in relations of possession.

6 The contrasting concepts of transcendence and immanence imply a duality on the social level which some, including myself, have trouble understanding. Here I emphasize Beauvoir's notion of freely chosen projects and creativity rather than transcendence.

7 Beauvoir speaks of her own personal esape from “many of the things that enslave a woman, such as motherhood and the duties of a housewife.” She advises women to be on their “guard against the trap of motherhood and marriage. Even if she would dearly like to have children, she ought to think seriously about the conditions under which she would have to bring them up, because being a mother these days is real slavery. Fathers and society leave sole responsibility for the children to the mothers” (Schwarzer 1984, 36,73).

8 Beauvoir could be interpreted as following a typically Hegelian dialectic in her analysis of women in her reproductive role subject to patriarchal systems. First, there is the stage of women being “sunk in nature,” to use Hegel's phrase. For Hegel this is a “happy consciousness” in simple unity. For Beauvoir, woman in this stage appears as a bound and miserable consciousness, stuck in repetitive maternity, devoid of choice and authentic activity. The second stage is woman as ‘the other,’ with all the cultural overtones of estrangement from patriarchal culture which she describes. In the third stage, if we take her vision of liberation seriously, this alienation of woman as ‘other’ can be overcome in true reciprocity with other human beings. This third stage can be realized only if woman ceases any complicity with what perpetuates her devalued status and realizes her liberty by seizing the opportunity to create her own independent projects. See Hegel 1931, Ch. 6.

9 See Margaret Simons (1984, 352) for an analysis supporting this view. She interprets Beauvoir as leaving her work describing women's experience “without adequate philosophical foundation,” and as devaluing female experience, e.g. Beauvoir's comment that the male activity of warfare is superior to giving birth. My interpretation on the other hand sees Beauvoir as implicitly drawing upon Hegelian assumptions about women's experience. Beauvoir attributes an inherent lack of individual to peculiarly female activities, i.e. those which involve female reproductive function, such as childbearing.

10 These views need to be supplemented by a greater awareness of Beauvoir's ontological viewpoint, e.g. she stresses individuality, but explicitly criticizes the institution of private property and its attendant individualism.

11 On the notion of establishing one's own existence, we might compare Heidegger's notion of Jemeinigkeit (“I, myself”) in Being and Time: “Dasein is an entity which is in each case I myself; its Being is in each case mine.” But this first-person existence is found also in being-with-others; “In the end an isolated ‘I’ with Others is just as far from being proximally given” (Heidegger 1962, 150, 152).

12 For example, one element of successful mothering or parenting with very young infants is the ability to recognize and respond to the infant's needs (feeding, sleep). Although this may not constitute reciprocity in the sense of two equal adult beings it does provide a basis for reciprocity in the sense of respect for the other's needs, a basic condition which can be met either with an infant or with an adult.

13 Jacques Derrida speaks of property and possession as appropriation. In French, he uses “Propre” to emphasize the appropriation to oneself. See his hermeneutical discussion of Nietzsche in Derrida 1978, 109ff.

14 Fumiko Enchi's novel Masks (1983) explores women “possessed” by spirits outside their control. My thanks to Carol Gilligan for this reference.

15 These notions bear a resemblance to MacPherson's notion of developmental power of persons “as the ability to exercise and develop their human capacities,” as distinguished from “the power to control others” (1973, 50). See also the critical analysis in Gould 1980.

16 In societies like the Iroquois, woman's political importance was marked by respect for women's agriculture. “The earth was thought to belong to women which gave them religious title to the land and its fruits” (Sanday 1981, 25). This sense of ‘belonging’ clearly differs from the western European notion of private property, a concept the Iroquois did not have.

17 Locke originally defined ‘property'as the right which all human beings have to things necessary for their subsistence. This right is distinguised from the individualized property which a person comes to have from the common gift (Locke 1963, Ch. 5). One need not appeal to natural law to return to those notions. The point is to broaden the notion of property from the narrowing to material possession which it received after the 17th century.

18 See Ruddick 1984. In place of her third maternal interest, acceptability, I would emphasize instead survival, which under certain conditions might include acceptability. It is also distinct from preservation, e.g. one might preserve the life of a child, who nevertheless does not develop the psychosocial and physical skills to survive then or later.

19 My thanks to the editor and referees of this issue of Hypatia, as well as to E. Kuykendall and C. Watson for helpful suggestions.