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At the end of her ground-breaking article, “Sorties,” Hélène Cixous alludes to the existence of a typically female mode of writing – an écriture féminine – that challenges the phallocentric character of masculine literary discourse. By identifying the intrinsic interrelations between philosophy, literature and phallocentrism, Cixous underlines the manifold ways in which women have been banned from the public as well as the literary scene. She also recognizes that all forms of feminine writing are ingrained in a desire for political reform and have the power to initiate radical social transformations. However, there is still no comprehensive framework that traces the evolution of the écriture féminine from its inception and that analyzes the development of its linguistic and literary characteristics. I want to argue that Wollstonecraft’s Vindication of the Rights of Woman and de Gouges’ Déclaration des Droits de la Femme are prototypes of female writing that, although still deeply imbued in masculine discourse, testify to the development of a consistent female literary form. The political impetus in Wollstonecraft and de Gouges’ texts generates from the revolutionary context of late eighteenth century Europe and aims at a fundamental reconfiguration of the social structure that will finally inscribe women within the rights of citizenship. To obtain political reform, these writers deconstruct generally accepted notions of female identity through a process of demystification of the female figure. In their texts, the woman is divested of those typically mythical qualities that had long (mis)characterized her in patriarchal literary discourse while she acquires human qualities and civil status. I intend to show how, through their use of developing female literary forms and new rhetorical strategies such as the demystification of the female figure, Wollstonecraft and de Gouges’ texts become one of the first examples of écriture féminine. They thus manage to substantially challenge men’s monopoly on politics, while creating a place for women in the literary landscape of the eighteenth century.

In “Sorties,” Cixous maintains that historically men have shaped language and thought through their control over the social, political and intellectual realms. The male monopoly on linguistic and theoretical systems has been so thoroughly institutionalized in Western cultures that it now pervades all strata of contemporary society as well as all modes of artistic and cognitive expression. Therefore, any time we engage in a verbal act – be it oral or written – we are always entrapped in a complex system of metaphors that privileges the male at the expense of the female. Cixous explains in fact that when “we read or speak,” we are inevitably led to rely on predetermined linguistic schemes that favor masculinity over femininity and that are traceable “throughout literature, philosophy, criticism, [and] centuries of representation and reflection” (Cixous, 258). More specifically, Cixous argues that language depends on a “binary system” in which infinite pairs of “dual, hierarchical oppositions” are reducible to an original pair or couple that she defines as “‘the’ couple man / woman” (258). All metaphors thus have a male-identifiable element that is in antithetical relation with its female counterpart and, for the metaphor to carry across its meaning in male-dominated language, the couple must collapse at the expense of the female element which is trivialized and misrepresented (259). Since language has been heavily gendered as masculine throughout the course of humanity, it is difficult to speak of the feminine in genuine, uncontrived ways.

Cixous further maintains that in the male/female dichotomy that dominates the metaphors of our linguistic system, masculinity is traditionally associated with activity whereas femininity always equates with passivity. This is not limited to language because also “[c]onsulting the history of philosophy … one notices that it is marked by an absolute constant which orders values and which is precisely this opposition, activity / passivity” (579). Being associated with passivity, femininity becomes in the collective imaginary an easily malleable concept that assumes multiple meanings which are always imparted by the male speaker and always aiming at a valorization of masculinity while inevitably mischaracterizing the female. Ultimately, femininity is divested of any substantially positive quality to the point that even the quintessential female figure – the Mother – is no longer indispensable in masculine discourse. Cixous argues in fact that from a phallocentric perspective there is no “need for a mother, as long as there is some motherliness: and it is the father, then, who acts the part, who is the mother” (579). Male discourse therefore claims its independence from the figure of the Mother as well as from accurate and truthful representations of womanhood and, in so doing, employs femininity merely as an ideological recipient for masculine fantasies, fears, and desires.

It is thus of the utmost importance, Cixous concludes, to question the often underestimated and overlooked interdependence between logocentrism and phallocentrism, as well as to “threaten the stability of the masculine structure” that has for too long been considered “eternal [and] natural” (580). In fact, by dissociating logocentrism and other male-dominated philosophical systems from phallocentrism, men would be disenfranchised from their self-proclaimed monopoly on history and politics. This act would have monumental consequences, since it would produce a consistent re-articulation of social and gender relations that would finally allow for the presentation of woman outside of patriarchal clichés and of the feminine as not always necessarily subservient to the masculine. It is under these circumstances that an écriture féminine that deviates from masculine discourse in form and content becomes an actual possibility. Indeed, in the concluding paragraphs of “Sorties,” Cixous argues for the existence of a female mode of writing that, defying phallocentric frames, provides new metaphors to articulate meaning no longer depending on the feminine as objectified other. In the context of femininity and female subjectivity, she explains:

Writing is working; being worked; questioning (in) the between (letting oneself be questioned) of same and of other without which nothing lives; undoing death’s work by willing the togetherness of one-another, infinitely charged with the ceaseless exchange of one with another – not knowing one another and beginning again only form what is most distant, from self, from other, from the other within. A course that multiplies transformations by the thousands… (583)

Implied in her definition of écriture féminine is the idea that female writing refuses to perpetuate the same stereotyped male-centered metaphors that have characterized masculine literature for centuries or the politics of appropriation of the other, such as the female other, that aim at the celebration of masculinity. Instead, Cixous presents female writing first and foremost as an introspective analysis of the self – the act of “letting oneself be questioned” – that ventures into an exploration of the other only on the presupposition of always questioning one’s own subjectivity. Defined as such, female language is not a system aiming at a hierarchical organization of society based on sexual difference, but rather a dialogical mode that enables meaningful communication between individuals, which she describes as “the ceaseless exchange of one with another.” Based on these presuppositions, language and writing allow for “multiple transformations” in the way our societies and our political systems are organized (583). In particular, since female writing restores open communication and human relations, it is imbued with the power to rehabilitate in literary discourse the fundamental figure of the Mother as the symbol of primordial communication with the child. As I will show, in Wollstonecraft and de Gouges’ texts, the Mother figure is in fact reconceptualized and placed at the very heart of their political discourse.

In order to exemplify her argument on the existence of a typically female form of writing, Cixous avoids the use of traditional academic language since it has been shaped predominantly by male literary critics. In fact, “Sorties” contains poetic as well as narrative elements that make of this unique critical work a specimen of feminist theory and of feminine creative writing at the same time. For example, to elucidate the binary oppositions at the foundation of phallocentric language, Cixous provides in her epigraph examples of linguistic pairs in the form of a poem: “Activity / passivity … Culture / Nature … Head / Heart … ground – where steps are taken, holding- and dumping-ground” (578). The poetic element runs throughout the first two halves of her article, while in the concluding paragraphs her text takes on a narrative form as she delineates a representative female writer and her potentially revolutionary role. This female writer is described as a fictional character of whom Cixous explains that “she alone dares and wants to know from within [and] her tongue doesn’t hold back but holds forth,” and who in the very last sentence of the article merges with Cixous herself – “I am spacious singing Flesh” (my emphasis 584). Cixous therefore substantially reverses traditional academic writing techniques and adopts a quintessentially female language in order to show that the écriture féminine in not merely a theoretical abstract but an actual alternative mode of reading and writing our history and societies.

Wollstonecraft and de Gouges’ texts were written in the last decade of the eighteenth century at a time of profound political turmoil, and they both express revolutionary positions in favor of the complete extension of the civil rights to the female population. Given the historical circumstances during which they were produced as well as their political aim, these writings still essentially adhere to fundamentally masculine modes of discourse in order to attract the attention and the respect of the male readership. In fact, although they do contain typically feminine stylistic features that have since characterized feminist discourse, they mainly comply with male literary techniques in order to carry across with full force their political theories. In the introduction to Vindication, Wollstonecraft defines her literary style by saying that she will “disdain to cull [her] phrases” and avoid “elegance of … language,” but that she will rather aim “to persuade [her readers] by the force of [her] arguments.” She further resolves not to “waste time in rounding periods, nor in fabricating the turgid bombast of artificial feelings” but to rather expose the debased social condition of British women in clear and direct terms. (Wollstonecraft 12) She therefore embraces a mode of male critical discourse that is traditionally founded on the methodical exposition and analysis of notions and that avoids unnecessary digressions or embellishments.

Moreover, Vindication opens with a dedication to Talleyrand Perigord, bishop of Autun, in which Wollstonecraft explains that her text is a response to his pamphlet on the state of national education in Britain. Although Wollstonecraft expresses firmly her belief that access to education should not be regulated on the basis of gender, her dedication is shaped in the form of a captatio benevolentiae that seeks to secure Perigord’s attention and sympathy. She uses in fact elaborate diction and a polite, almost apologetic form of address to articulate her dissatisfaction with his male-centered views as well as to introduce her work. Her deferential tone is evident when she comments on Perigord’s pamphlet – “pardon my frankness, but I must observe, that you treated [the topic of education] in too cursory a manner” – or when she clarifies the target of her work – “I call upon you [and] I plead for my sex, not for myself” (6). Wollstonecraft therefore uses her dedication essentially to align her critical work along the well-established trajectory of masculine literary tradition as well as to conform to it, instead of breaking away from its confining modes of representation of woman and the female. Similarly, in Déclaration, de Gouges calls on French women to wake up from their long intellectual lethargy and respond to sexist French legislature by embracing reason and philosophy: “Femmes … opposez courageusement la force de la raison aux vaines prétentions de supériorité; réunissez-vous sous les étendards de la philosophie” (de Gouges 4). Since reason and philosophy, as Cixous explains, have historically been labeled as masculine enterprises, and since de Gouges praises these forms of intellectual investigation, her text too indirectly complies with masculine modes of critical discourse.

Although Wollstonecraft and de Gouges consciously conform to an established male critical tradition, they also present a significant critique of patriarchal discourse. In fact, they advocate a substantial re-articulation of the concepts of “woman” and of “femininity” that, they argue, need to transcend the strict and confining gender categories imposed by male literary conventions. In this respect, they argue for a typically female writing technique that Cixous calls, in her article, the “play of bisexuality.” Cixous understands bisexuality in critical work not as sexual orientation or practice, but “as a fantasy of a complete being, which … veils sexual difference insofar as this is perceived as the mark of a mythical separation” (Cixous 582). The “play of bisexuality” she alludes to therefore is a mode of feminine critical enquiry that allows the female writer to explore other subjectivities, regardless of their gender, without appropriating them so as to deconstruct and redefine pre-imposed sexual categories. She also explains that the “play of bisexuality” is essentially of female domain because “[f]or historical reasons … it is the woman who benefits from and opens up within this bisexuality beside herself,” whereas men “have been trained to aim for glorious phallic monosexuality” (582). Wollstonecraft and de Gouges’ texts present a “play of bisexuality” in that they attack the generally accepted notions of femininity and aim at reclaiming theoretical concepts as well as social spaces traditionally labeled as masculine.

For instance, in Déclaration, de Gouges argues that the ideological separation between male and female established in her society is arbitrary and the result of erroneous assumptions that ultimately aim at masculine dominance. In fact, she explains that such a distinction is nowhere to be found in the natural realm and, therefore, untenable:

Homme…remonte aux animaux, consulte les éléments, étudie les végétaux, jette enfin un coup d’œil sur toutes les modifications de la matière organisée; et rends-toi à l’évidence quand je t’en offre les moyens; cherche, fouille et distingue, si tu peux, les sexes dans l’administration de la nature. Partout tu les trouveras confondus, partout ils coopèrent avec un ensemble harmonieux à ce chef-d’œuvre immortel. (de Gouges 1)

According to de Gouges, sexual categories need to be redefined within the social context because they do not reflect the complex blending and interaction of the sexes that is present in nature. Indeed, she implies that in nature sexual identity is not divided into two separate and antithetical categories – masculine versus feminine – according to which the feminine is always debased and subservient as, on the contrary, was the case in eighteenth century French society. She therefore presents in her text a considerable revision of female identity by refusing to associate women with concepts of modesty, passivity and compliance. She uses in fact the “play of bisexuality” technique to deconstruct traditional concepts of femininity and provide a new identity for women, who she describes in her text as “le sexe supérieur en beauté comme en courage” (2). By appropriating the concepts of “superiority” and “courage,” that were traditionally perceived as masculine, and applying them to femininity, de Gouges reconfigures the balance of sexual power thus opening the controversial question of the role of women in society.

Wollstonecraft uses the “play of bisexuality” technique and elaborates on de Gouges’ argument in order to show that sexual categories are social constructs motivated by a male desire for political supremacy, and therefore inconsistent and unjustifiable. In her introduction, she considers the widespread accusation in the eighteen century that women were becoming increasingly masculine and she uses the expression “masculine women” to argue that what her society understood by the terms “man” or “woman” is simply the result of cultural conventions that degrade the members of her gender and limit the scope of their personal and public realization:

I am aware of an obvious inference: from every quarter have I heard exclamations against masculine women, but where are they to be found? If, by this appellation, men mean to inveigh against her ardour in hunting, shooting, and gaming, I shall most cordially join in the cry; but if it be, against the imitation of manly virtues, or, more properly speaking, the attainment of those talents and virtues, the exercise of which ennobles the human character, and which raise females in the scale of animal beings, when they are comprehensively termed mankind – all those who view them with philosophical eye must, I should think, wish with me, that they may every day grow more and more masculine. (Wollstonecraft 11)

Wollstonecraft explains that those “virtues” that have generally been regarded as “manly” do not have anything essentially masculine to them, and that they can be possessed by women too without endangering their femininity. She maintains in fact that all fields of study that instruct and educate should no longer be conceived as masculine and that they should be extended for the benefit of the female population. She concludes in fact that “the word masculine is only a bugbear,” that is a scapegoat orchestrated by men to secure their privileged social status but that is essentially void of any definite or defining connotation (13).

In their texts, Wollstonecraft and de Gouges also repeatedly associate men and patriarchal society to tyrannical empires – thus indirectly alluding to the still recent and emotionally charged fall of the monarchy in France – in order to argue that the unjust treatment of women in the last decade of the eighteenth century is a threatening sign that residues of monarchical social structures still existed and thrived. Although these writers do not directly link monarchy to masculinity, they do oppose it to femininity and to the full realization of women. In the introductory paragraph of Déclaration, de Gouges addresses a hypothetical man and asks him: “Homme …[q]ui t’as donné le souverain empire d’opprimer mon sexe? …Donne-moi, si tu l’oses, l’exemple de cet empire tyrannique” (my emphasis 1). Similarly, Wollstonecraft maintains that if post-monarchical societies fail to include women within their educational and political systems, it will prove only once more that “men must, in some shape, act like a tyrant, and tyranny.” (Wollstonecraft 8) She further argues that the restricted education women had been granted – based predominantly on codes of behavior and aesthetical appearance –“produce[d] a propensity to tyrannize” among women too, since they had been subjected to degradation and false values (13). Wollstonecraft makes her point against tyrannical societies even more clearly in the final paragraphs of chapter one, where she argues that “[s]urely it is madness to make the fate of thousands depend on the caprice of a weak fellow creature,” that is the king, and where she associates monarchy to the degradation of women: “But one power should not be thrown down to exalt another.” (18) It is therefore by associating their social organization to monarchy that these writers argue for the extension of the civil rights to the members of their gender.

These texts also present a consistent demystification of the female figure that aims at counteracting the degrading representations of women perpetrated for centuries in male literature and that portray them always as a threat to the tenets of masculine identity. In particular, Wollstonecraft voices her dissatisfaction with the characterization of women in literature by arguing against “that flowery diction which has slided from essays into novels, and from novels into familiar letters and conversation.” (12) She rejects mythical portrayals of women so abundant in literature and she dismisses farfetched depictions of female characters by presenting women in very practical terms as direct partakers to the common good. In fact, in Vindication, women are granted a concrete and active role in society as they are presented as aspiring to become, through complete access to the educational system, fit “companion[s] for man” and good mothers able to instill in their children the “true principle of Patriotism.” (7) In so doing, Wollstonecraft rehabilitates the mother as an essential presence for the successful evolution of society, thus placing this figure at the center of her theoretical discourse as well as of the public stage, rather than at its margins as was the case in patriarchal discourse.

In the same way, de Gouges empowers the woman and presents her in realistic rather than mythical terms by explaining that the extension of the civil rights to the entire population will finally grant mothers the power to claim the paternal identity of their children. She explains in fact that: “La libre communication des pensées et des opinions est un des droits les plus précieux de la femme, puisque cette liberté assure la légitimité des pères envers les enfants.” (de Gouges 3) Therefore, in Wollstonecraft and de Gouges’ texts, the woman – and the mother in particular – is presented essentially as a human being, rather than as a mythical figure, who is degraded and deprived of essential rights because she is forced to live in a male-regulated society, but who has to power to re-articulate the fundaments of her political system if granted full social rights and equal educational opportunities. As I have shown, by demystifying the female figure and redefining such central terms as that of “woman” and “mother,” these writers produce a subtle critique of patriarchal discourse and contribute to the advancement of feminist theory, the effects of which are traceable in contemporary feminist texts such as Cixous’ “Sorties,” while at the same time managing to enter male-regulated dialogues by adhering in many respects to masculine modes of discourse.

Author

Student in my University of Washington 400-level seminar, “Mythic Women in the Age of Revolutions.” copyright of student.

Bibliography

• Cixous, Hélène. “Sorties.” Literary Theory: an Anthology. Ed. Julie Rivkin and Michael Rayan. Malden, Ma: Blackwell Publishers, 1998.
• De Gouges, Olympe. “Déclaration des droits de la femme et de la citoyenne.” Course-pack.
• Heffernan, Hanover. Representing the French Revolution: literature, historiography, and art.
  Dartmouth College: University Press of New England, 1992.
• Landes, Joan B. Women and the public sphere in the age of the French Revolution. Ithaca:
  Cornell University Press, 1988.
• Wollstonecraft, Mary. A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. Course-pack.