Mrs Stassinopoulos writes: ‘In the end, it is clear that most WLM members are unable to make up their minds whether to become men or destroy the latter’ (op. cit.).
On the one hand, the neo-feminists long to ‘advocate femininity the way one would advocate negritude’ (Mariella Righini, Le Nouvel observateur, 10th March, 1975), while asserting, on the other, that there is no such thing as an ‘eternal feminine’. On one level, they aspire to proclaim a specificity that has allegedly been denied or alienated by ‘male oppression’ for centuries on end, while declaring, on another, that this specificity is but a ‘myth’ created by this very oppression and that gender-based differences have been grossly overestimated.
What we need to know, once and for all, is whether women want to be identical to men or whether they long to assert their own mental traits and channel those towards achieving their own aspirations. If men do not act as a model for women to follow (and it goes without saying that this should not be the case), what specific image of themselves would women like to convey? This is the only fundamental question at this point.
***
Sexual Politics, an essay by Kate Millett. Stock, 463 pages.
Ma mysogynie,697 an essay by Jean Cau. Julliard, 88 pages.
La femme dans le monde moderne,698 an essay by Evelyne Sullerot. Hachette, 256 pages.
Demain, les femmes,699 an essay by Evelyne Sullerot. Laffont-Gonthier, 269 pages.
The Prisoner of Sex, an essay by Norman Mailer. Laffont, 239 pages.
Place aux femmes,700 an essay by Christine Callet et Claude de Granrut. Stock, 284 pages.
Images de la femme,701 a series of texts presented by Denise Brahimi-Chapuis and Lucile Kuentzmann. Delagrave, 128 pages.
Les femmes de Gennevilliers, an essay by Michèle Manceaux. Mercure de France, 191 pages.
Ainsi soit-elle,702 an essay by Benoîte Groult. Grasset, 232 pages.
***
Men Amongst Their Own
Some might consider it ‘sexist’, but it remains undeniable that men do feel the need to gather among their own, regardless of whether it is to reshape the world, play cards or read a paper. They meet in clubs, sport groups, political parties, and intellectual societies. Ladies are excluded from such activities, which often seem puerile and not always honest. This is a source of astonishment to some women.
The relations between men and women have been the focus of an abundant number of literary works. The bonds between men themselves have, by contrast, been scarcely studied, unless one counts the homosexual angle, which, in fact, only serves to twist their very significance.
Lionel Tiger is a forty-year-old Livingstone College professor at Rutgers University, New Jersey. While in Paris in the spring of 1971, he acted as a UN Congress rapporteur on aggressive behaviour. He only considers sociology to be enlightening when it borders on biology.
Male bonding, according to Mr Tiger, stems from phylogenesis (the history of evolution). One could never reduce it, as Marxism has done, to a mere persistence of superficial structures imposed by society. It is an ‘innate, irreversible and predetermined’ phenomenon.
In all animal societies, sexual dimorphism goes hand in hand with the separation of male and female roles. ‘The main characteristic of the organisation encountered among baboon groups lies in the hierarchised dominance of adult males’. Within this hierarchy, one witnesses the formation of coalitions that remain unaffected by sexual competition and arousal. So as to be viable, these coalitions must be ‘deeply rooted’. Among Australian magpies, reproduction is only possible within permanent groups. The males that lack any territory of their own are sterile.
In the case of humans, male bonding is particularly pronounced. In prehistoric times, the fact that men indulged in hunting together (whose importance has often been stressed) only served to strengthen this connection. As pointed out by Mr Lionel Tiger, ‘archaeological discoveries tend to confirm the fact that, in terms of specialised behaviour, the strategic violence associated with man’s carnivore diet and hunting habits represented a considerable advantage at the dawn of humanity’.
Modern life and the emancipation of women have only altered the situation in a most imperfect manner: ‘The more important her functions, the less likely it is for an American woman to get married and have children’.
Humorously, Mr Tiger even adds: ‘It seems to me that men prefer steaks and women salads, rather than the other way around. Could this be a vestige of the dichotomy between hunting and gathering in the supermarket civilisation?’
A few years ago, a women’s pornographic magazine was launched by a group of Swedes. The experiment resulted in resounding failure. The reason? It is only from men’s perspective that reading, watching or conversing can embody a genuine form of sexual participation. Mr Tiger writes: ‘Man’s sexuality seems to depend on cerebral activity more than a woman’s. This would account for the disproportionate abundance of male sexual fantasies’.
A Process of Identification
Ethnologist Margaret Mead used to say, and rightfully so, that men long to act upon society, whereas women display ‘a tendency to use their own bodies as a theatre of action’.
This role distinction already manifests itself in one’s early childhood and is connected to a process of identification through which men (and particularly the adolescents among them) select their own ‘role models’ from amongst the personalities they encounter in their daily lives, in legends or in historical accounts. ‘This leads us to believe that identification may be dependent on neurological predispositions or propensities belonging to the same category as the ones that are potentially at the very source of male bonding and other gender-based behavioural differences’.
The atmosphere of boy schools differs greatly from that of girl schools. It is only in the former type of establishment, which has been the focus of a whole array of literary works (in addition to numerous films, such as If, Young Törless, In the Name of the Father, and many others), that the esprit de corps (a particular from of comradery) flourishes.
Psychoanalysts have mentioned the ‘latent homosexuality’ of women. Indeed, feminine friendship is fraught with tenderness, sensuality and jealousy. This would explain why these friendships are, overall, so short-lived. In no way is love a ‘very strong friendship’, and masculine friendship does not bear within it even a ‘hint of homosexuality’. Love can be measured in accordance with its intensity and friendship in accordance with its durability. These two notions can only commingle for a restricted amount of time; for there are none who spend their whole lives at the summit.
Politics
There is an obvious connection between masculinity, politics and man’s sense of territory. In La loi naturelle703 (Stock, 1971), Robert Ardrey704 defined the ‘biological nation’ as a social group that enjoys exclusive ownership of a certain fraction of space, with leadership, coalition and concertation stemming from the defence of this very territory. Mr Tiger adds: ‘Male-dominated politics represents the essential form of male bonding’.
According to Lionel Tiger, the tendency manifested by men to bond with one another is the result of a process that has been set into motion within the framework of evolution, which, through selection-adaptation, has fostered inter-masculine association for hunting purposes. It is this very same process that is said to have, statistically speaking, bestowed upon men a superior ability to take charge of public functions.
The exclusion of women from political life has led some to speak of ‘prejudice’. However, if we take the United States, for example, which ‘is considered to be a feminist state, it is generally assumed that women exert considerable influence there. And yet, the US is one of the countries where the national government comprises the lowest rate of women: approximately 2%’.
Although women enjoy the right to the vote, they fail to use it to their own advantage. Mr Maurice Duverger has noticed that ‘the parties which favour women most are almost always the ones which women favour least’
(Le rôle politique des femmes,705 UNESCO, 1955). Of all the major political parties in France, it is the Communist Party that has garnered the least amount of success among women.
It is not just a matter of ‘seduction’, however. The general sentiment seems to be that men, who find it easier to identify with a ‘not-self’, are endowed with a superior capacity to represent the community. What is noticeable, for instance, is that in major sport competitions, men’s events attract a greater number of spectators than women’s events do. This is the explanation proposed by Mr Tiger: the public does not consider itself to be ‘represented’ in women’s events — in international competition, however, it is the entire nation that must be represented.
Being the only ones to make politics, men are also alone to make war. Lionel Tiger remarks: ‘This is not usually considered to be a violation of women’s freedom or rights’. Although Israeli women are compelled to do their military service, never have they been sent to the battle front, at least not as part of a combat unit.
Involving predominantly male participation, sports come across as a ritualisation of warlike confrontation in European culture. In turn, war is also a kind of game (originally, at least): the great game. Indeed, one encounters the very same rules of fair play and ‘chivalry’ (now abolished by the democratisation of both war and sports) in each of the two domains. Wellington used to say that ‘the battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton’. In actual fact, however, the notion of a connection between war and game is nothing new at all: the fact that war could ever be considered a sport is precisely what has never ceased to scandalise women, pacifists and those who have always dreamt of establishing world Peace through Justice and Law.
In this regard, ethology has also had its say: ‘The monitoring of certain primate species has revealed that males indulge in games that are more violent than those involving females’.
Through clubs and ‘secret societies’, says Mr Tiger, ‘men court other men’. Major professional brotherhoods, student corporations, orders, and secret societies constitute an array of different means that allow males to reinforce (and exalt) their mutual bonding. Whether in college or the army, ‘initiation ceremonies’, which are often bizarre and even cruel, allude to the rites of passage from puberty to adulthood (and impose the following transposition: one only becomes ‘adult’ when one possesses knowledge or power), strengthening the bonds between the ‘initiates’. Women’s clubs, by contrast, regularly sink into disorder and gossiping.
Embodying a sublimated form of identification, these brotherhoods are heirs to the legacy of the Männerbünde (‘communities of men’) that characterised the most ancient Indo-European past. On a mythological level, we are all familiar with Odin’s chosen ones, the Einherjar who inhabit the Valhöll or Halls of Valhalla and whose name relates to military vocabulary. These communities represented the very model of ancient warring societies in Germania, such as the Harii mentioned by Tacitus in his book entitled Germania, secretly organising themselves into ‘warrior fellowships’ or Kriegsbunds (See Otto Höfler’s Kültische Geheimbünde der Germanen, Moritz Diesterweg, Frankfurt, 1934; and Stig Wikander’s Der arische Männerbund, Lund, 1938).
Eternally Childlike in the Face of Life’s Games
Mr Tiger reminds us that men, when compared to women, are simultaneously more rational and unreasonable. Men are perfectly aware of the fact that they often embark on hopeless adventures and take on foolish challenges but feel that they must never suffer a ‘loss of face’. This notion of useless sacrifice stems directly from an ethic of honour. Women, on the other hand, see things differently and reproach men for giving in to ‘pride’. They accuse men of chasing after ‘pipe-dreams’ and neglecting their familial responsibilities. In their eyes, one does not lose face when being ‘reasonable’.
At the end of the day, men remain eternally childlike. The Germans have their own expression to describe this: Das Kind im Manne — the child that subsists in every accomplished man as a living memory of a past that is ever destined to inspire the future.
Montherlant706 used to say that ‘a man devoid of childishness is but a horrible monster’. Nietzsche, by contrast, proposed the following idea: ‘A man’s maturity consists in having found again the seriousness one had as a child at play’.707 In other words, what he suggested was that we consider serious matters to be a game. Hence the nostalgia felt by men when reminiscing about their childhood surroundings and adolescent loves, which Jules Romains described as resorting to a mixture of naivety and obscenity.
The societies that emphasise the importance of security and comfort and are averse to risk-taking are societies in which masculine values are on the decline. ‘Make love, not war’ is a feminine slogan that can be explained as follows: ‘Make love to us, not war upon one another’.
Men never cease to take down bird nests, just as they did when they were still children. They do not do so because they yearn to remove those nests, but because they long to climb to the top of the trees. They are always driven by a desire to go further, faster and higher. They take great pleasure in competing with others and admire exploits. Women, on the other hand, wonder ‘what purpose it all serves’. This is why it is up to women to preserve what men have acquired, thus enabling the perpetuation and eternal renewal of society.
***
Men in Groups, an essay by Lionel Tiger. Laffont, 299 pages.
***
On Euthanasia
‘Demanding that a living being remain alive against its own will while being deaf to its appeals, at a time when the dignity, beauty, promises and very significance of life have already vanished and the only things left to experience are the ultimate stages of agony and physical deterioration, is both cruel and barbaric. The enforcement of pointless suffering is an evil that should be avoided in a civilised society’.
This declaration was part of a manifesto published in the USA in the June 1975 issue of The Humanist, a magazine that acts as the organ of the American Humanist Association and the American Ethical Union, whose combined memberships comprise a total of around 250,000 people.
The text was signed by approximately forty personalities from the medical, educational, business and religious sphere, including three Nobel prize winners: Jacques Monod, the former head of the Institut Pasteur, Sir George Paget Thomson of the Royal Society of London, and professor Linus Pauling of Stanford University.
The signatories stated: ‘We call upon the public’s reasoned judgement to go beyond conventional taboos and to show compassion towards those who needlessly suffer in the throes of their own agony’.
Here is their conclusion: ‘Since every individual has the right to live with dignity, each one has, likewise, the right to die with dignity’.
Euthanasia (etymologically ‘a good death’) can be defined as a means to enable or allow someone’s death to occur without suffering, with the purpose of accommodating the dying person’s request by alleviating their pain. One usually distinguishes passive euthanasia, which involves the discontinuation of all techniques and treatments meant to prolong life (intravenous feeding or resuscitation, for instance), from active euthanasia, which consists in administering increasing amounts of medication (such as morphine) until the dosage has reached a lethal threshold.
The editors of The Humanist declared their support for both forms of intervention.
Draft Legislations
The ancient European society was in favour of euthanasia, unlike the Jewish and Christian traditions, both of which were hostile to it. The latter also condemned suicide, a practice that was honoured by the Greeks and Romans alike.
The debate resurfaced at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century, especially in Anglo-Saxon countries.
In 1931, an initial draft legislation towards the legalisation of euthanasia was proposed by doctor Killick Millard in Great Britain. Another bill — Lord Ponsoby’s — was rejected in 1936, gathering fourteen votes against a total of
thirty-five. In 1958, a book written by professor Glanville William, The Sanctity of Life and Criminal Law, rekindled the discussion. This development gave birth to the Voluntary Euthanasia Legislation Society, the rightful heir of the old Euthanasia Society created by Lord Moynihan in 1935.708 Its president, pastor Benjamin Downing, has published an essay entitled Euthanasia and the Right to Die, and writer Arthur Koestler is among its honorary members.
On 25th March, 1969, in the Chamber of Lords, a new draft law was put forward by Lord Ragland. In January 1971, however, the British Medical Association expressed several reservations with regard to its content, adopting an unfavourable stance.
The US has its own voluntary euthanasia society, whose member count increased from 600 in 1969 to 50,000 in 1973.
In early 1973, the American Hospital Association sanctioned a patients’ rights charter comprising one’s right to opt for death by refusing to undergo treatment. The patient is then required to write a will, stating: ‘If there is no reasonable hope for me to be cured of my physical and mental ailments, I ask to be allowed to die rather than be kept alive using artificial or extraordinary methods’. According to The Humanist, such a document allows one to ‘unambiguously express the notion that their hopes of dying with dignity must be respected’.
Soon afterwards, the Canadian Medical Association (comprising 80% of the national medical body) declared itself in favour of passive euthanasia during its annual congress.
On 21st June, 1974, Le Quotidien du médecin709 published an exclusive survey conducted among a sample of 1200 people representing the adult electoral population of France. The results showed that a total of 60% felt that a doctor’s duty lay in ending the life of any patient suffering from a terminal disease who, aware of his own condition, asks to be allowed to die. And here is another point of interest: among those aged sixty-five or older, a total of 59% espoused an equally favourable position; meaning that, overall, their basic opinion mirrored that of the average respondent.
Systems and Debates Page 37