3. I use the word society with an extended anthropological meaning; strictly speaking, it does not refer to societies, in that lesbian societies do not exist completely autonomously from heterosexual social systems.
4. Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex (New York: Bantam, 1952), p. 249.
5. Redstockings, Feminist Revolution (New York: Random House, 1978), p. 18.
6. Andrea Dworkin, “Biological Superiority: The World’s Most Dangerous and Deadly Idea,” Heresies 6:46.
7. Ti-Grace Atkinson, Amazon Odyssey (New York: Links Books, 1974), p. 15.
8. Dworkin, op. cit.
9. Guillaumin, op. cit.
10. de Beauvoir, op. cit.
11. Guillaumin, op. cit.
12. Dworkin, op. cit.
13. Atkinson, p. 6: “If feminism has any logic at all, it must be working for a sexless society.”
14. Rosalind Rosenberg, “In Search of Woman’s Nature,” Feminist Studies 3, no. 1/2 (1975): 144.
15. Ibid., p. 146.
16. In an article published in L’Idiot International (mai 1970), whose original title was “Pour un mouvement de libération des femmes” (“For a Women’s Liberation Movement”).
17. Christiane Rochefort, Les stances à Sophie (Paris: Grasset, 1963).
The Straight Mind
1. This text was first read in New York at the Modern Language Association Convention in 1978 and dedicated to American lesbians.
2. However, the classical Greeks knew that there was no political power without mastery of the art of rhetoric, especially in a democracy,
3. Throughout this paper, when Lacan’s use of the term “the Unconscious” is referred to it is capitalized, following his style.
4. For example see Karla Jay and Allen Young, eds., Out of the Closets (New York: Links Books, 1972).
5. Heterosexuality: a word which first appears in the French language in 1911.
6. Ti-Grace Atkinson, Amazon Odyssey (New York: Links Books, 1974), pp. 13–23.
7. Claude Faugeron and Philippe Robert, La Justice et son public et les représentations sociales du système pénal (Paris: Masson, 1978).
8. See, for her definition of “social sex,” Nicole-Claude Mathieu, “Notes pour une définition sociologique des catégories de sexe,” Epistémologie Sociologique 11 (1971). Translated as Ignored by Some, Denied by Others: The Social Sex Category in Sociology (pamphlet), Explorations in Feminism 2 (London: Women’s Research and Resources Centre Publications, 1977), pp. 16–37.
9. In the same way that in every other class struggle the categories of opposition are “reconciled” by the struggle whose goal is to make them disappear.
10. Are the millions of dollars a year made by the psychoanalysts symbolic?
11. Roland Barthes, Mythologies (New York: Hill and Wang, 1972), p. 11.
On the Social Contract
1. The Social Contract, or Principles of Political Right (1762), by J.-J. Rousseau, citizen of Geneva.
2. Colette Guillaumin, “Pratique du pouvoir et idée de Nature: 1. L’appropriation des femmes; 2. Le discours de la Nature,” Questions féministes nº2 et nº3 (1978). Translated as “The Practice of Power and Belief in Nature: 1. The Appropriation of Women; 2. The Naturalist Discourse,” Feminist Issues 1, nos. 2 and 3 (Winter and Summer 1981).
3. See Colette Capitan Peter, “A Historical Precedent for Patriarchal Oppression: ‘The Old Regime’ and the French Revolution,” Feminist Issues 4, no. 1 (Spring 1984): 83–89.
4. See “The Straight Mind” and “One Is Not Born a Woman,” this volume.
5. This statement by Marx and Engels is particularly relevant to the modern situation.
6. See Aristotle, The Politics.
7. Nicole-Claude Mathieu, “Quand céder n’est pas consentir. Des déterminants matériels et psychiques de la conscience dominée des femmes, et de quelques-unes de leurs interprétations en ethnologie,” in L’Arraisonnement des femmes, Essais en anthropologie des sexes (Paris: Editions de l’Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, 1985). Translated as “When Yielding Is Not Consenting. Material and Psychic Determinants of Women’s Dominated Consciousness and Some of Their Interpretation in Ethnology,” Feminist Issues 9, no. 2 (1989), part I.
8. Jean Paulhan, “Happiness in Slavery,” preface to The Story of O, by Pauline de Réage.
Homo Sum
1. We must add here the notion of the “fourth world” used in Europe to designate people who live in poverty in the Western industrialized world.
2. Nasty tricks, circumventing tricks.
The Point of View
1. The beginning of the women’s liberation movement in France and everywhere else was in itself a questioning of the categories of sex. But afterwards only radical feminists and lesbians continued to challenge on political and theoretical grounds the use of the sexes as categories and as classes. For the theoretical aspect of this question, see Questions féministes between 1977 and 1980 and Feminist Issues since its first number.
2. See Colette Guillaumin, “The Masculine: Denotations/Connotations,” Feminist Issues 5, no. 1 (Spring 1985).
3. Nathalie Sarraute, The Age of Suspicion (New York: George Braziller, 1963), p. 57.
4. Ibid.
5. Sappho, look IX, pp. 110–111.
The Trojan Horse
1. Gertrude Stein, How to Write (New York: Dover, 1975).
The Mark of Gender
1. Colette Guillaumin, “The Question of Difference,” Feminist Issues 2, no. 1 (1982); “The Masculine: Denotations/Connotations,” Feminist Issues 5, no. 1 (Spring 1985); Nicole-Claude Mathieu, “Masculinity/Feminity,” Feminist Issues 1, no. 1 (Summer 1980); “Biological Paternity, Social Maternity,” Feminist Issues 4, no. 1 (Spring 1984).
2. Sande Zeig, “The Actor as Activator,” 5, Feminist Issues 5, no. 1 (Spring 1985).
3. Cf. Emile Benveniste, Problems in General Linguistics (Coral Gables, FL: University of Miami Press, 1971).
4. The first demonstration of the women’s liberation movement in France took place at the Arc de Triomphe, where the grave of the unknown soldier is located. Among the mottos on the banners, one read: Un homme sur deux est une femme (one man in two is a woman). The purpose of the demonstration was to lay a wreath in honor of the wife of the unknown soldier (more unknown even than the soldier), and it took place in support of the American women’s demonstration of August 1970.
5. In L’Express, 30 novembre 1964.
6. Nathalie Sarraute uses elles very often throughout her work. But it is not to make it stand for a universal, her work being of another nature. I am convinced that, without her use, elles would not have imposed itself upon me with such force. It is an example of what Julia Kristeva calls intertextuality.
7. Indeed David Le Vay’s translation is a beautiful one, particularly for the rhythm of the sentences and the choice of the vocabulary.
8. The Opoponax in English is deprived of the complete body of poetry which in French was incorporated into the text as an organic element. It was not differentiated by italics or quotation marks. In English this complete body of poetry stands out untranslated and has no operative virtue whatsoever.
The Site of Action
1. Nathalie Sarraute, L’Ere du soupçon (Paris: Gallimard, 1956), p. 144; English trans., The Age of Suspicion, trans. Maria Jolas (New York: George Braziller, 1963), p. 115.
2. [Translator’s note: By “lieu commun” Wittig evokes her both the common place, as in a communal place, and the commonplace, as in a platitude of language. This desired ambiguity is lost in written English (though not in spoken English), where a choice must be made between the two.]
3. Nathalie Sarraute, Disent les imbéciles (Paris: Gallimard, 1976), p. 130. English trans., Fools Say, trans. Maria Jolas (New York: George Braziller, 1977), pp. 101–102.
4. Nathalie Sarraute, L’Usage de la parole (Paris: Gallimard, 1980), p. 148. English trans., The Use of Speech, trans. Barbara Wright, in consultation with the author (New Yor
k: George Braziller, 1983), p. 142.
5. [Translator’s note: The homonymic pun on “héros” (hero) is not translatable.]
6. Sarraute, L’Usage de la parole, pp. 88–89 (English trans., The Use of Speech, p. 85).
7. Ibid., p. 91. (English trans., p. 87).
8. Sarraute, Disent les Imbéciles, p. 42 (English trans., Fools Say, p. 35).
9. Sarraute, L’Ere du soupçon, pp. 122–123 (English trans., The Age of Suspicion, pp. 97–98).
10. Nathalie Sarraute, Martereau (Paris: Gallimard, 1953; Le livre de poche, 1964), p. 129. English trans., Martereau, trans. Maria Jolas (New York: George Braziller, 1959), p. 127.
11. Ibid., p. 213 (English trans., pp. 211–212).
Bibliography
Other works by Monique Wittig
Books
The Opoponax. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1966; Daughters, 1976. Originally published as L’Opoponax (Paris: Editions de Minuit, 1964; Le livre de poche, 1971). Winner of the Prix de Medicis, 1964. The book has been published in twelve countries.
Les Guérillères. New York: Viking, 1971; Avon, 1973; Boston: Beacon Press, 1986. Originally published in France (Paris: Editions de Minuit, 1969). The book has been published in eight countries.
The Lesbian Body. New York: William Morrow, 1975; Avon, 1976; Boston: Beacon Press, 1986. Originally published as Le Corps lesbien (Paris: Editions de Minuit, 1973). The book has been published in seven countries.
Lesbian Peoples: Material for a Dictionary, co-authored with Sande Zeig, Translated by the authors. New York: Avon, 1979. Originally published as Brouillon pour un dictionnaire des Amantes (Paris: Grasset, 1975). The book has been published in six countries.
Across the Acheron. London: Peter Owen, 1987. Originally published as Virgile, non (Paris: Editions de Minuit, 1985). Also published in the Netherlands.
Short stories
“Banlieues.” Nouveau Commerce (1965).
“Voyage.” Nouvelle Revue Francaise (1967).
“Une partie de campagne.” Nouveau Commerce (1970).
Untitled, Minuit (1972).
“Un jour mon prince viendra.” Questions féministes (1978).
“Tchiches et Tchouches.” In Le Genre Humain (Paris: Centre national de la recherche sociologique, 1983). Written for a conference at La Maison francaise of New York University, March 1982.
“Paris-la-Politique.” Vlasta (1985).
Plays
L’Amant Vert. 1967. Produced in Bolivia, 1969.
Le Grand Cric-Jules, Récreation, Dialogue pour les deux frères et la soeur. Short plays commissioned by Stuttgart Radio.
The Constant Journey. First produced in the United States in 1984, and in France as Le Voyage sans fin at the Theatre du Rond-Point, 1985. Co-director with Sande Zeig. A video of this play was made by the Centre audio-visuel Simone de Beauvoir and is now in the collection of film and tape at the Lincoln Center Library for the Performing Arts.
Theory and criticism
“Lacunary Films.” New Statesman (1966). On Godard.
“Bouvard et Pécuchet.” Les Cahiers Madeleine Renaud-Barrault (1967). On Flaubert.
“Paradigm.” In Homosexualities and French Literature. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1979.
Beacon Press
Boston, Massachusetts
www.beacon.org
Beacon Press books
are published under the auspices of
the Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations.
© 1992 by Monique Wittig
All rights reserved
Text design by Linda Koegel
With the exception of “The Point of View: Universal or Particular?” and “The Site of Action,” all of the essays in this volume were written in English and were first published in the following:
“The Category of Sex,” Feminist Issues 2, no. 2 (Spring 1982); “One Is Not Born a Woman,” Feminist Issues 1, no. 2 (Winter 1981); “The Straight Mind,” Feminist Issues 1, no. 1 (Summer 1980); “On the Social Contract,” Feminist Issues 9, no. 1 (Spring 1989); “Homo Sum,” Feminist Issues 10, no. 2 (Summer 1990); “The Point of View: Universal or Particular?” originally published as “Avant-note” to La Passion by Djuna Barnes (Paris: Ed. Flammarion, 1982), translated in Feminist Issues 1, no. 1 (Summer 1980); “The Trojan Horse,” Feminist Issues 4, no. 2 (Fall 1984); “The Mark of Gender,” Feminist Issues 5, no. 2 (Fall 1985); “The Site of Action,” trans. Lois Oppenheim in Three Decades of the French New Novel (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1986), originally published as “Le lieu de l’action,” Diagraphe 32 (1984).
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Wittig, Monique.
The straight mind and other essays / Monique Wittig; foreword by Louise Turcotte.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 0-8070-7916-2.—eISBN: 978-0-8070-7922-5; ISBN 0-8070-7917-0 (pbk.)
1. Feminist theory. 2. Lesbianism. 3. Radicalism. 4. Feminism and literature. I. Title.
HQ1190.W58 1992
305.42’01—dc20
91-18409
CIP
The Straight Mind Page 11