Simone de Beauvoir and W.E.B. DuBois were existentialists whose ideas were reflected in their works The Second Sex and The Souls of Black Folk respectively. They wrote in response to the dominant theories surrounding the cause of and the answer to the discrimination faced by women and blacks. Both, sharing the existentialist mindset, believed neither women nor blacks were born into their individual lifestyles as the weaker gender or race. Living a life of subordination and submissiveness was the catalyst for inequality. Beauvoir’s notion of the “Other” and DuBois’ theory of “double consciousness” are parallel ideas that shed light on the plight of women and blacks.
Their dual aim was to construct a plan for women and blacks to follow in order to destroy their inferior roles created by society and to also disprove the prevailing ideas concerning the discrimination they faced. Beauvoir’s ultimate goal was to empower women to throw off the shackles of sexism and to escape from the position of the “Other.” DuBois aimed to lift the veil that covered the view blacks had of the society in which they lived. Their desires were radical at the time but proved to be foreshadowing the truth time would expose.
The “Other” that Beauvoir writes of deals with the assertion that a dominant group defines itself by creating an “Other” with traits and characteristics that the dominant group does not have. As such, the “Other” refers to any “marginalized, exploited, subjugated, dominated, or oppressed group.” In Beauvoir’s mind men have created this position for women to occupy. Historically, a woman’s place in society has been cemented by social and economic norms decreeing women to be dependent on men. Beauvoir cites the exclusion of women from the public sphere of production as an example. Therefore, women became financially dependent on men resulting in the further subjection of women.
Women were relegated to the private sphere of domestic life and taking care of the home and raising the children. The new opportunities for financial independence and self-determination supplied by the rise of capitalism and the industrial revolution did not shift the balance between the sexes. Women continued to live “disperse among the males, attached through residence, housework, economic condition, and social standing to certain men – fathers or husbands – more firmly than they are to other women.” Women were still not unified and were unable to form a common identity.
This dependence on men only resulted in further strengthening the ties women had to the characteristics of the “Other” as adjectives like irrational, timid, weak, inferior, and tender were attributed to females. One of Beauvoir’s most important ideas focused on the relationship between the “Other” and the lack of humanity women must live with. A female trapped in the role of the “Other” can only define herself in terms of the male, his definition of what a woman should be and what her role in society is. Therefore she is deprived of her humanity.
Two obvious questions arise concerning the plight of women in society. For starters, who is ultimately to blame for the situation women are immersed in? Beauvoir delves into these issues by first proclaiming that ultimately women are to blame for their oppressed position in society. She states that women have grown comfortable and are “often well pleased with her role as ‘Other”” and have never fully opposed their role as a female when compared to that of a male. By continuing to tacitly consent to male domination women find it harder and harder to escape their role as the “Other” in society. The second question concerns how women can stop the trend of sexism.
The existential beliefs dominating Beauvoir’s writing state that one cannot escape something one is conscious about. The inferior role of women is so engrained in every aspect of society, choosing to shut out the truth is impossible without exercising “bad faith” or, in other words, self-deception. The only way for women to achieve freedom is to follow Beauvoir’s “existential premise that ‘One is not born, but rather becomes a woman.”” Because people are free to contrive the roles in the first place they have the freedom to undo them as well. Women are free to create their own existence and must do so in order to end the sexism plaguing society.
It would not be incorrect to say that blacks play the part of the “Other” in the society created by racist white Americans. The discrimination felt by blacks then and now was a result of their emergence into society following Emancipation. White America had implemented government plans and constructed a culture and society they felt would appropriately accommodate the newly freed slaves. Yet DuBois wrote that the suffering of blacks was the fault of white America, directly or even while trying to do positive things to lessen the discrimination. Therefore “the problem of the color-line” still persisted. DuBois dedicated an entire essay in The Souls of Black Folk, “Of the Dawn of Freedom,” to the legacy of the Freedmen’s Bureau, one of the most important, and most hated, pieces of legislation stemming from Reconstruction. The Bureau was established in March of 1865 to “aid distressed refugees of the United States Civil War, including former slaves and poor white farmers.”
Politically, the Freedman’s Bureau was never given a solid set of operating principles nor was it provided with the proper legal or financial backing to be able to accomplish the tasks which the Nation needed to bring about peace between the newly freed slaves and their former masters. The Bureau was privy to the resentment the former slave owners had toward the freedmen and knew of the violent backlashes associated with it.
But the Bureau was unable to intervene and had to leave the matter to the local courts which were unsympathetic to the Negroes. Although the Freedman’s Bureau accomplished many things to benefit southern Negroes thru education and economic growth, it failed to complete the task of making Negroes equal citizens. Also, the bitterness the sympathizers of the old South felt resonated too strongly in American society to keep the Freedmen’s Bureau afloat. The struggle for equality and to bring and end to “double consciousness” had to go on. In DuBois’ words, “the passing of a great human institution before its work is done, like the untimely passing of a single soul, but leaves a legacy of striving for other men.”
The struggle was taken up at the time by men other than DuBois. Most notably, Booker T. Washington and his accomodationist beliefs toward equality took hold in black society. DuBois was vehemently against this form of societal assimilation. DuBois accused Washington of allowing blacks to “accept the alleged inferiority of the Negro races” and also letting them become clouded by a minimal desire for work and money. According to DuBois there was a higher calling in life that could only be achieved by fighting for the right to vote, for civic equality and for proper education of youth according to ability. Washington preached to the masses that they must abandon all those things and focus their energy and mental capacity toward gaining the power of industry in order to become part of the labor pool.
On the other hand, DuBois was passionate on the development of black mentality to gain a higher intellect in order to obtain the greatest fruits of life. This essay entitled “Of Mr. Booker T. Washington and Others” provides the basis for DuBois’ strategy for the integration of blacks into American life. DuBois lays down a specific blueprint for action that would result in the ultimate goal of black Americans, to be able to cast aside the veil of “double consciousness” and truly see oneself as an American through one’s own eyes. Only then, after no longer viewing themselves through the contemptuous and pitying eyes of white America, could blacks start on the road to achieving their goals no matter what arena of society it was a part of.
The paths toward an equal footing in society that women and blacks continue to walk to this day are much the same. While equality is still not a reality in the modern world Simone de Beauvoir and W.E.B. DuBois had the foresight to recognize that that would never be the case. Their ideas were tailored to accommodate that reality. Women and blacks are no longer the slaves of a society where all men were supposedly created equal due in large part to the writings of these existentialist thinkers.
