Chapter 5 Chapter 4 The Women of the Nomads

Chapter 4 The Women of the Nomads It has always been a man's world; and none of the reasons hitherto offered to account for this fact seem sufficient.But if we review prehistoric and ethnographic evidence in the light of existential philosophy, we can appreciate how the hierarchy of the sexes was established.I have already said that when two classes of men come together, each class seeks to impose its sovereignty on the other.If both classes are able to resist this compulsion, there will be a mutual relation between them which is sometimes hostile, sometimes amicable, and always in tension.If one of the classes is somehow privileged, given some kind of advantage, this class overwhelms the other and prepares him to be dominated.It is not difficult to understand, therefore, that men will wish to dominate women.But what strengths enabled him to realize this will?Ethnologists' interpretations of the primitive form of human society are extremely contradictory.The more informed and unsystematic this interpretation is, the more this is the case.It is especially difficult to form an idea of ​​women's situation in pre-agricultural times.We do not even know whether woman's musculature, or her respiratory organs, were less fully developed than man's under conditions quite different from today's.She has hard work to do, especially the burdens of motherhood she has to bear.The meaning of this last fact is ambiguous.It probably means that, if she is assigned a maternal function, it is because the man is tightly reining in the power of stalking at all times in order to fend off possible attacks by animals or others.The man's role is more dangerous and more dynamic.But it also seems to be that women are, for the most part, strong and hardy enough to take part in a warrior's expedition.We need only recall the stories told by Herodotus and his later descriptions of the beautiful warriors of Daho, to see clearly that women participated in battles, and they were as fierce and ferocious as men.But even so, in the age of the Great and the Beast, the superior physical strength of men must have been of paramount importance.However strong a woman may be, reproductive bondage is in every case a formidable obstacle in the struggle against a hostile world.Pregnancy, childbirth, and menstruation weaken their ability to work, making them often completely dependent on men for protection and food.Since birth control is evidently not practiced, and since nature does not provide women with sterile cycles as it does with other female mammals, multiple pregnancies necessarily consume so much of their energy and time that they are unable to support their own offspring.From this basic fact, we can draw a series of conclusions: the early life of human beings was very difficult; the people engaged in gathering, hunting and fishing put in a lot of effort, but they could only get little products from the land; In terms of group resources, there are too many children born.The woman's fecundity precludes active participation in the activities aimed at increasing resources, and the new needs created by her increase to an elusive degree.Although woman is necessary to perpetuate the species, she perpetuates the species too generously, so that man has to maintain the balance of reproduction and production.Even in an age when the human need for procreation was great and motherhood was revered, manual labor was so basic that it simply did not allow women to be given priority.Primitive tribes had no permanent property or territories, so little importance was attached to descendants.Children are a burden to the tribe, not a treasured possession.Infanticide was common among nomads, and many newborns who survived died due to the general indifference and lack of care they received.

So the woman in childbirth cannot understand the pride of creation, she feels herself the plaything of obscure forces, and the tormented childbirth seems to her a useless and even disgusting accident.But in any case, childbirth and breastfeeding are not an activity, but a natural function, and they have nothing to do with any design.This is why woman cannot find any highly affirmative reason for her existence on this basis—she is passively subject to her biological destiny.Housework, because it can be reconciled with maternal affairs, is destined to be performed by her, while imprisoning her in repetition and interiority.They are repeated in the same way, day after day, and this situation has continued through century after century with little change.Housework produces nothing new.

The situation with men is quite different.Unlike worker bees, they rely on simple life processes and biological behaviors, but rely on actions that transcend animal nature to maintain the livelihood of the group.An inventor from the beginning: the twigs and clubs with which he armed himself, knocked down fruit and killed animals, immediately became the tools of his further mastery of the world.He does not confine himself to bringing home the fishes he catches from the sea: first he must fashion a canoe out of tree trunks, with which he conquers the kingdom of water; in order to acquire the riches of the world, he annexes the world itself.In this initiative he tests his strength; he sets goals and opens the way to them.In a word, man has achieved self-realization as a survivor.In order to maintain, he creates; he breaks through the present and creates the future.So fishing and hunting are sacred.The success of the expedition was celebrated with festivals and triumphal ceremonies in which man received recognition of his status as a human being.Today, he shows the same pride when he builds a dam or a skyscraper or an atomic reactor.He does not only work to preserve the established world; he pushes beyond the boundaries of the established world to lay the foundations for a new future.

There is another side to the initiative of early men that endows it with great dignity: it is often dangerous.If blood were only a nourishing fluid, it would not be valued higher than milk.But the hunter is not a butcher, because when he fights with wild animals, he has to risk life and death.In order to enhance the prestige of their tribe and clan, warriors put their lives aside.In this way he dramatically demonstrates that life is not the highest value for man, but that life should be created for a purpose greater than itself.The worst curse that can befall a woman is that she should be excluded from raids like war.For man is superior to animals not in giving life, but in risking it.This is why humans do not give superiority to the sex that gives birth, but to the sex that kills.

Thus we hold the key to unraveling the whole mystery.From a biological point of view, a species can only be maintained by recreating itself, but in more individuals, the result of this creation is nothing more than the repetition of the same life.But man, in assuring the repetition of life, transcends life by surviving.Thanks to this transcendence, he creates values ​​that render mere repetition completely worthless.In the animal kingdom, since there is no design involved, there is no mention of the freedom and diversity of male activities.It does nothing but serve the species.And the male of human beings not only serves the species, but also changes the appearance of the earth.He created new tools, he invented, he shaped the future.In establishing himself as sovereign, he is supported by the woman who is his accomplice.Because women are also survivors, she also feels the urge to transcend, and her designs are not just repetitions, but also a transcendence for another future—she further confirmed the requirements of men in her heart.She celebrates the festivities with men, celebrating male successes and victories.Biologically speaking, her misfortune must lie in being doomed to repeat life, although even she herself believes that life itself has no reason for existence, which is more important than life itself.

Hegel's interpretation of the master-slave relationship based on this argument is very applicable to the relationship between men and women.The master's advantage, he says, comes from the fact that he affirms the spirit as the opposite of life by risking his life.But in fact, conquered slaves also know how to take risks in this way.On the contrary, woman is basically a survivor who only gives life and refuses to risk her life.There has never been a contest between her and a man.It seems that Hegel's explanation applies especially to her.He said: "The consciousness of the other is a kind of dependent consciousness. For him, the essential reality is that kind of animal life; that is to say, it is a kind of survival mode given by another existence." However, this kind of Relationships are necessarily distinguished from relationships of subjugation, since women also aspire to and recognize those values ​​that men have concretely acquired.It is the man who creates the future that even she is pursuing.It is true that women have not established feminine values ​​as opposed to masculine values.Men want to maintain masculine privilege, so they make up this divide.It is only in order to imprison woman in that man alone has created a feminine realm—the kingdom of life, of immanence.But the existent is gender-agnostic in seeking self-justification in transcendence—as evidenced by the submission of women.What they want today is to recognize them as beings, according to the same rights as men, so that existence is not subordinated to life, and human beings are not subordinated to their animality.

Thus, it is only from an existential perspective that we can understand how the biological and economic conditions of primitive tribes necessarily lead to male hegemony.Women are more victims of the species than men; and man is always trying to escape the fate of the species.Thanks to the invention of tools, the maintenance of life has become an initiative, a design for man.However, a woman is still bound by her body during pregnancy, no different from an animal.It is only because man has come to doubt himself in liVing—that is, to value reasons for living higher than mere life—that man has the advantage over women.Man's design is not to repeat himself in time: it is to hold the moment and shape the future.In creating value, masculine initiative also makes existence itself a value; this initiative overcomes the disorderly forces of life, as well as nature and woman.We must now understand how this situation has persisted and how it has evolved over time.What place does man prepare for this part of himself which, though included in man, is identified as the Other?What rights has she been given?How does the man explain her?