On the success the feminist movement for women in STEM, a philosophical essay: Simone de Beauvoir and Luce Irigaray.

Feminists and feminist philosophers have always protested for the equality and rights of women in centuries old patriarchal societies. Ever since Aristotle and his concept of essentialism, the story of Adam & Eve, and interpretation of the historical evidence of the ‘Hunter Gatherers’, woman have always been considered an ‘extension’ of man; woman is subordinate to man.

Seeing man as the human default is fundamental to the structure of human society.

(Criado Perez, 2019)

In this paper, the statement “A greater proportion of women in STEM represents success for the feminist movement” will be evaluated through the philosophies of Simone de Beauvoir in The Second Sex, and Luce Irigaray in Speculum of the Other Woman, interpreted by Ofelia Scutte. Through second wave dominant feminist readings and statistics regarding women in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) it was concluded that the increase of women in STEM throughout the years did not represent success for the feminist movement. Irigaray and de Beauvoir argues that as gendered hierarchies and ideological male bias go unchanged within the industry, women will forever be seen as an inferior being, the Other, in a non-egalitarian patriarchal system that privileges the phallus. Hence, both arguments were deemed valid and sound.

To begin with, there have been four waves of feminist revolutions, and the one most relevant to this paper is the second wave. A large emphasis is put on egalitarian systems (gender-equitable social, political & economic system) due to the belief that to overcome inherent biological inequality, we should not seek to conquer privilege, but to eliminate the natural distinction between the sexes (Mitchell, 1971). Jean Bethke Elshtain claims that to call a group of persons ‘unequal by nature’ compared to another is to deny their full status in the moral community, hence ‘tacitly support inegalitarian social arrangements’ (Elshtain, 1975). Thus women, due to their biology, are doomed to oppression and exclusion from the ‘full range of possibilities and responsibilities available within the categories of person’, for ‘person’ is synonymous with the ‘male’ in a phallic and patriarchal society (Firestone, 1972).  

Moreover, the term patriarchy, according to Kate Millet (1969) and Juliet Mitchell (1974), refers to the power relationship by which men dominate women through their inferiorised psychology of women. Phallocentrism is the pervasive privileging of the masculine and the phallus (Rine 2010). Women, due to their ‘lack’ of phallus, are displaced within the sociological order, and remain passive within our system of hierarchal signification (Derrida, 1979). This also relates to the concept of Aristotelian essentialism, demonstrated in his Politics where he states that the relation of male to female is ‘by nature’ a relation of “superior to inferior’ (Borghini, 2019). Due Aristotle’s immense influence on philosophy and the epistemology that has been adopted by prominent male leaders and intellectuals throughout history, and continues to be used in the 21st century, women as a collective have never been able to escape or deny their ‘inferiority in every form’, as the Aristotelian essentialism has been planted deep into the roots of the millenniums old system of patriarchy.

Using the philosophy of Simone de Beauvoir, her theory of the Subject/Object relationship in The Second Sex was utilised to create the standard form below:

P1. If women cannot transcend into the Object as a Subject herself and is doomed to immanence in a patriarchal society, then a greater proportion of women in STEM does not represent success for the feminist movement.

P2. Women cannot transcend into the Object as a Subject herself and is doomed to immanence in a patriarchal society.

C. Therefore, a greater proportion of women in STEM does not represent success for the feminist movement

The above argument is valid and sound, as the assumed truth of the first and second premises guarantees the truth of the conclusion, as is the case with most modus ponens, thus the truth of the premises allow the soundness of argument.

We must understand de Beauvoir’s theory of women as the inessential and her immanence in a patriarchal society. De Beauvoir states that one is not ‘born’ but becomes a ‘woman’ because of her sex. She is immediately a female – not a ‘human being’, because only man can be characterised as one (De Beauvoir, 1949). De Beauvoir argues that gender is a social construct created by men to maintain ideological systems which limit the participation and transcendence of the women and prescribe her to subordination within in the system of patriarchy (Scholz, 2019).

“He is the Subject; he is the Absolute. She is the Other – [an inessential in front of the essential]”

The second premise is indeed true. In a patriarchal society, gendered hierarchies will continue to function in all aspects of the daily life. In order to liberate themselves from the prisons of patriarchy, women must see and consider herself as a man, as the subject, and consequently, as a human being. The whole world must abandon their inherent Aristotelian essentialist beliefs of women as an inferior being to men. Women’s liberation is a matter of both individual and social transformation, but until then, the Other will remain immanent and as an inessential in a patriarchal society (Scholz, 2019).

The first premise is also true. According to Deborah Martin, the main objective of the feminist movement to increase the number of women in STEM is to tackle the gender disparities within the industry, dispel myths that assume inferiority of women’s intellectual capacity, and inspire future generations of female STEM leaders (Martin, 2023). Despite these, women in STEM are still repressed, still performing under the patriarchy, and often continue to be victims of ideological male bias in the workplace. In a highly male dominated industry like computer science, women like Elissa feel the pressure to keep their ‘mouth shut’ and adopt common masculine behaviours within the workplace to ‘fit in’ with the male population (Aguhar, 2019). Dr Diane Peters claims that women need to ‘prove themselves a little more to men’, and demonstrate their ‘competence’ or ‘deal’ with the assumption of her intellectual inferiority (Levy, 2020). This demonstrates that women not only have to consider and adopt masculine qualities to promote themselves to the position of the subject – and hence, a human being – they must also battle to overturn patriarchy and the phallocentrism that follows within the societal system.

A limitation to de Beauvoir’s argument would be that Jacques Derrida criticises second-wave feminists use of the masculine voice to gain power within it, rather than attempting to alter the system itself, suggesting that the action betrays women by striving to impersonate men and attain phallic power through masculine language (Rine, 2010).

Secondly, the standard form for Irigaray’s philosophy of subjectivity will structure as follows:

P1. If epistemology and the system of the world paradigmatically privileges male subjectivity, then a greater proportion of women in STEM does not represent success for the feminist movement.

P2. Epistemology and the system of the world paradigmatically privileges male subjectivity.

 C. A greater proportion of women in STEM does not represent success for the feminist movement.

The argument was deemed valid, as the assumed truth of the premises guarantees truth of the conclusion, and since the premises are true and stays true to the world, the argument is sound.

The second premise is true, as Irigaray states that formal knowledge throughout history has always privileged the masculine, such that linguistic practice has inscribed masculine experience within it (Schutte, 1991). There are phallic paradigms in epistemology in which there is an essential split between the subject and object, where the masculine is the centre (subject) of knowledge. The feminine cannot exist independently, for they have been construed inferior to the masculine, and ‘exist’ only in relation to the masculine (Stone, 2015). Irigaray thus claims that women can never transcend to the subject due to the irreplaceable paradigms of phallic epistemology. Particularly in STEM, foundations of scientific knowledge adhere to patriarchal hierarchies and inequality, such that science is inarguably a ‘white male-dominated endeavour’ (Wong & Copsey Blake, 2022). This leads to the exploitation of women’s labour; men take credit for research done by women working alongside them, women are promoted less than their male counterparts due to the many patriarchal and misogyny-rooted perceptions of their femininity, and it is very rare to see women at the top of the hierarchal ladder within the STEM industry (Saini, 2019).

Moreover, the first premise is also true. The general idea about the increasing number of women joining the STEM industry is to fight against unequal gender discrepancies and to strive toward an egalitarian system. There is an assumption that more women in the workforce indicate a changing gender structure and thus, an improvement of women’s subordinate roles within a patriarchy. This however, through Irigaray’s argument, is not the case, as the world itself is built upon the male subjectivity and knowledge, a system where there is no room for the feminine in epistemology due to her lack of phallus and biological difference. Women may join the inherently phallic and hierarchal industry of STEM, but due to the industry’s masculine and patriarchal nature, women will never be able to transcend into the object. This goes not only for the women in STEM, but for women in all areas of workforce and societies. Essentially, due to the deeply rooted patriarchal system of our society, women live in an inegalitarian social arrangement, denied of their full status in the moral community (Elshtain 1975).

A limitation to Irigaray’s second-wave philosophy is that while she refers to the entire population of women, she does not necessarily discuss nor consider intersectionality, where women of colour fall behind in the assumed position of women – as the ‘women’ she refers to are generally white – due to their race, ethnicity, and other aspects of their identity on top of their Otherness. The same thing can be said about the situation with trans women and how they are affected by inegalitarian systems under the patriarchy, but since the concept of biological males transitioning to become women were very rare in the timeline of the second wave, this is not as big as an issue or limitation compared to considerations of intersectionality.

In conclusion, the arguments of De Beauvoir and Irigaray were deemed both valid and sound, as the greater proportion of women in STEM philosophically does not represent success for the feminist movement. Both second wave philosophers argue that in a patriarchal and inegalitarian system, where women are seen as the inferior compared to men, and object to a subject, simply playing alongside the patriarchy, or assuming a subjective self will not liberate women from essentialist stereotypes and phallic epistemology that continue to function in today’s society. The patriarchy and our phallocentric system and the natural distinction between the sexes must be overturned to truly achieve an egalitarian, feminist system.

References

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