What is a Woman?

by Toril Moi

What is a woman? And what does it mean to be a feminist today? In her first full-scale engagement with feminist theory since her internationally renowned Sexual/Textual Politics (1985), Toril Moi challenges the dominant trends in contemporary feminist and cultural thought, arguing for a feminism of freedom inspired by Simone de Beauvoir's The Second Sex . Written in a clear and engaging style What is a Woman? brings together two brand new book-length theoretical interventions, Moi's work on Freud and Bourdieu, and her studies of desire and knowledge in literature.
In the controversial title-essay, Toril Moi radically rethinks current debates about sex, gender, and the body - challenging the commonly held belief that the sex/gender distinction is fundamental to all feminist theory. Moi rejects every attempt to define masculinity and femininity, including efforts to define femininity as that which 'cannot be defined.

In the second new book-length essay, 'I am a Woman', Toril Moi reworks the relationship between the personal and the philosophical, pursuing ways to write theory that do not neglect the claims of the personal. Setting up an encounter between contemporary theory and Simone de Beauvoir, Moi radically rethinks the need, and difficulty, of finding one's own philosophical voice by placing it in new theoretical contexts.
A sustained refusal to lay down theoretical or political requirements for femininity, and a powerful argument for a feminism of freedom, What is a Woman? is a deeply original contribution to feminist theory.

Genres: Feminism, Philosophy, Nonfiction, Gender, Gender Studies, Sociology, Feminist Theory

548 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1998

About the author

Toril Moi is James B. Duke Professor of Literature and Romance Studies and Professor of English, Philosophy and Theatre Studies at Duke University. Moi is also the Director of the Center for Philosophy, Arts, and Literature at Duke. She attended University of Bergen. Previously she held positions as a lecturer in French at the University of Oxford and as Director of the Center for Feminist Research at the University of Bergen, Norway. She lived in Oxford, United Kingdom from 1979 to 1989. Currently she lives in North Carolina. She works on feminist theory and women's writing; on the intersections of literature, philosophy and aesthetics; on "finding ways of reading literature with philosophy and philosophy with literature without reducing the one to the other."

In 2002 she was awarded an honorary degree, doctor philos. honoris causa, at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology.[1] In 1998 she won Duke's University Teacher of the Year Award and in 2008 she won the Dean's Award for Excellence in Mentoring of Graduate Students.

She is a member of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters.

Reviews

[Melissa Jeanette · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the second class in which I've read Moi's book. In this class, we started with Feminist Practice and Poststructuralist Theory by Chris Weedon before going into Moi's critique of feminist poststructuralism. I recommend reading the two together since Moi is a lot harder to digest if you don't already have a firm understanding of feminist poststructuralist theory.

Overall, I really appreciated Moi's argument. Her theory has a lot of practical, everyday value, which makes it easier (than poststructuralist theory) to apply to everyday life. I particularly like her discussion of Simone de Beauvoir's idea that a woman will make something of what the world makes of her. I also enjoyed de Beauvoir's idea that a woman's body is like the relief on a sculpture - it's a part of a woman's experience and how the world sees her, but it's not always the most prominent or foregrounded aspect of her existence. It's something that is focused on either more or less, depending on the situation.

The part of the book I will most remember, and probably refer back to, is her discussion of the then recent trend of including autobiographical/personal details in academic writing. It was quite thought provoking. In short, she concludes that the personal can be really useful in some situations, but it can also be self-indulgent and just as silencing as claims to universal/empirical knowledge sometimes are. I think that portion alone is a worthwhile read for anyone going on to do academic writing.

I can't say that I really disliked anything about the book, but as fair warning, I should note that more than a few of my classmates had a rather intense dislike for Moi. They disliked her sometimes snarky, matter-of-fact judgments, especially concerning Judith Butler's early work regarding sex and gender. I didn't mind so much because Moi often acknowledges the great work Butler and others have done, before batting away at their critical theory. Not to mention the fact that she continually invites rebuttal. Also, I'm quite snarky (at least in my head), so I enjoyed her style even when I disagreed with her argument. Of course, I might not feel the same way if I were the theorist in the hot seat.

As a side note, Moi is a huge fan of Simone de Beauvoir and this book is not only a critique of feminist poststructuralist theory, but is also an attempt to show that de Beauvoir's pioneering theoretical work in The Second Sex does all the work poststructuralist theory aims to achieve, while still remaining practically applicable and it does so without treating the body as merely an object on which gender is scripted.

[Peter Herold · Rating 4 out of 5]

“What is a woman“ is a very good and easy-to-read reuse of Beauvoir‘s and Merleau-Ponty’s existentialist understanding that you experience life as a “lived body“ / as “a situation“, whose biology affects what you could do but does not determine what you do, with a history and in a social setting, to argue the sex/gender distinction is useless in trying to answer the question of what is a woman or a man. You certainly can’t infer social norms from biology (here the sex/gender distinction IS useful). Moi‘s answer to the question of what is a woman is that it depends on the situation, and that there’s no one-size-fits-all answer. Regarding trans people, Moi argues (writing in 1999 and before same-sex marriage was legal) being a woman for the purposes of getting married is not the same as being a woman for the purpose of participating in a lesbian activist group. But she also recognises the issue of trans people as difficult and in need of more input, above all from trans people themselves, and says this shouldn’t stop us understanding “easy cases“.

[Synne Sørgjerd · Rating 5 out of 5]

An easy read that anyone interested in feminism should take a look at! I feel like a better feminist now that I've read it.

[Zeke · Rating 2 out of 5]

finally done. first chapter had some interesting criticisms of gender trouble but i found the conclusions lacking. largely did not find the book to still be relevant or interesting