We Are Not Born Submissive: How Patriarchy Shapes Women's Lives [Hardback]

"In the same magazines where women are urged to be free and to have careers of their own, one can also spot advice about the best ways to be an obliging wife and a perfect mother. Literature, film, TV, and the news depict and glorify a specific, sometimes voluntary, sort of female submissiveness that can be a source of pleasure or satisfaction for even the most independent feminist. But this female submissiveness has scarcely warranted attention in philosophy or feminist thought. From a feminist point ofview, imagining that women might, in one way or the other choose to try out such submissiveness comes off as anti-feminist or even misogynistic. But are these submissive desires and pleasures at odds with the feminist's independence? In We Are Not Born Submissive, Garcia explains that the feminist agenda has many components but there are (at least) two of which are at the fore: shedding light on the oppression of women qua women, and fighting against this oppression. Studying female submissiveness, therefore, is a feminist undertaking in that it consists of hearing and taking seriously women's experience, of not presuming that they are victims, passive, or perverted. Garcia maintains it is not only possible, but necessary to study female submissiveness without presupposing anything, typically or naturally feminine or anti-feminist in this submissiveness. Using the theoretical framework of philosopher, Simone de Beauvoir and others, Garcia theorizes this fascinating dynamic in its full complexity. By looking at male dominance not from the point of view of those who dominate but from those who submit, Garcia avoids describing the exterior, objective subordination of women. Instead, she is able to examine what exactly it means to be a woman under male dominance, thereby describing the subjective experience beneath domination. It inevitably consists of not starting from the idea that this submission is inherent within women, nor that it is contrary to their nature, or immoral, or the result of a false, oppressed understanding established by the patriarchy. On the contrary, the goal of the book is to ask without any preconceptions what this submission might be that women experience, how it manifests itself, how it is lived, and how it can be explained"--

A philosophical exploration of female submission, using insights from feminist thinkers—especially Simone de Beauvoir—to reveal the complexities of women’s reality and lived experience

What role do women play in the perpetuation of patriarchy? On the one hand, popular media urges women to be independent, outspoken, and career-minded. Yet, this same media glorifies a specific, sometimes voluntary, female submissiveness as a source of satisfaction. In philosophy, even less has been said on why women submit to men and the discussion has been equally contradictory—submission has traditionally been considered a vice or pathology, but female submission has been valorized as innate to women’s nature. Is there a way to explore female submission in all of its complexity—not denying its appeal in certain instances, and not buying into an antifeminist, sexist, or misogynistic perspective?

We Are Not Born Submissive offers the first in-depth philosophical exploration of female submission, focusing on the thinking of Simone de Beauvoir, and more recent work in feminist philosophy, epistemology, and political theory. Manon Garcia argues that to comprehend female submission, we must invert how we examine power and see it from the woman’s point of view. Historically, philosophers, psychoanalysts, and even some radical feminists have conflated femininity and submission. Garcia demonstrates that only through the lens of women’s lived experiences—their economic, social, and political situations—and how women adapt their preferences to maintain their own well-being, can we understand the ways in which gender hierarchies in society shape women’s experiences. Ultimately, she asserts that women do not actively choose submission. Rather, they consent to—and sometimes take pleasure in—what is prescribed to them through social norms within a patriarchy.

Moving beyond the simplistic binary of natural destiny or moral vice, We Are Not Born Submissive takes a sophisticated look at how female submissiveness can be explained.