Mulheres e feminino: um diálogo entre Freud e Simone de Beauvoir

Abstract

In this dissertation, we will ask ourselves about what it means to “be a woman” through a theoretical exploration that puts in dialogue, mainly, Simone de Beauvoir and Sigmund Freud, going through the gender issue and the various feminisms. In the first chapter, a brief historicization of feminist movements will be exposed, delimiting the participation and insertion of Simone de Beauvoir in them. The dialogue between Freud and the feminist movements will also be discussed, as well as some problematizations about the feminine Oedipus Complex in the light of a Beauvoirian critical reading. The second chapter will address the issue of motherhood and the fate of women, subdividing the discussion into two parts. In the first part, questions will arise regarding the anatomical difference between the sexes, considerations about the “phallus” and the Freudian initial sentence that anatomy can become a destiny as well. In the second part, motherhood comes into play, as well as the status of the female body in relation to the woman's destiny and her place in culture. In the third chapter, we will work on the Myth of the Eternal Feminine, a concept by Simone de Beauvoir that talks about the different identities that permeate the relationship of women with men and with themselves. The central point of Beauvoir's critique will also be present, namely, about the vision of women as being an “Other” and the very incarnation of “otherness”. There is a dialectical game here where, at first, the woman is seen as “evil” and, in a second moment, as a divine being that overcomes this intrinsic evil of herself. However, we will not fail to continue the dialogue with Freud, using, mainly, the concept of “double” and “unfamiliar”, which enrich this debate.