Hegel and feminist thought: A dialectical investigation

Feminist political thought has largely ceased to engage the social and political thought of G. W. F. Hegel. Two significant claims against Hegel are as follows. First, his theory of the self constituted as self-consciousness is an inherently hostile masculinity which either suppresses or effaces a truly free femininity, and, second, his vision of ethical society requires the oppression of woman, as a symbolic category representing all women, and women as social agents, in order to succeed. This dissertation conducts a dialectical investigation of these feminist criticisms. Sexism and phallogocentrism, two central categories for feminist thought, importantly inform feminist criticism of Hegel. Feminist interpretations of Hegel have tended to apply generalized concepts of sexism and phallogocentrism to a narrow focus on the status of woman in Hegel's texts. The implications are that Hegel, and likely every sexist representative of the canon is guilty of theorizing the legitimacy of sexism. More insidious, according to phallogocentrism, is Hegel's very understanding of self-consciousness itself as inherently oppressive in the sense of eliminating the possibility of an authentic feminine self-consciousness. Following these kinds of interpretations, Hegel must be left to rest in the past.;This project, in contrast to previous feminist interpretations that have assessed him according to specific feminist expectations, examines through immanent critique the status of woman from within the goals of the specific text where woman is discussed and analyzes the contradictory effects that arise. The direction of the Phenomenology of Spirit and the Philosophy of Right are sufficiently different to warrant sensitivity to the reasons for Hegel's discussion of woman and the feminine between the two texts. The aspect of the Phenomenology on which I focus is the problem of self-consciousness's foundation or authority, and of the Philosophy of Right I focus on the constitution of the family amidst the tension between the moral and the ethical.;This project argues, in distinction from leading feminist interpretations of Hegel, that a vision of subjectivity which is non-sexist and non-phallogocentric can productively continue to draw upon Hegel's dialectic where knowledge is inherently developmental, historical, and fallible. Self-consciousness's identity need not be viewed as exclusively masculine. Even though Hegel did not think women capable of rationality on par with men, his conception of ethical life is predicated upon an individual and social self-understanding that will demand and require women's participation in ethical life, or political society, which by definition, for Hegel, includes the family. Feminist subjectivity, once disentangled from earlier feminist treatments of Hegel and Hegel's own sexism, can find resources in a relational self and dialectic that challenges gender feminism without abandoning gender.