Hegel, in his published work 'Phenomenology of Spirit' (1807), put forward philosophical ideas that have sparked discussion amongst feminists. Namely, and for the purposes of this discussion, that identity is constituted in relation to what is different and 'other'; and that a unity of sexual difference is realised in ethical life. Hegel claims that the most fundamental over-riding desire of each human is to receive recognition from another human that one is self-conscious and therefore free. That one cannot ever truly recognise one's own freedom without recognising that same freedom within others. Therefore, what we truly desire is 'mutual recognition'. Human progress then, for Hegel, is characterised by the overcoming of differences. That is, the subject strives to make what is different a reflection of its own identity. However, Diprose in her work entitled 'Ethics, embodiment and sexual difference' (1994), examines the conditions necessary for the social unity he proposes, and reveals that this unity of identity and difference is impossible; and that the extent to which Hegel insists on this is done to the detriment of women.
Diprose contends that one needs to examine how identity and difference are created in and through the other, and how this may be to the detriment of women. Conversely, Irigaray (1994) believes that one should concentrate on how social attitudes and norms form the difference between men and women. Hegel claims that in order to progress towards the unity of identity and difference, we need to dissolve sexual difference. Butler (1994) explains that a person's identity is split into two, that it is divided between what it is, 'itself', and what it is not. According to Butler, whilst a person's identity is constituted by social discourse, it is not determined by discourse. Thus providing opportunities for women to achieve unity. However, Benhabib (1987) argues that this is incomprehensible, and does not provide sufficient scope for representation and change. Indeed, Diprose (1994) contends that difference is: "the locus of agency and the possibility of social change. From it can emerge open-ended possibilities". To try and provide these conditions for both men and women, one needs to examine the social structures that hold the mechanisms that suppress and exclude women, in place.
An important mechanism that continues to suppress women, one that Diprose (1994) identifies, and one which Hegel originally drew our attention to, is the problem of the social constitution of embodiment. Our bodies are our first point of contact with others, this body with its actions, habits, and the like is the first 'sign' of the self. However, Hegel believes that women should be confined to the private and domestic sphere as they are the natural carers and nurturers, primarily concerned with the needs of the body. As such, Hegel is all in favour of a 'division of labour', a social structure that is detrimental to women. Young (1987) highlights the dichotomy that exists between reason and desire, that has become manifested in the social structures within which we live and work. That is, the public and private spheres.
Young (1987) recognises that it is Hegel who developed the idea of the public domain, or the state, as representing moral reason, as well as universality. Universality being the idea that the state represents and expresses the will of the people, and the interests of the whole society. Hegel even goes so far as to say that the state expresses the will and rational spirit of humanity, and that humanity strives towards the situation where individual self-consciousness becomes represented in social reality. Hegel uses the notion of spirit to try and unite identity and difference: "...that is, where spirit is objectified such that the 'I' is 'We' and the 'We' is 'I'". Benhabib (1992) suggests that one should preserve the differences between men and women, in order to protect against the onslaught of universalism, that Hegel regards as the ideal. Benhabib cites the work of Carol Gilligan who argues that: "a universalist moral theory must also heed the voice of the 'excluded others'".
Diprose (1994) examines the process which institutionalises the consciousness of a state's population, the mechanisms that are held in place which purport to express the consciousness of the community. According to Hegel, language and its meaning is always engaged in the universal, and is always embodied in a sign in such a way that the material signifier, that is actions or body language, is transformed so as to represent a meaning other than itself. Therefore the spirit of the individual is transformed into a signifier of community ideals, without the possibility of being reduced to those ideals.
However, Diprose (1994) contends that Hegel's theory is incoherent. He proposes that to overcome identity and difference, we must reduce an individual's spirit into a sign of rational consciousness, that is language and actions. As Diprose points out: "Hegel claims that this distinction between the self-centred subject (who is a moment of soul or community) and its particular bodily self arises spontaneously from 'the contradiction of being an individual, a singular, and yet being at the same time immediately identical with the universal'". He places great emphasis on the body, which through the formation of habits, comes to represent mind, will and thought, and is constituted as a sign of community life.
Hegel seems to ignore that for him, the individual's spirit is constructed and maintained by the distinction between mind and body, and the distinction btween the inside and the outside. To try and overcome this difference, the subject through it's desire, which in turn becomes manifest as language and action, continues to seek it's identity in another. And as Butler (1994) puts it, the satisfaction of desire is the transfoming of difference into identity.
Diprose (1994) exposes the crux of Hegel's theory of the unity of identity and difference, and the social structures that maintain them to the detriment of women, in that: "The body must disappear as an essential element of one's ethos if the self is to succeed in projecting and reclaiming a representation of itself as independent and unviersal. The body must be negated because it hinders the establishment of equivalences which can be mutually exchanged through recognition". In other words, the locus of agency and change, and differences in ethos involve the different experiences one has lived, which are inextricably linked to our body. Therefore, Hegel's ethical proposals are detrimental to women, as he identifies the body too heavily with ethos. This ultimately leads him to advocate a division of labour. Indeed, his ethics of universality stops short of successfully unifying the identity and difference of women, and in doing so it is not capable of mutually recognising the freedom of women. In contrast, I would advocate the recognition of difference, and the equal application of the state's rules to that difference. A view which is beautifully summed up by Anne Shawstock Sassoon (1991):
"In a sense what we have in common is our separateness, our uniqueness, the fact that we are different, our sense of being alone...making concrete the abstract concept of the individual helps us to recognise something else: viewed from one facet or another of our identity or our subjectivity, we each belong to a partial group, we are each an 'other', whatever our race, gender or nationality".
References incomplete :)
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