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Monique Wittig (July 13, 1935 in Haut-Rhin, France – January 3, 2003 in Tucson, Arizona) was a French author and feminist theorist, particularly interested in overcoming gender. She published her first novel in 1964 (L'opoponax), and her second novel (Les Guerillères) in 1969.
Biography
Monique Wittig was born in 1935 in Dannemarie in Haut-Rhin, France. She was one of the founders of the Mouvement de libération des femmes (MLF). On August 26, 1970, accompanied by numerous other women, she put flowers under the Arc de Triomphe to honour the wife of the Unknown soldier; this event was considered to be the founding event of feminism in France.
In 1971, she attented the Gouines rouges (Red dykes), the first lesbian group in Paris. She was also involved in the "Femmes Révolutionnaires" (Revolutionary women).
In 1976, she left Paris for the United States where she taught at numerous universities. She was a professor in Women's studies and French at the University of Arizona in Tucson where she died of a heart attack on January 3, 2003.
Theories
Monique Wittig called herself a "radical lesbian." This sensibility can be found throughout her books, where she depicted only women. As to avoid any confusion, she stated:
- "There is no such thing as women literature for me, that does not exist. In literature, I do not separate women and men. One is a writer, or one is not. This is a mental space where sex is not determining. One has to have some space for freedom. Language allows this. This is about building an idea of the neutral which could escape sexuality".
A theorist of materialist feminism, she stygmatised the myth of "the woman", called heterosexuality a political regime, and outlined the basis for a social contract which lesbians refuse:
- "...and it would be incorrect to say that lesbians associate, make love, live with women, for 'woman' has meaning only in heterosexual systems of thought and heterosexual economic systems. Lesbians are not women." (1978)
For Wittig, the category "women" exists only through their relation to the category "men", and "women" without relation with "men" would cease to be "women".
Wittig also developed a critical view of Marxism which obstructed the feminist struggle, but also of feminism itself which does not question the heterosexual dogma.
Through these critiques, Wittig advocated a strong universalist position, saying that the rise of the individual and the liberation of desire require the abolition of gender categories.
Bibliography
- 1964, L’Opoponax (prix Médicis)
- 1969, Les Guérillères
- 1973, Corps Lesbien
- 1976, "Le Brouillon d’un Dictionnaire des Amantes", (with Sande Zeig, her life partner)
- 1985, Virgile, non
- 1992, La pensée straight
- 1999, Paris-la-Politique
- The film The Girl by Sande Zeig, Wittig's partner and collaborator, is made out of her first English novel.
External links
Feminist scholars | 1935 births | 2003 deaths | Lesbian writers | Philosophy of sexuality | French feminists
"Monique Wittig"