“I Am A Lesbian, Not A Woman “I Am A Lesbian, Not A Woman.” Monique Witting, French Author and Feminist Theorist (1935- 2003)

About Monique Wittig Wittig was born in the Haut Rhin department in Alsace in 1935.  She moved to Paris in the 1950s, where she studied at the Sorbonne. She died in 2003 in America. Her first novel, L'Opoponax, published by Minuit in 1964, immediately drew attention to her when it was awarded the Prix Médicis by a jury that included Nathalie Sarraute, Claude Simon, and Alain Robbe-Grillet.  Praised by such influential writers, the novel was quickly translated into English, where it also won critical acclaim. Wittig became very involved in the events surrounding the revolt of students and workers in May of 1968.  Like many others, she realized that the radical men leading the revolt were not inclined to share leadership.  Wittig was one of the first theoreticians and activists of the new feminist movement. It was in this atmosphere of radical political action that she completed what is often considered her most influential work -- Les Guérillères – published  in 1969.  Revolutionary both in form and content, this novel has been widely translated, debated, and used as a source of ideas by many major feminist and lesbian thinkers and writers around the world.

About Monique Wittig (Continued) In May 1970, Wittig co-published what can be described as the manifesto of the French feminist movement.  Ever since, Wittig's works have included both fiction and non-fiction essays evolving i an ongoing dialogue between theory and literary practice. Throughout the early '70s, Wittig was a central figure in the radical lesbian and feminist movements in France.  She was a founding member of such groups as the Petites Marguérites, the Gouines rouges, and the Féministes révolutionnaires.  In 1973 Witting published Le Corps lesbien (translated into English in 1975 as The Lesbian Body), and in 1976 Brouillon pour un dictionnaire des amantes (translated into English in 1979 as Lesbian Peoples: Material For A Dictionary), co-authored by her partner Sande Zeig.  In 1976 Wittig and Zeig moved to the United States. She explored the intersections of lesbianism, feminism, and literary form.   Most of these essays were published in two journals.  She became part of the editorial collective of France's major theoretical journal, Questions féministes, and she was advisory editor to an American journal, Feminist Issues, founded in part to make available in English the important works being published in France, notably in Questions Féministes.  Her work became truly bi-lingual, as she translated her own work from English into French, and vice-versa

One Is Not Born a Woman One Is Not Born a Woman is an essay by Wittig which focuses on there being no such thing as a “natural woman.” She also argues that that the idea of being feminine is created by society. She also notes that since a lesbian society does exist, this defeats the idea of “natural woman.” On page 1906 she states, “In the case of women, ideology goes far since our bodies as well as our minds are the products of this manipulation. We have been compelled in our bodies and in our minds to correspond, feature by feature , with the idea of nature that has been established for us.” Witting challenged the biological, psychological and economic restrictions placed on women. To place lesbians into the category as women meant that they were constricted by society.

One Is Not Born A Woman (Continued) Monique Wittig identifies categories: Man, Woman and Lesbian. “Man” and “Woman” are supposedly natural categories. According to Wittig the term woman causes confusion. Lesbianism rejects both categories of men and women and creates a whole new category, a sexless category. A sexless system could actually be the answer to end the oppression of women.

One is Not Born A Woman: Key Points Witting defines feminism and goes back to its origins which stems from “femme” and “woman” which is defined as someone who fights for women. But she also offers an alternate definition which is someone who fights for woman and her defense and then its reinforcement (1909). She provides clarification on her stance of refusing to be a woman and states that does not mean that a lesbian wishes to become a man. Refusal of the role of woman means refusing the economic, ideological and political power of a man (1908). She even examines other theorists ideas such a Simone de Beauvoir and Darwin and Marx. De Beauvoir has a false consciousness, Darwin asserted a charge of female inferiority (that women were less evolved then men) and Marx’s idea that does not allow women any more than any other class of oppressed people to constitute themselves as historical objects. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tyAYEoCJjQ

A Brief Analysis of Monique Wittig’s Claim “Lesbians Are Not Women” By Zhu Wenqian Amber Department of Comparative Literature from the Journal HKU Journal of Humanities Compared with the straight feminists, lesbians are doubly marginalized by patriarchy and heterosexism. The radical gesture of Wittig’s claim manifests that the discourses of heterosexuality are so universal and ineluctable that only an earthquake-like rebellion can shake its solid foundation. According Amber, Witting seeks for the realization for everyone to exist as purely an individual, by destroying sex categorization and rejecting all theories based on it. Compared with the second-wave feminism that emphasized “sisterhood”, a collective strength accomplished through the solidarity of women and their common experiences of oppression.

Perspectives About Wittig In her 2007 Article, “Un Remembering Monique Wittig” which was published in GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies Robyn Wiegman states: … “I have taught essays from her critical archive numerous times, in courses on histories of feminist thought and queer theory and witnessed the way students find her framework of “materialist lesbianism” inconprehensible… In his 2003 article upon her death the NY Times Wrote: “Ms. Wittig's startlingly rich imagery found its counterpart in her experimental literary approach: she sometimes abandoned paragraphing and normal punctuation and developed a lyrical style that could be called neither prose nor poetry”.